In October 2002, units from China’s Xinjiang Military District and Kyrgyzstan conducted a two-day joint military exercise involving several hundred troops and dozens of armored personnel carriers and helicopters aimed at combating cross-border terrorist activities. This exercise was supposedly directed against the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), which is classified as a terrorist organization by the United Nations. According to Beijing, ETIM was behind numerous terrorist activities in Xinjiang, instigating 166 violent incidents and maintaining 44 strongholds and arsenals that have been smashed by PRC authorities over the past year. However, China’s first military maneuver with a Central Asian state may also be interpreted as an attempt to strengthen Xinjiang’s defensive shield against any unwanted incursions from Central Asia.

The US troop deployments in Central Asia and the destruction of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan have led to the decimation of Pan-Turkic and Islamic insurgent groups operating in the region and forced their remnants to lie low for the time being, greatly reducing the threat of religious terrorism emanating from Central Asia and inciting Uighur separatists in Xinjiang. US military strength in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan is likely to rise to 6,000 in the near future. The United States is also expected to expand Manas airbase in Kyrgyzstan, only 200 miles from the Chinese border, into a major base of support for air operations and the hub of a regional electronic intelligence network which covers western China.

But this strong US presence poses an uneasy threat to PRC interests. Despite the current attention to Islamic terrorists and Iraq, some analysts in US military and security establishments still believe that China will remain its long-term competitor for global power and influence. Should the United States perceive China as a threat to its strategic interests—for example, if the United States fears a Chinese attack on Taiwan—it is now much more possible for Washington to put direct military pressure on Beijing from Central Asia. At the very minimum, the United States will have enough clout with the governments of Central Asia to make sure that they do not take China’s side in the event of conflict between that country and the United States. China’s push for a nuclear weapons-free zone in Central Asia during the second SCO summit reflects its anxiety that the United States, which has yet to endorse this vision, or a third country unfriendly to China may introduce tactical nuclear weapons into the region. Hence, Beijing is unwilling to dismantle its nuclear weapons test site at Xinjiang’s Lop Nor, nor will it allow Xinjiang to be included in such a proposed zone.

Equally pressing, however, is that China has reason to worry that its economic influence in Central Asia will be compromised by this renewed US interest in the region. Beijing wants to make sure it retains the welcome mat put out by Kazakhstan and other Central Asian governments in negotiating future concessions to sink wells or lay oil and gas pipelines from the region, at the expense of US oil interests, which are now very active there.

This threat of encirclement by the United States is perhaps China’s greatest concern. US troops were already stationed in Japan, South Korea, and parts of Southeast Asia. Now they are also in Central Asia, while Washington has improved ties with Moscow and New Delhi. Still, by discrediting religious-based violence and giving the Chinese government a pretext to designate Xinjiang separatist groups as terrorist organizations, the events of September 11 and the US presence in Central Asia have led to a more quiet and predictable security environment in Xinjiang’s surroundings, and that alone is a small, but definite, blessing for Beijing.