SSI Live Podcast – Ep 117 – China-Russia Relations and the Central Asian States

In this episode of SSI Live, Major Brennan Deveraux interviews Dr. Brian Carlson, a research professor of Indo-Pacific security studies for the China Landpower Studies Center, on Central Asia. The conversation highlights two drastically different engagements Carlson recently had, one in Kazakhstan and the other at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in southern Germany. The discussion explores the nature of China-Russia relations and the significance of the Central Asian states in the context of great-power competition.

Keywords: Central Asia, China-Russia Relations, Great Power Competition, Color Revolution, Kazakhstan, Foreign Area Officer

Brennan Deveraux

Hello. Welcome to SSI live. I’m your guest host, Major Brennan Deveraux. I’ll be filling in this year for Dr. John Deni while he’s on sabbatical finishing his book. I’m joined today by Dr. Brian Carlson. He’s a research professor of Indo-Pacific Security Studies for the China Landpower Studies Center here at the Strategic Studies Institute. Dr. Carlson received his Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and his expertise lies in the China-Russia relations.

For this conversation, we’ll be diving into Brian’s recent travel and engagements abroad, with the aim to dive a little deeper into some of the nuance of studying Russia-China relations. And I’ll jump right in. You recently took a trip to Kazakhstan. Can you tell me about the event you attended and its significance to your work?

Brian Carlson

Sure. I went to Kazakhstan to attend the capstone conference for a program called US CARNet, that’s CARN Central Asia Research Network, and it’s sponsored by the State Department. The goal of this program is to build a network of Central Asian scholars who study China’s activities and influence in their region, and then to connect that network with American scholars who study similar topics.

And I’ve been involved with this program for about three years now. In April of 2023, before I was working for the Army War College, this program sent me to the region, and I went to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. And I was one of four American scholars who went there during that period. We went at different times. We all spoke about China’s activities in the region.

I spoke in particular about China-Russia relations in the region because that’s my research focus. In Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, I was able to speak at universities. In Tajikistan, the government wouldn’t allow that. I could only have individual meetings with scholars. And that’s probably because of all the Central Asian countries Tajikistan is the most “captured” by China. So that was two years ago.

Another part of this program is that they select four Central Asian scholars who focus on China’s activities in their region, and then they connect them with American scholars who also focus on such topics. And in this case, there were four scholars, two from Kazakhstan, two from Kyrgyzstan, and all of them spent one semester in the United States working with an American professor and then coauthoring an article.

I wasn’t able to take part in that part of it, but one year ago I went to [Washington] DC and met with them when they came to the United States at the start of their program. And so I’ve been familiar with their activities. This was the capstone conference. So all four of the scholars presented their research findings along with their coauthors.

And so that was the first day. On the second day, we had discussion roundtables about various topics in the region.

Deveraux

What were some of the major takeaways of the conference? Big points for our listeners.

Carlson

It was interesting on the first day to hear about some of the research that the scholars were doing. They were looking at topics like China’s investment in infrastructure in Kyrgyzstan, and to what extent that helps along China’s interests of expanding connectivity and serving the interests of the BRI [Belt and Road Initiative], and to what extent it helps Kyrgyzstan with its own economic development.

And the finding was that this infrastructure is really helping China with its goal of using Central Asia as a transit corridor, but it isn’t really benefiting Kyrgyzstan’s economic development to the extent that has been promised. So that’s just one example. Other topics looked at China’s use of history to try to support its narrative in the region, China’s use of Instagram in the region to promote its image, and then China’s use of education to try to expand its soft power in the region.

And so those were some interesting research projects. And then I’ll skip ahead to the third day, because the scholars talked about how they are facing an increasingly constricted environment in the region. It’s more and more difficult for them to speak openly about China and Russia and what they’re doing in the region. If they publish research that is in any way critical of China or Russia, they’re likely to face some resistance from the government.

