China's Bold Move In Central Asia Takes Washington By Surprise

[Dover]

Some good (albeit long) articles about new pipeline developments:


China resets terms of engagement in Central Asia
By M K Bhadrakumar

Nursultan Nazarbayev has a way of drawing lines in the sand. The president of Kazakhstan recently told global oil and metal majors that new laws would allow only those foreign investors that cooperate with his industrialization program to tap his nation's mineral resources.

"We will work only with those who propose projects helping diversification of the economy," he said at a December 4 investment conference in Astana, the Kazakh capital, which was attended by ArcelorMittal, Chevron, Total, ENRC and other investors. To any unwilling to collaborate, he said: "We will look for new partners, offer them favorable conditions and resources to fulfill projects."

..snip..



A pipeline to the heart of Asia ...
Nazarbayev's message was direct: Western investors could keep their money if interested only in exploiting Kazakhstan's mineral wealth. The president was speaking as a momentous event in the history and politics of Central Asia was resetting the terms of engagement for foreigners in the region: the development of an ambitious 7,000 kilometer pipeline to link the region's gas fields to cities on China's eastern seaboard.

Ten days after Nazarbayev spoke, Hu arrived on a Central Asian tour for the formal commissioning of the 1,833-kilometer pipeline connecting gas fields in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan (and possibly Russia) to China's Xinjiang Autonomous Region.

..snip..

There was widespread skepticism among observers whether the Central Asia pipeline project would see the light of day. Indeed, China pushed ahead against Western views that last year's renewed unrest in Xinjiang put it at risk. "China is putting a lot of eggs in one basket,'' one British expert said. "An awful lot of oil and gas is coming through a small region. Looking now at trends in Xinjiang, you could ask whether a route from Central Asia is actually more secure than routes through Southeast Asia or the South China Sea."

The implication was obvious: that China's Central Asian pipeline could become a sitting duck for terrorists. As Robert Ebel, at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, put it, security could be impossible if the pipelines become targets as they pass through vast stretches of sparsely populated areas in Central Asia and Xinjiang. "There is no way you can protect a pipeline along its entire length. It just can't be done", Ebel, a security expert, maintained. Unrest in Xinjiang, particularly, threatens the Central Asian pipeline, he added. "I'm sure it's causing grey hairs on the people in Beijing," he said.

... sends shock waves to Washington
The American experts have drawn a doomsday scenario for the Chinese pipeline. Writing in the Central Asia & Caucasus Institute Analyst of Johns Hopkins University in October last year, Stephen Blank of the US War College branded Xinjiang as a "pressure cooker" which Beijing is nowhere near controlling.

Growing nervousness in Washington about the Chinese pipeline was quite palpable. The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a rare hearing in July regarding China's geopolitical thrust into the Central Asian region. Testifying at the hearing, Richard Morningstar, the US special envoy for energy, underlined that the US needed to develop strategies to compete with China for energy in Central Asia.

This was perhaps the first time that a senior US official has openly flagged China as the US's rival in the energy politics of Central Asia. US experts usually have focused attention on Russian dominance of the region's energy scene and worked for diminishing the Russian presence in the post-Soviet space by canvassing support for Trans-Caspian projects that bypassed Russian territory. In fact, some American experts on the region even argued that China was a potential US ally for isolating Russia.

cont'd

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/KL24Ag04.html


--------------------------------------------------------


THE ROVING EYE
China plays Pipelineistan
By Pepe Escobar

BEIJING - For all the rhapsodies on the advent of the New Silk Road, it may have come into effect for good last week, when China and Central Asia got together to open a crucial Pipelineistan node linking Turkmenistan to China's Xinjiang.

By 2013, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hong Kong will be cruising to ever more dizzying heights courtesy of gas supplied by the 1,833-kilometer Central Asia Pipeline from Turkmenistan - operating at full capacity. The pipeline will even help China achieve its goals in terms of curbing carbon emissions.

And in a few years China's big cities will also be cruising courtesy of oil from Iraq. (See Iraq's oil auction hits the jackpot Asia Times Online, December 16.)

China needs Iraqi oil. But instead of spending more than US$2 trillion on an illegal war, Chinese companies got some of the oil they needed from Iraq by bidding in a legal Iraqi oil auction. And in the New Great Game in Eurasia, instead of getting bogged down in Afghanistan, they made a direct deal with Turkmenistan, built a pipeline, profited from Turkmenistan's disagreements with Moscow (Gazprom stopped buying Turkmen gas last April, which cost the Central Asian "stan" $1 billion a month), and will get most of the gas they need.

