The National Interest
August 5, 2024 Topic: Security Region: Eurasia Blog Brand: Silk Road Rivalries Tags: Central AsiaKazakhstanShanghai Cooperation OrganizationRussiaIranChina
Strategic Balances and Fractures: Russia, China, and Iran in Central Asia
While mutual antagonism towards the United States currently unites Russia, China, and Iran in Central Asia, their collaboration is more a strategic convenience than a deep-seated alliance.
by Arman Mahmoudian Valentina Pegolo
As the rise of multipolarity is testing the resilience of the liberal international order, states are rushing to decouple economically from their political competitors. This makes Central Asia a focal point for geopolitical competition, with global and regional powers vying for influence.
Central Asia is a critical region due to its abundant natural resources and geographic position. Rich in oil, gas, and rare minerals, the region also serves as a crucial transit corridor linking the Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and Europe. These facts elevate Central Asia’s importance for Russian, Iranian, and Chinese strategic calculations.
Due to increased international isolation after its invasion of Ukraine, Moscow is now increasingly relying on Central Asia as a sanction evasion hub and an export and transport route for energy exports. China, whose regional interest was focused on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), is now also aiming to secure cheap energy and raw materials and hedge against Europe’s potential economic decoupling. Tehran aims to leverage its cultural ties to develop strategic transport corridors that bypass its rivals, enhancing its influence and mitigating economic isolation.
The three states’ competing visions for a regional order in Central Asia are giving rise to diverging interests in the security, energy, and trade spheres, which the West could leverage to deepen its engagement with the region.
1) Security
Russia, China, and Iran share a common interest in countering U.S. influence in Central Asia. After 9/11, the United States established military bases, like the Transit Center at Manas in Kyrgyzstan and K2 in Uzbekistan, to support operations in Afghanistan. After the closure of these bases, U.S. strategy shifted towards security cooperation programs focusing on training and joint exercises. The United States continues to engage in Central Asia to balance Russian, Chinese, and Iranian influence while promoting the stability and independence of Central Asian states, which the three powers view as a direct challenge to their regional dominance and strategic interests. Counterterrorism is also a shared preoccupation for Russia, China, and Iran in Central Asia. Concerns about ISIS and Al-Qaeda have led to security cooperation and intelligence-sharing through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), to which Iran was admitted as a full member in 2023.
In spite of these shared interests, Russia, China, and Iran have conflicting aims in Central Asia, in particular regarding security dominance. Russia has the most significant military presence, with major bases in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, and it leads the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). To counterbalance Russia’s dominance without challenging it directly, China has expanded its security engagement through the SCO and established a rapid-response military outpost in Tajikistan. At the same time, Iran seeks to make up for its lack of military presence in the region through security and economic partnerships.
Another pain point is their differing approaches to Islamist groups. While all three states oppose extremism, they disagree on which groups should be classed as such. Iran has historically supported Islamist movements in Central Asia, such as the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT), Hizb ut-Tahrir, and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). Russia and China, on the other hand, see Islamic movements as regional and domestic security threats. Russia sees IMU as a significant security threat due to its connections with Chechnya militants. Similarly, Russia views Hizb ut-Tahrir as destabilizing due to its radical ideology and purported desire to establish a caliphate. China shares similar concerns regarding IMU and Hizb ut-Tahrir as a direct threat to regional stability and its interests in Xinjiang.
This divergence complicates trilateral cooperation in addressing security threats, as each country prioritizes its strategic alliances and ideological stances. At the same time, Central Asian states are weary of overreliance on Russia for border and regional security, seeking to diversify their security partners to hedge against Russian domination. While the regional sentiment is not currently favorable to increased military cooperation with the West, policymakers should monitor the evolution of these different regional security doctrines to detect a more favorable timing for security re-engagement with Central Asian Republics.
