Shanghai-Five and the U.S.

By P. S. Suryanarayana

THE SHANGHAI-Five, a forum led by China and Russia, is beginning to make rapid strides as a sentinel in Central Asia. Its primary purpose at the moment is to try and insulate Central Asia as also Russia and China from the negative influences of Afghanistan's Taliban. But a prime issue is how long will the U.S. refrain from openly opposing a Sino-Russian concert of power in Central Asia?

The Foreign Ministers of the Shanghai-Five have, at the conclusion of their recent meeting in Moscow, gone beyond the forum's conventional concerns. China and post-Soviet Russia have emerged as the prime movers in seeking to protect a wide arc of Eurasian territory from the external effects of terrorism which emanates from Afghanistan. Most dramatically, the new concerns of the Shanghai-Five pertain to the global strategic interests of Russia and China. The smaller constituents of this Eurasian entity, namely Kazakhstan and Tajikistan besides the Kyrgyz Republic, do not obviously share the global interests of either Russia or China. Yet, the Shanghai-Five, which will hold a summit soon, has now expressed itself on the plans of the United States for a missile defence shield. According to the forum, ``a chain reaction of missile and missile technology proliferation'' will result from the current American move to ``undermine'' a relevant U.S.-Soviet treaty of 1972. Even the smaller states of the Shanghai-Five have joined the Sino-Russian chorus in praise of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty's utility as a diplomatic insurance (not technological guarantee) against the current U.S.' move to create a new global strategic architecture.

The Shanghai-Five has underlined the ``significance'' of ``preserving and developing the system of treaties and agreements on control over arms and disarmament''. An established policy promotive of worldwide stability is said to be rooted in the concept of ``reduction'' of ``strategic offensive arms''. Most importantly, the Sino-Russian orchestrated ``conviction'' is that the ``world community'' possesses the ``ability'' to adopt ``political-diplomatic measures'' to ``counter the danger of missile and missile technology proliferation''. Outwardly, Washington need not worry about these formulations, which amount to a polemical criticism and not a detailed critique of the latest U.S.' move to build missile defences with or without the support of its friends and allies. It is a different matter how far the changing political dynamics on Capitol Hill might impinge on the U.S.' move itself. Yet, if some Central Asian countries with little or no global profile have chosen to join Russia and China in opposing the U.S. in this manner, the reason is not far to seek.

The U.S. has not so far brought the Central Asian states under its commanding influence. This is somewhat surprising because the U.S. had by about the mid-1990s appeared poised to fill the power vacuum created in Central Asia by the disintegration of the Soviet Union. In contrast, as the diplomatic rationale of the Shanghai-Five will indicate, China and Russia have for the present managed to keep the U.S. somewhat on the strategic sidelines of Central Asia. Will the U.S. consider the latest pronouncements of the Shanghai-Five a wake-up call?

For the U.S., which is being increasingly viewed even by some European states as a virtual or potential ``hyper-power'', the quest for a new global strategic order is not entirely defined in a Sino-Russian idiom. China and Russia tend to see Washington's latest move as being symptomatic of a desire to perpetuate the dominance of the U.S. as the sole superpower. Washington, however, tends to characterise a unipolar world as nothing more than a dispensation in which the U.S. leads as the pre-eminent power. The idea simply is that the U.S. expects its supremacy to be openly acknowledged by its ``friends and allies'' and tacitly endorsed by those inclined to oppose it.

For Russia and China, though, a multipolar political order is desirable, so that they too can share power with the U.S. in determining how the world should be governed. Beijing and Moscow have, as two nuclear powers, been able to use the Shanghai-Five to affirm multipolarity as a creed. The Chinese President, Mr. Jiang Zemin, has firmly given up his original, even if tentative, visions of creating a tripolar world. As China-watchers like Willy Wo-lap Lam point out, Mr. Jiang had around 1997 envisioned a futurist tripolar world consisting of the U.S.-led Americas, Europe and an Asia led by a resurgent China. If China has now given up the dream of a tripolar world, the reason has much to do with the U.S.' move to become the first invulnerable power.

Two reasons account for the relative failure of the U.S. so far to position itself as a key strategic player in Central Asia, more precisely between Russia and China, in a bid to make them feel an American ``presence'' at their very doorsteps. First, as keen Asian diplomats point out, the U.S. has remained somewhat slow to have anticipated Russia's bid to re-establish firm strategic control over the Central Asian states. They were in any case constituents of the former Soviet Union. Surely, the new Russia, under its first leader (a U.S.-friendly Mr. Boris Yeltsin), chose to play second fiddle to Washington in Central Asia. That would account for a certain initial leisureliness on the part of the U.S. in seeking to spread its strategic wings across an uncharted Central Asia. However, Mr. Yeltsin's successor, Mr. Vladmir Putin, has acted quite quickly to retrieve Central Asia as Russia's forward base.

The second factor, of course, is the present Bush administration's recognition of China, rather than Russia, as a potential epicentre of anti-America sentiments in the future. A policy quest by the previous U.S. President, Mr. Bill Clinton, to engage China was, of course, preceded by his move for a firmer strategic clasping of an ally like Japan. So, the U.S.-China engagement until last year was balanced by America's practice of placing a premium on its forward presence in East Asia. Not surprisingly then, Beijing saw itself as being constrained by the U.S. despite the hoopla over engagement. China's sense of constrainment accounts for its initiative on the Shanghai-Five.

Alarming to China and Russia is the latest comment by the U.S. President, Mr. George W. Bush, that he wants to seek peace by redefining war on America's terms. While this doctrine of confrontation (as seen from Beijing) applies to the Asia-Pacific theatre, China and Russia will like to assess the U.S.' will in regard to Central Asia in particular. China and Russia have already positioned themselves as the warriors against Islamic fundamentalism that could spew out of Afghanistan. For the U.S., which does not discount Central Asia as a reservoir of conventional energy sources, the importance of this theatre is heightened by the Taliban challenge. Washington is keen that the Taliban hand over Osama bin Laden. Mr. Bush may want to lead a war against international terror, too, on America's own terms. Yet, the Shanghai-Five' consensus on a strict implementation of the U.N. arms embargo and other sanctions against the Taliban can only suit the U.S. too. The question, therefore, is whether the Taliban challenge - political terror and narco-terror - can bring the U.S. closer to the Shanghai-Five. Elsewhere, India and several others are keen on engaging or associating themselves with this forum. However, much will depend on how far the Shanghai-Five will seek to coordinate the military strategies of its constituents in containing Islamic fundamentalism. Russia is forming an unrelated rapid-reaction force for this purpose in conjunction with some of its Soviet-vintage fellow-republics.

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