China's Emergence as a Key Player in the Global Order and its Impacts on Geopolitics in Central Asia *

Abstract

Recently, China has been expanding its tremendous power over the world politics and especially into the Central Asian countries with its rapidly growing economic capacity. The Chinese government has clear intentions to become a main player in regional geopolitical game in Central Asia along with the USA and Russia. On the other hand, the current Central Asian authoritarian rulers regard the expansion of Chinese order and values much welcoming compared to the Western leadership. Then, it is possibly expected that the region could go under the influence of China, both politically and economically. Such progress would bring interest collision with the rest super powers and force Russia and the USA to choose either competition or cooperation with China. After all, this might result in a totally new environment in the region “physically”: re-setting the current borders. Since Central Asian states are characterized by multi-ethnic composition in their populations, it is a possible scenario that the border can be re-arranged to accordance with an agreement among the US-Russia-China triangle.