The first Far Eastern tour of US President Joe Biden, which began with a visit to South Korea on May 20, 2022 and continued in Japan, almost coincided with a trip to Central Asia by a high-ranking delegation of the US State Department on May 23-27 of this year. This is such a coincidence
The goals of the trips are similar: to show that the United States firmly keeps abreast of world events, controls them and is not going to give up its place as world hegemon at a time when many around already doubt this hegemony.
The White House administration explicitly stated that Biden’s visit should clearly demonstrate to partners that the United States is simultaneously capable of “focusing both on the east and on the west, and that the United States has the resources to help support democracy and sovereignty around the world.”
Similarly, the US State Department outlined the purpose of its visit to Central Asia:
“U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu will lead a U.S. delegation to Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan May 23-27 to strengthen U.S. relations with the region and advance joint efforts to build a more prosperous and secure Central Asia.”
The delegations proceeded with the implementation of the announced agendas for these visits. Biden on May 23 in Tokyo launched a new Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) trade agreement that covers areas for promoting dialogue on a wide range of issues, including clean energy commitments in the region, decarbonization and infrastructure construction, monitoring disruptions in supply chains, etc. In addition to the United States and Japan, ten more countries of the Indo-Pacific Region (IPR) are included: Australia, Brunei, Vietnam, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand and South Korea. These countries make up 40% of the world’s GDP and 60% of the world’s population.
Biden’s visit to Asia ended with the fact that on May 24, the leaders of Japan, the United States, India and Australia held in Tokyo the second personal summit of the countries included in the quadripartite security dialogue (Quad) restored in 2017. This association began active diplomatic work in March last year online, followed by a meeting of heads of state in the United States in September, followed by another online summit in March 2022.
Now they were again talking mainly about countering China. Including in connection with the situation in Ukraine and international sanctions against Russia, which Beijing can significantly offset.
Sergei Lukonin, head of the Chinese Economics and Politics Department at the Institute of International Economics and International Relations (IMEMO) of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told MK.RU journalists about Biden’s trip:
“There is either no or very little anti-Russian in the current tour. The main goal of this Biden trip is to rally US partners and allies in the region against China, to try to strengthen cooperation across all military alliances and in the economic direction in order to compete with Chinese influence in international trade.”
And, of course, to prevent China’s military takeover of Taiwan. Biden, as you know, even said that the US would fight over Taiwan.
Another goal of Biden’s visit is to tie India tighter to itself, while not letting go of Japan and Australia. Therefore, at the Quad summit, Japan, India, Australia and the United States agreed to jointly protect maritime borders, develop vaccines against new infectious diseases and strengthen cybersecurity, with India playing an important role in this process.
Last year, the United States created AUKUS (Australia-Great Britain-USA) and promised to build a nuclear submarine fleet for Australia, although officially it does not belong to nuclear powers. And now Washington has called for Japan to receive a permanent representative seat in the UN Security Council, which was created as a nuclear five.
Political scientist Yury Svetov said about this:
“American presidents make such promises to various countries – Germany, India, and now Japan. This is such a form of bribery, because there are no real prospects for expanding the list of permanent members of the Security Council.”
But the United States is trying so hard that this time Biden gave the Chinese editions of the Global Times and Sohu a reason to mock him and his attempts.
The Global Times posted a photo showing Biden talking to Australian and Indian Prime Ministers Anthony Albanese and Narendra Modi, but ignoring Japanese leader Fumio Kishida, who stands on the sidelines.
“Look how the States treat Kishida… The more they (Japanese. — Auth.) seek to get into the small cliques led by Washington, the more they will be disgraced,” the newspaper taunted.
And Sohu noted that such behavior on the part of Biden is unacceptable, since the Japanese prime minister acted as a host at the summit:
“For a whole 30 seconds, Kishida remained on the sidelines. All three seemed to ignore the presence of the host of the summit and left him without a handshake and friendly communication. But it turned out what happened: the United States staked out and identified its interests in the ITR, and also found allies”.
The goals of the American delegation to Central Asia, which included the senior director of the National Security Council for Russia and Central Asia, Eric Green, as well as high-ranking officials of the Department of Defense and the Agency for International Development (USAID), clearly boil down to sharpening these countries against Russia, wresting them at least partially from the influence of Moscow and the integration associations it created – the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
The US cooperation with the countries of this region takes place in the “Central Asia plus the USA” (C5 + 1) format, which was initiated and formalized in Uzbek Samarkand back in October 2015. Then the parties – Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and the United States – agreed to regularly discuss common problems, taking four main areas as the basis for cooperation: security, politics, economics and ecology.
