[By Guancha Network Columnist Zhang Chengxin]
Since Trump took office, the relationship between the US and Europe has been in a very delicate state of change. Not only have they taken opposite stances on the Ukraine issue, but Trump's indiscriminate "reciprocal tariffs" have also deeply offended allies like Europe.
The repeated breaches of faith by the Trump administration have caused obvious cracks in the transatlantic relationship, prompting the EU to accelerate its search for other close partners, with Central Asia being one of the targets.
In early April, the EU held its first summit with Central Asian countries, upgrading bilateral relations to a strategic partnership while announcing the launch of a "Global Gateway Investment Plan" worth 12 billion euros to support cooperation in new energy, raw materials, and infrastructure. Why is the EU placing such emphasis on Central Asia at this moment?
In fact, the EU's cooperation trend with Central Asia has deepened over the past decade. The EU not only remains one of Central Asia's largest trading partners but is also the largest source of foreign direct investment in the region. Over the past ten years, the EU's direct investment in Central Asia has exceeded 100 billion euros, accounting for more than 40% of the region's total foreign direct investment.
In 2023, the EU maintained its position as Central Asia's second-largest trading partner, just behind China (89.4 billion USD). From the composition of imports and exports, Central Asia mainly imports machinery, transportation equipment, electrical equipment, and chemical products from the EU, with industrial finished goods accounting for more than half. Central Asia's exports to the EU are concentrated in a few primary products such as crude oil, natural gas, metals, and cotton fibers. Their trade structure is highly complementary.
A map showing major countries investing in Central Asia in 2022
Compared to this, Central Asia accounts for only 1% of the EU's total external goods trade (5.52 trillion USD). Moreover, the oil, gas, metals, and cotton fibers that the EU imports from Central Asia are highly substitutable and can be sourced from other countries. Oil and gas are major imports from Central Asia for the EU, especially after Europe imposed sanctions on Russia due to the Ukraine war. The US, Norway, and the Middle East can provide substantial oil and gas supplies to Europe, and Russian oil and gas still maintain a certain share; Central Asia's oil and gas supply is not particularly prominent.
As for outward investment capabilities, Central Asia is even weaker. By 2023, the outward direct investment flows of the five Central Asian countries totaled only 966 million USD, lower than those of small European countries like Croatia, Finland, and Estonia. Moreover, the investment flowing into the EU from Central Asia is negligible. Additionally, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan enjoy preferential treatment to enter the EU market through the Generalized System of Preferences, being exempt from import duties.
Thus, Central Asia is highly dependent on the EU economically, needing its industrial finished goods, technology, capital, talent, and favorable policies to support its economic development, with a strong desire to enhance relations with the EU. However, viewed from the opposite angle, the EU's economic dependence on Central Asia is clearly low. Relying solely on mutual trade and investment dependencies is insufficient to make the EU and Central Asia "mutually attracted."
Then, where does the appeal of Central Asia lie for the EU? That is Central Asia's geostrategic advantage as the "heartland" of the Eurasian continent. This is an important foundation for the EU's construction of the "middle corridor," which the EU desperately needs.
"Middle Corridor"—the key driver of the EU's "look east"
The "middle corridor" plan was first proposed by Turkey in 2015 and is also known as the "Trans-Caspian International Transport Route" (TITR) plan. This "corridor" starts in the EU, passes through Turkey and the South Caucasus, then reaches Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan via ferry across the Caspian Sea, connecting other Central Asian and South Asian countries, and finally reaching China. Central Asia is exactly located in the middle section of the "middle corridor," making it an indispensable transportation hub along the entire "corridor." After the proposal was put forward, many countries and regions along the route responded positively and discussed cooperation matters.
