Sergey Saenko, international observer

The escalation of events around Ukraine, as well as the growth of political and economic pressure against Moscow and Minsk from Washington and Brussels, have become a serious challenge for the countries of Central Asia (CA) in the formation of their transport and logistics infrastructure and is forcing the states of this region to look for a common approach to the emerging problem . Until recently, the Central Asian countries tried to solve this problem on their own. However, the changing geopolitical situation in the world requires them to act together in this direction.

True, closer cooperation between the five countries of the Central Asian region in all areas, including in the transport and logistics sector, is hampered by the absence of the Treaty of Friendship, Good Neighborhood and Cooperation, which Tajikistan and Turkmenistan have not yet signed. In this regard, it is not by chance that at the recent summit of the “five” in Dushanbe, President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev called for intensifying work on this agreement. “This will become clear political evidence of the maturity of our states and their readiness to independently determine the fate of our region. We understand the positions of the parties, since these issues affect national issues. At the same time, for full implementation it is important to come to common positions as quickly as possible,” he said.

Indeed, there are enough contradictions between the participants in this five-party format, but it is also quite obvious that a search is underway for a common approach to the problems at hand, including transport and logistics issues. In this regard, it is worth mentioning that on the eve of the summit in Dushanbe, a meeting of the ministers of transport of five countries was held, at which the draft agreement “On strengthening the interconnectedness of land transport in Central Asia” was approved, which was later signed following the results of the summit of the “five” in the capital of Tajikistan. Moreover, the leaders of the countries of the Central Asian region agreed that one of the ways to solve this problem could be to search for routes through the Caspian Sea.

Here it is appropriate to recall another event of three countries in the region. In August this year, Ashgabat hosted the first summit of the heads of state of Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan – Serdar Berdimuhamedov, Emomali Rahmon and Shavkat Mirziyoyev, respectively. In addition to the Afghan topic, the presidents of the three Central Asian states discussed issues of water and energy cooperation and the development of transport corridors, in which landlocked Dushanbe and Tashkent are extremely interested. Let us note that this meeting became possible thanks to the desire of official Ashgabat to change its image in the world from a complex one to a more reliable and predictable partner, especially in matters of transport and transit.

First of all, this concerns transport corridors. Historically, the region is surrounded by mountains, rivers, deserts, there are routes through Russia, but they are limited by Western sanctions against Moscow. For this reason, routes through the Caspian Sea and further to Europe are a way out of the “logistics bag” for Central Asian countries. For this reason, in solving the main problems of the “troika”, Turkmenistan, which has access to the Caspian Sea, is beginning to play an increasingly important role, which guarantees, in particular, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan access to the Caspian ports.

It should be noted that Central Asia has always been an important region from an economic and strategic point of view, therefore almost all major world players are building cooperation with the countries of the region. And recently, another actor has become more active in this region – Azerbaijan. It is no coincidence that in this regard, the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan (AR) Ilham Aliyev was invited to the above-mentioned summit in Dushanbe as an honorary guest. “For the countries of Central Asia, Azerbaijan is a reliable transit country on the way to the markets of Turkey and Europe,” the Azerbaijani leader assured his colleagues from Central Asia in his speech at the summit. He also noted the importance of transit in the opposite direction: “Our brothers in Central Asia know that the entire transport and logistics infrastructure of Azerbaijan is open to them.”

Experts are inclined to believe that Baku is increasing its activity in Central Asia for a number of reasons. Azerbaijan is growing strategically, and communication with Central Asia through the Caspian Sea is extremely important for it, since the entire transport and raw material infrastructure is related to this strategy. It is appropriate to recall here that during the landmark Fifth Caspian Summit (Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan) in Aktau in August 2018, Baku, together with Astana (then Nur-Sultan) and Ashgabat, signed the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea, which then began to be called the “Constitution of the Caspian Sea”. Thus, the first and most important reason for Azerbaijan’s interest in Central Asia is the Caspian Sea.

Let one note that Azerbaijan is intensifying its relations with the Central Asian countries not only in words, but also in deeds. Thus, Ilham Aliyev recently visited Dushanbe, where he discussed the issue of connecting Tajikistan to the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR) through Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan and further through the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan, Turkey and Europe. It is quite clear that official Tashkent is also interested in this route. It is no coincidence that this issue was discussed at negotiations between Azerbaijani President Aliyev and his Uzbek counterpart Shavkat Mirziyoyev in Baku, where the leader of Uzbekistan made his first visit in August after winning the presidential election. Thus, in addition to geographical proximity, Azerbaijan has economic and political interests in the Central Asian region that are common to both the Central Asian countries and Baku.

At the same time, speaking about the transport and logistics problems of the countries of Central Asia, one cannot help but say that, under pressure from the West and the fear of falling under its secondary sanctions, the capitals of the states in this region are thinking about revising relations with Russia. In this regard, attention is drawn to the fact that recently the Central Asian countries have shown increased activity in three areas. This is intraregional activity, activity in relations with China and, finally, in relations with the United States. Thus, Russia – let’s look at things soberly – is gradually and steadily being pushed aside. Unwittingly, they are “helped” in this by Beijing, which is increasingly interacting and cooperating with the Central Asian countries, including within the framework of its large-scale project “One Belt, One Road” (BRI).

The situation around Ukraine and the strengthening of Western sanctions against Russia forced China to seriously reconsider its approaches to the formation of the Eurasian transport and logistics infrastructure. It is no secret that Beijing takes a pragmatic position in its foreign policy – politics separately, economics separately. For example, the growth of global competition with the United States is forcing China, in order to maintain active trade and economic cooperation with the countries of the European Union (the trade turnover of the PRC with the EU in 2022 amounted to $847.3 billion versus $759.4 with the USA), to look for continental transport routes instead of the current sea routes passing through the Strait of Malacca off the coast Singapore, an ally of Washington.

Given this circumstance, Beijing, as part of the BRI initiative, directed its efforts to create its own secure trade routes and shifted its focus to another branch of the Eurasian bridge – to the route from China through Central Asia and Western Asia to the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea, including the Caspian Sea and Transcaucasia, bypassing Russia. Moreover, with the beginning of the North-West Region in Ukraine, China began sending freight trains from Xi’an along a new route: in transit through Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic to Germany. In the future, it is planned to integrate the Baku–Tbilisi–Kars route into this project. It is not surprising in this regard that the volume of cargo transportation via TMTM in 2022 increased 2.5 times and reached 1.5 million tons.

A kind of indicator demonstrating Beijing’s decreased attention to the route from China through Central Asia and Russia to the Baltic Sea were reports that the PRC did not make new investments in the Russian economy as part of the BRI projects in the first half of last year. And this despite the fact that China continues to develop its initiative and in October the third forum dedicated to the “One Belt, One Road” initiative proclaimed 10 years ago will be held in Beijing.