View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by OTHES MASTERARBEIT Titel der Masterarbeit China-Russia Relations in Central Asia Energy Policy and Security-Thinking in 21st Century Geopolitics Verfasser Mag. iur. Thomas Stephan Eder, Bakk. phil. Angestrebter akademischer Grad Master of Arts (MA) Wien, 2012 Studienkennzahl lt. Studienblatt: A 066 811 Studienrichtung lt. Studienblatt: Masterstudium Sinologie Betreuerin: Univ. Prof. Mag. Dr. Susanne Weigelin-Schwiedrzik Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS V TABLE OF ABBREVIATIONS VI INTRODUCTION 1 1. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND AND POLITICAL CONTEXTUALIZATION 3 1.1. HIERARCHY – OPPRESSION, ALIGNMENT, RESISTANCE 3 1.1.1. HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS 3 1.1.2. SINO-SOVIET RELATIONS: BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION, HONEYMOON, BREAK UP 5 1.2. EQUALITY – NORMALCY 7 1.2.1. NORMALIZATION OF TIES: FROM BREZHNEV TO YELTSIN 7 1.2.2. “STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP“ AND COMMON OPPOSITION TO “US UNILATERALISM” 11 1.2.3. THE ERA PUTIN (I): INTENSIFICATION OF ECONOMIC RELATIONS 14 1.2.4. THE ERA PUTIN (II) – MEDVEDEV: GEORGIAN WAR, SCO-LEADERSHIP AND FINANCIAL CRISIS 17 2. ENERGY POLICY AND MAJOR ENERGY PROJECTS FROM 1991 TO 2011 22 2.1. SETTING THE STAGE: THE DISSOLUTION OF THE SOVIET UNION AND THE END OF CHINESE ENERGY AUTONOMY 23 2.2. THE 1990S: RUSSIA’S FRUSTRATED EASTERN DREAMS 25 2.2.1. OIL AND GAS: BUYER’S MARKET 25 2.2.2. NUCLEAR AND HYDRO POWER: TENTATIVE BEGINNINGS 29 2.3. THE 2000S: CHINA’S PATIENCE TESTED 30 2.3.1. OIL AND GAS: THE AGE OF OIL 30 2.3.2. NUCLEAR AND HYDRO POWER: ENTER CHINA, (RE-)ENTER RUSSIA 40 II 2.4. THE FINANCIAL CRISIS AND CURRENT DEVELOPMENTS: SUDDEN SOLUTIONS 42 2.4.1. OIL AND GAS: THE BREAKTHROUGH 42 2.4.2. NUCLEAR AND HYDRO POWER: AWAKENING 45 3. STATE OF RESEARCH: SINO-RUSSIAN RELATIONS RESEARCH POST-1991 48 3.1. SINO-RUSSIAN RELATIONS: POLITICS OVER ECONOMY 50 3.2. ECONOMIC INTERACTION: ENERGY ABOVE ALL AND ESPO OVER CA 53 3.3. REGIONAL THEATRES: EAST ASIA (INCL RFE AND TAIWAN) OVER CENTRAL ASIA 57 4. RESEARCH DESIGN – THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK, METHODOLOGY AND HYPOTHESES 61 4.1. ROOTS OF REALIST THOUGHT 63 4.1.1. CLASSICAL REALISM: HANS J. MORGENTHAU AND POWER 63 4.1.2. NEOREALISM: KENNETH M. WALTZ AND THE STRUCTURE OF THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM 65 4.2. NEOCLASSICAL REALISM: SYSTEMIC PRESSURES AND INTERVENING VARIABLES 67 4.3. PERCEPTION THEORY: PERCEIVING ELITES AND FORMS OF PERCEPTION 71 4.4. THEORETICAL MODEL AND METHODOLOGY FOR THIS STUDY 75 4.4.1. THEORETICAL MODEL – NEOCLASSICAL REALISM AND PERCEPTION THEORY 75 4.4.2. METHODOLOGY – ANALYSIS OF THE ACADEMIC DISCOURSE 79 5. EMPIRICAL RESEARCH – SHIFTING SANDS: BULWARK AGAINST THE US OR “COMING REPLACEMENT” 86 5.1. ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: 1997-2001 89 5.2. US INTRUSION AND SINO-RUSSIAN DEFENSE: 2001-2008 91 III 5.3. ”NATURAL RELATIONS” WITH CA AND CHINESE CONFIDENCE: THE FINANCIAL CRISIS AND BEYOND 96 5.3.1. SINO-RUSSIAN (ENERGY) RELATIONS: THE SET-UP (I) 96 5.3.2. THE PRC AND THE RF IN CA: THE SET-UP (II) 103 5.3.3. ENCOUNTERS IN THE STEPPE (I): PROBLEMS AND FEARS 108 5.3.4. ENCOUNTERS IN THE STEPPE (II): REMEDIES AND EXPECTATIONS 114 CONCLUSION 121 BIBLIOGRAPHY 128 ANNEXES 149 ANNEX 1 – ABSTRACT 149 ANNEX 2 – ZUSAMMENFASSUNG (ABSTRACT IN GERMAN) 151 ANNEX 3 – LEBENSLAUF (CV) 154 IV Acknowledgements I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to Prof. Susanne Weigelin-Schwiedrzik for her patient guidance, insightful comments and tough questions. Her invaluable support has made this thesis possible. For her energy and ceaseless encouragement that simply fill my tank, I thank my girlfriend Jaryna Dmyterko. Finally, I am greatly indebted to my family for patiently supporting my studies and instilling in me a basic intellectual curiosity. V Table of Abbreviations ASE = Atomstroyexport b/d = barrels per day CA = Central Asia / Central Asian CAC = Central Asia-Center Pipeline CAJ = China Academic Journals (database) CASS = Chinese Academy of Social Sciences CCP = Chinese Communist Party cf = confer / compare CGNPG = China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group CICIR = China Institutes for Contemporary International Relations CIS = Commonwealth of Independent States + = Center for International Studies CIIS = Chinese Institute for International Studies CNNC = China National Nuclear Cooperation CNOOC = China National Offshore Oil Corporation CNPC = China National Petroleum Corporation CPC = Central Asia Pipeline Consortium CPSU = Communist Party of the Soviet Union CST = Collective Security Treaty CSTO = Collective Security Treaty Organization eg = exempli gratia / for example VI esp = especially ESPO = East Siberia-Pacific Ocean Oil Pipeline et al = et alii / and others et seq = et sequentes / and the following ones EurAsEC = Eurasian Economic Community GMD = Guomindang GS = General Secretary Ibid / Ibd. = ibidem / in the same place ICIR = Institute of Contemporary International Relations ie = id est / that is IIS = Institute of International Studies IMF = International Monetary Fund incl = including IOCs = International Oil Companies IR = International Relations IRT = International Relations Theor(-y/-ies) JV = Joint Venture LNG = Liquified Natural Gas NDRC = National Development and Reform Commission NMD = National Missile Defense System NIS = Newly Independent States NOCs = National Oil Companies NPC = National People’s Congress VII PRC = People’s Republic of China PSA = Production Sharing Agreement RAO-UES = The Unified Energy System (of the Russian Federation) RF = Russian Federation RFE = Russian Far East SAIS = School of Advanced International Studies SCO = Shanghai Cooperation Organisation SIIS = Shanghai Institute of International Studies Sinopec = China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation Limited SSR = Soviet Socialist Republic SU = Soviet Union TMD = Theater Missile Defense System UNSC = United Nations Security Council US = United States of America USSR = Union of Soviet Socialist Republics USD = United States dollars WTO = World Trade Organization WWII = World War II VIII Introduction “The first lesson the student of international politics must learn and never forget is that the complexities of international affairs make simple solutions and trustworthy prophecies impossible. Here the scholar and the charlatan part company [...] The best the scholar can do, then, is to trace the different tendencies that, as potentialities, are inherent in a “certain“ international situation. He can point out the different conditions that make it more likely for one tendency to prevail than for another and, finally assess the probabilities for the different conditions and tendencies to prevail in actuality“ (Hans Morgenthau 1948).1 Through the following introductory words, it shall be clarified, which subject this thesis seeks to address, how the necessity of addressing this subject can be justified and its scope delimited, finally along which lines it will be tackled. As the People’s Republic of China’s (in the following: PRC or China) economic power and the resulting political weight continue to change dramatically, the PRC’s position vis-à-vis its neighbors and the international community has to be redefined. Researchers in the fields of International Relations (in the following: IR) as well as Chinese Studies will have to try and capture these constantly renegotiated relations. Such ventures have to take into account China’s changing relative power in the system, but also how China perceives other actors in the international system and the latter itself, how the PRC perceives itself, its awareness of others’ “China-images” and its intention to shape them. It will be presumed here, that the PRC’s most important bilateral relationships are those with the countries it has the biggest trade volume with, receives the most natural resources from or borders on. The Russian Federation (in the following: RF or Russia), although not yet among the top five trading partners of China, arguably fulfills all of those three requirements. Therefore the analysis of the evolving relationship between the PRC and Russia is to be considered an integral part of the reevaluation of the former’s position in the international system. 1 Morgenthau 2006:22. 1 The intention of this thesis is to contribute a sensibly delimited study of a certain aspect of China-Russia relations to the field of research explained above. It will thus be necessary to comprehensibly set a certain frame of time and place, as well as to determine an aspect crucial to the relationship and not yet exhaustively treated. As the Russian economy has come to depend heavily on energy export and the PRC considers securing a sufficient and sustainable energy supply its foremost priority, energy policy is certainly crucial to both nations’ deliberations on foreign and security policy. To further narrow the focus of this study, only energy policy towards and projects concerning Central Asia (in the following: CA) will be taken into account. In this study, Central Asia denominates the five ex-Soviet republics in central Eurasia (!) that gained independence in 1991, ie Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Furthermore, the scope of this thesis will be delimited to the time after the fall of the Soviet Union (in the following: SU). With Russia currently dominating the energy field in CA, but China decisively entering it, an analysis of this development’s effect on the bilateral relationship is certainly worthwhile. On the issue of CA energy in the framework of this bilateral relationship, it is specifically the Chinese foreign policy elite’s perspective that will be analyzed. This study will employ a “building block” approach (Shambaugh 1991:38). The first chapter will provide a historico-political contextualization, explaining the image2 of Russia that has arisen in the eyes of China’s elite and informs its perception of Russian actions. The second chapter will provide a factual narration of energy projects and the state of research will be accounted for in the third chapter. Subsequently an established research gap should provide for a sensible research question. In the fourth chapter a theoretical framework for this thesis, resting on the two pillars of neoclassical realism and perception research will be formulated.