Image source: Trans-Caspian International Transport Corridor Association website
On the eastern side of the "middle corridor," China is the EU's second-largest trading partner and a major source of foreign investment. Moreover, China is a neighbor of ASEAN and Japan. Calculations show that the "middle corridor" is the shortest route from China's Pacific coast to Europe. Transporting goods between China and Europe via the "middle corridor" can save an average of 2,500 kilometers. Shipping from Shanghai to Europe via the "middle corridor" takes only 10 days, compared to 20 days via the northern corridor and 45 to 60 days by sea. From the perspective of economic cooperation facilitation, it is only logical for the EU and Central Asia to jointly build the "middle corridor." For the EU, jointly building the "middle corridor" with Central Asia is about constructing a strategic passage to shorten the transport distance between the EU and the Asia-Pacific region, significantly reducing logistics costs, and strengthening the industrial chain coordination with major partners like China.
While constructing the "middle corridor," the EU is also promoting the alignment of the "Global Gateway Plan" with the "middle corridor" plan. The EU's "Global Gateway Plan" is an infrastructure investment plan worth 300 billion euros. The EU hopes to improve emerging economies' infrastructure while also promoting its own "high standards" infrastructure system.
This system must conform to so-called "democracy," "good governance," and "transparency"—what the EU considers "values." The discussion on the construction of the "middle corridor" during the first EU-Central Asia Summit was conducted under the relevant agenda of the "Global Gateway Plan." Von der Leyen also announced that the "Global Gateway Plan" would invest 12 billion euros to strengthen EU-Central Asian cooperation in areas such as transportation infrastructure, critical raw materials, and digital connectivity.
For the EU, the "middle corridor" is an indispensable platform for implementing the "Global Gateway Plan." And Central Asia, located in the middle of the "middle corridor," has become an active target for the EU.
From a geopolitical perspective, it becomes easier to understand why the EU and Central Asia are drawing closer.
The EU believes that Central Asia's geographical location makes it a "jumping-off point" for the EU to expand its influence toward the Eurasian continent. Increasing influence in Central Asia could enable the EU to better engage in geopolitical games with China and Russia, two major "geopolitical rivals," thereby gaining strategic initiative in Eurasian affairs. The Ukraine crisis that began in 2014 and the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in 2022 have led to a deterioration in Europe's surrounding environment. Facing dual strategic pressures from both directions, to break the deadlock of the U.S.-Russia struggle, safeguard its strategic autonomy and international standing, the EU increasingly values Central Asia's role and has increased its diplomatic engagement with Central Asia. Since 2022, meetings at all levels between the EU and Central Asia have noticeably increased, and regional dialogue mechanisms have continued to improve.
For Central Asia, moving closer to the EU is an inevitable result of its diplomatic policy transformation. Historically, Central Asia has long been under the rule of the Russian Empire and control of the Soviet Union. Due to the limited strength of Central Asian states, over-reliance on any single major power is clearly unwise and can easily lead to passivity and insecurity. Therefore, Central Asian diplomacy has developed in the direction of diversification and balance over the past few decades, seeking to enhance relations with multiple countries including the United States, Europe, Russia, and China to implement a hedging strategy and protect its own interests. This created a diplomatic premise for Central Asia's approach to the EU.
Central Asia's Rational Choice: Building Unified Regional Access Standards and Determining Prior Cooperation Targets
As mentioned earlier, Central Asia is highly dependent on the EU's products, technology, capital, talent, and policies to support its own economic development, while the EU's economy has very limited demand for Central Asia. The EU places more emphasis on Central Asia's geographical advantage, hoping to use Central Asia's location to construct the "middle corridor" for greater geo-economic benefits. With limited overall strength, Central Asia needs to enhance its relationship with the EU in multi-directional diplomacy to ensure its survival and development security. The EU does not rely on Central Asia for its own survival and development security but rather hopes Central Asia will serve as a "stepping stone" to play a role in geopolitical games among major powers. Thus, in its relationship with the EU, Central Asia is in a relatively weak position and shows high sensitivity to changes in EU policies.
Currently, the "middle corridor" has become an important link in EU-Central Asia relations. For Central Asia, given its strategic location at the "crossroads" of Eurasia, it must carefully evaluate various cooperation plans closely related to this location. Then, how should Central Asia strategically layout around the "middle corridor" to maximize its own interests?
