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Crisis of Regional Cooperation in Central Asia: Who Is to Blame and What to Do? View from Uzbekistan

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Crisis of Regional Cooperation in Central Asia: Who Is to Blame and What to Do? View from Uzbekistan Crisis of regional cooperation in Central Asia: who is to blame and what to do? View from Uzbekistan Farkhod Tolipov, a political analyst from Tashkent, Uzbekistan, in an article written for CABAR, discusses the subjective and objective factors of the crisis of regional cooperation in Central Asia, the role of Tashkent and Astana in this process and the need to return to the Central Asian Cooperation Organization (CACO) as an intra-regional platform. Follow us on LinkedIn! Introduction The crisis of regional cooperation in Central Asia today is widely discussed in both political and expert communities. Since the collapse of the former Soviet state, the research and the political thought of the region has evolved in a complex post-Soviet context. It seems that in this evolution process, there is a popular trend of consolidating the stereotype that this is not a region as such and that the integration processes in the relationship between the five countries – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan – are supposedly a myth, and it is time to get rid of it. This macro-stereotype was “consistently” reinforced by micro-stereotypes, ranging from regular statements about the alleged rivalry between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan for leadership in the region and to an indication that the five states in the region have created five different political and economic systems that are not compatible with each other. This postmodern criticism against regionalism and the associated method of constructivism in the analysis of relations between the Central Asian countries have launched a whole discourse about the events in this region in such a way that the study of Central Asia has significantly diverted from the factual existence into the realm of narratives. This school of thought was neither able to predict the crisis of regionalism in Central Asia, to convincingly explain why this is happening, nor to offer a solution to the problems. To remedy the research tools and give a better quality to our research on Central Asia, I Crisis of regional cooperation in Central Asia: who is to blame and what to do? View from Uzbekistan think, it would be appropriate to revise some of the dogmas and to embark on the search for solutions (we can say “innovative solutions”) of the problems, in the stating of which we have succeeded. Role of Tashkent and Astana Undoubtedly, the fate of regional cooperation and integration is critically dependent on two key states in the region – Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. These countries are the largest, most advanced economically and militarily and the most stable in terms of the governance in Central Asia. Kazakh and Uzbek people are two very closely related nations. In the long history, the Kazakh tribes that broke away from the Uzbek tribes called themselves “Kazakh-Uzbek”. Their historical fate and future are inseparable from each other, as well as, in fact, the history and fate of all Central Asian nations. However, the hidden struggle for leadership in the region is mainly attributed to these two states of Central Asia and to their leaders. Various political and expert circles write and speak so much about this notorious rivalry that those countries themselves almost believe in it. The signs of rivalry, outwardly seeming obvious, in reality have not been materialized into any political assets and one-sided advantages of any country in the region. Moreover, those who speak about the rivalry do not bring any examples of demonstration of this rivalry, thus spreading a new myth about the region. The leadership of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan did not take place in an institutional sense, because these two countries sought to the notorious leadership for the sake of their own national, not regional interests. Pseudo-leadership of Kazakhstan has been distorted by its, so to speak, eclectic multi-vector foreign policy and its desire to look like a leader not only in Central Asia but also in Eurasia, Europe and Asia. Pseudo-leadership of Uzbekistan has stalled because of its selfish isolationism in the region and ideologically biased belief in the self-evidence of its leadership. As a result, sacrificing the regional integration in 2005, Astana and Tashkent, in fact, sacrificed their regional leadership. Both ambitious states had apparently designed their foreign policies to achieve international benefits, however, they were slowly losing regional advantages. Surprisingly, they did not notice that by weakening regional ties, they simultaneously weakened their international prestige. Tashkent and Astana have obviously underestimated their historical, geopolitical, cultural and economic interdependence. Kazakhstan dissolves the idea of ​​Central Asia in a wider concept of Eurasia, while Uzbekistan has a policy of “laisser-fair” in the region. This situation had its impact even on the state of regional security, in the sense that there was a decrease in the level of coordination of policies in the region on regional security issues, especially between its two key states. For example, Kazakhstan’s membership (along with Kyrgyzstan’s and Tajikistan’s) in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and Uzbekistan’s withdrawal from this organization – is just one of several examples of different Crisis of regional cooperation in Central Asia: who is to blame and what to do? View from Uzbekistan visions and different solutions of regional security issues. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have different visions even in the issue of the construction of hydropower facilities in the region, despite the closeness of their interests in this area. For example, Kazakhstan has expressed a desire to invest in such projects and act as an intermediary between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan in their dispute on Rogun. Thus, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan are two failed leaders in Central Asia. Many see the reasons for this in the problem of self-identification of peoples and nations: the mutual distancing of these countries, slowing down the integration process in the region, is a result of their different self-identification – Eurasian self-identity has prevailed in Kazakhstan, and nation-centric identity prevailed in Uzbekistan. However, less attention is paid to the fact that the leadership and the elites of the Central Asian countries are the status quo actors, and the people are anti-status quo actors. In other words, there are actors in each of these countries, who are interested in the current state of affairs that, among other things, is taking place in the context of the geopolitical transformation of the entire region. The following hypotheses can be put forward for a more in-depth analysis of this question: – A country with an only emerging identity (if the question of identity matters) cannot serve as a regional leader; – Too much personalized and undemocratic state is unlikely to earn the image of a leader; – It’s hard to be a leader among weak and small states, heavily exposed to geopolitical factors (although Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are also exposed to geopolitical factors). A true leader should not demonstrate its appeal simply as a prosperous country; a true leader must act accordingly at the strategic and normative level, which the leaders of Astana and Tashkent are not doing.[1]Tolipov, F. “Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan: Two Failed Leaders of Central Asia”, inHimalayan and Central Asian Studies, Vol.16, No.3-4, July- December 2012, pp.172-182. Subjective and objective factors of the crisis of regional cooperation in Central Asia National-regional dualism Many analysts, explaining the reasons for the disintegration of the Central Asian countries, put forward a number of arguments of rather ascertaining nature than explanatory. They speak about the supposedly separating factors, such as the location of some countries in the upper reaches of the transboundary rivers of Amudarya and Syrdarya, and of other countries – in the lower reaches; the nomadic and settled cultures; Turkic-speaking and Persian-speaking nations and so on. The Analytical Group «Almaty-Club», a member of which the author of these lines is, has collected these “separating” factors into a single list of so-called dualisms and analyzed them in terms of the integration paradigm. The dualisms are as follows: · “Geographical” dualism; Crisis of regional cooperation in Central Asia: who is to blame and what to do? View from Uzbekistan · “Upstream and downstream” dualism; · “Settled-nomadic” dualism; · “Turkish-Iranian” dualism; · Dualism of “Soviet-post-Soviet”; · Dualism of “Tashkent-Astana”; · Dualism of “democracy-autocracy”. The Analytical Group has concluded that “this dualistic picture of the historical, socio- cultural, geographical and ethnic life of the peoples of Central Asia causes the dualistic concept of description and explanation of events and developments in this region. In other words, national and regional realities, integration and disintegration processes, holistic and fragmented representations should be considered not in a linear plane, but in a complex dialectical unity”[2]Five States and /or one region? National-regional dualism in Central Asia. – Almaty: Friedrich Ebert Foundation. – 2015. Political reality and political will Speaking about the crisis of regional cooperation in Central Asia, it should be noted that the main reason for this crisis were not so much the objective characteristics of the mentioned above dualities, but more the subjective processes of decision-making, concluded in the elitist framework of the national interests doctrines. Elitist state building and its corresponding ideological and doctrinal support have eventually led to the crisis of the regional dialogue. In other words, the leadership and the elites of the countries in the region do not seek for active joint solutions to regional problems, giving priority to the interests of their political regimes; at the same time, the interests of the peoples and the objective factors of regionalism were least expressed in this process. Some people believe that the leaders of the Central Asian states have lost trust in each other and therefore do not wish to solve problems, turning them into so-called deferred or frozen conflicts.
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