Caveat emptor and the BRI in Central Asia… Who should beware?

Working in emerging markets is not for the faint hearted – particularly in Central Asia. The hawkish Western foreign policy wonks, with the backup of a sensationalist media, are worried about the Chinese leviathan using investments from its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to buy influence in these economies. Well, good luck to the Chinese, I say. In the past, these former Soviet republics have shown themselves as very adept at resisting pressures from donor countries or MNCs. It is surely all that practice they had in squeezing funding out of Moscow during Soviet times. I find it condescending in the least to suggest that these republics do not know how to take care of themselves. 

Central Asians have a long history of defending their way of life, and getting their own way, either directly or indirectly. The West, particularly the US, has already been once around the block at least once in the region. After all their hard work and dollars spent wooing new friends to stop any backsliding into communism, the US and its Western allies are worried that China may step in with their more tolerant foreign policy, ‘no strings attached’ finance and not overly engineered/costly construction companies, to eat the West's lunch. 

Certainly, the West can be envious about this ‘flexibility’ on the Chinese side. Yet, China will eventually learn that there is not free lunch or ploff (a Central Asian rice dish) when dealing in a region that has for millennia played one rising power off against another. As was displayed during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when the ‘Great Game’ and the ‘Cold War’ were played across the chessboard of Central Asia, conflicts between the great powers, can be profitable to the pawns. Even outright war can be profitable to ‘winning’ factional leaders, although not always for their country’s citizens, as we have witnessed in Afghanistan. Despite super-human efforts by the US and its allies, we can still see how difficult it is for modernization based on western liberal ideals to take root there. A great tragedy... but not of China's making!

My warning to China when working across Central Asia... Caveat emptor! The US should not be too worried about China wooing Central Asia. Russia isn’t… and it has arguably more at stake in the region. Even the ‘flexible’ Chinese will tire of Central Asian demands that lead them on with sweet promises then wraps them up in bureaucratic red tape for the squeeze. Will a slighted China send punitive expeditions to punish the ‘barbarians’ as was done in imperial times? Or will it mount invasions to claim its pound of flesh from recalcitrant natives as projected by our Western media and Washington hawks?

Even the might of the Manchu emperors was not enough to reach out into the depths of Central Asia to control it successfully. Various Chinese dynasties have had bad experiences when over-reaching their traditional borders. It is hard to imagine China not learning from its own ancient history, or from more recent lessons given to the USSR and the USA, in what not to do in Central and West Asia.  

 Still, the question remains, will China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) be a springboard to help a new generation of Central Asia leaders rise above a reputation for despotism, and offer citizens a future of continued growth and prosperity? Will China’s BRI be seen in fifty years as one of the levers that assisted to bring sustainable development to the region? For all those who are currently criticizing BRI, isn’t it too early to know?