A Pilot Project: China’s Military Base in Tajikistan
2022.01.18
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1. News Highlights
According to a series of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports since mid-October 2021, China has agreed to provide RMB 55 million (approx. US$8.5 million) to build a base in Ishkashim, GBAO, Tajikistan, at the western entrance to the Wakhan Corridor on the border with Afghanistan. The cost covers 12 buildings and their interior renovations and needed equipment and has been approved by the Tajik parliament.[1] Upon completion, the base will be transferred to the Tajik police.
According to a 2019 Washington Post report,[2] it is assumed that as early as 2016, Chinese armed personnel was stationed at another base near Murghab, Shaymak in Gorno-Badakhshan province at the eastern end of the Wakhan Corridor, which is on the mutual border among China, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan. The photos in the Washington Post also showed armed Chinese personnel was wearing “Type 07” PLA uniforms and red armed police badges. A March 2018 International Crisis Group report described the base as a “joint counter-terrorism center” with not only Chinese soldiers but also the Tajik military personnel stationed.[3] However, the official response from the Chinese government is denial of any establishment of military bases in Central Asia.
The Chinese military presence in Tajikistan is generally considered to be aimed at maintaining security in Xinjiang, protecting investments under the “Belt and Road Initiative” in Central Asia, and helping to strengthen the Tajik border security facilities. As the second-largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, the Tajiks are alleged to have hundreds of armed insurgents known as “Tajik Taliban” at the border between the two countries, and the insurgents have declared their intention to attack and overthrow the current Tajik regime soon,[4] which is why the Afghan Taliban is so resented by the Tajik government.
What is the real purpose of China’s provisional military bases inside Tajikistan at the eastern and western ends of the Wakhan Corridor? Is it just to ensure the security of Xinjiang or to assist the Tajiks, or is it an attempt to deploy and expand military power to Central Asia?
2. Security Implications
The scaling up of military cooperation between China and Tajikistan is, of course, a response to the changing security situation in Afghanistan. China has expressed its interest to establish friendly relations with the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, provided the Taliban suppresses the Uyghur fighters, estimated to be in hundreds, living there.[5] Some of these fighters are second-generation expatriates; some have fought in Syria, and some were previously based in the Wakhan Corridor, but now the Taliban are said to have relocated them to western Afghanistan.[6] In addition to the Uyghur fighters, China is also concerned about threats and harassment by different Taliban factions to China’s Belt and Road Initiative-related projects and personnel, as well as drug trafficking in Central Asia, which could affect the stability of China’s western borders.
China has been engaged in different forms of security or armed operations in Central Asia over the past two decades, which can be broadly categorized as private security, covert intelligence acquisition, and counter-terrorism operations operated by regular military forces.
2-1. China’s private armed security and intelligence acquisition in Central Asia
China currently has more than 30 active private armed security companies, whose main mission is to protect investment projects under the Belt and Road Initiative and its Chinese participants, and even carry out counter-terrorism activities.7 In Central Asia, these private forces are most prevalent in Kyrgyzstan, while in Kazakhstan they are prohibited by local laws. According to the latest version of the “Guidelines for the Security Management of Overseas Chinese Enterprises and Personnel”[8] publicized by China in 2018, these private security companies, although nominally private, must be 51% or more owned by the Chinese government and provide not only security services but also intelligence gathering along the Belt and Road under a “government-led, multi-party participation” principle.
It’s worth mentioning that the Chinese private security companies active in Central Asia, such as Zhongjunjunhong Collection, FSG Security, China Security Technology Group, China Shield Security, Xinjiang Desert Special Security, and Beijing China Security and Protection, mostly have backgrounds consisting of retired PLA and public security officers. The most notable of these companies is FSG Security, which is actually operated by the founder of Blackwater originally from the US. As part of the China CITIC Group headquartered in Hong Kong, FSG Security began its partnership with CITIC by the latter acquiring Frontier Services started by Blackwater founder Erik Prince and appointing Prince to continue as the company’s CEO. FSG Security has established two operational training-logistics bases in Yunnan and Xinjiang, and in 2017 acquired a 25% stake in ISDC (International Security and Defense College) in Beijing. In 2019, the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps’ Third Agriculture Division in the Kashgar region signed a contract with FSG Security to invest RMB 40 million for FSG to train 8,000 people each year. In other words, in addition to securing the route from southwest China to the Indochina Peninsula, FSG Security is also providing training and security services to the northwest regions across Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan.[9]
Dubbed “vacuum cleaner" or “sand-picture” strategies, China is implementing such intelligence methods in Central Asia, which emphasizes society penetration to accumulate tiny pieces of information to finally paint the whole picture. In other words, all kinds of information are collected through the amorphous exchange of information through one or several huge interpersonal networks; seemingly clueless, such networks lurk in all levels of society and spread across various public and private sectors.[10] China’s “patchwork” intelligence approach may be ineffective and inefficient. While it is different from the “orthodox”, “professional” international intelligence strategies today, it relies more on “grassroots” sources and is less risky. In addition to private security companies that can conduct such intelligence activities, China also infiltrates local Chinese societies to collect information from their people who work, study, do business, or have immigrated overseas. In other words, China is constructing a vast global, non-professional, and informal social network with intelligence purposes to put all kinds of information together for what is needed. The Chinese intelligence network that was busted in Afghanistan in late 2020 was similar in nature.[11] China also supports clansmen associations and chambers of commerce in Central Asia and targets individual professionals for collusion and recruiting in order to foster pro-China social forces and to obtain intelligence.[12] There are also unconfirmed rumors that unidentified armed men from China have been secretly arresting political dissidents across the border in Kyrgyzstan.