And this is different from the way it was a few years ago. So the environment is becoming more constricted, and so that that is a concern. And that was one big takeaway of the conference. And also, that there is a kind of division among Central Asian scholars who look at China in the region. The ones who took part in this program are naturally a little bit more pro-Western. But there were also scholars in attendance who are more pro-Chinese and apparently in some of the side conversations, some of the more pro-Chinese scholars were critical of their pro-American or pro-Western counterparts for being true to pro-Western. So you see a real division emerging in the region. So that was a big takeaway. And then, I can go ahead and talk next about the presentation that I gave.

Deveraux

Yeah, sure. I am going to want to pull on that thread. But real quick, why don’t you talk about your presentation that you did at the conference.

Carlson

I spoke about China-Russia relations in Central Asia, and some of the basic points I made were that, number one, a lot of people have said that Central Asia could be a real source of tension in the China-Russia relationship. But so far, they’ve done a pretty good job of smoothing over those tensions and working together.

And I would argue that this is because, number one, their interests in the region largely coincide. They have some potential sources of friction. But they have a lot of shared objectives, like limiting American influence in the region, promoting stability, preventing color revolutions and so forth, and counterterrorism, of course. And secondly, they share an overriding objective of opposing the United States and trying to revise the international order. And so they don’t want to let possible sources of tension like Central Asia interfere with the pursuit of that larger objective.

I would say that some trends that we have seen recently are that China’s influence in the region is undoubtedly rising. And as I say, they’ve done a pretty good job of smoothing over any possible sources of tension with Russia that might result from this.

But, at the same time, there are indications that Russia’s influence might be weakening a little bit. It’s distracted by the war in Ukraine. It’s not necessarily able to play the main security role in the region that it’s always played. And so over time, the question is whether China will want to get more involved in regional security. And if they do that, how will Russia react?

Right now, China’s regional security presence is rather small. It’s confined mostly to a couple of military installations in eastern Tajikistan that are mostly designed to protect China’s western border and make sure that sources of instability don’t flow from Afghanistan through Tajikistan and on into China.

So that’s the big question for the future. How much will China’s influence in the region expand? How much will they use that influence to try to become more powerful in the region? And how will Russia respond? And will they continue to maintain a good relationship, or will there be tension that will emerge?

Deveraux

Okay. A lot to unpack there. It sounds like it’s a really fruitful event. There’s one thing I really want to kind of pull on [that] you talked about. First, you use this term captured, which I think is a really interesting thing. I’d like [for] you to talk a little bit more about that. But we talked about this idea that we’re having different conversations in the West than they might be able to have in Central Asia.

Western analysts and venues have long discussed the implications of the potential strengthening of Russia-China relations. We often use powerful words like partnership, collusion, although we never really say allies. How is this discourse surrounding the relationship being handled in Central Asia? You kind of already talked about the limited ability in certain places and the differing perspectives.

But more generally outside of the conference. Any thoughts on that distinction?

Carlson

Yeah. First, on the question about Tajikistan being captured by China. I think this is apparent in a number of ways. When I went there two years ago, I saw the new Parliament building that’s being built there in the capital, Dushanbe, and it’s being built by China. China is funding the construction of Tajikistan’s new parliament building, which is an amazing thing.

China has invested heavily in Tajikistan. They have gold mines and other mining operations there. They’ve built a lot of roads and tunnels and other infrastructure. And of course, as I mentioned already, they also have this, military presence in eastern Tajikistan, which is, by the way, is for the People’s Armed Police, not for the, main military force, not for a People’s Liberation Army base, but a PAP, People’s Armed police base.

But again, the objective is, is to prevent, instability spilling across China’s western border. So for all those reasons, China’s influence has grown very steadily in Tajikistan. Now, Russia has military, has a big military base in Tajikistan. And so it still has the ability to project influence. It’s a little bit unclear whether Russia is fully staffing that base right now, or whether it needs those forces for operations in Ukraine.

But the clear trend is that China’s influence there is growing and Russia’s is weakening. And it’s very hard for the United States to exercise influence there now. So that’s the first part of the question. Now on the overall relationship and how it’s perceived in Central Asia. I agree, I would not call the China-Russia relationship an alliance. At least not in the full sense of the term. They don’t have a mutual security guarantee that they offer each other. But nevertheless, they’re working very closely together. They call themselves strategic partners, and they are cooperating very closely, as seen most recently in the big military parade in Beijing that was attended by Putin as well as Kim Jong un and other leaders.

And they are they’re cooperating, as I say, to try to oppose the United States and weaken the existing international order and try to revise the international order in a way that gives them more sway, especially in their own regions and in the world at large. And so they’re very strongly committed to this relationship. Now, in Central Asia, the countries there have long, with varying degrees of success, tried to pursue what’s called a multi-vectored foreign policy.

So they want to not fall entirely in with one outside power or another. They want to try to be friends with everyone, work together with everyone, balance outside powers against each other so that they cannot be dominated by any external force, but in that way maintain their independence and sovereignty. And this is always a difficult balancing act for them.

I would say largely they’ve done a pretty good job. But it’s becoming more and more challenging, I would say, because China’s influence is expanding rapidly, which in some ways is a big opportunity for them. They can get Chinese investment in infrastructure and other areas that can help them with economic development. At the same time, they have always tried to kind of balance China and Russia against each other.

But now that’s difficult because China and Russia are so close to each other that it’s hard to sort of drive wedges between them or balance them or play that, play them off against each other. And, it’s very hard for the United States in Europe to play a really meaningful role there, because Central Asia is far away. It’s not high on the list of priorities.

Russia and China are right there. They, the Central Asian countries can’t avoid who, you know, they can’t choose their neighbors. And China and Russia [are] right there. And so they can’t afford to alienate either one of them. But interestingly, one notable thing is that the Russian invasion of Ukraine did cause some concern in Central Asia about Russia’s possible intentions toward the Central Asian countries, especially in Kazakhstan, which shares a long border with Russia and has a fairly large ethnic Russian population in the north.

So Kazakhstan worries that Russia could impinge on Kazakhstan’s sovereignty at some point in the future if the relationship went bad. And so three years ago, when Xi Jinping was in the region, he said that China supported the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and other countries in the region. And so that was seen, by some outside analysts, as an attempt by the Central Asian countries to enlist China in supporting their sovereignty and territorial integrity against any possible incursions by Russia.

So you still do see these attempts by the Central Asian countries to kind of play the two countries against each other. But at the same time, as I say, with China and Russia so close to each other, there’s not much room to kind of, play them off.

Deveraux

Yeah, not too many seams to drive in there.

You mentioned something I think is worth pulling on [is] the low priority, and I understand geography plays a factor. Geography is important for international relations. These Central Asian countries are right there in the sphere of influence, to your point, of these other great powers. But the West often talks about the battlegrounds of great power competition, not where we want to necessarily fight the war, but this battle for influence. And as we look at the areas, that the nations like United States, China, and Russia can be competing for influence. We often talk about Africa. South America definitely comes to mind. And I thought about, historically, some South American countries when you talked about playing the great powers off each other.

I think you and Evan Ellis could probably put together an interesting piece doing a comparison of that strategy and see how it plays out. Is Central Asia one of these competition spaces, or does geography really limit the West’s ability to have much more of a footprint in there, if that’s something that the United States or the West more broadly wanted to do?

Stated another way, is Central Asia getting the attention that it deserves?

Carlson

It is a challenging region for the United States because the priorities of US foreign policy, going back for decades now have really been Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. And that’s entirely understandable. And by Asia, I’m talking about mostly the western Pacific. And so it’s difficult for the United States to give high priority to Central Asia. But nevertheless, I would argue that it is an arena of competition.

And I made the point in my presentation in the region that there are certain things the United States should be concerned about when it sees China’s influence in Central Asia growing. And broadly speaking, I think these fall in three areas: international economy, international security, and international order. And so, in terms of the international economy, as China becomes more and more involved and a driver of economic development in Central Asia, there’s a risk that the Central Asian countries will become economically dependent on China, which will give China a lot of leverage over them.

And at the G7 summit a couple of years ago, there was a real emphasis on preventing economic coercion by China. And so that’s a concern that these countries could be subjected to economic coercion in terms of international security, there’s an idea going back more than a century to Helford Mackinder: he who controls the heartland controls the world, ultimately.

And so if Central Asian, if the Central Asian states become client states of China, and they become a resource appendage and a power base for China, that could enhance China’s overall power position in the in the coming competition with the United States. And so that’s a concern. It is already a big source of oil and gas for China, and it could be very valuable in the event of a US naval blockade of China to have those secure overland energy supplies.

It’s also a source of critical minerals. And so if China becomes so dominant in that region, it could enhance their power in ways that that could be detrimental to the United States. And finally, in terms of international order, as you say, China is trying to build influence around the world, in South America, and in Africa and other places.

And it’s trying to get these countries around the world to sign up to China’s vision of international order. And we saw that a couple of years ago when China held the first China Central Asia Summit with the heads of state of all of five Central Asian states. And during that summit, and this was held in Qian China.

During that summit, China got all of those leaders to sign on to China’s three global initiatives: the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, and the Global Civilization Initiative. And so that raises concerns that Central Asia will drift toward China and toward its conceptions of international order. And so it could end up helping China in its efforts to revise the international order, which, as I say, is, is one of the main points of cooperation with Russia.

So for all those reasons, I think Central Asia is really important. It just for reasons we’ve discussed, it’s difficult for the for the United States to compete effectively there. But I think the key is, work on soft power, people-to-people exchanges, encouraging Central Asians to come to the United States, like with this, CARNet program, with the scholars and, the United States traditionally has been a very strong, foreign direct investor in countries like Kazakhstan and other countries in the region.

So there’s . . . it still has some economic weight that it can throw around in the region. And so there’s still an opportunity for the United States to play a valuable role in helping those countries resist domination by China or Russia and to stand on their own two feet and protect their sovereignty, which is in their interests and ours.

Deveraux

Interesting. When you talked about that economic dependence, I thought a lot about Europe in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the conversations on how much Russia can be sanctioned and the damage it could potentially do to Western allies. I just I don’t know if Central Asia has, to your point with the geography, the ability to have as much of an out with the West or the United States as some of those countries closer to Russia did.

Question. As we look at the Central Asian states, you talk about, this becoming incredibly important to China as we look at national security, potential great power conflict. How is the stability in the region? And I think about the United States finding itself bogged down in a Vietnam, an Afghanistan, an Iraq, where the Middle East is very important for similar reasons, for access, for resources.

Is that a potential problem set for China? Or is that one China could easily either wipe its hands of and walk away? Or is stability not really going to be a major issue pending Russian aggression or something to kind of redraw some borders?

Carlson

China and Russia share a strong interest in Central Asian stability. They support the existing governments. They’re opposed to any kind of democratic revolt, or what they call a color revolution. They want to snuff that out as quickly as possible. And so, they believe that stability in the region and the stability of existing regimes is important to their conception of regional security.

If things would really get out of order there, if there would be a major uprising of a terrorist movement, if major instability would spill out of Afghanistan into the region, and if there would be revolts that would threaten the existing regimes in the region, then I think that that Russia and China would seriously consider intervening in the region to try to provide stability.

That’s one potential area where China and Russia might cooperate on some kind of military intervention. Now, they hope it will never come anywhere close to that. And China really doesn’t want to get heavily involved in regional security. But if it reached a level where it threatened to spill across the border into China’s northwest region of Xinjiang, then it’s something they would have to very seriously consider.

And so this is a big reason why more than 25. Well, about 25 years ago now, they actually it’s 2001. So just under 25 years ago, they established the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, with China and Russia and Central Asian countries. It’s now expanded to several other countries. But the main mission really originally was to oppose what China calls the three evils of terrorism, separatism, and extremism.

And so the organization maintains that objective. So Central Asian stability is very important for China and Russia.

Deveraux

So an Arab Spring type event in Central Asia would be the most dangerous course of action for a China [or] Russia? Looking at the problem set then, they would, we would expect some sort of intervention, before something like that could spread and flourish.

Carlson

It depends on how it would happen. There have actually been things kind of like that already. Kyrgyzstan has had a number of revolutions, but it’s resulted in the replacement of the government with another government that China and Russia can work with. So it hasn’t required an intervention. But if it was more destabilizing than that, and it threatened to produce instability, that would spill over the border into China or through Central Asia into Russia.

And the situation really got out of control, then I think China and Russia would have to think about intervening. But in general, they don’t like these kinds of color revolutions or anything that threatens the existing regimes.

Deveraux

Interesting. I think when we talk about influence, and, how the great power competition is going to be played out, I think the region is definitely more important than we give it credit, especially when we look at it through that lens of, what could change in the region and what are the impacts to Russia and China versus what are the impacts to the United States.

If I could shift you took another trip recently, getting that travel in, part of the job. No hate. You took a trip out to Germany. A very different event. Can you talk to me a little bit about it? [About] how it was different from your trip to Kazakhstan and kind of what the objectives and purposes were?

Carlson

Yes. I went to the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. That’s in southern Germany, in the Alps, in a beautiful valley.

Deveraux

Rough travel.

Carlson

Yes. Not a bad gig. And I was invited to speak to the FAO [foreign area officer] program for Eurasian Security Studies seminar.

Deveraux

That’s the foreign area officers?

Carlson

That’s right. So there were American foreign area officers in the class, but also military officers from several countries all around Eurasia, including Central Asia. And this seminar was all about or rather, the seminar was entirely about Eurasian security, broadly speaking. But there was one day that was all on China. And so I was speaking on that day. A former colleague of mine, who’s now a professor at the Marshall Center, spoke on China’s foreign policy and implications for Europe.

I spoke on the China-Russia relationship and implications for Europe. So I focused on several of the drivers of the China-Russia relationship, including their shared views on world order, which I’ve discussed a little bit already here. Defense and security cooperation, which has been a major driver of the relationship. Russia has been the main foreign supplier of weapons to China in the post-Soviet era. It’s played a major role in helping China with its military modernization. And China and Russia have also carried out a long-standing series of ground and naval exercises, which have been beneficial for China and again, in this military modernization. And then there are questions about what Russia might do for China in the event of a war over Taiwan or some other war in the Indo-Pacific region.

So I discuss some of that, and then I also discuss energy cooperation. Russia has lost a lot of its oil and gas markets in the West. And so it’s turning more and more to China. The Power of Siberia gas pipeline has been in operation for a few years now. It’s reached full capacity as of this year. And during the recent meeting between Putin and Xi, there was an announcement, at least on the Russian side, that an agreement has been built.

An agreement has been made to build the power of Siberia to send an even bigger gas pipeline. A lot of the details still have to be worked out. It’ll be years before construction begins, let alone, the pipeline is completed and reaches capacity. But if that happens, then Russia will be providing about 100 bcm (billion cubic meters) per year of gas to China, which is a major contribution to China’s energy security and also has a lot of significance in the event of a war over Taiwan or somewhere else in Asia, because if the Navy imposes a blockade on China at the Strait of Malacca and cuts off seaborne shipments of oil and gas, China will be very reliant on overland supplies of oil and gas from Russia and from Central Asia. And so, if this pipeline moves forward, it’s a very major deal. And, Russia already has an existing pipeline, oil pipeline to China. There’s discussion of building another one sometime in the future. And Central Asia, as I said, provides large volumes of oil and gas to China as well.

So those secure overland supplies of oil and gas are pretty significant. And so those are some of the topics I discussed. And then, I can also talk about what it means for Europe.

Deveraux

Question for you: If you could talk just a little bit about the tone, and the environment difference. So in Kazakhstan, you talked about, some of the pro-China team, you know, having some side comments about the pro-West team, the inability of certain people to say certain things. Just a very different kind of environment that I would assume you’d get at the Marshall Center.

Can you talk about that different environment? And then a little bit with kind of what’s going on in the world. I know tensions are high. It’s not necessarily just steady state operations in the Russia-Ukraine war. I know there was a little bit of an incident and a flare up while you’re out there having the conversation.

And I’d be curious how that kind of shifted the tone, or the environment from the, you know, the theoretical, to real world.

Carlson

Yeah. As it happened I was speaking on September 10th. So that was the day after Russia had sent drones into Poland during the night right before I spoke. And so, as we attended lectures and I gave my lecture that day, we were wrestling with what that meant. And so, yeah, that was a definitely a big question, you know, is this a major turning point in the war? What does it signal and so forth?

So yes, I of course, my trip to Kazakhstan and Germany were very different. They were similar in topic. I was talking about China-Russia, relations in both, including Central Asian dimensions. When I was in Europe, I focused more on implications for Europe. And yeah, as I mentioned in Kazakhstan, there was this definite tension between scholars who are more Western oriented and more pro-China oriented.

Deveraux

I’m assuming not too many foreign area officers are pro-China.

Carlson

That’s right. Didn’t really have that problem in, at the Marshall Center. But, you know, this, as I argued, I do think the China-Russia relationship does have big implications for Europe in a couple of ways. First, and this was really emphasized more by my former colleague who spoke before I did.

China is doing certain things to try to influence politics in Europe. They’re trying to co-opt politicians in Europe and try to get them to be more China friendly. They’re trying to drive a wedge between Europe and the United States. They want Europe to become economically dependent on China, both for supply chains of goods that they need, as well as export markets, so that they can expand their influence in Europe and try to prevent Europe from being fully on side with the United States in this confrontation with China.

So there’s that aspect to it. And we should watch for China and Russia to cooperate on that element. But then there’s also this big issue that as China and Russia cooperate more closely, and as Russia is already fighting a major war in Europe, and there’s a risk of China invading Taiwan or some other big flare up in Asia, there’s a big concern about what would happen if war’s major wars would break out in both Europe and Asia at the same time.

The 2018 National Defense Strategy said that the United States should have the capability to defeat one great power adversary while deterring another. So it sort of implies that the United States doesn’t have the capability at present to fight two great power adversaries at once. So this is a major question. What happens if wars would break out at the same time, or if a war would break out in one theater and then the other great power would opportunistically use that to mount aggression in its region, that would put major strain on the United States. And so the implication for Europe is that there has to be more burden sharing.

And we see this already. We see Europe rallying to increase defense spending and support Ukraine further. But there is a big concern that if China were to invade Taiwan and the United States would be very preoccupied in Asia, that it would be difficult for the United States to fully play the security role in Europe in the future that we’ve grown accustomed to.

And so Europe has to bear more of the burden of European security.

Deveraux

All right. I hope we don’t have to fight two great powers. In fact, I would be okay if we didn’t have to fight either of the great powers.

Carlson

Absolutely.

Deveraux

Brian, thanks so much. This was really informative. Educational. I am really understanding more about Central Asia, and the biggest thing I’m taking away here is that I don’t know enough. It is definitely going to be one of those regions that I think is much more important than people give it credit. I know I need to hit the books, and I look forward to seeing some of your upcoming research.

For our listeners, check out Dr. Brian Carlson’s work. You can look him up on the Strategic Studies Institute website. He publishes quite a bit. And you’ll catch him with the China Landpower Studies Center as well. Listeners, if you want more Army War College podcasts, check out Decisive Point, Conversations on Strategy, CLSC Dialogues, and A Better Peace.