A REGION IN TRANSITION

One must be realistic. Our chaotic world is not ready yet for any dramatic changes on the global geo-political scene. Both China and Russia may have concerns over Washington’s predominant role on global issues of peace and security but they seem to have learnt to live with this equally predominant reality of our time. They are part of several cooperative and consultative multilateral mechanisms, including G-8, P-5, APEC, and ARF, in which they work closely with the US on major global issues, particularly terrorism and nuclear proliferation.

Since after the World War II, Asia’s geopolitical landscape has gone through a sea change in terms of its emerging political, economic and strategic problems and priorities. In the post-World War II era, the real cold war was enacted on Asian soils which witnessed some of the violent eruptions of the East-West struggle, and even some of the longest wars of the last century.

These include the Korean war, the Vietnam war, the Cambodian war, the Arab-Israeli war, three India-Pakistan wars, the Iran-Iraq war, the Gulf war, the Soviet-Afghan war, the recent Iraq war, and now the ongoing US war in Afghanistan in the name of global ‘war on terror’ not to mention its extension into our own country as a full-scale proxy war against our own people with demands to further expand it into other areas. It is a precarious scenario and an unenviable history.

Asia is a vast region, home to nearly two-third of the world population, covering almost one-third of the earth’s landmass and comprising some of the most important but volatile regions of the world, the poverty-stricken and tension-ridden South Asia, the conflict afflicted West Asia, the resource-rich yet politically unstable Central Asia, the economically pulsating East Asia, the stormy and violent Middle East and the oil-rich Persian Gulf. These regions are not a mere geographic overlap. They have historic civilisational affinities among their peoples and are also endowed with unmatched natural resources and mutual complementarities.

These regions have traditionally been the focus of world attention with non-Asian powers always looking at them with anxiety and concern in the context of their turbulent political history, economic potential and the vast array of their intra-regional issues.  The post-cold war unipolarity has also created a serious imbalance of global power.  No wonder, Asia’s major regions continue to be a global hotspot. The long-standing Asian issues include the Palestine question, Kashmir, the tensions on the Korean Peninsula and across the Strait of Taiwan and the triangular relations among Japan, the US and China, or in an expanded regional context, pentagonal relations among these three powers, plus Russia and India.

The ramifications of endless tensions and instability in some parts of Asia for global peace and security are immense. Some of the sources of these tensions and conflicts in Asia include America’s yet-to-end war in Afghanistan and its continuing power play in Central Asia, the Indo-US military and nuclear nexus with its destabilising effect on the prospects of peace in South Asia, the continuing Iranian nuclear crisis, North Korea’s worrisome nuclear and ICBM capability, the deadlocked six-party talks on this issue, and other unresolved territorial disputes in the region, including those between Japan and Russia, China and South Korea.

 In such a murky scenario, China represents Asia’s only ray of hope. As a pillar of strength for the world community, China is already playing an important role not only for the maintenance of international peace and security but also in averting any major global economic crises. Since the end of the cold war, there has been a discernible change in China’s foreign policy which, based on the principle of peaceful coexistence, has had an important effect on modern international relations.

Globally, China is today a major stabilising force in the world’s economic and fiscal system and also an effective player in the UN Security Council.  Guided by its long-term politico-economic interests, China has been following pragmatic policies in seeking improvement of its relations with the US and other advanced countries, as well as with India. On its differences or disputes with some of its neighbours, China’s policy is that they should be ‘appropriately managed and resolved through dialogue and consultation based on realities and in accordance with the basic norms governing international relations.’

But China also has its regional and global concerns and is not oblivious of the challenges resulting from the US-led new unipolarity or its ascendency in Asian regions. No wonder, in recent years, it has sought to improve its relations with Russia and is also engaged in creating a friendly neighbourhood with other adjacent countries, including India. The growing closeness between China and Russia in reaction to what they perceive as growing US strategic outreach in their backyard is especially evident in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation which reflects their shared interest in curbing Washington’s influence in strategically important and resource-rich Central Asia.

This year’s Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit in Beijing clearly flagged a mood swing in Asia’s heartlands referring to the growing number of hotbeds in different regions by calling for the intensification of the SCO efforts to strengthen regional security and to jointly counter the global challenges. Indeed, China and Russia are bound together in this organisation by their common geostrategic and economic interests in the region, their mutual concern over the increasing US hegemony and their eagerness to revive a multipolarity world.

 During President Putin’s state visit to Beijing on the occasion of the SCO summit, Russia and China found common language in foreign affairs and undertook to cooperate to ensure security in the Asia Pacific region. In this context both countries vowed to expand military cooperation in the form of closer relations between their defence ministries and joint military and naval exercises. Moscow is reported to be working on an ambitious plan for modernisation of its military capabilities by 2015. China is also building up its naval capabilities. Both countries are already increasing their mutual trade. In the coming years, China could become a major buyer of Russia’s military hardware and energy resources.

In the context of Afghanistan, both China and Russia, like us, want early restoration of peace in that war-ravaged country free of foreign influence or domination. It is also natural that as main powers of the region, Russia and China would have vital interest in the region’s energy resources and its potential as a market and investment outlet. But they are more concerned over what they see as forces of ‘extremism, terrorism and separatism’ emanating from this region as a conduit of destabilisation in their own territories.

In fact, the very rationale for the establishment of SCO in the mid-90s was to forestall these very forces. To an extent, this creates a convergence of interests in the long-terms objectives of the SCO and NATO countries. In this context, they have given the SCO a typical regional security dimension focused essentially on their growing fear of Islamic fundamentalism and radical influences seeping out of this region and threatening intra-regional stability.

This part of Asia is certainly in transition, but any assumptions of the SCO emerging as a regional security bloc at this stage would be too far-fetched. One must be realistic. Our chaotic world is not ready yet for any dramatic changes on the global geopolitical scene. Both China and Russia may have concerns over Washington’s predominant role on global issues of peace and security but they seem to have learnt to live with this equally predominant reality of our time. They are a part of several cooperative and consultative multilateral mechanisms, including G-8, P-5, APEC, and ARF, in which they work closely with the US on major global issues, particularly terrorism and nuclear proliferation.