First, due to its limited strength and lack of bargaining chips, Central Asia must fully utilize its geographical advantages, establish relatively unified regional access standards for foreign enterprises wanting to invest in and build the "middle corridor" in Central Asia, to enhance its overall bargaining power in international cooperation.
For example, the five Central Asian countries can jointly assess the ecological environment and natural resources in different regions within Central Asia, marking suitable sites for building certain types of infrastructure, unsuitable sites for building others, and areas where investments are prohibited for conservation purposes; they can jointly investigate investment demands in different regions and assess the investment needs of various industries in different locations, forming unified investment guidelines, etc. To achieve this, the five Central Asian countries need to improve their internal coordination mechanisms beforehand to avoid significant interest disputes or even vicious competition.
Second, Central Asia needs to carefully identify and weigh the potential gains and risks of cooperating with different major powers or international organizations, determining priority cooperation targets on the basis of diversified balance, at least achieving some degree of focus.
Under the guidance of diversified balance diplomacy, Central Asia aims to maintain balance with major powers and international organizations such as the United States, China, the EU, and Russia, avoiding reliance on a single external force, which is understandable. However, these major powers and international organizations have significant differences in their cooperative concepts and value orientations, leading to different developmental prospects.
The EU collaborates with Central Asia to build the "middle corridor" primarily to safeguard its own geopolitical and economic interests. Whether it is geopolitically balancing China and Russia or using the "Global Gateway Plan" to counterbalance the influence of China and Russia in terms of geoeconomics, and promoting a "high-standard infrastructure system" in line with "European values," all reflect a zero-sum mindset.
By April 14, 2024, the number of China-Europe (Central Asia) trains passing through the Alashankou Railway Port had exceeded 2,000.
Of course, the EU needs to maintain a certain degree of strategic autonomy among major powers such as the United States, China, and Russia, giving its Central Asia policy a pragmatic character and preventing it from blindly following the United States. Therefore, upgrading relations with the EU will still bring Central Asia more development opportunities, the key lies in how to convert these additional opportunities into actual benefits.
Given that the EU is a highly industrialized and technologically advanced super-economy, during the joint construction of the "middle corridor," Central Asian countries can choose to cooperate more in industries where the EU has clear comparative advantages to maximize cooperative benefits. For example, in intelligent factory production and management, Central Asia can strengthen cooperation with EU industrial software giants such as SAP and Siemens; in cold chain logistics for agricultural products, Central Asia can work more closely with EU cold chain logistics solution providers like Thermo King and Dachser (EU's cold chain logistics technology is at the forefront internationally).
However, considering the EU's cooperative concepts and value orientation, and given Central Asia's relatively weaker position in its relationship with the EU, Central Asia needs to be vigilant against the risk of attached political conditions in relevant cooperative projects and formulate preventive measures, as satisfying certain political conditions comes at the cost of violating market economic rules.
America's trade and investment in Central Asia are clearly less than the EU. Compared to China and the EU, America's overseas infrastructure engineering contracting capability is also significantly lacking, leading to America's Central Asia strategy being more reliant on the output of values and political ideology. The latest American Central Asia strategy document, "U.S. Central Asia Strategy 2019-2025: Promoting Sovereignty and Economic Prosperity," directly points out that maintaining close cooperation with the five Central Asian countries is beneficial for "spreading American values" and "balancing neighboring influences," urging Central Asian countries to "implement reforms" and "strengthen democratic institutions."
Clearly, the United States urgently hopes that the five Central Asian countries transplant so-called "American-style democracy." To spread "American-style democracy," the United States promotes projects such as the "Central Asia Social Innovation" (SICA) and the "Central Asia Youth Leadership Academy" (CAYLA) through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), cultivating so-called "youth social leaders," and even instigating "color revolutions," such as the "Tulip Revolution" in Kyrgyzstan in 2005. However, Kyrgyzstan did not experience an economic golden age after the "revolution"; to this day, it remains one of the poorest countries in Central Asia and the world.
