US Threatens Central Asian Comity Says Expert
In David Gosset’s tender love letter to the Communist regime in Beijing it isn’t until the end of the piece that he reveals his biases outright. But, if you read it carefully, hints appear along the way.
To Gosset the ‘Great Game’ was a bad time in Central Asia’s history and it’s all Zbigniew Brzezinski’s fault that Central Asia has a bad reputation. (I’ve always thought it rather romantic myself.) I too find the ‘Great Game’ analogy a poor way of understanding the region — but unlike Gosset I don’t use the analogy’s lack of intellectual rigor as a crutch to deny the very real competition taking place in Central Asia.
Gosset perceives Central Asia as a kind of emerging EU, a place where great power rivalries are largely a thing of the past, that the Russian’s certainly took a walloping when the Soviet Union collapsed and the Chinese never left, which is all for the better, as Gosset correctly notes, “both Russia and China have entered a post-imperial era.” In Gosset’s world that means Central Asia is but one short step away from joining the EU. Of course nothing could be more mistaken. There is a great deal of rivalry and sparring for interests, although it’s now done differently. The two main powers of Central Asia have seemingly taken a page from the US and are acting in Central Asia as the US acted in Latin America for the last 100 years. Call it post-modern imperialism if you will.
What’s worse? For starters his characterization of the SCO as some kind of benign OAS-like organization. Gosset writes:
Moreover, China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan decided in 2001 to structure their interactions within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), whose fifth anniversary celebrated in Shanghai last June 15 was a major international event. Inner Asia’s players are trying to create a cooperative space to manage unavoidable growing interdependence, and in that sense the Great Game, antagonistic by nature, is over.
This is willful ignorance on Gosset’s part. The SCO was founded as an organization to counter US influence in the region. And in the last few years it’s been used as a mechanism to push the US out of Central Asia. (Perhaps the SCO is more like the OAS, in a deviously cynical, legitimacy-producing way, than I give the powers of the SCO credit for.) As we have seen, the US has lost a lot of influence lately in Central Asia. First it got rather unceremoniously kicked out of Uzbekistan. Now the Kyrgyz are very unhappy with us and our AFB at Manas. We’re getting schooled by the Russians in Kazakhstan on natural gas deals. Should I mention the fact that we didn’t even try in Turkmenistan after Turkmenbashi’s death? That was just abject surrender on our part. We didn’t even try.
To Gosset however it’s all about China. Throughout the piece he implies that there is no real competition in the region and yet he writes this:
last September, President Hu Jintao spent six days in the autonomous region, an unusually long inspection visit and an indicator, among others, of Xinjiang’s unique strategic value.
Doesn’t it register with Gosset that the fact that East Turkestan has ’strategic value’ means there is a strategy at work here. And doesn’t a strategy imply that there is some kind of competition to be concerned with? Something for which one must form a strategy, no?
Gosset’s lauding of East Turkestan’s population of 20 million people is grossly misplaced too. I’ve spent a great deal of time in the region, from Urumuchi to Kashgar and Hami and Turfan and back again. 20 million people in the area is no cause for applause. The region is bursting at the seams, if you ask me and this growth is already causing Lake Balkash in Kazakhstan to shrink. Another Aral Sea disaster anyone?
About halfway through the piece Gosset does acknowledge what is driving the competition in the region: energy supplies. He writes:
Thirty percent of China’s land-based oil resources are in the autonomous region - second to Heilongjiang province in the country’s northeast. Its deposits of natural gas represent 35% of China’s land-based total - the first among the 31 administrative entities. Gold also attracts many mining enterprises that have engaged in a Chinese version of the gold rush. With Shandong province, the autonomous region leads China’s gold production (with a total of 224 tons in 2005, China is currently the fourth world producer and is set to become No 1 within the next decade).
Xinjiang is also the corridor through which energy supplies from Central Asia can transit to serve the needs of fast-growing coastal China. In December 2005, China’s first cross-border crude-oil pipeline was opened, pumping oil from Kazakhstan. The Sino-Kazakh pipeline carries 10 million tons of crude oil a year from Atasu to Xinjiang’s Alashankou (according to the National Development and Reform Commission, China consumed 318 million tons of oil in 2005). Constructed under a 50-50 joint venture between China National Petroleum Corp and KazMunaiGaz, it is a strong symbol of Central Asia’s integration by transnational projects.
