The PLA at Home and Abroad - Strategic Studies Institute - U.S. Army

even though it is a member together with Tajikistan,
Kazakhstan, Belarus, and Armenia in the Russiandominated
Collective Security Treaty Organization.
Views in Tashkent were not only that a second Russian
base was unnecessary, but the new base would
be justification for closer U.S.-Uzbek cooperation. 50
Given that Uzbekistan had ejected the United States
from the Karshi-Kanabad air base in 2005, opposition
to a new Russian base in the region and suggestions
of greater cooperation with the United States imply
as much concern with a dominant Russian presence
as American influence. Furthermore, all five Central
Asia States are members of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization’s (NATO) Partnership for Peace (PfP),
with NATO providing security assistance to all of
them, including the four SCO members.
China’s security interests in Central Asia and the
SCO’s role in these interests seem clear enough, although
Beijing’s particular priorities within these interests
are not so clear. 51 Beijing has made it evident
that Russia cannot treat China as a junior partner in
this arrangement. Moreover, the SCO provides Beijing
an instrument by which China and Russia can
coexist in Central Asia. Beijing has also demonstrated
that it can form an international security mechanism
not based on Western principles. China’s perhaps
overriding security interest served by the SCO is in
preventing transnational terrorism taking root in the
region and infecting Xinjiang, where Beijing faces serious
potential unrest from Uighur separatists. Beyond
the security interests, China’s economic penetration
into Central Asia through trade, investments, and
especially its growing need for energy grants Beijing
influence Moscow cannot match. In this sense, China
now has a significant role in Russia’s “near abroad.”
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