Georgia between Russia and a rising China

Georgian-Chinese co-operation stands out in the South Caucasus due to the size of investments and growth in bilateral trade; whether this co-operation will have a major impact on development remains to be seen. Photo (CC): Public Domain

That is the central motivation behind the almost trillion-dollar One Belt, One Road initiative (OBOR), a project intended to reconnect the Asia-Pacific with Europe through Russia, the Middle East and Central Asia. At the same time, Beijing’s ambition to thwart America’s potential naval dominance of Chinese shores is growing. With these factors involved, mutual suspicion between Beijing and Washington is bound to increase over the years and decades to come.

Chinese Eurasianism

China’s focus on connectivity and integration across Eurasia, or Chinese Eurasianism, distinguishes it from the classical Russian Eurasianism. The Russian version is a largely ideological one, holding that a certain part of the Eurasian landmass is closely related to Russia economically and, more importantly, culturally. However, Russian Eurasianism has so far failed to counter the spread of western democracy and economic, cultural and military integration among states Russia imperialistically calls its “backyard”, the former Soviet space. By contrast, the One Belt, One Road initiative – the backbone of the nascent Chinese Eurasianism – is based less upon the premise of a common culture and political destiny than upon the potential of strong economic relationships and solid institutions. The Chinese project seeks cross-continental connectivity and integration between China and Europe. Unlike Russian Eurasianism, Chinese Eurasianism would eventually challenge what we may provisionally call Atlanticism: a situation in which the United States and its allies build a security umbrella across the Eurasian landmass to prevent a unified Eurasia from emerging.

Chinese Eurasianism will provide Beijing with additional foreign policy tools to use against the US, which pressures it in the Asia-Pacific. China’s pivot to the West goes primarily through Central Asia, a region militarily dominated by Russia. At present, the United States has few means of preventing China from increasing its influence in the region and will have to dedicate more economic and military resources to the purpose of countering the Chinese. As of now, Beijing is in a relatively good geopolitical position to bargain with Washington.

Since domination of the oceans is at the heart of US global power, Chinese initiatives, aimed at economically restructuring the Eurasian landmass, are bound to increase Washington’s suspicions of Beijing over the next few years. The crucial point of American grand strategy has always been to keep Eurasia divided. Therefore, Chinese preponderance on the continent will allow Beijing to master large resources, a control that the US will be challenged to counter in the long run.

In this way, China may be more problematic for the US than the Soviet Union was during the Cold War. The Soviets were mostly competitive on a military level and were unable to implement any successful long-lasting economic projects. Today, China, with its powerful economic incentives, represents a much bigger threat in the region. China, Iran and Russia are the pivotal countries in the Eurasian landmass and Washington maintains largely tense relations with all of them, which limits American power to prevent an alliance of convenience among anti-American countries.

The not-so-obvious China-Georgia connection

Therefore China’s ascendancy is a topic for almost every Eurasian state – and Georgia is no exception. However, before proceeding to China’s geopolitical role in and around Georgia, keep in mind those major routes which make up the OBOR initiative: China to Europe through a new Eurasian land bridge; the China-Mongolia-Russia Corridor; and Central and West Asian countries. The 21st century maritime Silk Road mainly relies on Chinese coastal ports and consists of the following: the China-Indochina Peninsula corridor linking China with the South Pacific Ocean through the South China Sea; the China-Pakistan trade corridor; and the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar trade route.

Georgia does not feature in the list, nor does the South Caucasus. This, however, does not preclude China from forging closer relations with the South Caucasus countries. This signals one of the crucial arguments around the One Belt, One Road: Chinese perspectives are in constant flux, and just because a country or region is absent from the list does not actually mean Beijing is not economically interested. China has developed close trade contacts with all the South Caucasus countries and has invested extensively in the region. However, Georgian-Chinese co-operation stands out due to the size of investments and growth in bilateral trade. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, China’s state-owned investment activities in the region drove Chinese immigration to Georgia. In the early 2000s, the majority of Chinese migrants ran corner shop businesses and restaurants or worked as market vendors. Since 2010, a large portion makes a living as construction workers.

China is now Georgia’s third-largest trade partner after Turkey and Azerbaijan, whereas Russia is the fourth. Trade between the two countries has increased significantly over the past ten years, from about 10 million US dollars in 2002 to 823 million dollars in 2014-15. In 2017 China and Georgia signed a free trade agreement during the visit of a Georgian delegation to China in May. The Georgian government hopes that the country’s position on the Black Sea (with several ports such as Batumi, Poti and Anaklia) will allow it to function as a logistics hub for the entire region, and particularly for China’s One Belt, One Road initiative.

Aside from its Black Sea ports, Georgia boasts the East-West Highway – the country’s main land transport road that essentially connects Azerbaijan with the Black Sea coast – and existing railway projects such as the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars link (BTK). Indeed, from Beijing’s perspective the three most valuable projects underway in the South Caucasus relate to Georgia. These include the opening of the BTK railroad, which will make the delivery of containers, freight and passengers from Asia to Europe 45 per cent faster. Second, the construction of a new deep-water seaport has commenced in Anaklia on the Black Sea, capable of handling 100 million tons of cargo per year and of receiving large Panamax-type vessels. Third, Georgia is expanding the East-West Highway in co-operation with the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and other organisations.

China began considering the South Caucasus route since the announcement of OBOR in 2013. In 2015 China tested the connection efficacy between the Chinese-controlled Xinjiang province to Georgia’s Poti port via Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. Railway cargo loaded in China on January 29th arrived in Georgia on February 6th. However, handling administrative obstacles took almost a third of the transit time. China also carried out several other tests to explore the viability of a trade and transit route through the South Caucasus.

