On January 27, the Declaration on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan was signed in Bishkek. Its signing is one of the links in a complex and multi-stage process of internal, and most importantly, independent integration of the countries of Central Asia.
One of the main conditions for reaching this agreement, of course, was border issue around the Ferghana Valley. Since the collapse of the USSR, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have lived in conditions of up to the end not defined boundaries of the valley, which is the central node of the region, which annually gave rise to armed conflicts, including major ones. The last one between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan led to serious loss of life, affected hundreds of thousands of people and was extinguished with great difficulty.
There have been no clashes of this magnitude between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan in recent years. But we should not forget that from the time of the Osh clash in 1990 to the events of 2010, a lot of time also seemed to have passed. Both clashes claimed up to half a thousand lives, and crowds with rebar wiped entire suburban neighborhoods and villages into dust, which indicates the extreme degree of bitterness of the parties. However, there were not only fittings, but also hotter guns. And in both cases, the Osh, Jalal-Abad and Andijan regions of the neighbors, and the Uzgen region became one of the nodal points.
The territory of Kyrgyzstan covers the Ferghana horseshoe valley from the northeast, east and southeast. The sources of water and pastures are in the Kyrgyz mountains, the main irrigation and crops are in the Uzbek part of the valley (Andijan region). Points of tension were located not only in the areas described above, but also along the entire perimeter, just in the Osh region since the time of the USSR, an ethnic composition sometimes equal in shares has developed in the regions. After the collapse of the USSR, ethno-enclaves remained in each republic, and the main agricultural production and export of products went through Uzbek Fergana. It is clear that the Uzbek part of the business in Osh somehow had some, albeit implicit from the outside, advantages. And the question is who and how will regulate these issues and for what purposes.
Therefore, the period from 2010 to 2021 in itself could not be a guarantee of automatic calm in the region. By March 2021, Tashkent and Bishkek approached the substantive delimitation of territories. The arrangements in the commissions were as follows. Uzbekistan takes into its jurisdiction the entire Andijan (Kempir-Abad) reservoir, where it previously controlled a small part in the north-west and hydraulic drains.
Kyrgyzstan receives land territories mainly to the north, at the junction with the Namangan region of Uzbekistan on the slope of the Chatkal ridge (the region of the Gava-say river) and 12 districts of various sizes. As a result, Uzbekistan received a reservoir and the surrounding area for 4,5 thousand hectares, Kyrgyzstan in total 19,7 thousand hectares. In the Uzgen region, Tashkent and Bishkek exchanged small territories, and they agreed to use the reservoir on a 50-50 basis.
It would seem that the exchange was achieved entirely with the advantage of Kyrgyzstan, but protests soon began, since the area around the reservoir is very fertile, one of the best varieties of rice for pilaf “dev-zira”, or golden Uzgen rice, is grown around. The border of Uzbekistan is now completely adjacent to the main road from Osh, which goes around the reservoir and goes through the passes to Bishkek.
But how fertile the slopes of the Chatkal Range, many in Kyrgyzstan began to doubt. These tensions did not allow Bishkek to quickly bring the agreements to a legally binding level, and the absence of a decision prevented the main ones related to formation of a single community of Uzbekistan-Kazakhstan-Kyrgyzstan - Agreements on it were reached as a framework in July last year.
The overwhelming majority of observers in Russia missed this summit, classifying it as "symbolic". However, in reality it was just a diametrically opposite event. And the fact that the general agreements on strategic rapprochement were not just a declaration, we saw when in December Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, eternal rivals, did the seemingly impossible - signed a union treaty, which for an outside observer, as it were, "came out of nowhere." No, it arose over two years of painstaking work, which was largely initiated by Tokayev as part of the long-term strategy of the “Asian center”, and which came to fruition this year.
K.-J. Tokayev always insisted that one of the main priorities was precisely the delimitation of borders. This was usually associated with his past as an internationalist, but the idea was wider and deeper. But what union, a common trade, energy and production circuit, if there is no clear understanding of whose border crossing? Without solving the main problem - borders, and hence the use of water resources, it is impossible to solve the issues of unification. Kazakhstan was the first to take care of this. Now Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan have solved this puzzle. Tajikistan is next.
