It has been up and running for almost a year but I have only now stumbled upon it: China in Central Asia is a blog by Raffaello Pantucci, Alexandros Petersen and Sue Anne Tay. It does precisely what its title suggests: examine China’s role in Central Asia.
Border Review
This blog follows current developments and provides a space to discuss them in the context of “Neighbouring China”. At the moment, we simply skim, select and briefly comment newspaper articles, content from other blogs, and academic work. The idea is to extend the border review to include longer analytic pieces, notes, anecdotes, oppinions, documents and visual materials. If you wish to contribute please consider joining the network.
Pamir Highway
Impasse at China’s southern borders
VietNamNet Bridge reports “abnormal phenomena” at the Mong Cai border crossing:
The Chinese authorities have taken a lot of enigmatic moves recently, thus leading to the stagnation of the cross-border trade.
Vietnamese workers on contracts with companies across the border in China complain that their salaries are being confiscated at the border. Traders observe tighter control and report the construction of armed inspection stations by the Chinese authorities along the border line. The verification of goods exported from Vietnam to China is taken much more seriously. Formerly unproblematic items in high demand, such as frozen seafood products, face difficulties at the customs.
Meanwhile, Vietnam’s Plant Protection Department has found pesticide residues in imported Chinese grapes that exceed Vietnam’s standards five times, according to tuoitrenews.
This could just be one of the frequent little trade disputes – were it not for similar developments elsewhere. In northern Burma traders complain about increased import tariffs at the Chinese border. The Irrawaddy quotes a local businessman:
The Chinese government has increased taxes on agricultural products, mining products, jade and jewelry, etc.
The tax for jade, for example, was rose from 15 to 33 percent, according to the same Irrawaddy report.
Last week, Human Rights Watch came forward with the claim that Kachin Refugees are forcibly sent back to Burma. And Mizzima News reports a joint Chinese-Thai raid busted a major amphetamine factory on the Burma-China border.
It seems that China’s southern border has entered a phase of crack-downs and tighter control.
Posted in Border Review Tagged agriculture, border regime, Burma, drugs, jade, Kachin, Shan, trade, Vietnam Leave a comment
Tourists and Refugees
Two bits of news on the Sino-Burmese borderlands coincided last week. In Bangkok’s Foreign Correspondents Club Human Rights Watch presented a report on the situation of Kachin refugees:
While the Chinese central government and Yunnan provincial authorities have generally allowed Kachin refugees to enter and stay in China since June 2011, Human Rights Watch documented two instances, involving an estimated 300 people, of Chinese authorities ordering Kachin refugees to return to Burma. Chinese authorities have also rejected Kachin asylum seekers at the border, forcing their return to the conflict zone.
Meanwhile, China Daily reports:
Lu Yonghe, deputy head of Xishuangbanna Dai autonomous prefecture, which borders Myanmar and Laos to its south, said the government plans to make Xishuangbanna a resort region in line with international standards, as the area boasts natural beauty and an abundance of relaxation and hospitality facilities.
In the next five years, Xishuangbanna plans to construct more than 10 top tourist destinations and attract more than 10 globally-recognized hotel chains, Lu said.
LeVine on Afghanistan, oil, and the Pax-Sinica
In his Foreign Affairs blog The Oil and the Glory, Steve LeVine tries to bring some sanity into the debate about Chinese bids for oil and minerals in Afghanistan. Contrary to the rather cynical view of some Western politicians and observers (see here, here, and here) who fear that China may become the dominant player in Afghanistan and thereby reap the benefits of American blood and money, LeVine argues that both the US and China are interested in the same thing: a stable Afghanistan. Chinese investment will only raise the PRC’s stakes in working towards this goal.
From two decades of watching and covering the country, I feel confident saying that China will not end up “dominating Afghanistan,” because the Afghans are too astute to let that happen. They do not require foreigners to inform them of the downside risks of falling under the sway of an outside power. Yet how astute are we?
By appearances, not very. We seem to have determined that because China is a great rival in many sectors, it is by definition a danger everywhere. But the logic does not hold in Central and South Asia, where a robust Chinese economic role – a Pax Sinica, if you will – may be what stands between the success and failure of primary U.S. and Western strategic objectives. “Without China’s assistance, almost nothing of sustainable consequence will happen in South or Central Asia – in Pakistan, in Afghanistan, or elsewhere,” Larry Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Gen. Colin Powell, told me.
A highly recommended read.
Kyrgyz Gold
Leila Saralayeva (AP):
Kyrgyzstan’s parliament backed a motion Wednesday to review the operating license of a company developing a major gold mine that accounts for 12 percent of the Central Asian nation’s economy.
There were two votes on Wednesday. First, the parliament decided against the total nationalisation of the Kumtor gold mine, which is operated by Toronto-based Centerra Gold. In a second vote, however, the parliament agreed on increasing the government’s present 33 percent stake and set up a commission to review the environmental damage. The mine borders a nature reserve and last year’s report of Kyrgyzstan’s Interagency Governmental Commission gives much reason for concern.
Investors got cold feet and Centerra stock lost a third of its value.