Briefing of the United States Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe

Statement

BRIEFING OF THE UNITED STATES COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE

SEN. BROWNBACK: The hearing will come to order. Thank you all for joining me this afternoon. I welcome you to the commission's hearing on the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

Since its inception five years ago, the SCO has been touted by its members, Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, as a multilateral security organization. The SCO's members, which have endured terrorist attacks, have sought to develop a unified approach to combating terrorism. The member states have demonstrated a long-term commitment to the war on terror with the U.S. in this regard.

The organization's focus has also expanded over time to include military security, economic development, trade and cultural exchanges.

The United States is not a member of the organization and has not been invited to participate in its workings. On the other hand, Mongolia, Pakistan, India and even Iran -- the world's foremost state sponsor of terrorism, I might note -- are already observers. Iran is seeking full membership.

Furthermore, the SCO summit in July 2005 called on Washington to set a deadline for the withdrawal of the U.S. military presence in Central Asia, reinforcing a suspicion that one of the SCO's underlying purposes is to weaken American influence in the region.

Perhaps most relevant to this commission are the worrying implications of the SCO for democratization and human rights in Central Asia. I raised this point with the OSCE's chair in office earlier this year when he testified before the commission.

The Central Asian states are all members of the OSCE and have assumed extensive commitments under the OSCE's human dimension. In 1991, all OSCE states accepted that these commitments, quote, "are matters of direct and legitimate concern to all participating states and do not belong exclusively to the internal affairs of the state concerned."

By contrast, the guiding principles of the SCO's work is, quote, "non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states," end of quote, and the SCO has vocally opposed the exportation of democracy. In a glaring challenge to the aspirations of the region's people for freedom and representative government, the SCO's executive secretary has been quoted as saying, "The time for color revolutions in Central Asia is gone."

In fact, Uzbekistan's president, Islam Karimov, has sought to use participation in the SCO as a way to overcome isolation and a criticism has experienced over the Andijan massacre and its failure to cooperate in an international investigation of the incident.

A further rise in SCO influence can only encourage the governments of Central Asia in more repressive and less reformist policies that will contribute to the growth of regional extremism and the terrorism that the SCO was founded to combat.

The United States has a vital interest in the transition of the Central Asian states to democracy and market economies. The region is critical in our war on terrorism. We've encouraged these states to move in the direction of reform and to adopt open energy and economic policies that support their independence and long-term stability.

Along with Senators Kyl and Hutchison, I have introduced a bill in Congress to follow up on the original Silk Road Strategy Act of 1999. This legislation articulates a strong commitment to the region and urges the development of close U.S. political, economic and security ties with these countries. It would recognize the historic relationship among them and, through U.S. engagement, encourage their long-standing traditions of moderate Islam and tolerance.

I look forward to hearing from our panelists today on whether the rise of the SCO is compatible with these goals and what the motivations are of its principal members in setting up this organization.

I'm pleased on our first panel is the honorable Richard A. Boucher, assistant secretary of state. He is the assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs. He previously served as the Department of State's spokesman or deputy spokesman under six different secretaries of state and has served as chief of mission twice. October '93 to 1996, he was U.S. ambassador to Cyprus. He was head of the U.S. consulate general in Hong Kong as the consul general and as a senior foreign services officer with the rank of career minister.

Mr. Boucher, it's a delight to have you here today. I look forward to your statement, and I look forward to a discussion with you in a candid forum and format on what we anticipate the SCO is all about and what it's going to do. Good to have you here.

MR. BOUCHER: Thank you very much, Senator.

Mr. Chairman, I want to start off by thanking you for inviting me here today to discuss this topic of human rights in Central Asia, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the other relationships and organizations that affect it. I've prepared a much longer written statement, and I'd like to ask that that be entered into the record.

SEN. BROWNBACK: Without objection.

MR. BOUCHER: Let me speak briefly then, and we'll go onto whatever questions are on your mind.

As you know, Central Asia is strategically important region. It's going through a period of very tremendous change. Secretary Rice has articulated a clear vision for Central Asia, and we're working with the states in the region to try to carry it out. Simply put, above everything else in this region, we put Central Asians at the center of our policy.

Our policy is firmly based on the premise that the nations of Central Asia are sovereign and independent states with whom we need to maintain relations on a broad range of issues. Our overall goal is simple: to support the development of sovereign, stable, democratic nations that are integrated into the world economy, cooperate with one another, the United States and our partners to advance regional stability.

Real stability, we believe, requires citizens to have a stake in their government. Long-term stability comes from a process of democratic change, and our job is to help the countries of Central Asia develop their own democracies, as they seek their security and develop their economies. All three elements work together.

Central Asian republics are members of several regional organizations whose aim is to provide multilateral security and economic coordination. We believe that cooperation among the Central Asian states with all of their states can be useful via multilateral organizations that address the concerns of all the member states.