In October-November, there was a second attempt in Kyrgyzstan to slow down the border agreement, but in Bishkek, discontent was not allowed to reach the proper degree of concentration, and the foreign ministers signed an agreement on separate sections of the border and an agreement on the joint management of water resources of the Andijan (Kempir-Abad) reservoir. At the end of January, the Declaration on Comprehensive Partnership is signed, and instruments of ratification are exchanged. The Declaration itself includes 23 agreements, half of which are the development of energy, joint ventures, trade and simplification of customs procedures. That is, the same Central Asian political and economic cluster is already being legally built.
It is important to note that the participants were able to approach the implementation of such a project in two years, while relying purely on their own initiative. The frames were delivered in July with the conclusion "Treaty of Friendship, Good Neighborliness and Cooperation for the Development of Central Asia in the XNUMXst Century”, and today we are already seeing the results of the work according to the plan. At the summit in July, Russia was offered to take part in the consultative meetings of this association in the status of an “honored guest”, and Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan politely refused the idea of a “gas union” in December. And given all of the above, this is not surprising.
We can say that the path from agreements to full-fledged unification is “long and thorny”, but here we must understand that in many respects we are talking about the will of the parties and goal-setting, which, obviously, exist if the main issue - borders is successfully resolved using internal resources . And the organizational moments of the participants for twenty years were able to go through trial and error, gaining experience in the structures of the EurAsEC and the EAEU, where a huge regulatory framework has been formed. Participants have something to rely on. The foreign trade turnover of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan in 2017 is 250 million dollars, in 2021 - 950 million, in 2022 - 1,26 billion. These are very impressive growth rates. And this has been achieved so far without the full use of the famous mega-trade corridors, the branches of which are being built in reality at a rather low pace and in very specific directions.
All this does not mean that in five years we will receive in the south the reincarnation of a certain commercial and industrial empire of the Khorezmshahs. It's just that in the conditions of Russia's outright passivity and China's trade expansion, our neighbors decided that it would be better to go into the Chinese economic cluster together. But in addition to the economy, this also gives political weight, because Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have reached agreements in the military sphere. In the future, such a merger will allow the region to attract investment resources of a completely different scale than $10-12 billion each.
In this regard, the author is very surprised that in our country even venerable political scientists and economists often say directly that the formation of the future Eurasian economic space, the common ruble zone, is a question, as it were, deliberately and historically resolved. Like the inevitable change of seasons. But, as we can see, even the format of the EAEU does not mean at all that the desired common space is being formed. It is possible that Iran will join the EAEU, but primarily for the sake of a market for its own, including high-tech goods. A single space while still looping back to Beijingand not Moscow.
But this is not a single space where the total value is formed, but the import of goods and labor. For such work and with such an approach, Russia does not need the format of the EAEU as an organizational and political structure, it just needs free trade agreements. An economic cluster needs a common market of resources, labor, capital, and a single grid of cost accounting and cost calculation, and then we are talking about a common tariff policy, and for imports it is necessary to remove duties and simplify procedures, but everything else is not needed.
Why talk about tariff regulation, harmonization of tax policy, etc., if we de facto were, remain and, most likely, will continue to be importers? When it comes to joint industrial production in this region, all this makes sense, but when we buy finished products produced without our participation, then what is the point of harmonizing tariffs? The EAEU stepped over the EurAsEC format only, unfortunately, on paper. In practice, joint production is needed, where the cost of labor, intellectual labor, raw materials, materials and technologies is formed from all participants. This is where a common tariff policy, tax policy, etc. is required.
Why should we focus on this? Because here and on this example, many other processes can be traced and analyzed. Set the task of creating a single value space that is stable in the face of the outside world, which means that you form a complex around yourself with a division of duties and labor. We set the task of trading, which means we trade, but together we do not work on the value. Here, China works not only as a manufacturing factory, but also as an assembly shop for finished products: part of the components is produced throughout Southeast Asia with its investment, and Beijing itself is the final assembly and packaging, which means the trade function. Not in everything, but already close to 50% in the region, if you look at the foreign trade balances. This is the total cost.
Approximately this scheme is followed by our southern neighbors, and it can be seen that this scheme is different in execution from ours. Therefore, they do not need a gas union so much. This is logical, it is necessary to buy - we will buy, but it is undesirable to participate in the processes of establishing the total cost.
So it’s rather strange to hear how by itself, “at the behest of a pike”, a new single currency or other zone, Eurasia, the Horde, the USSR, etc., will form. not yet going.