ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan -- Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has begun a Central Asia tour aimed at creating opportunities for Japanese business as well as securing access to natural resources and checking China's growing power in the region through economic cooperation.
Abe met Friday with President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow here in the capital. The prime minister asked for help in building Japan's role as a catalyst for cooperation in the region. Turkmenistan will host a foreign ministers' meeting next year as part of the "Central Asia plus Japan" initiative.
Abe will be the first Japanese prime minister to visit all five Central Asian countries. The last one to come to this region was Junichiro Koizumi, who traveled to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in 2006. But Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan have remained unvisited until now.
The prime minister plans to lobby heads of state directly to form agreements landing infrastructure and other projects for Japanese companies. The countries' presidents wield a great deal of power, and so there are few places where a national leader can promote businesses as effectively as in Central Asia, according to industry leaders accompanying Abe.
Security blanket
The region's rich reserves of oil, natural gas, uranium and other key resources make strengthening economic ties to the five nations a strategic move for Japan. But tighter links with Central Asia are also growing more important in terms of international relations and national security.
As members of the former Soviet Union, the states Abe is visiting have traditionally been dominated by Russian influence. But neighboring China's sway over the countries has grown rapidly. Beijing's "One Belt, One Road" initiative positions Central Asia as a strategic hub for an economic sphere stretching west to Europe.
The nations' trade with China has surpassed that with Russia. All but Turkmenistan have joined the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank -- in part an effort by Beijing to pull in infrastructure orders for Chinese companies. The four states also work with China and Russia on defense, economic measures and other policies through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
Yet some in Central Asian nations worry that drawing too close to China may not be in the countries' best interests, a diplomatic source said. Economies geared toward resource exports to China, Russia and elsewhere have made the nations sensitive to shifting prices. While Japan hopes to secure some of these resources for itself, Tokyo also seeks to help spur development of high-value-added industries, building advanced chemical and other plants and providing technology transfers. Government and the private sector will join forces to develop Turkmenistan's natural gas and related industries, Abe told reporters Friday.
Firm ties with Japan will act in part to keep Chinese influence on Central Asian nations at bay. China's outsized economic and military weight pose a certain threat to its neighbors. Maintaining relations with Japan will help these states strike and maintain a balance of diplomatic power, given the country's alliance with the U.S. and ability to speak out against Chinese actions.
Japan could also make sizable contributions to Central Asian nations' border protection and anti-drug efforts, according to a diplomatic source. Three of the states share borders with Afghanistan, making the spillover of terrorism and narcotics a concern. Japanese efforts to strengthen economic cooperation and support security policy in the region would thus provide indirect support to continued U.S. military efforts in Afghanistan.