You invited me here today to discuss specifically the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. I'd note that, in its early years, the so- called Shanghai Five focused on resolving border disputes among the members and, in fact, did some good work on that score. Today, Shanghai Cooperation Organization still has the potential to advance regional trade and economic development, but we believe that it needs to be an engine for cooperation and equal partnership among the five sovereign states of Central Asia.

It should not be a vehicle for exclusion or for domination by its larger members. We have problems when it takes excursions into more political areas, like telling the states of the region what they can and cannot do with third countries, like ourselves. And we have problems when they seek security cooperation on a no-questions-asked basis. We would hope to see the organization develop in a way that supports broader regional stability and prosperity and focuses its energy on economic development, not on geopolitical statements.

I'd note that, in addition to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, we believe the Collective Security Treaty Organization and the Eurasian Economic Community should also be much more transparent in how they intend to achieve their stated goals. Like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, these other two organizations seem to be sort on a no-question-asked membership basis, as well. There's no criteria for human rights standards or other participation, and there's no effort within the organizations to achieve more stable government or political reform.

So the question in the end becomes: Are they there to strengthen the independence and the sovereignty of states, give them a better foundation for their future, or are they there as a way of outside powers trying to exercise some control over what goes on in the region? And when they slip into that latter mode, we think that's not good for the region, and that's what we've seen happen in a few areas.

As we have tried to build new economic links and other ties between Central Asian nations and South Asia, we've also tried to strengthen the multilateral ties that the nations of Central Asia have already developed to the West. So I'd note that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO, is very involved in this region, and especially for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe is very involved, and the European Union is involved, as well.

All of these organizations, while they might focus on economics or military security or reforms of various kinds, they all have a basic structure that involves all three elements of a good, stable future for these countries, security, economics, and democracy, and political reform.

All five Central Asian republics are participating states in the OSCE, and they host field missions from the OSCE. And as this committee knows very well, the OSCE is a tremendous asset and platform for cooperation on security, economic and environmental development, and especially democratization and human rights.

We believe that NATO plays an important role in maintaining and strengthening relations, both among the Central Asian nations and between them in the outside world. And NATO's Partnership for Peace program has enhanced security capabilities and readiness in the region, so we offer enormous support, not only to the individual nations, in terms of their reform programs, but we consistently support the OSCE, and NATO, and some of the other organizations that try to bring this integrated approach and focus on the Central Asian nations themselves.

We're promoting multiple linkages to the world for the countries of the region. We think that countries should never be left with one option, with one market, one trading partner, or one vital interest structure link. More choices for them means more independence for them, and more independence means more ability to exercise their own sovereignty, and that's our goal for the countries of Central Asia.

We'll continue to pursue to it by working with the countries individually and with the multilateral organizations that share our goals in the region.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you again for the opportunity to talk about this important region, and now I'd be glad to take your questions.

SEN. BROWNBACK: Thanks, Mr. Boucher.

What's been the SCO's impact, in terms of human rights observation in Central Asia? Has it had an impact on human rights efforts in Central Asia?

MR. BOUCHER: I think the first thing to note is the organization doesn't take up human rights questions itself, and that is probably our big criticism of Shanghai Cooperation in the human rights field, that there's no effort at all to match economic agreements, border agreements, security cooperation, counterterrorism efforts with any standards of human rights or even, I suppose, what we would say is sort of understanding of the political environment in which those things have to operate.

And so it's kind of, as I said, no-questions-asked cooperation in these fields. And that in itself is not helpful to bring a balanced development in the region.

As far as observers, I can't remember if they've actually sent observers to specific elections, but some of these countries have observed each other's elections. And despite the fact that in some of them there have been big problems, they've been very quick to approve, and that certainly gives a bit of refuge to people who otherwise in the international arena haven't met what one would call basic standards for a decent election.

SEN. BROWNBACK: What about the SCO has vocally opposed to exportation of democracy? What do you make of that statement?

MR. BOUCHER: Well, exactly. I mean, their doctrine of non- interference is sort of -- cooperation without any questions is one that we don't think is helpful to the region. It doesn't help things move forward. And while they have many times assured us that, you know, our cooperation is not directed as any third country, that was the standard talking point when I went and talked to people in the region.

I went to Beijing in August and was talking to the Chinese, as well as I went to the headquarters of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. And, you know, their own consistent talking point was, "This is not directed at any third parties," but it is directed. I'd say, in some ways, it's sort of insulating these countries from any criticism or any objective scrutiny from outside, and that doesn't help these countries in the end.

SEN. BROWNBACK: And so it's to form protection for countries within it so that they don't feel as much pressure to democratize or have human rights?

MR. BOUCHER: I think it allows them -- it gives them a club to go to, and be happy with each other, and not face any criticism, and therefore maybe lessen the pressure that can be brought on them from outside.

SEN. BROWNBACK: Is there an intent here to build a broader coalition of people opposed to democracy, the expansion of human rights?