2) Energy
The outbreak of the war in Ukraine and Russia’s subsequent loss of the European gas market has led to the temporary convergence of Russia and China’s energy interests in Central Asia. This has left Central Asian states with narrowing space for maneuver. While Central Asian countries are eager to reduce their dependence on China and Russia, the West’s ability to step up is severely hindered in the short term by the lack of viable alternative export routes.
The reversal of the flow of gas in the Central Asia-Center (CAC) gas pipeline system in October 2023 marked the first time in which Russian gas was imported to the ex-Soviet Republics and, thus, to China via Uzbekistan. While the far-reaching partnership that Russia envisioned with its proposal for a “Trilateral Gas Union” with Astana and Tashkent did not materialize, Gazprom committed to supply 2.8 billion cubic meters of gas yearly to Uzbekistan.
With this deal, Tashkent hopes to alleviate its chronic winter energy shortage, which led to the almost complete stoppage of energy exports. Kazakhstan has also reportedly sought to take advantage of its newfound role as a transport corridor for Russian energy exports to China. Astana’s decision was partly spurred by Western energy companies’ reticence to commence new projects and their reported intention to divest from the region due to sanctions risks.
Russian gas has become a key source of cheap energy for China, with recent exports surpassing Turkmenistan. China is leveraging its position in this buyer’s market by demanding better prices from Moscow for a new gas pipeline through eastern Siberia. Beijing and Moscow’s energy relationship remains opportunistic rather than strategic. China and Russia aim to prevent Central Asia from accessing other export markets and limit Iran’s role in the energy market.
Russia’s new role as an energy exporter in Eurasia has altered the status quo in the region, creating urgent dilemmas for the ex-Soviet Republics. Turkmenistan has the most to lose from Russia’s eastward pivot and has frantically looked for new export markets. The outpour of cheaper Russian gas into the Eurasian energy market threatens around 80 percent of Turkmenistan’s state revenues. This has spurred renewed interest in completing the decades-old Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline project, with new proposals to ship Turkmen gas to Europe via Pakistan. The completion of the TAPI pipeline, however, remains highly uncertain due to its planned passage through Afghanistan.
With the TAPI pipeline nowhere near completion, the other favored route to Europe, a Trans-Caspian pipeline connecting Turkmenistan to Europe’s Southern Gas Corridor via Azerbaijan, is once again on the table. The project was revived in May 2024 with promises of gas delivery to Europe by 2030. While the Trans-Caspian pipeline remains a lynchpin in Europe’s efforts to reduce its dependence on Russian gas, it may be too little too late to prevent China from securing its dominance in the Turkmen gas market.
The fundamental divergence of interest in Central Asian energy markets between Russia and China on the one hand and Iran on the other should be carefully leveraged by Western nations. The West should focus on becoming an indispensable partner to Central Asia by offering successful energy transition roadmaps and economic diversification. This engagement needs to be sustained long-term, addressing both diplomatic and economic aspects, and coupled with commitments to meet short-term needs to compete with Russia and China effectively.
However, to incentivize Central Asian nations to reduce their immediate dependency on the Chinese market, Western nations may consider allowing Central Asian states to transit gas and oil through Iran to India. Iran’s limited economic and political influence in Central Asia, along with its recent setbacks in the energy market, makes it less of a regional threat to Western interests. In contrast, India’s energy demand can compete with Chinese imports. This strategy could create more breathing space for regional countries and buy Europe time to build the Trans-Caspian pipeline.
3) Trade
The current commercial landscape in Central Asia provides an ever more favorable, though time-sensitive, prospect for strategic Western engagement. Recent geopolitical conflicts have not fundamentally transformed Iran, China, and Russia’s commercial interest in Central Asia. They have, however, increased its strategic importance for two reasons. Firstly, Central Asian states, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in particular, have been a critical link in Russia’s sanctions evasion strategy. Secondly, Russia, Iran, and China aim to capitalize on Central Asia’s recent economic growth. If China and Russia have more to gain from cooperating to exclude Iran from the energy market, Iran and China stand to gain from trade cooperation through BRI at the expense of Russia.