And number one gold producer in the world? That was news to me.
To an already flawed piece Gosset adds one easily correctable historical error and ineradicable proof he is no medieval literary critic. First he says that the Chinese empire in the time of the T’ang Dynasty extended as far as Iran’s Sistan Province.
Poppycock.
The T’ang got their heads handed to them at the Battle of Talas in 751 AD by the Arab Abbasid Caliphate in a battle that forever ended Chinese attempts to expand West of the Tien Shan. Forever, I remind you.
Secondly, Gosset makes a hash of Marco Polo, stating that Polo’s comments on Central Asia were ‘of greatest interest.’ I’m sure it’s a throwaway line on his part, meant to show off how much he knows about Central Asia and its history. But I must inform you that the Great Venetian’s comments on Central Asia are no such thing. I should know, for I have read his book several times over. Not too mention both volumes of the Yule-Cordier annotated edition and Olschki’s poignant little monogrpah and a host of scholarly papers. Trust me when I say that they aren’t that interesting–although much else he writes is wonderful. For Central Asia one must read Ssu-ma Qian’s Shi Ji 110 and 123, but I digress.
Soon it becomes clear that Gosset is drinking the Communist Party Line Kool-Aid. Whilst discussing the Uighurs, a much maligned ethnic minority in China, Gosset writes:
In reality, one can observe that Uighurs - as other minorities or the Han - generally benefit from the overall economic modernization. One should never forget that development is a tool for emancipation and poverty a form of oppression.
Really, he wrote that! Is it not like something from the sixties, no? Che Guevara and Mao and Fidel speak to the masses!
To top that off he’s quite the patronizing Orientalist, (albeit one with a Chinese twist):
In any case, those who have some doubts should spend some time in the autonomous region: they would enjoy the Uighurs’ spontaneous sense of hospitality, learn more about the Uighur capacity to interact with different cultures, and, of course, discover a mosaic of values and languages along the Silk Road.
Anytime a writer uses the word spontaneous to describe a people my bullshit detector goes off. Further, nothing is more condescending in my opinion.
Alas, we get to the crux of the issue. It really does amaze me that the Kagan narrative, you know the one about how the EU is from Venus and the US from Mars, has been internalized by a guy living in Shanghai. It’s amazing how Gosset concludes his piece:
However, if the Eurasian players are unable to manage wisely the region’s internal dynamics and to organize their interdependence rationally, they will give the United States a reason to project its power in the heart of the continental grand chessboard. In that case, the risk is high of seeing Washington’s Eurasia strategy concerned only with US interests. Instead of joining their strengths for common prosperity, Eurasia’s various forces would then be manipulated by an external hand. In such a configuration, we would all be the losers.
See, it’s so easy. EU=Good. US=BAD. And there is no room for the Russians or really even the Chinese themselves. He’s internalized the Kagan idea that the EU is from Venus and the US is from Mars, and put a condescending Eurocentric spin on it. Good work.
Snark aside, Gosset’s view infantilizes. It prevents people from seriously considering the powerful dynamics of the region–more than just energy, mind you. Gosset prevents us from envisioning what kind of a constructive role the US could play and so much more. He also oversimplifies EU policy and the very positive role the EU can play as well. The good, the bad and the ugly are hidden by this kind of utopian paradise the EU, er, China is creating.
But what’s worse than anything is that in his conclusion he betrays a very Eurocentric view of Central Asia, a region whose fate will be decided by non-Europeans working on non-European problems. I imagine they have some ideas of their own. Might we to listen?
Stumble it! |
Tags: Central Asia, East Turkestan, China, great game.
Posted by Sean Paul Kelley on May 23rd, 2007
Permalink | Trackback | Comments: 20
Comments
Time: 5/24/2007, 5:50 am
I call that a more elaborate version of an inflight magazine ‘hooray-article’.
“Gosset perceives Central Asia as a kind of emerging EU, a place where great power rivalries are largely a thing of the past,”
Which planet is he from?
“both Russia and China have entered a post-imperial era.”
Russia has now clearly entered a neo-colonial phase and the SCO alliance is merely a temporary ‘mariage de raison’ againt what is seen as Anglo-Saxon encroachment on Euarsia and former Russian colonies.
Time: 5/24/2007, 6:13 am
I call that a more elaborate version of an inflight magazine ‘hooray-article’.
