With the liberal international order facing many challenges, this would seem to be a propitious moment for China’s alternative vision to gain acceptance. In Backlash, Bradley Jardine and Edward Lemon argue that for Chinese leaders “Central Asia is a testing ground for the fostering of this parallel world order” (p. 15). Although Chinese leaders see their blueprint for Central Asia as promoting stability, Jardine and Lemon instead find that China’s increasing presence in the region has brought greater instability, resulting in local opposition, protests and Sinophobia (pp. 16–17). The authors note that China has sought to address its image problem through new regional mechanisms, training, exchanges and technologies that assist regional authoritarian rulers to clamp down more easily on dissent, including opposition to Chinese investments and regional policies (p. 18).
The strength of Backlash is that the authors explore perspectives on China from the ground up based on more than a decade of fieldwork throughout Central Asia. Unlike many works that focus on state-to-state interactions, Jardine and Lemon point to the varying responses and reactions in different communities to China’s increasing presence. This is a book that emphasizes Central Asian agency, avoiding the conventional wisdom about “new great games” that so frequently simplifies the complex dynamics in this region.
Beginning with an overview of China’s expanding influence in the region, Jardine and Lemon point out that other external powers – especially Russia, but also Turkey, the European Union and India – continue to play a major role. (They see the US as disengaged but offer some recipes for greater US involvement in the conclusion.) Against this background of great power competition, the authors view Central Asian states increasingly seeking to find their own voice in regional affairs (p. 26).
One of the puzzling aspects of studies of China’s role in Central Asia is that public opinion surveys provide contradictory results, showing more positive feeling about the Chinese presence in some questions but greater suspicion in others. The second section of the book focuses on specific instances of pushback over land, resources, PRC investments and the widespread incarceration of Central Asians in Xinjiang. Over the past decade, Jardine and Lemon have built a unique database of Central Asian protest actions that they use to quantify the prevalence of backlash against China in specific communities in the region on these issues.
A third section identifies how China has sought to improve its image in Central Asia. Many of the tools China uses are common in other locations – developing programmes for language and vocational training, facilitating tourism, investing in educational exchanges and localizing production. Jardine and Lemon acknowledge that Central Asians continue to find fault with PRC labour and environmental policies (p. 225), but they stop short of a definitive conclusion about the likelihood that China’s adaptation strategies to address the backlash in Central Asia will succeed. This is a difficult question to answer, as it will take time to assess the results of Chinese language and vocational training efforts to determine whether graduates ultimately will find better employment opportunities in China-invested firms. Moreover, efforts like the localization of production of Chinese electric vehicles in Central Asia, provide job opportunities and affordable cars that people like. However, the Chinese production lines may undermine local brands and enmesh Central Asian states in Chinese supply chains, at the expense of desired strategic autonomy.
A concluding section addresses the policy implications for the West and suggests ways that the US and Europe might counter China’s expanding influence in the region through greater diplomatic engagement, targeted economic assistance focusing on areas that China neglects, and encouragement of Central Asian economy. One of the most interesting conclusions is that even in a region dominated by authoritarians, the Chinese model does not always appeal. Backlash is very effective in demonstrating the agency of particular Central Asian communities on certain issues and China’s need to acknowledge their perspectives, if not always to address their concerns.
Is China’s approach to Central Asia a test case for a parallel world order? Although it is true that the land strategy for the Belt and Road Initiative was launched in Astana, Kazakhstan in 2013, the Central Asian states are on the frontlines of China’s “periphery diplomacy.” With three of the five Central Asian states (Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan) sharing a land border with the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan providing flows of energy to China via Xinjiang, for China the stability of the Central Asian states is especially significant. How replicable or relevant the PRC’s experience in these states is for partners farther afield in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America, or for creating a blueprint for wider Chinese foreign policy, remains an open question. The authors suggest that China faces similar backlash elsewhere, but they also leave us with an unanswered question about the impact of the pushback against Chinese influence in Central Asia on Beijing’s ability to create an alternative order.
Backlash is clearly written without too much political science jargon, although specialists in comparative politics will appreciate the discussion of China’s “negotiated hegemony” with fellow authoritarians (p. 241). The book will appeal to policy analysts and to a more general audience with an interest in Central Asia and Chinese foreign policy. Case studies from the book will be useful in advanced undergraduate or graduate courses about Central Asia.