The running myth is that China is addicted to oil. Coal would be more like it. The No 1 global emitter of greenhouse gases, China still produces more than 70% of its energy from coal. Beijing will inevitably get deeper into biogas or solar energy, but in the short term most of the "factory of the world" runs on coal. Of its verified energy reserves, 96% are coal. ..cont'd

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/KL24Ag07.html

-------------


A Delicate Dance Of Power

A delicate dance of power
By Robert M Cutler

MONTREAL - China's emergence as an important player in the development and use of energy resources found in the Caspian Sea basin, alongside longer established interests emanating from Russia, Europe and the United States, is a reminder of the ever-changing dynamics of the region, too easily overlooked during periods of apparent statis, such as during the late Soviet era.

Yet the appearance of this new power in the region also confirms the essential stability of a core group of relationships about which others wax and wane, with a periodicity of possible future importance that China's presence can help us to identify.

Two bilateral energy relations, Kazakhstan-Russia and Turkmenistan-Russia, are of such import and duration that we can justifiably speak of the Kazakhstan-Russia-Turkmenistan triangle as the foundation for the evolution of Central Eurasian energy geo-economics. That is the case, even though the third leg of that triangle, the relations between Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, is only beginning to manifest itself through cooperation over the gas pipeline to China.

Development of hydrocarbon energy resources in Central Asia and the South Caucasus began independently of each other, although they share the same chronology. Yet despite the apparent disorder of everyday life in the region over the past decade and a half, "patterns", if not a "logic", that recur and recombine in different and ever newer ways are detectable.

In particular, it is possible to detect three phases over the past 16 years in Caspian/Central Asia energy development and its connection with the South Caucasus. ..cont'd

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/KL24Ag03.html

[FrenchieCat]

1. If this was the Bush Admin, I might agree......

But are we sure that the US feels that it gets to tell China what to do, at this point?

Are they really surprised....cause somehow, I don't think so.

But I guess it makes the US look incompetent.....cause the US should be
all up in China's face telling them "Oh Hell Naw"? :shrug:

[Dover]

3. One surprise seems to be that the U.S. was counting on China and Russia being at loggerheads

according to this article. But that does not seem to be happening.


From the first article:

Through one mega project, Beijing has what Moscow has been striving for over a decade with a piecemeal approach. The European Union's chances of winning Turkmen supplies for its US-backed Nabucco pipeline project (connecting the Caspian with southern Europe) now seem severely diminished. Moscow can heave a sigh of relief, as the Nabucco project planned to cut Russia out of Europe's direct gas trade with the Caspian.

Therefore, if there is a zero-sum game, it is like this: China's gain is Europe's loss, which in turn can be Russia's gain since Russian gas is now certain to remain Europe's main energy source for the foreseeable future. Needless to say, Europe's continued dependence on Russian energy constitutes a vital chip for Moscow in its efforts to forge partnerships with major European countries.

Indeed, Russia can now advance its ambitious North Stream and South Stream gas pipelines to Europe without constantly having to look over its shoulder for competition from rival US-backed Trans-Caspian pipelines such as Nabucco.

Again, the US and Europe couldn't have missed the Chinese warning that Beijing intends to make a serious bid at some time for the Russian gas produced in its western Siberian region as well as its European part (which are at present the principal sources of supply for Europe). In effect, China has projected itself as a competing consumer of Russian gas.

All in all, the Chinese pipeline considerably strengthens Russia's stance. This probably explains the quiet satisfaction in Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's voice when he was asked about the implications of the Turkmenistan-China gas pipeline.

"The commissioning of the Turkmenistan-China pipeline is not going to affect our plans to expand our own pipeline network, which could possibly also reach China,'' Putin said. "I am referring to China's growing consumption of primary energy resources. We maintain regular, close contact with our Chinese colleagues on this issue. We know how fast the demand is growing there, and they too are closely monitoring the situation. The gas link to Turkmenistan will not undermine our plans."

Most important, the "loss" of Turkmen gas for Nabucco means that the project itself now critically depends on sourcing Iranian gas. In other words, Iran figures prominently in any serious European plans (strongly backed by the US) to diversify its gas imports so as to cut down dependence on Russian energy supplies.

..snip..

As Blank put it: "For all those who are watching for the emergence of China as a dominant economic and political player in Asia, these new deals with Russia have a profound significance that we overlook at our peril."

[westerebus]

2. And folks still wonder why we are in Af-Pak? n/t

[rollingrock]

4. China gas pipeline "opened Dec. 14, 2009"

China recently opened its 1,000 mile Central Asian gas pipeline on December 14 of 2009 without having to fire a shot. it's going to be a very happy new year for the Chinese indeed.


Central Asia – China gas pipeline
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Asia_%E2%80%93_China_gas_pipeline


meanwhile, Uncle Sam is neck deep in two full-blown wars that is bankrupting its treasury and construction of its own Caspian pipeline hasn't even started yet. and there's much doubt that it ever will. Chinese and Russians get to have the last laugh.

China and Russia are the ones playing 4 dimensional chess here. I don't know what Obama's playing, but it sounds more like tic tac toe or pin the tail on the donkey.

[amborin]

5. and copper in Afghanistan:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=7371221&mesg_id=7373001