MR. BOUCHER: I don't think so. One of the interesting things in this region is, everywhere you go, people will claim that they have a strong human rights agenda. I was in Uzbekistan last month, and President Karimov pointed very proudly to the statements that he had made in the past on human rights, including some that he'd made with us. And I said, "Well, that's great, but you haven't implemented any of this."

But everywhere in the region, they know that political reform and human rights is on their agenda.

Some find various excuses; some find various different ways of doing it. But the kind of pressure that we bring and the kind of pressure that the OSCE brings, the kind of pressure that relations with the Europeans, or Japan, or others bring, they don't feel it when they're inside these other organizations, when they're meeting with their collective security counterparts or their Shanghai Cooperation counterparts.

And so I think that lessens to some extent the desire of people to see them get on with that agenda and actually implement it.

SEN. BROWNBACK: Is this an effort by the Chinese in particular to get a leg up on us economically, by not asking any questions about democracy or human rights?

MR. BOUCHER: I don't think so, I mean, to get a leg up on us. I think China is pursuing its economic interests in the region, not necessarily against us, but it's pursuing its own economic interests in the region. And China has a habit of not asking any questions about democracy and human rights.

They accept dealing with all sorts of regimes, without any questions. They look for, as they say, stability above all. And when I talk to the Chinese about this, you know, I argue very strongly with everybody that, for the long term, the only true stability is democratic stability. The only way to ensure the continuation of independence and sovereignty of your country is to build institutions that will last for a long time, build institutions that are inclusive, build institutions that allow people who have grievances to express them peacefully, and give people a peaceful role in a political process.

And that's something that, you know, we try to carry forward everywhere we go, that building democratic institutions is the way to ensure stability and the way to ensure sovereignty and independence.

SEN. BROWNBACK: What about the executive secretary of the SCO has been quoted as saying, "The time for color revolutions in Central Asia is gone"?

MR. BOUCHER: Well, I think that's -- I didn't see that precise remark. You know, frankly, it's one based on the desire to insulate, you know, what we were talking about before, to insulate their regimes from any sort of criticism or change.

But it's also kind of a smear on the United States, because we're not out there trying to overthrow governments or, you know, sponsor color revolutions everywhere we go. We're trying to support and promote democratic change wherever it exists and to build a stable basis for the future for these countries, in terms of security, in terms of economic cooperation, and in terms of democratic reform.

So, you know, he's first of all arguing against a false target and, second of all, it's really a non-sequitur. The process of reform in these countries, the process of building an independent and sovereign state requires progress in all these areas.

SEN. BROWNBACK: I look at this, and I just have a lot of questions that really come to mind quite quickly about the intent of the people, particularly the larger countries involved in this.

And maybe it's based on a background of inexperience, but particularly, like in Africa, I've traveled a great deal in Central Asia. I've traveled in Africa. And a lot of my experience in Africa has been a lot of Chinese investment and money pouring in, with many rogue regimes and no questions asked.

As a matter of fact, many times the rougher the regime, the more their pariah status with the rest of the world, the more Chinese investment is there. It's a place that we won't go because of genocide in Darfur or other places throughout Africa, and there's extensive Chinese investment. It's almost a business plan, it seems to be, that it's followed.

Are we seeing that being replicated in Central Asia to some degree?

MR. BOUCHER: Sure. They're looking for oil; they're looking for resources; they're looking for --

SEN. BROWNBACK: No questions asked?

MR. BOUCHER: -- no questions asked, yes. That's the way the Chinese do things around the world, as you yourself have seen.

SEN. BROWNBACK: When you press the Chinese officials about this, how do they respond? I mean, here --

MR. BOUCHER: I mean, first of all, China, because it's so fearful of people telling them what to do, takes a very rigid line on not telling others what to do. Second of all, they're looking to cooperate with other countries for the sake of resources and economic growth. They need the oil. They need the raw materials.

They need the trade and transport routes, and so that's their first goal, and that's pretty much the basis of their cooperation in this region. They have new rail lines with Kazakhstan; they have new pipelines with Kazakhstan. They're looking at road and rail links with others. They're looking at the possibility of gas pipelines from Central Asia.

To some extent, this helps the countries in the region. I mean, I have to say, if the goal is really to give them multiple outlets and multiple pipelines, then having the China option, as well as having the Caspian option, as well as having the options of sending things to the south, these are all good. All the infrastructure that was built in the Soviet period, obviously, led back up into Russia, and these countries are still very heavily dependent on Russia.

And the more options they have, including the China option, probably the better it is for each of these countries, to be able to decide on their own which is best, and which way they want to go, and how they can exercise their sovereignty and maintain their independence by having more choices. But, at the same time, I say that in itself does not lead to political reform. They need to consider what the long-term stability of their nation requires.

SEN. BROWNBACK: Doesn't it even slow political reform?

MR. BOUCHER: I guess the answer would be: Compared to what? If it would slow -- it would certainly slow political reform if their only option was to cooperate with Europe and the West. But since right now their only option is Russia for many of them, the fact of adding more options with China, and with Europe, and with NATO and the OSCE actually probably stimulates a bit more openness and cooperation.

