Why can’t Central Asians unite?

It has been said for years that close integration could boost the Central Asian nations’ economies and strengthen their sovereignty.

Three decades on since independence, there is still no sign of a Greater Central Asia.  

Azeri political observer Fikret Shabanov says the reasons are Russia’s continued patronising influence, China’s economic expansion, and the national elite’s greed and lack of political will.

Speaking of Kazakhstan, in an interview with independent journalist Zhanna Bota on her YouTube channel on 20 October, Shabanov said Russia still had too many levers it could use to pressure Kazakhstan.

One is Kazakhstan’s being a member of the Collective Security Treaty and the Eurasian Economic Union.

“It restricts your freedom to make strategic geopolitical choices, you have to consider the interests of your allies,” Shabanov said. “Your own interests come last.”

Another big ‘weapon’ in Russia’s hands is its control of the main transport routes for Kazakh oil exports.

“It is Kazakhstan’s strategic mistake – the failure to diversify routes for shipping its mineral resources,” he said.

Shabanov said that with both Russia and China being, each in their own way, in conflict with the West, Kazakhstan, having close ties with both, could not avoid certain collateral damage.

“You inevitably get pulled into Russia’s and China’s problems,” he said.

The Western sanctions or trade restrictions complicate trade with Russia and China, and create a risk of being targeted by secondary sanctions – “you are forced to help Russia avoid sanctions because you are in a military and economic alliance with it”.

Shabanov noted that the West too has its strategic interests in Central Asia. Kazakhstan has vast mineral resources and is an important transport corridor for Europe’s trade with China. So, Europe and the US will also stay ‘in the game’.

Uzbekistan, unlike Kazakhstan, is not tied by military and economic alliances with Russia, and is less restricted in terms of geopolitical manoeuvring, Shabanov continued.

He did not mention that Uzbekistan’s previous leader, Islam Karimov, who died in 2016, had opposed regional integration. In fact, he closed borders, and introduced trade and transport restrictions with some neighbours.

Shabanov added that regional integration was also hindered by the ambitions and greed of the nations’ respective power clans and oligarchs, “who really should be called thieves”.

Still, provided there is a political will, the Central Asian nations could start moving towards a Greater Central Asia by taking “simple steps”, like removing customs barriers, modernising the regional transport infrastructure, and increasing trade with one another.

He added that the Kazakhs’ “number one task is to unite for the sake of preserving their country”.

«I can see that Russia constantly threatens Kazakhstan. I can see that the [Kazakh] elite has a desire to have more autonomy from Moscow and to shape an independent foreign policy,” he said.

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