Central Asia and the Rise of Normative Powers: Contextualizing the Security Governance of the European Union, China, and India by Emilian Kavalski

Author:Emilian Kavalski [Kavalski, Emilian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: International Relations, Political Science, Security (National & International), Terrorism, General
ISBN: 9781441167330
Google: 1orFAgAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 17017051
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Published: 2010-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

Conclusion

By indicating the overlapping contexts of China’s normative power, the analytical synthesis of this chapter has suggested that the institutionalization of SCO affords Beijing an opportunity to project itself as a blueprint for the future trajectories of Central Asian states. Consequently, China’s involvement in the region has exhibited the socializing effects of Beijing’s normative power. In this setting, China’s influence in the region has been assisted by its ability to articulate self-reflexive security governance policies premised on the centrality of sovereignty and the economic benefits of its “peaceful rise.” These, in turn, have assisted Beijing to “Shanghai” the region into its orbit of influence. However, instead of being hijacked by force or trickery, the region has slowly, but surely been socialized into Beijing’s worldview through the promotion of various initiatives for regional cooperation. The claim here is that it is Chinese definitions of the “normal” that have provided the “sustainable nutrients” for this process (Song, 2011, p. 63).

Not surprisingly, focusing on the network of intertwining relations between regional states and China through different infrastructural, economic, and security projects, Pierre Morel, the EU Special Representative to Central Asia, has referred to the SCO both as a “mirror of new trends in an unstable world” and as a “barometer of a new relationship in the making” (Morel, 2008). Such statements indicate the recognition of China’s emergence as a viable model for Central Asia by offering “practical means of changing rent-seeking incentives” (Bhatty and Auty, 2006, p. 255). The argument, therefore, is that the framework of normative power offers a relevant setting for evaluating China’s capacity to engage other states. The participation of Central Asian states in Chinese-promoted initiatives (such as the SCO) exhibits their socializing effects on the region by generating meaningful community of practice. However, the effects of its normative power—described as an attempt to shape the attitude of other states—are felt beyond Central Asia. In fact, “the main characteristic of China’s great peripheral diplomacy is to establish a foothold in Asia and look toward the world.”36 In this respect, some commentators have asserted that Beijing’s security governance of Central Asia also instances its emergent global foreign policy strategy “to secure and shape a security, economic, and political environment that is conducive to China” (Zhang and Tang, 2005, p. 48).

Bearing in mind the unpredictability and disorder characterizing the external relations of “newly established states in a poorly defined region,” the development of SCO emerges as “a major accomplishment” and “China’s greatest success in regional multilateralism” (Womack, 2008, p. 274). The concluding chapter of this book will reveal that such agency is intimately intertwined with China’s struggle for recognition. The assertion is that China’s Central Asian policies are part and parcel of a strategy for the acquisition of “greater prestige” by advertising Beijing’s “presence gigantesque” and emphasizing “its desire to be a participant in international discourse” (Lanteigne, 2005, p. 29; emphasis in original).

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