SEN. BROWNBACK: You think President Karimov's participation in the SCO has stimulated human rights and democracy building in Uzbekistan?

MR. BOUCHER: No, absolutely not. No, absolutely not. He's been very impervious to influence, shall we say, more than anybody else --

SEN. BROWNBACK: It seems like it buttresses his efforts and it gives him a club to go to, and market to a substantial size to participate in, and no pressure.

MR. BOUCHER: Sure.

SEN. BROWNBACK: No questions asked.

MR. BOUCHER: Sure.

SEN. BROWNBACK: And there it would seem like it would be a classic case of really slowing down the process.

MR. BOUCHER: I can't disagree with you, sir. I guess the only thing I'd say is slowing -- you know, what are his other options? If he didn't have Shanghai Cooperation Organization club to hang around in, he'd probably be hanging out in Moscow. I'm not sure that would make his policy any different.

Right now, he does both.

SEN. BROWNBACK: Has the U.S. sought membership in the SCO?

MR. BOUCHER: No, we haven't, sir.

SEN. BROWNBACK: Why would the SCO object to U.S. participation or wider, say, South Korean, Japanese participation? Have you thought of that?

MR. BOUCHER: I don't know that they would. They might. They might find a reason, even though theoretically it's open to others.

We have not sought participation, I think, for two reasons. One is the purely practical and small, well, specific reason that their rules are such that they require participation by observers at the same level as the level of the meetings.

So if you had a summit meeting in the United States that wanted to go in observer, in theory, it would have to be George Bush, President Bush, sitting at a table off to the side with a few other countries watching the proceedings. And that generally is not very productive for the United States to take a role like that. That's what their own internal rules require.

But the second, I think, is a bigger picture, and that is that, in terms of our cooperation with the region, we don't think this is a particularly helpful organization. It's certainly not one that we would want to back, or sponsor, or promote in any way. We think our money, our energy, our time is better invested in working with the individual countries and working with the organizations that take a broader view, the NATO, the OSCE, the European Union, other partners, Japan, working with them in the region, people who are interested in all aspects of cooperation in that region.

SEN. BROWNBACK: What do the Kazakhs say to you as to why they are a member of this organization and seek to be actively participating in the OSCE?

MR. BOUCHER: I think it probably applies to all the states in the region that they're members of this partly because of geography, partly because when it started out it was a useful vehicle for solving some of the border problems and working on customs and economic issues, partly because they do want the cooperation on security and counterterrorism.

The attitude is sort of, the more you can do in that area, the better. So they're looking at it from their point of view and finding some benefits for their development, for their security, for their economic relations with neighboring countries.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation for Europe, of course, takes a broader view, a more well-balanced view, where it is security, economics and democratization, three baskets that OSCE has. And their interest in OSCE is to show, to get some recognition from other countries that they have some achievements in those areas.

SEN. BROWNBACK: So a member of the Hudson Institute, Chris Brown, has termed the SCO, quote, "the most dangerous organization that the American people have never heard of." A pretty strong statement. He calls it or suggests it's more than an economic organization. He sees it as a potential Eurasian Warsaw Pact. What do you think of those concerns?

MR. BOUCHER: I don't see it. I don't really see it that way. The Warsaw Pact was an instrument of direct control by the Soviet Union, in places where they had troops, where they had security services, where they had direct control, really, over many of these nations, and sometimes intervened forcefully to maintain it.

The countries of Central Asia have more options and they have more opportunities. And to some extent, they can get out of any organization what they want to. And the more opportunities they have, to the north, the south, the east, and the west, the more organizations they can participate in, the more options they have.

And it makes it harder for any one organization to try to control them. It makes it harder for any one organization to have the domination that the Warsaw Pact had over Eastern Europe.

SEN. BROWNBACK: It seems to me that this is one that bears very close watching, the SCO, particularly in some of these, it looks like to me, incendiary statements that their leadership has made against exportation of democracy, no more color revolutions, this sort of no- questions-asked association.

The operational techniques that have been used, particularly by the Chinese to secure more resources and ask no questions or not push at all about human rights or democracy, I think this is one that we ought to be very concerned and watching quite closely as what its trajectory is and what it's headed towards, to where it might look not as difficult right now, but that it could take a very aggressive trajectory against our interests and against the spread of human rights and democracy.

MR. BOUCHER: I agree with you, sir. I mean, we have watched this organization very closely. We watch all the multilateral cooperation in this region. Again, our emphasis is on trying to encourage cooperation in this region, trying to help them with their, you know, customs efforts, with their mutual reinforcing economic efforts, with security cooperation, and other things, as well as political reform and movement towards democracy in the region.

So we watch all the organizations that are involved in one way or the other. We don't find Shanghai Cooperation at this stage, given the things they've gotten into, particularly in the last two years, to make that big of a contribution to this. And we've been very careful in watching it and raising it. We talk about it with the countries of the region. We raise our concerns with countries outside the region.