Despite its advantages as a transit country, however, Georgia still faces numerous questions. Although Beijing considers Georgia’s location to be important and the region to be strategically relevant, the Georgian corridor is not among the major transit and trade routes where China is investing heavily. While Beijing certainly demonstrates an interest in existing and upcoming infrastructure and construction projects in Tbilisi, Kutaisi and other major cities in Georgia, major Chinese-financed infrastructure and energy works completed in Russia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan in the past several years far exceed the level of China-Georgia co-operation.

Pushing Russia out?

Co-operation between China and Georgia bears geopolitical significance. Deepening economic relations result in a geopolitical corollary – by increasing its economic footprint, China also obtains a greater stake in Georgia’s stability and security. Naturally, Tbilisi also perceives relations with China as a means for mitigating Russian pressure on the country. In Tbilisi’s thinking, if more regional players become involved in Georgia, security stakes in the country will increase for all the actors. Georgia’s path towards EU integration, as well as its partnerships with the US, Turkey and Azerbaijan, represents attempts of consecutive Georgian governments to balance Russia’s geopolitical influence in the South Caucasus. The hope that Georgia now attaches to China’s involvement follows the same pattern.

Now that China built a new city on the outskirts of Tbilisi, invested in Georgia’s second-largest city, Kutaisi, and owns three-quarters of the shares of Poti’s free industrial zone, a clear east-west line extending to the Black Sea is materialising across the country, marked by a Chinese presence. It is difficult to predict China’s future moves but it is reasonable to expect that new actions by Russian forces in the Tskhinvali region (the self-proclaimed Republic of South Ossetia – editor’s note) to move the demarcation line of the breakaway region to the south, closer to the East-West Highway (which at some points is less than one kilometre away from the demarcation line), will be of concern for China as it endangers its economic interconnection with the South Caucasus. Beijing will then have to either find a common understanding with Russia or become more involved in Georgia’s security.

There is already a precedent for China’s military involvement in territories important to the One Belt, One Road initiative. China has taken certain steps in Central Asia that could potentially challenge Russia’s economic and political influence in the region. China is already the largest trade partner of each of the Central Asian states and Beijing has deepened its military and security ties with Tajikistan and partly with Kyrgyzstan through military exercises and building military infrastructure on the Tajik-Afghan border.

For Tbilisi, an increased Chinese involvement in the South Caucasus will be a boon to its security. At present, however, hope for such a development is seemingly unrealistic. Even in Central Asia, despite clear Chinese gains, Moscow still does not recognise a challenge to its influence by Beijing. Another reason why Georgia is unlikely to become a point of contestation between China and Russia is the fact that Beijing is primarily concerned with fighting militancy and cross-border terrorism threatening the project. Therefore, while Beijing could very well invest in Georgian security beyond law enforcement and counterterrorism co-operation, security co-operation is unlikely to reach a level corresponding to that between China and the Central Asian states.

From the perspective of Georgian history, China’s rise might help successive Georgian governments to balance Russian omnipotence in the Caucasus. Tbilisi’s geopolitical imperative, for the past almost 20 years, has been to move towards EU and NATO membership, but Russia obstructs this and imposes its influence on Tbilisi. Considering this context, China and its economic role in the region might represent yet another avenue for balancing against Russian resurgence. Since Beijing has been increasing its influence in the region through investments and trade and considers Georgia, with its Black Sea ports of Batumi and Poti, a link; for this reason, many Georgians think there is a real possibility of China becoming more deeply involved in the security of Georgia. Tbilisi also believes that though Chinese involvement in the region is limited, for the moment, only to economics, it could eventually become a security partner in the South Caucasus because Beijing will seek to defend its assets around the world – so much so it will oppose the Russians. While there is always a chance that Russia and China could, instead, choose to co-operate on numerous issues regarding security in the South Caucasus, Tbilisi points out that the two countries’ geopolitical agendas and imperatives clash and might prevent such co-operation.

Georgia at the crossroads

Being at the crossroads between East and West, Georgia again finds itself in difficult geopolitical circumstances when numerous regional powers compete with each other to project influence into the South Caucasus. To secure its position from resurgent and rising powers, Georgia today continues to pursue the same tactic to which it historically resorts: rebalancing each of its bigger neighbours with the other, like the Byzantines against the Sasanians, Ottomans against the Persians and nowadays Turkey, Iran, China and the EU against the Russians.

Yet another emerging Georgian perspective is that the balance of power around Russia’s borders has shifted significantly – and not in Russia’s favour. True, the last decade or so has brought war and Russian military victory in Georgia, and then the occupation of Crimea and the invasion of Ukraine, but in the long run Russia has lost more than it has gained. On Russia’s western border, the only country left in which to increase Moscow’s influence is Belarus; in the Caucasus, the Kremlin has reached its limit. The only region Moscow could really try to increase its influence on may be in Central Asia, though China is already making inroads there. Certainly Russia’s geopolitical power is shifting and now must contend with Chinese prospects. Tbilisi believes that this might mark the beginning of a major Eurasian transformation in which Georgia might hope for a more secure region upon the weakening of Russia’s regional influence. 

Emil Avdaliani teaches history and international relations at Tbilisi State University and Ilia State University. He has worked for various international consulting companies and currently publishes articles on military and political developments across the post-Soviet space.

China, Georgia