Due to Russia’s preoccupation with the war in Ukraine, China’s trading position in the region has strengthened considerably at the expense of Russia, especially in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Moreover, China’s BRI mainly focused on expanding the “Middle Corridor,” connecting Chinese manufacturers with European consumers through Central Asia and Iran while bypassing Russia. The operability of the Middle Corridor could provide a win-win scenario for Europe and China by providing alternative trade routes that can insulate both parties from overreliance on maritime supply chains, which are susceptible to geopolitical shocks and blockades through the Taiwan Strait and the Suez Canal, respectively.
While mutual antagonism towards the United States currently unites Russia, China, and Iran in Central Asia, their collaboration is more a strategic convenience than a deep-seated alliance.
by Arman Mahmoudian Follow @MahmoudianArman on TwitterL Valentina Pegolo
Recent signs, however, point to a temporary lull in China’s commercial projects in the region, driven most likely by adverse domestic economic conditions. In spite of the recent signing of an agreement for the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway, China’s foreign direct investment has reportedly slowed down significantly in 2024. This gives Western nations a chance to strengthen their partnership with Central Asian states. Western focus should be on providing the kind of investment that can foster the bottom-up regional growth and cooperation that underpins the B5+1 forum, for example, by building domestic and regional connections outside of the narrow east-west path that China’s BRI follows.
Once again, these policies will take time to bear fruits, and Western nations will need a short-term tactic to counter Chinese commercial dominance in the region. One option could be to allow India to trade with Central Asian Republics through the Iranian port of Chabahar, for which it had initially obtained a sanctions exemption in 2018. This would play into Iran’s desire to compete with China through the establishment of a north-south corridor, fuelled by the disappointing economic benefits of Iran’s cooperation with Beijing.
Keeping a Finger on the Pulse
The primary driver for cooperation among Russia, China, and Iran in Central Asia is their shared perception of mutual threats. The U.S. presence in the region, with its history of military bases and security cooperation, is seen as challenging its regional dominance. Similarly, the threat of terrorism and extremism, particularly from groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda, compels these nations to collaborate on counterterrorism efforts and intelligence sharing.
However, with the United States' relative disengagement from Central Asia and growing competition for its resources, the underlying conflicts of interest among these countries become more apparent. Russia, China, and Iran each aim to secure their energy needs and economic interests, leading to rivalries often masked by their cooperative façade against common threats.
Therefore, while mutual antagonism towards the United States and a desire to reshape the international order currently unites Russia, China, and Iran on a global level in Central Asia, their collaboration is more a strategic convenience than a deep-seated alliance. Beyond the surface, there are more conflicts than commonalities, underscoring the fragile nature of their cooperation in the region.
However, unless Western nations commit to a long-term plan for strategic engagement with Central Asia, it is unlikely that these simmering tensions will drive a wedge in their de facto alignment. To do so, Western countries should enact policies that encourage energy and trade competition among Russia, China, and Iran, as well as with other regional actors such as India and Turkey. This would give space to the Central Asian Republic to hedge by turning the regional dynamic into an economic and diplomatic “sellers’ market.”
Arman Mahmoudian is an adjunct professor at the University of South Florida’s Judy Genshaft Honors College, teaching courses on Russia, the Middle East, and International Security. He is also a research assistant at the USF Global and National Security Institute, focusing on Russia and the Middle East. Follow him on LinkedIn and X @MahmoudianArman.
Valentina Pegolo is a Junior Consultant at Plenitude Consulting and holds a Doctor of Philosophy in International Relations, a Master of Philosophy in International Relations, and a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from the University of Oxford. Her research interests include Iranian foreign policy, political ideology, Eurasian geopolitics, global economic and technological interconnectedness, interstate and transnational political violence, and its relationship to financial crime.
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