I think, you know, Iranian participation is quite a problem. And certainly, if you look at the meeting this year, that Iran probably detracted from the meeting and the quality of the organization rather than added anything by showing up. So we do raise this regularly with countries; we watch it closely. And we will watch its evolution as it goes forward.

But I'm not sure I agree with some of the statements you were quoting from others, but we do watch it very carefully.

SEN. BROWNBACK: And, well, thank you. Thank you for your presentation and your comments here today. I appreciate very much your attendance.

MR. BOUCHER: Thank you very much, Senator. Pleasure to be with you.

SEN. BROWNBACK: We'll call up the second panel.

Sean Roberts is a Central Asian affairs fellow at Georgetown University Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies. He's also the author of a Web site on political and social economic developments in Central Asia. He's been living on and off in Central Asia since 1989. And when he was an exchange student at Tashkent State University, an expert on history and culture of some of the people in that region. He speaks fluent Russian and other languages.

Dr. Martha Brill Olcott has testified before in front of the commission. A senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, one of the world's foremost experts on Central Asia, also a professor of political science at Colgate University. Co- directs the Carnegie Moscow Center's Project on Ethnicity and Politics in the former Soviet Union. Has written extensively on the region.

And the final one on the second panel, Dr. Steven J. Black, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College. He's an expert on the Soviet bloc and post-Soviet world. He's editor "Imperial Decline: Russia's Changing Position in Asia," co-editor of "Soviet Military and the Future," and the author of "The Sorcerer as Apprentice: Stalin's Commissariat of Nationalities." He's written many articles and conference papers on Russian Commonwealth of Independent States and Eastern European security issues.

We're delighted to have this panel with us today. Your full statement will be included into the record.

Dr. Roberts, we'll start with you.

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you very much for inviting me today to speak to you about the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and its impact on U.S. interests in Central Asia.

When the Shanghai Five group first met in 1996, few people foresaw that this loose alliance between China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan would be what it is today. The turning point in the organization's development took place in 2001, when the loosely aligned Shanghai Five group reformed itself into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, or the SCO, and took on Uzbekistan as an additional member.

Since 2001, the SCO has gradually built an alternative universe to the Western military, political and economic alliances that has sought partnership with the Central Asian states. While the military potential of the SCO may be at some point an issue for the U.S., much more important today are the political and economic counterbalances that the SCO presents to U.S. interests in Central Asia.

And it may be the political counterbalance of the SCO alliance to U.S. interests in the region as an alternative to the OSCE that is most critical, since this is the aspect of the organization that gives its ideological glue.

By the choice of its name alone, it is clear that the Shanghai Cooperation Organization was created in 2001 at least in part as a conscious counterbalance to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, or the OSCE. Its challenge to the OSCE, however, became much clearer with the SCO's decision to sponsor an election-monitoring delegation to the 2005 Kyrgyzstan parliamentary election. This event signaled a serious shift in the activities of the SCO and particularly China, with regards to its involvement in Central Asia's internal political development.

Since 2005, this trend has become more visible in the activities of the SCO and in its public statements. While the alliance continues to promote military, trade and security cooperation among its member states, it now articulates its geopolitical stance as an organization that is protecting the region from external political influences. In essence, the SCO has positioned itself as the protector of the sovereignties of the Central Asian states from foreign interference in internal affairs.

In doing so, it is creating various regional support mechanisms that can exist in economic, security and military development, without the commitments to democratic reform that being a member of the OSCE entails. Such a situation creates a serious threat to the observation of human rights and the development of democratic governance in Central Asia, as well as to the general raison d'etre of the OSCE.

But the question remains as to when the desire for an alternative to the OSCE began in the region and why. And, more specifically, why do the Central Asian states now, in contrast to the early 1990s, perceive of the U.S. and its European allies as equal or perhaps even larger threats to their sovereignty and independence than China and Russia?

In general, there are three events that have contributed to the situation. First, in 1999 and 2000, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan all held parliamentary and presidential elections. None of those elections were recognized as free and fair by the OSCE, nor by the United States. The failure of this election cycle to meet international standards understandably led to significant bad international press concerning the efforts of the Central Asian states to develop democracy.

This situation one might say ended the honeymoon of Western engagement in Central Asia. It was shortly after this election cycle that the Shanghai Five group became solidified into the more formal Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

The second event was the establishment of U.S. military bases in Central Asia shortly after September 11, 2001. While there was tacit agreement among all parties that the U.S. and its coalition needed the use of bases to establish control over the disorder in Afghanistan, there had always been and remains distrust of the intentions of the U.S. in establishing those bases.

Third, in the last three years, there has developed a general fear of U.S. political intentions in Central Asia regarding the concept of regime change. This fear is propelled by a conflation of the United States' articulation of the goals of the global war on terror, in terms of a freedom agenda of bringing democracy to the world, and the belief that the U.S. was intimately involved in the developments of the so-called colored revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, as well as the Andijan protests of May 2005.