Central Asia must fully recognize the hypocrisy and harm of the United States forcibly exporting "American-style democracy," strengthen its anti-penetration capabilities, and be extremely cautious when reviewing applications for American entity investments. Of course, with USAID being shut down by the current U.S. government, Central Asia's anti-penetration pressure may ease somewhat. However, with the introduction of the latest round of punitive tariff policies by the Trump administration, Central Asia will face greater external pressure in the economic and trade sectors—Kazakhstan was subjected to a 27% specific tariff, while other Central Asian countries were subjected to a 10% baseline tariff, higher than the EU (20%) and Japan (24%). Overall, among these major powers and international organizations, cooperation with the United States may have the lowest value.
China possesses a complete industrial system, which determines the comprehensiveness of Chinese investment business. China also has advanced manufacturing technology and significant economies of scale advantages, capable of providing more quality products and services at lower costs, thus building strong competitiveness for Chinese enterprises. Therefore, China can fully leverage its strengths in various fields of "middle corridor" construction, injecting momentum into the economic development of Central Asia and neighboring countries.
For example, China can undertake the expansion project of the "middle corridor" transportation network. Currently, the "middle corridor" cannot replace the Northern Corridor or other trade routes—the volume of goods transported via the "middle corridor" accounted for less than 10% of that transported via the Northern Corridor in 2022; the insufficiency of traffic lines is a direct cause. China Communications Construction Company (CCCC), China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC), and other transportation construction enterprises possess leading engineering technologies and can complete the construction of highways, railways, bridges, and tunnels to high standards under various complex geological conditions. Through the construction of projects such as the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan Highway, the West Europe-China Western International Highway, the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan Railway, the China-Kazakhstan Railway, and the China-Turkmenistan-Iran Railway, China has accumulated rich experience in performing construction tasks along the Central Asian segment of the "middle corridor."
On November 15, 2024, with the departure of train X8083 (Chongqing-Duisburg) from the Unity Village Station in Chongqing, the cumulative number of China-Europe freight trains reached 100,000, transporting over 11 million standard containers and over 420 billion USD in goods.
The rapid rise of China's new energy industry has created new cooperative opportunities. Due to its long hours of sunlight and strong winds, Central Asia harbors abundant solar and wind energy resources but lacks development capabilities. China not only leads far ahead in photovoltaic capacity and installed wind power capacity but also masters the core manufacturing technologies of photovoltaic and wind power equipment, enabling full exploitation and utilization of these clean energies.
Currently, the photovoltaic power stations in Kapchagay, Almaty Province, Kazakhstan, and Navoi, Uzbekistan, constructed by Chinese investment have already begun operations. On the evening of April 3, Sinomach Energy announced its intention to sign agreements with the Uzbekistan government to invest in the construction of two wind power projects. Furthermore, China can optimize Central Asia's energy structure, promote industrial upgrades in Central Asia, and increase local employment by increasing exports of new energy vehicles and building new energy vehicle factories.
More importantly, China-led international cooperation imposes no political conditions, emphasizing equal consultation, openness, inclusiveness, and win-win outcomes. Compared to the EU and the United States, cooperation with China clearly holds higher value. Therefore, during the process of jointly building the "middle corridor," Central Asia needs to accurately utilize the EU's comparative advantages based on identifying political risks and then fully rely on China's industrial strength and overall advantages.
Currently, the scent of the Sino-European trade war has been temporarily paused. In this complex geopolitical chessboard, Central Asia, as the strategic hub of the "middle corridor," the strategic choices and regional changes of Central Asian countries will profoundly influence the future landscape of the Eurasian continent. We still need to closely observe this. But it can be confirmed that China always adheres to the principle of shared consultation, construction, and benefits, empowering the Eurasian partnership. Perhaps this is the deepest revelation of the Chinese solution to the world: true interconnectivity begins with roads and ends with hearts.
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Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7501128124588065319/
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