Chinese and Tajik troops began a joint four-day military exercise in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region on Oct. 20, as China continues its efforts to deepen security ties in Central Asia. About 10,000 Tajik personnel reinforced with armored personnel carriers, artillery and aircraft joined a mobile company of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army for the counterterrorism drill in the eastern half of the country.
Tajikistan’s Defense Ministry said the exercises would last until October 24 .
The exercises mark another step in the strengthening security relationship between the two countries. Since they announced a strategic partnership in 2013, China has provided the Tajik government with military assistance, including supplying armored vehicles and personnel training and helping build military facilities.
Tajik authorities said last month that China would be building infrastructure to increase security on the 1,300-kilometer border between Tajikistan and Afghanistan, which is a haven for drug traffickers and Islamist militants, a particular concern for Beijing. Incidents along that border are not uncommon, with a reported 20 attacks on or near Tajik-Afghan border posts since the beginning of the year. China worries that an insecure border could have a destabilizing effect on Tajikistan. On Sept 26, Beijing announced that it would build several military outposts along the border on Dushanbe’s behalf.
Security issues in former Soviet Central Asia, a region that borders China’s restive Xinjiang province, were once the exclusive preserve of Russia.But China has dramatically increased its presence in the region and a suicide attack against the Chinese Embassy in Kyrgyzstan in August highlighted Beijing’s security concerns. China has become even more concerned with bolstering regional stability as it expands its energy and infrastructure projects throughout Eurasia.
Joint military exercises between Chinese and Kyrgyz border security forces have become common, and in early August, Beijing founded the Quadrilateral Cooperation and Coordination Mechanism with Afghanistan, Pakistan and Tajikistan.
The group will coordinate the countries’ efforts to assess the region’s terrorist threats and encourage intelligence sharing, joint training and the improvement of counterterrorism capabilities. China, which is eager to quash the Uighur militant groups within its borders, hopes the heightened cooperation will help it address threats to its national security as well.
China’s defense relationships with Central Asian states have ramped up in other ways, too. In February, Beijing announced that it was in talks to open a counterterrorism center in Dushanbe and provide the Tajik government with the funds to enact effective counterterrorism measures. China has also sold air defense systems to Turkmenistan and increased military aid to every Central Asian country.
In recent years, Russia tried to take the lead in bolstering Tajikistan’s border security. Moscow even offered to send its own troops to patrol the Tajik-Afghan border, a proposal Dushanbe rejected. Although China’s increasing security involvement in Central Asia could instigate a competition with Russia, both countries could just as easily find themselves cooperating there, as well. Russian officials have been generally mute on the issue of Chinese security involvement in the region.