The member states of the SCO, with perhaps the exception of Kyrgyzstan, generally see the colored revolutions of recent years, along with the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, as parts of a unified U.S. foreign policy to selectively force regime change around the world in the name of democracy. As long as such a perception exists, the SCO is likely to be an attractive counterbalance to the OSCE and U.S. interests in the region for the Central Asian states.

There are, however, some internal dynamics within the SCO that can limit its ability to present a long-term challenge to U.S. interests and to the OSCE in the region. The Central Asian member states of the SCO continue to see the advantage of engagement with the U.S., recognizing that Russia and China could also pose significant threats to their independence and sovereignty.

Along these lines, Kazakhstan may be in a position to play a pivotal role in how the SCO positions itself, vis-a-vis the U.S. and the OSCE. Kazakhstan is the only Central Asian country whose economic power allows it to be a significant international investor and to play an important role in the development of the other Central Asian states.

In this context, Kazakhstan seeks a wide range of international partners and often wishes to exert its independence from Russian and Chinese political and economic influence. Furthermore, while Kazakhstan seeks to control public political competition and continues to be reluctant to implement free and fair elections, the country's growing middle class has Western sensibilities that will eventually seek the reforms that are aligned with the country's commitments to the OSCE.

In this context, it is vital for the U.S. and the OSCE to find new means for engaging the Central Asian states on long-term democratic reforms in a way that is not seen as threatening the sovereignty and independence of these states in the short term. In order to do so, however, the fears of colored revolutions in these countries must be replaced by a true sense of mutually beneficial partnership that involves the collaborative efforts of the U.S. and the OSCE to build free markets and democratic governance in the region over the long term.

Such an approach should not be confused with being soft on democracy, as Ariel Cohn (ph) recently suggests. The U.S. and the OSCE need to talk tough about democracy with Central Asian leaders but also do so realistically, respectfully, and with the assurances that they are committed to long-term engagement.

It should be remembered that the fear of U.S. democracy promotion that is prevalent among Central Asia's leaders is not as much a reaction against the idea of political reform as it is a suspicion that the freedom agenda presently promoted by the U.S. abroad is actually a smokescreen for ulterior motives. In order to refute such ideas, the U.S. needs to demonstrate to the Central Asian leadership that its interest in promoting political reform throughout the region have nothing to do with forcing regime change in the short term and everything to do with ensuring the long-term sustainability of the sovereignty and independence of the Central Asian states.

If the U.S. can regain the trust of the Central Asian states in this regard, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization will likely cease to be a serious threat to our interests in the region.

Thank you very much.

SEN. BROWNBACK: Thanks, Mr. Roberts.

Dr. Olcott?

MS. OLCOTT: Thank you.

SEN. BROWNBACK: Good to have you back.

MS. OLCOTT: Thank you very much for the opportunity to appear once again before you today. I have a longer testimony, which I've submitted to the record.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization is becoming increasingly more active in Central Asia. Although it is not clear what the final shape of this organization will take, either in terms of its membership or in terms of its mission, right now though I believe that, rhetoric not withstanding, that SCO is little more than a discussion forum for a group of states with shared borders or nearly shared borders, as in the case of Uzbekistan.

And it is unclear to me whether the efforts at institution- building of this organization will be any more successful than those of the rather ill-fated CIS, the Commonwealth of Independent States. Today, I don't believe that the Shanghai Cooperation Organization poses any direct threat to U.S. interests in Central Asia or in the region more generally, although I grant that its annual meetings, most particularly since 2005, have become an opportunity for member states and for observers to vent their frustration with the U.S.

I also believe that the timetable for possible expansion of this organization is uncertain, but I certainly feel that it is unlikely to come anytime soon. And I think it's important to remember that observer states in the organization have a very limited range of activities that they can participate in. And so much of the bluster comes from the observer nations, like Iran, at general meetings.

Moreover, I believe that the expanded mission for the SCO becomes less viable if the membership of the organization expanded. This is something that the membership in general is well aware of, and this is one reason why the Chinese in particular have privately resisted any proposal to increase any of the observer nations to full member station. A decision to increase membership would need to be consensual, and Chinese authorities have sent strong signals to suggest that the organization cannot be expanded until its final mission is clarified and made operational.

I believe that, although the SCO have made commitments to view security threats to one as a form of threat to all, they lack the capacity to respond to these threats in any sort of concerted fashion. And for the foreseeable future it is hard for me to imagine China becoming an equal security partner of any of the Central Asian states or of Russia. Suspicion of China simply runs too deep.

So furthermore I believe the capacity of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to be a security organization with a mission anywhere analogous to NATO further diminishes if the SCO takes on new members. I also believe that Russia itself is against the expanding of the security mission of the SCO, because it works against bilateral Russian efforts and multilateral efforts of Russia with the Central Asian states.

