This story indicates once again that the Great Game never dies. But this time it is not only Russia and the west (and China, and Islam): one of the "pawns" is a major player as well.
"A day after chastising Moscow for its use of oil and natural gas as "tools for intimidation and blackmail," Vice President Dick Cheney visited Kazakhstan on Friday to promote export routes that bypass Russia and directly supply the West.
"With his comments, Mr. Cheney waded into a messy geopolitical struggle for energy and influence in the countries of the former Soviet Union, rapidly becoming one of the world's largest-producing regions."
(Snip)
"Kazakhstan is the largest and, many say, most stable country in the Caspian Sea region. The entire basin contains roughly 10 billion barrels of oil, much of it in Kazakhstan territory. Kazakhstan is second only to Russia in oil reserves among the countries once part of the Soviet Union."
All this needs caveats, analyis, and deconstruction, but it is very interesting. The third paragraph is basically true, despite occasional disturbing incidents like this one reported by Gates of Vienna. (Though Dymphna fears Islamism I suspect it is more lingering authoritarianism and conformity that has lead to the harrassment of the Hare Krishnas; Kazakhstan is without a doubt THE most secular "Moslem" society-- if it can be called one at all-- that I have ever seen, and friendly to Orthodox Chritians, Orthodox Jews, and secular scientists, all of whom I have seen or known there).
"The Kazakh president, Nursultan A. Nazarbayev, won a third six-year term in December 2005, with 91 percent of the vote in an election that international observers said was flawed. Two opposition politicians have been murdered in six months, raising the specter of instability."
Abslutely true-- though the same observers admit he might have gotten 70 % legitimately! And in a region where free speech of any kind is circumscribed, I find it amusing that Nazarbaev's daughter, who many regard as the President- in Waiting, has argued publicly that the satirical, moronic Kazakh chracter developed by "Ali G" ( the comedian Sascha Baron Cohen) was FUNNY rather than a threat to the state.
"On Thursday, Kazakhstan's energy minister cheered the United States and Europe by saying he was interested in building a gas pipeline westward to Azerbaijan and then to Turkey, bypassing Russia and loosening Gazprom's lock on this trade. But that same day, Kazakhstan's national pipeline operator issued a guarantee to Russia to ship Russian oil to China through its new Atasu-Alashankou oil pipeline."
Which is why I consider Kazakhstan to be a player, not a pawn.
One more thing: without exception, all Russians and Mongolians and Central Asians I know operate on a basis of wariness bordering on fear of the Han Empire, aka the People's Republic of China. While we continue to ignore the dragon in the living room...
To be continued...
1 comment:
We've never known what to do with China. And for all China's paranoia and xenophobia, it doesn't know what to do with the West, either, except perhaps to openly play one country against another.
With its huge cohort of single males, never able to marry because of all the aborted females (some estimate it as high as 65 million, but who knows?), the burgeoning of various religions, and the necessity for oil, China is making its way as best it can.
THe fact that it's bartering for oil with Nigeria is interesting. Nigeria may get an infrastructure out of the deal, but maintenance and training are something else.
I read that China is intensely training pipe line workers in order to be ready for the pipelines to be built into the country itself.
China will always be that "tertium quid" but maybe mutual management is possible. And, come to think of it, don't you wonder if they'll come up with some alternative(s) to oil before we do.
Such intersting times.
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