As a state long noted for its potentially destabilizing ethnic heterogeneity, China has been extremely mindful of the northwestern region of Xinjiang, which is often viewed as one beset by what the Chinese have termed the “three evils” of separatism, fundamentalism, and terrorism. However, this mindfulness extends far beyond domestic policy alone. Indeed, China’s role in Central Asia is inextricably tied to its desire to strengthen its political control over, economic links with, and security posture in the adjacent Xinjiang region.

The principal mechanism for achieving these intertwining aims is the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Founded on June 15, 2001 by Russia, China, and the Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, the SCO calls for closer political and economic cooperation and coordinated action among the member states to fight the “three evils,” whether in Xinjiang or in the neighboring states themselves. In fact, at its inaugural meeting the SCO decided that China may be allowed to intervene militarily in Central Asia to combat terrorist threats at the request of regional governments. The organization’s purpose was strengthened at the SCO’s latest annual meeting on June 7, 2002, in St. Petersburg as the presidents of the organization’s member states legally created an SCO Anti-Terrorism Center.

At the same time, the grouping is of great interest to China, not only to reinforce its hold over Xinjiang, but also to curb the rising influence of the United States in the region, in tandem with Russia if possible. The 2,060-mile border between China and the three Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan is in many places mountainous and difficult to patrol.

Since China’s major concern for the region is to ensure its peace and stability as a means of guaranteeing the security of its own restive western frontier, the Chinese leadership considers the presence of US military bases in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan an attempt by Washington to bolster its own influence in Central Asia at the expense of China, Russia, and Iran. The US presence in Central Asia after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the subsequent war on Afghanistan threaten China’s defense of Xinjiang and challenge Beijing’s nascent but conspicuous political, economic, and strategic roles in neighboring Central Asia.

The SCO and Domestic Stability

China spearheaded the establishment of the SCO largely as part of a security strategy to prevent Uighur separatists from using Central Asian states as a base for separatist activities in Xinjiang. The joint fight by SCO states against terrorism and threats to national sovereignty has won China assurances from Muslim Central Asian states that they will not provide assistance to their religious and ethnic brethren engaged in militant separatist activities in Xinjiang. Indeed, Islam is a salient characteristic of Xinjiang’s eight-million strong Turkic-speaking Uighur ethnic group, which constitutes around 45 percent of the region’s population. Thus, Beijing’s commitment to regional security through the SCO to fight separatism and terrorism is based not only on its fear of violent Islamic rebellion in Central Asia affecting the Uighurs, but also its concern for being branded an anti-Muslim country by Central Asian republics or Middle Eastern states if it suppresses major uprisings in Xinjiang.

This concern is valid, for Central Asia is host to a Uighur diaspora of about 500,000 individuals, with 200,000 of them in Kazakhstan alone. According to a statement released by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) State Council Information Office on January 21, 2002, Uighur separatists were responsible for 200 terrorist incidents in Xinjiang from 1990 to 2001, killing 162 people and injuring more than 440 in their agitation for an independent state of “Eastern Turkestan” or “Uighuristan,” their preferred names for Xinjiang.

These incidents increased in frequency through the 1990s, generating concern in the PRC government about ethnic rioting, assassinations, bombings, and oil production sabotage in Xinjiang. Beijing has been pressing Central Asian governments to cut off Uighur groups like the Nozugum Foundation and the Kazakhstan Regional Uighur Organization that reside among their diaspora communities and may be aiding Uigher separatists in Xinjiang. The Chinese government also believes that several well-known terrorist groups operating in Central Asia, such as the Hizb-ut-Tahrir and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, have recruited and trained Uighur separatists in the past. Under strong pressure from Beijing, the governments of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have shut down Uighur political parties and newspapers operating in their countries—a development seemingly abetted by the SCO.

China hopes the SCO will bolster the territorial integrity, economic revival, and secular character of the authoritarian, impoverished, and ethnically diverse regimes in Central Asia that are struggling to curb rising sentiments of Pan-Turkic nationalism, Islamic extremism, and terrorist activities in the region. A peaceful, stable Central Asia would secure China’s western borders against separatists, preventing manpower, funds, arms, and propaganda materials from crossing into Xinjiang and adding to an already volatile crisis of stability.

Despite the desire of Central Asia’s political leadership to maintain beneficial ties with China and discourage the spread of instability, many people in the region have a place in their hearts for the secessionist struggles of their ethnic and religious kin in Xinjiang. It is perhaps not surprising that, according to a state-wide poll conducted in Kazakhstan by a Russian newspaper in 1998, only 9.4 percent of Kazakhs supported the development of good relations with China. Beijing has also expressed concern over the apparent failure of the authorities in Kyrgyzstan to act effectively against Uighur activists on Kyrgyz territory. In 1998, Uighurs in Kyrgyzstan staged a protest demonstration outside the Chinese embassy in Bishkek. On July 1, 2002, a Chinese diplomat and a businessman were both assassinated in the Kyrgyz capital. According to the Kyrgyz Interior Ministry, the murders were linked to local members of a Uighur separatist movement called the Eastern Turkestan Liberation Front.

China’s Roles in Central Asia

China has been looking at the oil and gas resources of Central Asia to satisfy its energy requirements for rapid economic growth, especially since hydrocarbon development in Xinjiang, touted as the next oil and gas bonanza for China, has so far failed to live up to its promises. China’s oil consumption rose from 2.1 million barrels per day (bpd) in 1990 to about 4.6 million a decade later, with domestic production remaining relatively stagnant. Foreign experts generally predict that China will import three to four million bpd in 2010 and five to eight million bpd in 2020.