My thoughts too. Lots of impressive-sounding statistics and tourist-brochure phrases cobbled together. However, it’s ironic that this piece is by a Westerner when, on the ‘About Us’ page, the Asia Times claims:
We look at these issues from an Asian perspective; this distinguishes us from the mainstream English-language media, whose reporting on Asian matters is generally by Westerners, for Westerners.
Time: 5/24/2007, 7:00 pm
My favorite line was,
To top that off he’s quite the patronizing Orientalist, (albeit one with a Chinese twist)
I’m afraid I must take a moment to wrap my head around a Chinese Orientalist. It should be a contradiction, but the description makes perfect sense.
Also, what a tard.
Time: 5/24/2007, 8:03 pm
Joshua, I’m certain you know this so I’ll share it with the other readers: like the West, China has a very, very long tradition in historiography, literature, etc. . dealing with the ‘Other’, the first of which may have been the Rong or Di peoples, but more than likely was the Xiongnu, as depicted by Ssu ma Chien, or as the rather inelegant pinyin form Sima Qian and it seems to me that Gosset has really internalized the Chinese narrative on the Uighurs, which is really disappointing.
Time: 5/24/2007, 8:05 pm
Thanks for all the comments by the way. When I blog this kind of stuff at my home blog it never gets any comment. Nice to have a place where people are interested in Central Asia.
Time: 5/25/2007, 1:38 am
Sean Paul Kelley talk as the US owns Central Asia. By who’s right? It is aggressive. Put it in human term is like saying “If you don’t do what I told you, I will ATTACK you”..
“we didn’t even try in Turkmenistan after Turkmenbashi’s death?” What does Mr Kelley mean? Under the UN laws that kind of behaviors are illegal.
Why do Kelly mention the “Battle of Talas”? I don’t know how much Chinese history he knew but he sure don’t understand the Chinese. First, Chinese don’t do Roman or Alexandra’s long quest campaign. It is stupid! Roman empire only last 900 yrs but Chinese stay at the same place for the 5000yrs. To survive on this world the longest has nothing to do with the size of the gun but how much punishment the country can take. Live by the gun die by the gun.
American is 8000Km away from Central Asia. Chinese and Russian are next to Central Asia. Who are you be friend with you , your neighbor or someone live on the other side of coast?
Mr Kelley’s America forward policy is just intrusive, even the European can’t take it anymore. I can understand David Gosset feeling. EU being hijack by US. For example: EU don’t even has a say on US Missile defence bases on Poland inside EU until Russia say NO; European are drag into Afghanistan by the US so call another NATO; Tony Blair left in disgrace because of America;Kidnapping of European citizens. What is all this for? Bush
Time: 5/25/2007, 2:01 am
@Nick
“English-language media, whose reporting on Asian matters is generally by Westerners, for Westerners.”
I was reading Times magazine the other day on International Norm issues. I released this is an American magazine. Time magazine sounds like they are the world’s voice but they are not.
I read Atimes because it is not written by westerner for westerner. As we can see form Sean Paul Kelley’s responses.
Time: 5/25/2007, 10:31 am
Sounds like Mr. smoothn00dle is probably Chinese and hypersensitive to any criticism made towards the Chinese. At the very least it is clear that his grasp of the English language is far too poor to understand the carefully nuanced position I take in my reply to Mr. Gosset, who is clearly cheerleading for China. I suggest he go back and re-read the part where I talk about the fact that American has lost a great deal of influence in Central Asia, as of late. Of course, Mr. smoothn00dle, you wouldn’t know what the colloquialism ’schooled’ means, now would you?
Moreover, Mr. smoothn00dle who ever said anything about attacking Turkmenistan? I certainly didn’t.
As for your argument about Talas. The battle did happen and the ramifications of the battle were that China never regained any serious influence in Trans Tien Shan Central Asia until very recently.
Now, it is also a fact that the Chinese, as opposed to the those who inhabit the Muslim world and the Western World, do not fight set piece battles, they fight campaigns, some of them over a great period of time, like Mao’s Long March.
So, Mr. smoothn00dle, my grasp of Chinese history is far from perfect but I’m certainly correct in my statements surrounding the Battle Of Talas.
I urge you to re-consider you ill thought out comments because you represent what I say and how I say it in a very incorrect manner.
Salaam, zai jian or ciao!