The economic mission of the organization also remains somewhat ill-defined. And the fact that China and Kyrgyzstan are both WTO members and that Kazakhstan and Russia also have WTO ambitions -- Kazakhstan in particular is moving towards WTO membership -- I think will impede the SCO from emerging as any sort of competitive, exclusive regional trade organization.

That not withstanding, SCO member states are likely to become important economic partners of each other, especially in the area of energy. Russia and China are to some degree competitors for Central Asian oil and gas reserves, but both realize that the SCO and the partial pooling of their efforts could work to their individual advantage. However, the mutual advantage that the SCO provides in the area of energy really begins to seriously diminish if it admits other large oil and gas competing producing states, like Iran, or other states with large markets, competing markets for energy, like India.

I would like to turn to three points before I run out of time and then a conclusion. First of all, energy. I would argue that China's priority, as we've talked about, vis-a-vis the Central Asian states, lies not with the SCO but with increasing its ownership of oil and gas assets in Central Asia. As I will return in the conclusion, as I talk about in my testimony, this is something that need not be of direct or indirect threat to the U.S.

The Chinese expects the SCO to help with energy security. OK, domestic politics -- again, you know, I'm going to run out of time. I think this question has come up, the question on human rights.

I would say that the Chinese have little interest in the domestic politics of the Central Asian regimes, except as they relate to the treatment of ethnic minorities, Chinese ethnic minorities, the Uyghurs in particular. And this is the one place where the Chinese government has placed very serious pressure on the Central Asian states to restrict the political rights and to outlaw particular Uyghurs groups, OK?

I would say that Beijing is not encouraging the Central Asian states to be autocratic, and they wouldn't break ties with any of these regimes if they became democratic, but like the rest of the SCO member states, the leadership in Beijing -- and this is really what I'd like to emphasize -- believe that security threats come from groups with alien -- and I would read extremist -- ideologies and are not produced as a result of the domestic and, in particular, of the human rights abuses of the governments themselves.

And this really is where I think the SCO and the OSCE really differ, in the evaluation of what constitutes threat, domestic threat, and what produces domestic threat. And I will come back to that in another second, in the conclusion.

Finally, I'd like to say just a word or two about Russia and the SCO. The increased visibility of the SCO provides a useful buffer for the Central Asian states to use in trying to balance Russia and Chinese influence in the region. One Central Asian foreign minister once noted that the biggest advantage that his country gets from membership in the SCO -- and this is off the record -- was that they used it to oppose Moscow.

When there was a position that there had been a clash at bilateral meetings, they would bring it before the SCO if there was any evidence at all that China would take the opposing view, that it served as a great discussion place to neutralize some of Russia's concerned.

I feel it's very important to note that the security goals of Russia and the SCO do not fully overlap, and Russia itself would be very uncomfortable with intelligence-sharing between the Central Asian states and Beijing, if all the SCO members would just share intelligence. I'm sure some limited intelligence-sharing goes on, but not the kind of intelligence-sharing that goes on between Russia and the Central Asian states.

I'd like to make for my last minute some concluding comments. The existence of the SCO, I would argue, will never serve U.S. interests but it need not directly hinder them. It's easy to criticize the SCO as a union of non-democratic states, but I would argue that these states are not bound together by their common interests in keeping member states from becoming democracies.

They are bound together by a shared set of security interests and a shared set of perceived risk. Unfortunately, they understand the roots of these risks in ways that are impeding the advancement of a democratic process of most of these states.

I think that China's role in the energy sector can be quite positive. Secretary Boucher said some of that; I'd happily to go back to that in the question period.

But I think that it is not in U.S. interests to try and create chasms in the relationship between the Central Asian states and China, that Kazakhs and Kyrgyz in particular understand that there's no way that the fate of their countries can be fully separated from that of China.

For now, at least, China is behaving responsibly in Central Asia, but I think that the U.S. goal -- that Beijing sees the organization as a way to parry Russian influence and, even if only indirectly, to keep these states from becoming exclusively European in outlook.

The U.S. goal should be to ensure these states be Euro-Pacific in outlook and find more ways to engage with them in trying to achieve what we hope are our shared European -- and by this I mean the shared OSCE democratic values.

Thank you.

SEN. BROWNBACK: Thank you, Dr. Olcott. I look forward to further discussion in our question-and-answer period.

Dr. Blank?

MR. BLANK: Thank you, Senator Brownback.

I'd like to speak today about the relationship between China and SCO, which raises many questions about Chinese policy and the SCO, which is a work in progress. As Dr. Olcott testified, it has not yet found or crystallized its final mission and, for that matter, even its final membership. And it remains to be seen where it's going to go.

But it is no doubt that China sees the SCO as its main instrument for countering the United States on a multilateral basis in Central Asia today. And this realization started with the original Shanghai Five in 1996. There is some evidence that the conclusion of the border treaties then was due to the decision by China to move to multilateralism against American foreign policy, as shown then in the Taiwan crisis.