2-2. China’s counter-terrorism forces in Tajikistan — a Russian turf
In 2016, China, Tajikistan, Pakistan, and Afghanistan established the Quadrilateral Cooperation and Coordination Mechanism (QCCM) for intelligence sharing and counter-terrorism efforts. With tens of billions of US dollars invested in Central Asia and Pakistan, China is certainly trying to protect its assets, and relying on private armed security alone is clearly insufficient. Beijing’s doctrines of governance in Xinjiang have long revolved around an economic development, which asserts that economic growth will bring social stability, and the Belt and Road Initiative will connect the economic developments of Xinjiang and Central Asia — and the only threat is the expansion and penetration of “global Islamism”, or “religious extremism”. To address this, China suppresses Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang in an attempt to remove their Islamic identity, and such a policy is moving across the border into Central Asia. As extreme Islamism continues to flourish in Pakistan and Afghanistan after the Taliban gains power in the latter, the relationship among China’s economic development and investment in the five Central Asian countries, the “de-Islamization” in terms of Xinjiang’s national identities, and China’s military projection into Central Asia through troop stationing and base construction are essentially inseparable.
In order not to provoke Russia, as reported in the aforementioned Washington Post, China invited Russian researchers to a closed-door meeting in Beijing in 2017 to explain that China’s outposts on the northern edge of the Wakhan Corridor in Tajikistan are purely for counterterrorism, not military expansion or an intrusion into Russia’s traditional turf. It was stated that the deployment of armed police in PLA uniforms, rather than actual PLA troops, is for anti-terrorist deterrence and social security and doesn’t indicate any intention of military expansion. However, the field surveys in recent years show that Russian political elites are wary about China’s substantial military expansion in Central Asia. China’s Belt and Road Initiative has made the “Eurasian Economic Union” advocated by Russia unattractive in comparison, and China has even started to sell arms and station troops in Central Asia. In addition, China has also massively expanded its “Confucius Institutes” and given scholarships to Central Asian students to study in China. The main reason that Russia did not choose to openly break with China is a consideration of reality: avoiding breaking up would fulfill the basic need for mutual trade and security cooperation, otherwise it would become a lose-lose situation.
3. Trend Observation
3-1. China will avoid direct conflict with Russia in Central Asia
To facilitate the operations of military bases and troops in Tajikistan, China has been training Tajik- and Farsi-speaking PLA soldiers in Taxkorgan, Xinjiang, for a long time, and has provided Tajikistan with Chinese-made weapons. China has also considered the security of the Wakhan Corridor on various military and social levels, and even the construction of roads [in some areas] through the Corridor. Over the past years, China has been investing money and efforts in inviting professional military and police officers from Central Asian countries to come for training and relationship building.[13] If the Belt and Road Initiative continues to grow, China will surely use “fighting against extreme Islamism” as an excuse to gradually build a network of military bases in the region to protect its economic investments.
In the long run, it is obvious that China’s goal is to take over, or to cooperate with, Russia in Central Asia and share the benefits. However, both sides are deliberately avoiding confrontational situations in the traditionally sensitive areas of military security for now in consideration of the political reality.
3-2. “Pilot projects” of China’s outward expansion
In addition to the activities in Tajikistan, China will sooner or later establish some form of military presence and bases in Pakistan with the gradual implementation of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).[14] Private security companies have gained ample experience in Chinese overseas investment projects over the past few years, both in terms of intelligence acquisition and small-scale ground combats. In the meantime, China has also begun to build a “patchwork” intelligence network in Central and South Asia for gathering intelligence and engaging local people in different businesses. Finally, the next stage is likely to be the establishment of bases and the stationing of troops.
For the time being, China uses the military bases in Tajikistan as a pilot project with deployments of armed police forces to suggest relatively insignificant political and military connotations. Such a project can include joint cross-border patrols and drills with neighboring forces, and formal military operations outside China. In these exercises, essential information can be collected for future military expeditions, such as civil-military relations with the local community, combat information, possible ways of combat training and logistic operations, and even the gradual attempts to project military power of higher intensity, to assist China’s future military expansion into the neighboring regions.
Originally published in the “National Defense and Security Biweekly”, November 12, 2021, by the Institute for National Defense and Security Research.
