Francis Fukuyama recently argued that President Xi Jinping\u2019s \u2018One Belt, One Road\u2019 (OBOR) strategy \u2018represents a striking departure in Chinese policy\u2019 whereby Beijing is \u2018seeking to export its development model to other countries.\u2019<\/p>\n
Written by Michael Clarke
March 15, 2016<\/p>\n
Francis Fukuyama<\/a> recently argued that President Xi Jinping\u2019s \u2018One Belt, One Road\u2019 (OBOR) strategy \u2018represents a striking departure in Chinese policy\u2019 whereby Beijing is \u2018seeking to export its development model to other countries.\u2019 The OBOR\u2019s emphasis on \u2018on massive state-led investments in infrastructure\u2019 to facilitate trans-Eurasian economic interconnectivity, he notes, contrasts with the largely neo-liberal development model espoused in the West (and by international institution such as the World Bank and the IMF). ForFukuyama<\/a>, the OBOR, if successful, will determine \u2018the future of global politics\u2019 by transforming \u2018the whole of Eurasia from Indonesia to Poland\u2019 and generating \u2018immense prestige\u2019 for China\u2019s form of authoritarianism.<\/p>\n Fukuyama<\/a> briefly notes that \u2018there are important reasons to question whether One Belt, One Road will succeed\u2019. Most notably, while China\u2019s infrastructure-led development model has succeeded domestically as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) \u2018could control the political environment\u2019, Beijing will not have this luxury across broad swathes of Eurasia \u2018where instability, conflict and corruption will interfere with Chinese plans.\u2019<\/p>\n What is striking about Fukuyama\u2019s analysis is his failure to acknowledge the fundamentally problematic nature of Beijing\u2019s infrastructure-led development model within China itself. In particular, the practice of the model in Xinjiang and its implications for the non-Han Chinese ethnic groups that inhabit it should give pause for thought. Xinjiang, as Owen Lattimore<\/a> famously argued in 1947, historically constituted (along with Tibet and Mongolia) the \u2018marginal Inner Asian zone\u2019 of Chinese expansion). The region\u2019s geopolitical liminality between the civilizational zones of East, South and Central Asia combined with the ethno-cultural dominance of Turkic and Mongol peoples to ensure only intermittent periods<\/a> of Chinese control.<\/p>\n With the region\u2019s \u201cpeaceful liberation\u201d by the PLA in 1949, however, Beijing sought to negate such qualities that had oriented the region away from China-based states through encouragement of Han settlement and extension of the institutions of state power and control (e.g. the bingtuan<\/em><\/a>) into the region. After the return of Deng Xiaoping and the launch of \u2018reform and opening\u2019 Beijing fundamentally transformed its approach to managing Xinjiang\u2019s liminal qualities. From the 1980s onward, the approach has been defined<\/a> by an attempt to turn Xinjiang\u2019s geopolitical position to China\u2019s advantage through instituting a \u201cdouble opening\u201d strategy to simultaneously integrate the region with China proper in economic terms and to establish security and cooperation with China\u2019s Central Asian neighbours.<\/p>\n The core assumption has been that the delivery of economic development and modernization will ultimately \u201cbuy\u201d the loyalty of such ethnic groups as the Uyghur \u2013 a strategy that was intensified with the institution of the Great Western Development campaign (GWD)<\/a> in 2000. Under the GWD the region was envisaged<\/a> as becoming an industrial and agricultural base for the national economy and a trade and energy corridor linking China to the energy and resource states of Central Asia and the Middle East.<\/p>\n This has been amplified with the OBOR. Indeed, the State Council\u2019s National Reform and Development Commission\u2019s (NDRC) March 2015 policy document<\/a> on building the \u2018belt and road\u2019 explicitly identifies Xinjiang\u2019s \u2018geographic advantages and its role as a window of westward opening-up\u2019 as key to the success of the OBOR.<\/p>\n While this approach has delivered economic development to Xinjiang it has not alleviated the underlying causes of Uyghur (and other ethnic minority) disaffection with rule from Beijing. Using state-led development to pacify restless frontier regions is not only not unique to China but has also proven to be ineffective in either quelling dissent or assimilating minority groups. Frequently it has had the reverse result of aggravating already discontented populations and such negative results are predictable when the development efforts do not take into consideration local people\u2019s attachment<\/a> to their historical homelands, to their cultural traditions (including religion), and to their language.<\/p>\n In Xinjiang it has been a long standing grievance of Uyghurs that their cultural traditions and language have not been adequately protected. This has only been compounded over the past three decades by a perception<\/a> of widening inter-ethnic socio-economic inequality between Uyghurs and the Han Chinese majority and the often harsh repression of Uyghur religious practice.<\/p>\n A further disjuncture between the theory and reality behind the OBOR is to be found through an examination of the \u2018new Silk Road\u2019 narrative<\/a> itself. The narrative that Beijing has constructed around initiatives such as the OBOR purposefully envisage these new \u2018Silk Roads\u2019 as establishing \u2018a regulated, structural interconnectivity between Eurasian states\u2019 with China at the centre due to \u2018its location, economic clout, insatiable thirst for energy, and increasing geopolitical leverage.\u2019<\/p>\n Yet, the core challenge for Beijing is that such transnational connectivity, while holding the potential to enhance China\u2019s influence across its Eurasian frontiers, is also likely to create opportunities for the transmission of unregulated currents antithetical to its core goal of integrating Xinjiang. Moreover, the manner in which Beijing may choose to respond to such challenges may result in unforeseen consequences for its foreign policy.