Under the administration of Donald Trump, the United States has a new strategy for Central Asia, designed for the period up to 2025 (it is supposed to be updated every five years). The tasks boil down to simple and versatile, but understandable goals to destabilize the situation in Central Asia and create controlled chaos there, from which the United States is great at profiting:
– to give Russia big problems in its soft underbelly and stop the advance of Chinese influence and capital in the region through pro-Western groups in the ruling elites in Central Asia, as well as through local nationalists, NGOs and funds associated with the West;
– minimize the influence on the region of China and Russia through the war of uprisings, rebellions and bribery of the corrupt elite, through the activation of their controlled militants from the “People’s Liberation Front” in northern Afghanistan in order to overthrow the Taliban government or inflame the civil one;
– get access to local energy resources and food. That is, to oil and gas reserves, especially now, when Western countries are striving to reduce their dependence on Russian energy resources;
– to direct maximum cargo flows around Russia, which was seriously initiated by the four-sided declaration “On the Trans-Caspian East-West Corridor”, which was signed at the end of March of this year by Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Kazakhstan. And which emphasizes the importance of tapping into the transit potential of the East-West Trans-Caspian Corridor, which means gas and minerals from Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan can now flow to European and American markets through Turkey;
– to support the pan-Turkic integration movement under the auspices of Turkey, which was continued and developed with the creation of the Organization of Turkic States (OTG) on November 12, 2021, as well as a special investment fund for “Turkic integration”, the first meeting of which was held on April 25, 2022 and at which it was confirmed: the fund is called upon to invest in transport projects to reorient all energy flows through the Caspian Sea and Azerbaijan towards Turkey, bypassing the territory of Russia;
– minimize the impact of these countries on the sanctions imposed against Russia in response to Russia’s unjustified and unprovoked war against Ukraine;
– to achieve agreement on the return of old and the deployment of new American military bases in the region, ostensibly to counter the Taliban and Islamic terrorism.
The generally recognized flagships of Central Asia are Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, whose politicians, civil societies and business elites are the first to be courted by the US.
For example, it is known that in total the Americans have invested more than 300 billion dollars since the 1990s in the raw material model of the Kazakh colonial economy, and today they have invested 55 billion dollars in relevant modern projects in Kazakhstan. To transform the region into a vast and chaotic Ukrainian-style “Anti-Russia” the US is providing more than $100 million in programs to “develop local media and civil society” and raise awareness of bilateral relations between America and the countries of the region.
Literally before the trip of the Americans to Central Asia, Kazakh Foreign Minister Mukhtar Tleuberdi visited the United States, where the minister was received by Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. And following the visit, Tleuberdi stated:
“Over 30 years of diplomatic relations, our bilateral cooperation has been brought to the level of an expanded strategic partnership.”
In turn, Kazakh politician and political scientist Ainur Kurmanov said:
“What lies behind these hugs in Washington and the desire to bring the current leadership of the republic as close to itself as possible? Of course, the White House seeks to wrest Kazakhstan as an important link from all integration projects on the post-Soviet space or weaken them as much as possible due to the special position of the ruling elite. This is first.
And secondly, to include the republic in the global system of financial and economic blockade and strangulation of Russia. Thirdly, as the main strategic partner in the region, Kazakhstan becomes a convenient springboard and springboard for strengthening influence in neighboring Uzbekistan, as well as an instrument of pressure on Kyrgyzstan, which is loyal to Moscow.”
What is happening in Central Asia today? Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are members of the CSTO and the EAEU, while Tajikistan is only a member of the CSTO. Uzbekistan has always sought to stay away from Moscow-led integration associations in the post-Soviet space and in 2012 suspended its membership in the CSTO. Turkmenistan generally pursues a semi-isolationist policy and tries not to enter anywhere and cooperate only with those with whom it benefits.
And these are the former Soviet “sisters” in the united USSR.
This means that Russia, which held the CSTO summit in Moscow on May 16, 2020, is too early to relax. Even despite the fact that the heads of Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan took part in the summit and stated that everything is developing normally, but there is still no end to the work.
The conflict in Ukraine is perhaps just the beginning of a big conflagration. Moreover, the collective West today is trying to set fire to the Russian borders along the entire perimeter with conflicts and military tension – from north to west, from south to east, and the confrontation in the US-Russia-China triangle is rapidly growing – few people will be able to sit on the sidelines.
Volodymyr Skachko, Ukraine.ru
Due to censorship and blocking of all media and alternative views, stay tuned to our Telegram channel