Since then, what has become the most striking fact about the SCO is that it's a platform for all of the local governments, including Moscow and Beijing, to state firmly that Washington should not interfere in their domestic arrangements.

This pervasive fear about American calls for democratization or alleged outside American agitators, like the Open Society Institute or the CIA, are somehow conniving to launch revolutions in Central Asia may be misguided and false, because they are not doing so, but it is nonetheless widely believed. And in the absence of any countervailing public information policy by the U.S., it has become an article of faith among elites in Central Asia, China and Russia that the United States is involved in trying to revolutionize Central Asia. And this has contributed in no small measure to our setbacks over there.

At the same time, both China and Russia realize full well just how fragile not only the Central Asian governments are but their own governments are, because of their democracy deficits, and as a result they continue to stoke these fires in order to wage what might be considered an ideological counter-campaign against the United States.

So, in other words, the great game in Central Asia is not just about geostrategic or energy access; it also is about political and ideological values, such as democratization. But we are not trying to overthrow governments in Central Asia, as Assistant Secretary Boucher pointed out.

Nonetheless, in the absence of any coherent statements to the contrary, this is still believed widely throughout Central Asia and allows Beijing and Moscow ample scope to influence governments which are very concerned about their own internal and external security and which, therefore, as Dr. Olcott said, find the SCO very palatable for their objectives.

We also can see that there is an identity in Russo-Chinese approaches to world politics which is not necessarily shared by the other members of the SCO and which leads them to try and drive the SCO in ways against American foreign policy objectives, not just in Central Asia, but in Asia more generally. It's no sign of this -- no sign that, say, Kazakhstan or Kyrgyzstan are really concerned about the Korean issue or that they share Moscow and Beijing's view on Iranian proliferation.

Nonetheless, it is not as vital an issue to them as it is to Russia and China. And as a result, these issues prop up in the agenda of the discussions there.

At the same time, China views the United States military presence, as well as its ideological presence in Central Asia, as a source of strategic encirclement and has tried very hard to put pressure on both Kyrgyzstan and supported Uzbekistan last year in getting them to push us out. Were it not for the Taliban offensives this year, I suspect that we would be under much greater pressure in Kyrgyzstan than was the case and we would be under much greater pressure to get out of there than proved to be the case.

Furthermore, China, as Russian sources have pointed out, is trying to project its military power into Central Asia. The minute we were removed from the scene in Uzbekistan, Beijing made inquiries as to whether or not it could move into Karshi-Khanabad, and the Russians promptly stopped it, which shows you that the Sino-Russian rivalry in Central Asia still exists alongside of the talk about partnership.

And to the extent that the United States is not a factor in the Central Asian issue, you will see tensions arising, not just among Russia and China, but between the smaller states, as well as Russia and China. And, again, Dr. Olcott pointed that out in her testimony.

There are also differences between them as to where this organization is going to go. Russia flirted with the idea of it being a military organization. The Chinese have come out openly against the idea of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization being a military bloc, because that would violate one of the fundamental principles of Chinese military power and foreign policy, that is no membership in military blocs.

At the same time, China sees the SCO as a template of the future organization of Asia against the American alliance system and is in favor of a kind of concept of multilateralism from which the United States is excluded. It also has used the SCO as the platform by which to conduct military exercises, either bilaterally with Kyrgyzstan and just recently Tajikistan, or with Russia, or with all the members together.

Ostensibly, these are anti-terrorist operations, but the exercises last year with Russia, which took place on China's coast in Shandong Peninsula, were widely regarded as being anti-Taiwan and, for that matter, anti-American, with regard to the Korean theater, in their orientation, even though they were conducted under the SCO's auspices.

What all this shows is that the SCO is a work in progress. Its final destination, its final membership have not been settled. As a matter of fact, its membership is open to some dispute. It's very unlikely that anybody really wants Iran to become a member of the SCO, because that would entail an obligation to defend Iran. And everybody in this game knows that Iran is playing with fire and they're not being entirely responsible actor, insofar as playing with fire is concerned, and they do not want to have to be called to defend Iran, lest the United States strike at it because of its proliferation.

China also is committed to bilateral deals with various Central Asian governments, most recently Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, in the energy sphere and is enhancing its trade relationships with all the governments in Central Asia on a bilateral as well as multilateral basis. Whereas President Putin has called recently for it to become a networking organization for Asia or an energy club, it remains to be seen exactly if that's going to happen, if that's going to command support from the other members, and whether or not it's actually going to materialize.

So, in conclusion, I would say that this is an organization whose orientation is to a significant degree anti-American but shows very little capability of developing into an anti-NATO or an anti-OSCE. Even though it may try to develop into that kind of operation, there are two many fissures and too may crises which the SCO cannot address in its present form.

And while we need to keep a close eye on it and work against its attempts to suppress calls for democratization and genuine liberalization in Central Asia, it is not going to be the answer to Central Asia's very crowded security agenda.

Thank you.

SEN. BROWNBACK: Thank you, Dr. Blank.

Dr. