The Belt and Road Initiative in China’s western frontier and Central Asia

20 December 2021

Discussions on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) regularly focus on its professed geopolitical or geoeconomic aims and impact. While these analyses provide important insights into the BRI, they miss the domestic dynamics that drive it and its implications, specifically, economic development which became a core pillar of legitimacy for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the opening and reform period.

Powerful discourses within the CCP link economic development with security and vice versa; a virtuous cycle that is contingent on the Party’s reach and its ability to govern. These discourses become more pronounced vis-a-vis frontier provinces where a large proportion of China’s ethnic minorities reside, and where the development gap has been difficult to bridge. Due to these concerns, since the 1990s CCP officials at the local and central levels have focused on development initiatives that eventually became the foundation for what is now the BRI. This is reflected in the fact that the six overland economic corridors that make up the BRI can be traced to provincial-level efforts dating back to the 1990s. These initiatives helped in more effectively integrating these frontier spaces with the rest of China through infrastructure investment, while concurrently promoting greater economic linkages with neighbouring countries.

Tracing the origins of the BRI from this perspective reveals that it plays three important roles. First, it furthers the integration of China’s frontiers through infrastructure that simultaneously promotes economic development while facilitating the reach of the state. Second, it helps establish new supply chains linking China’s underdeveloped interior provinces to international markets to promote more sustainable growth. And third, it helps in securing access to new markets through greater connectivity to sustain economic growth. Nowhere are these dynamics more evident than in China’s Western frontier, particularly Xinjiang, and its linkages with Central Asia.

Xinjiang and Central Asia

According to the “vision” document, which sets the guiding principles of the BRI, Xinjiang plays a pivotal role in the initiative. Three of the six overland economic corridors that currently make up the BRI originate or traverse through Xinjiang. Two of them link the province to its Central Asian neighbours: the New Eurasian Land Bridge and the China-Central Asia-West Asia Economic Corridor. Both began to take form in the 1990s under the double-opening strategy as provincial officials sought to more effectively integrate Xinjiang with the rest of China, a measure that was deemed necessary in order to solidify CCP governance over the province, while at the same time improving links to Central Asian Republics (CARs) to promote economic growth.

The need for continued Chinese investment and market access ensures that Central Asian leaders will continue to relegate the question of Uyghur diasporas or the treatment of other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang to the periphery.

This strategy began the gradual process of restoring trade links and investing in transportation infrastructure that could fulfil the aims of the double-opening strategy. Consequently, when the Great Western Development strategy was announced in 1999 there were already a series of lessons to draw on from provincial-level efforts, as well as an infrastructural foundation to build on. This meant that by the time Xi Jinping announced the BRI in Astana, Kazakhstan in 2013, there was already a complete oil pipeline between the two countries; the Central Asia Gas pipeline linking Turkmen and Uzbek gas fields with Kazakhstan and China was operational, and 15 class A and 11 class B land ports were facilitating trade between Xinjiang and its Central Asian neighbours, particularly Alashankou and Horgos.

In all of these projects, Xinjiang served as the hub connecting Central Asia to China’s interior provinces through West-East pipelines, the West-East electricity transmission project, as well as railways and highway connectivity. Consequently, the two phases of development — the double-opening and the Great Western Development strategies — allowed the CCP to better integrate frontier spaces such as Xinjiang with the rest of China. This enhanced its governance over the province, while at the same time improving trade links with CARs which were necessary for its development and security. Growing trade links also helped in enticing Central Asian leaders to stop undermining stability in Xinjiang, something which occurred regularly during the Sino-Soviet split. Access to investment and Chinese markets, a growing necessity after the economic instability brought about by the collapse of the Soviet Union, motivated CARs to drop support for Uyghur diasporas in their countries, with Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan going as far as repatriating activists to China.

The BRI and Central Asia

Xi Jinping announced the BRI almost a year after proclaiming the Chinese ‘dream of national rejuvenation’. This dream involves the dual centenary goals of establishing a moderately prosperous society by 2021 and establishing a modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced and harmonious by 2049. These goals are focused on addressing the growing development gap between the coast and interior provinces, which involves the continued integration of internal and external markets through sustainable supply chains. In this regard, the BRI represents the next phase of development that had begun at the local level in the 1990s and grown increasingly regional by the early 2000s, thus, building on the successes and failures of these efforts.