Time: 5/25/2007, 10:43 pm
Manas airbase spokeswoman Ms. Maya Melnikovskaya has refused to give comments on recent accidents involving US military even after reminding of breaching “Freedom of Information Act” on the following subject. She can be reached via her cell phone +996 502 555076.
http://www.spa.gov.sa/english/print.php?id=411050
A government commission in Kyrgyzstan on Wednesday blamed the crew of a U.S. tanker plane for a September collision with a passenger jet that caused a fire but no injuries at the nation’s airport, AP reported.
The commission head, Alik Askarov, said the incident in which a Kyrgyz Airlines Tu-154 grazed a U.S. KC-135 military tanker plane took place because the U.S. crew broke taxiing rules.
Askarov said the U.S. aircraft failed to free the runway within a required period of time after landing and did not inform Kyrgyz flight controllers about its moves.
Time: 5/26/2007, 10:16 am
To the Kyrgyz Kid:
First, that is rude to put a cell phone number up. If you want to put up a work number, fine. You don’t know if that cell number is from her work or her personal number, and you don’t know who is paying for the incoming calls. A gentleman would edit his post.
Second, the article you point to is from December, and you conveniently ignore the release of the U.S. investigation into the accident earlier this year. Let’s see… the Kyrgyz report blames the crew of a plane that was sitting still for hitting a plane that was taking off. The U.S. report blames the air traffic controller for not bothering to check to see if the runway was clear or to question why there was garbled communication between the crew and the tower. The U.S. report also said that the U.S. crew contributed to the accident by not being clearer about what they were doing. Everyone was at fault for this accident. But the one thing the U.S. crew didn’t do is send a plane filled with passengers barreling down a runway without checking to see if the runway was clear — it was the air traffic controllers who did that. And if you don’t think that air traffic controllers should ultimately be responsible for what happens at their airports (or even someone looking out the tower window at the runway before clearing a plane to take off), I think I’ll cancel any plans I may have to fly into Kyrgyzstan any time soon.
Accidents happen. I respectfully suggest you consider switching to decalf.
Time: 5/26/2007, 10:22 am
My apologies, I neglected to add this link to an Air Force press release on the U.S. report on the accident.
Time: 5/27/2007, 11:05 am
2Anon:
First, +996 502 555076 is the official cell phone number for public inquiries, published in US press release, which is, a bit, weird. It is not a free 800 landline, and fully charged.
Second: Investigation was being done from US side by US airforce. That’s judicial nonsense for me, because US airforce is the interested party. It’s kinda like murdering someone and investigating it… Think about it. US side refused to release recordings from black boxes for independent expertise by ICAO. This alone speaks volumes for me…
Time: 5/29/2007, 11:36 am
anti-US protests will start in june in Kyrgyzstan.
Time: 5/31/2007, 10:05 am
Not to throw things back on topic… but my two cents from here in Xinjiang is that everyone is overreacting a bit to this whole Gossett article. Yes, I admit that the guy seems like a twat from his article, but it’s the same bullshit China’s been preaching for years.
And while I call it bullshit, I really believe that there’s a significant amount of truth in every story or lie. I know that a statement like,
“In reality, one can observe that Uighurs - as other minorities or the Han - generally benefit from the overall economic modernization,”
immediately triggers an adverse reaction in any sane person. The guy sounds like a dick. But I don’t think that anyone can really say that Uyghurs are worse-off living in modern China. I mean… were Uyghurs better-off 10, 20, 30 years ago living in a non-modern China? Would they be better-off living in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, or Kyrgyzstan?
I know that Uyghurs in Xinjiang get a raw deal compared to much of the Han population. But I also believe that even China’s raw deal looks good to a lot of the native residents of Central Asia.
Time: 5/31/2007, 4:37 pm
Actually, Michael, I disagree. I’ve visited Kashgar and some of the surrounding villages a few times and I’ve not seen evidence that the Uighurs are better off. To wit: there was, at one time, a great bazaar in front of the Id Kah Mosque in Kashgar. Sometime between 2003-2004 all the bazaaris were run off and the square surrounding the Id Kah was repaved. Now, it certainly looks beautiful today as opposed to the shouting, the wheedling, the goats-head soup stalls and knife sellers. But where have they gone? Did they go across the street? Some, but far from all of them.