<\/p>\n Two issues loom particularly large here: Uyghur terrorism and its connections to radical Islamism in Central and South Asia and the Middle East.<\/p>\n Chinese authorities have long claimed that Uyghur separatism and opposition has been inspired and supported from external sources with, for instance, Beijing directing such charges during the Cold War at the largely secular Uyghur nationalist exiles<\/a> based in Turkey and the Soviet Central Asian republics. The 9\/11 attacks and the US-led \u2018War on Terror\u2019 however fundamentally changed this narrative<\/a> with Beijing inevitably linking violence or unrest in Xinjiang to regional and transnational terrorist organizations based in Afghanistan, such as Al Qaeda.<\/p>\n In Afghanistan, it has been clear since the early 2000s that a small number of Uyghurs have been aligned with the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) along the Af-Pak frontier. Beijing has generally sought to utilise<\/a> its close relationship with Pakistan and a pragmatic approach to the Taliban (including encouraging a political settlement between Kabul and the group) to prevent the potential spill-over of Islamic radicalism into Xinjiang.<\/p>\n With the rise of Islamic State (IS) and the crises in Syria and Iraq since 2012, China has claimed<\/a> that hundreds of Uyghurs have travelled to Syria, often via people smuggling networks via South East Asia and Turkey, to fight with various anti-Assad groups. More recently it has been reported<\/a> that the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP), a group China has blamed in the recent past for attacks in Xinjiang, has a battlefield presence in Syria and is aligned with Al Qaeda affiliate, Jabhat al Nusra.<\/p>\n China has seized on<\/a> such linkages as proof not only that Uyghur terrorism is \u201cspiritually supported and commanded by foreign terrorist organizations,\u201d but also to firmly embed counter-terrorism as a pre-eminent national security priority. Indeed, China\u2019s concerns about terrorism in Xinjiang and Uyghur links to conflicts in Syria and Afghanistan played a major role in the creation of China\u2019s first counter-terrorism legislation on 27 December 2015.<\/p>\n The law provides legal basis for the country\u2019s various counter-terrorism organs, including in the People\u2019s Liberation Army (PLA) and People\u2019s Armed Police (PAP), to identify and suppress individuals or groups deemed to be \u201cterrorists\u201d and requires internet providers and technology companies to provide technical assistance and information, including encryption keys, during counter-terror operations. The law<\/a> also includes a provision by which the PLA or PAP may seek approval from the Central Military Commission (CMC) to engage in counter-terrorism operations abroad.<\/p>\n Under President Xi two of the CCP\u2019s core interests \u2013 the security of the one-party state and \u201cstability\u201d in Xinjiang \u2013 have increasingly intersected. The former has received enormous attention through nation-wide wenwei<\/em> or \u201cstability maintenance\u201d campaigns, while the latter has been addressed through renewed yan da<\/em> or \u201cStrike Hard<\/a>\u201d campaigns against manifestations of the \u201cthree evils\u201d of \u201cseparatism, extremism and terrorism\u201d amongst the Xinjiang\u2019s Uyghur population.<\/p>\n Significantly, some of the key elements of China\u2019s national counter-terrorism strategy, as embodied in the new legislation with its emphasis on a nation-wide, inter-government coordination of counter-terrorism operations and expanded electronic surveillance, (ncluding monitoring of cell phones and internet \u201cfirewalls\u201d), have been implemented<\/a> in Xinjiang for some time.<\/p>\n A major problem for Beijing however is that many of the counter-terrorism policies<\/a> it has implemented in Xinjiang, and which now appear to be the blueprint for a nation-wide counter-terrorism strategy, have been counter-productive and played a role in stimulating instability in the region. The law\u2019s provision for the PLA or PAP to conduct counter-terrorism operations abroad also holds the potential to embroil Beijing in a range of hotspots around the globe (many of which lay within regions lying astride the OBOR) and tarnish its much-touted principle of \u201cnon-intervention\u201d.<\/p>\n The problematic nature of the OBOR, then, lies not only in Beijing\u2019s efforts to construct an alternative vision of world order (as alluded to by Fukuyama) but how that dynamic intersects with ongoing challenges to the party-state in such liminal frontier zones as Xinjiang.<\/p>\n Dr Michael Clarke\u2019s research focus is on the history and politics of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, People\u2019s Republic of China (PRC), Chinese foreign policy in Central Asia, Central Asian geopolitics, and nuclear proliferation and non-proliferation. For the past two years he has also provided advice and testimony to the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission on Chinese policy in Xinjiang and China\u2019s foreign policy in Central Asia and Afghanistan. Image Credit: CC<\/a> by Martha de Jong-Lantink<\/a>\/Flickr.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Francis Fukuyama recently argued that President Xi Jinping\u2019s \u2018One Belt, One Road\u2019 (OBOR) strategy \u2018represents a striking departure in Chinese policy\u2019 whereby Beijing is \u2018seeking to export its development model to other countries.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2534,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-2535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2535"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=2535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}