What makes the BRI different are its scale and scope. Furthermore, it reflects a shift in the CCP’s interpretation of the linkage between development and security. In the context of China’s Western frontier, this means that development and security in Xinjiang are linked to development and security in Central Asia. This in turn implies not just focusing on Xinjiang’s internal development and improving cross-border links but becoming more proactive in the economic development of the CARs themselves.

This shift is motivated by a recognition that centrally driven investment to interior and frontier provinces, coupled with opening additional cross-border trade links, have been insufficient for bridging the development gap. Most countries bordering China remained underdeveloped and thus could not serve as markets for Chinese goods. In other words, the model was unsustainable and could have adverse impacts on China’s internal stability. Consequently, out of the roughly USD 843 billion that China has invested in BRI projects, about USD 136 billion have gone to Central Asia. From this perspective, the BRI is not merely building on previous phases, it is changing the nature of Chinese engagement in the region. While the double-opening strategy focused on restoring trade links and transportation infrastructure, and the Great Western Development strategy focused on hydrocarbon and mineral extraction, the BRI has brought a greater emphasis on local economic development by promoting industry, energy generation, and improving connectivity. Collectively, these aim at improving economic conditions, thus making new supply chains more sustainable and setting the stage for opening new markets for Chinese goods.

This is highlighted by the fact that out of the 261 BRI projects that have been tracked by the Central Asia Data-Gathering Team at the OSCE Academy in Bishkek, 131 focus on trade and industrial development. These projects involve setting up special economic zones, industrial parks, factories, and extending lines of credit to local businesses in the region. The projects have been important for promoting economic development and generating new supply chains and markets. Importantly, they help Beijing meet its goal of promoting more sustainable development of its interior provinces, particularly Xinjiang.

For promoting energy, China has invested in 48 energy generation and transmission projects. The energy source has varied, from coal and natural gas to hydropower. These projects are resulting in greater energy capacity, which feeds back into the ability to sustain industrial production. Additionally, energy connectivity is not only improving interregional energy links but also between China and Central Asia. Lastly, bringing all of these together are 51 rail and road connectivity projects aiming to facilitate more efficient transportation between China and Central Asia.

Implications

While it is probably still too early for a comprehensive picture of the effects of these BRI projects, there are several takeaways. The first is that while many of them provide tangible economic benefits, they are not equally distributed. There is evidence that BRI projects help promote GDP growth, employment, and welfare but has had mixed results in raising GDP per capita. This reflects local conditions in which political and economic elites are reaping most of the benefits. Additionally, many of these projects are not without controversy. There is growing resentment over Chinese companies bringing their own workers and paying them more than local labourers. In some cases, this has led to physical altercations between groups. Lastly, while there is no evidence of a concerted effort on the part of Beijing to pursue a ‘debt-trap diplomacy’, there are concerns that the less developed CARs have growing debt exposure risks.

Despite these legitimate concerns, Beijing believes it will benefit from the development of the CARs, and that this will have a direct impact on Xinjiang itself. Growing trade between Xinjiang and its neighbours promotes economic growth which the CCP sees as the primary mechanism to mitigating social instability and ensuring security. Importantly, development in the CARs facilitates the emergence of sustainable supply chains and a market for Chinese products, many of them developed or carried through Xinjiang. Furthermore, the need for continued Chinese investment and market access ensures that Central Asian leaders will continue to relegate the question of Uyghur diasporas or the treatment of other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang to the periphery. This allows the CCP to exercise more effective control over the province since there is little possibility for interference across the border. In essence, the BRI, having built and expanded on previous phases represents the most recent effort in this intricate dynamic of development and security.

DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.

Author biography

Zenel Garcia is an Associate Professor of Security Studies in the Department of National Security and Strategy at the US Army War College. His research focuses on the intersection of international relations theory, security, and geopolitics in the Indo-Pacific and Eurasia. He is the author of China’s Western Frontier and Eurasia: The Politics of State and Region-Building (New York: Routledge, 2021) and China’s Military Modernization, Japan’s Normalization and the South China Sea Territorial Disputes (Gewerbestrasse: Palgrave MacMillan, 2019). Image credit: Flickr/World Economic Forum.