Secondly, if you face the Id Kah to your right there was about a mile long strip of old wooden Uighur homes. Some were upwards of 200-250 years old. Again, between 2003-2004 they were torn down and replaced with new, modern brick and mortar housing and storefronts to replace the old. Here’s the catch: for every one house they rebuilt they displaced at least 3 Uighurs families. Yes, the Chinese government gave them money for there trouble but it was no where near enough to buy anything but the public housing far on the outskirts of Kashgar and in many cases two families had to share one house that previously was on per family.
These are but two small examples. Bottom line: the Uighurs are just not better off.
The people who “generally benefit from the overall economic modernization” are the Han immigrants from the overcrowded east who are lured to Kashgar and other places with promises of subsidized new cell phones and housing in some cases.
Want to know why Balkash is going the way of the Aral?
Time: 6/1/2007, 6:51 am
@dave:
“Sure, Uyghurs by and large don’t support terrorism, but they don’t like the authorities either.”
So Uyghurs don’t like the authorities, they sound like most Chinese I know. I don’t hear people sing the praise of the Party and government except on People’s Daily site, but then again I don’t know Americans are so happy with their government unless I watch Fox News. So disgruntled citizens are okay unless they live in China, then it’s an racial and human rights issue.
@Talas poppycock:
Most Chinese never heard of the so called “Battle of Talas” and it never registered much significance in Chinese cultural and history. China’s agricultural nature determined the expansion was southward where settlers could grow rice. China emperors were never interested in expanding western into the desert, they had a hard time holding China’s wast territory already. It’s quite amusing to hear some “turans” bring it up like it’s another “Opium War”.
Time: 6/1/2007, 7:06 am
Not so many Muslims have ever heard of Lepanto, either. From what I know of human nature most people aren’t keen on memorializing defeats.
But that’s not the point.
The point is, a.) Gossett said the Chinese borders under the T’ang reached as far as Persia which is rubbish and b.) (which is my point and that of many others) that after Talas westward expansion stopped. Under the T’ang hey were expansionists. Until Talas, that is.
And how do you explain that campaign to Dayuan in the Shi Ji of Ssu Ma Chien?
Finally, rice isn’t the only staple crop in China. Millet is (and was) quite important for at least a millenia.
As for expansion: Perdue’s excellent book discussed China march west under the Qinq.
Time: 6/1/2007, 7:32 am
Everyone beautifies own history. In USSR times we had plenty of films showing not so nice US troops doing nasty inhumane things in Vietnam (with documentary support), and escape of US troops from Saigon.
Chinese are no different. Journalists just write stuff they have been paid for to write. This worls is the world of deceptive propaganda and deceit. US journalists are no different.
Time: 6/26/2007, 9:23 pm
@Bingster:
“So Uyghurs don’t like the authorities, they sound like most Chinese I know. I don’t hear people sing the praise of the Party and government except on People’s Daily site, but then again I don’t know Americans are so happy with their government unless I watch Fox News. So disgruntled citizens are okay unless they live in China, then it’s an racial and human rights issue.”
No, it’s a racial issue because Uyghurs are discriminated against on a ethnic basis. As for human rights issues, I’d say other Chinese citizens suffer human rights abuses as well. And yes, I would call it a racial and human rights issue if people are booted off US airplanes because they have beards and talk funny.
Sean, re: Chinese reach towards Persia, the Tang did briefly exercise some sort of sovereignty over Central Asia. In 657, they defeated the Western Turks at Issyk Kul, and installed puppet regimes. This lasted only 5 years, when rebellion tossed out the Tang proxies, but extended over Samarkand, Buhkara, Kabul, Herat and even as far as modern day Zarang, Iran. (See Millward, Eurasian Crossroads). Gosset is technically right, but I think it’s disingenuous and poor history to not disclose that this was a brief and tenuous sort of influence. 657 is the year nationalists use to define the Tang, not historians.
As for Talas, it’s worth pointing out the Tang were also mightily distracted by the Tibetans and the An Lushan rebellion. That really did a number on them.
Time: 5/23/2007, 11:18 pm
Nice one. You’re dead on that he drops all pretenses on the third page and falls off the edge. This line was a jaw-dropper:
“The vast majority of the population condemns the terrorists, and is helping the authorities fight extremism and maintain order. ”
This is cut and pasted straight out of the PRC lexicon. Sure, Uyghurs by and large don’t support terrorism, but they don’t like the authorities either.
His comments about the Uyghur intellectual elite and education are pure nonsense.