[1]“From a Secret Base in Tajikistan, China’s War on Terror Adjusts to a New Reality,” RFE/RL’s Tajik Service, October 14, 2021, https://www.rferl.org/a/tajikistan-china-war-on-terror-afghan/31509466.html; “Tajikistan Approves Construction of New Chinese-funded Base as Beijing’s Security Presence in Central Asia Grows,” RFE/RL’s Tajik Service, October 27, 2021,https://www.rferl.org/a/tajikistan-approves-chinese-base/31532078.html.
[2] “In Central Asia’s Forbidding Highlands, a Quiet Newcomer: Chinese troops,” Washington Post, February 18, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/in-central-asias-forbidding-highlands-a-quiet-newcomer-chinese-troops/2019/02/18/78d4a8d0-1e62-11e9-a759-2b8541bbbe20_story.html.
[3] “Rivals for Authority in Tajikistan’s Gorno-Badakhshan,” International Crisis Group, March 14, 2018, https://www.crisisgroup.org/europe-central-asia/central-asia/tajikistan/b87-rivals-authority-tajikistans-gorno-badakhshan.
[4] Many similar claims have been seen in the past. Examples of the recent media reports: Asia-Plus, “Commander of Jamaat Ansarullah Radical Group Declares His Readiness to Invade into Tajikistan,” Asia-Plus Tajikistan, October 7, 2021. https://asiaplustj.info/en/news/tajikistan/security/20211007/commander-of-jamaat-ansarullah-radical-group-declares-his-readiness-to-invade-into-tajikistan
[5] This number of fighters is an estimate from the UNSC report, but there are other civilian rumors from Turkey or Pakistan that the number is far more than the reported. For the UNSC report, see “S/2021/655,” United Nations Security Council, July 21, 2021, https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/S_2021_655_E.pdf.
[6]“Taliban 'Removing' Uyghur Militants from Afghanistan's Border with China” RFE/RL’s Tajik Service, October 5, 2021. https://www.rferl.org/a/afghanistan-taliban-uyghurs-china/31494226.html.
[7] Alessandro Arduino, “China’s Private Security Companies: The Evolution of a New Security Actor,” National Bureau of Asian Research Special Report no.80, September 3, 2019. https://www.nbr.org/publication/chinas-private-security-companies-the-evolution-of-a-new-security-actor/.
[8]“Guidelines for the Security Management of Overseas Chinese Enterprises and Personnel,” Ministry of Commerce of the PRC, March 23, 2018. http://images.mofcom.gov.cn/hzs/201803/20180323112639296.pdf.
[9] Some Chinese media have also publicly reported on the partnership development between FSG Security and Blackwater. See Fan Lingzhi, “Exclusive: Blackwater Founder Serving China’s One Belt, One Road?”, Global Times, March 20, 2017. https://world.huanqiu.com/article/9CaKrnK1nv6.
[10] About the guided study of the organization of China’s intelligence network, please refer to Nigel Inkster, “The Chinese Intelligence Service” in Liam Francis Gearon ed., The Routledge International Handbook of Universities, Security and Intelligence Studies (Routledge, 2019), pp.196-207
[11] Shishir Gupta, “Afghanistan Busted Chinese Spy Ring, Kept it a Secret. NDS Chief Explains Why,” Hindustan Times, January 6, 2021, https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/afghan-intel-chief-confirms-busting-chinese-spy-ring-says-it-s-sensitive/story-iFqT1qRYtfytMlkEN7ATxN.html.
[12] For example, the “Jiebiao (жебе) Overseas Chinese Society” in Kazakhstan, see “National Jiebiao Overseas Chinese Association in Kazakhstan,” Overseas Chinese Net, June 19, 2017, http://www.chinaqw.com/kong/2017/06-19/148318.shtml. The details and logic of the overseas Chinese associations’ infiltration operations are to be analyzed in a separate article.
[13] Related reports are abundant. For example: Bonnie Girard, “How China Uses the People’s Armed Police as Agents of Diplomacy,” The Diplomat, November 20, 2020, https://thediplomat.com/2020/11/how-china-uses-the-peoples-armed-police-as-agents-of-diplomacy/
[14] The possibility of China using the Pakistani port of Gwadar in the Indian Ocean as a military port has been on the debate over the past few years. See the discussions such as: Krzysztof Iwanek, “No, Pakistan’s Gwadar Port is not a Chinese Naval Base (just yet),” The Diplomat, November 19, 2019, https://thediplomat.com/2019/11/no-pakistans-gwadar-port-is-not-a-chinese-naval-base-just-yet/, or: Gurmeet Kanwal, “Pakistan’s Gwadar Port: A New Naval Base in China’s String of Pearls in the Indo-Pacific,” CSIS Briefs, April 2, 2018, https://www.csis.org/analysis/pakistans-gwadar-port-new-naval-base-chinas-string-pearls-indo-pacific.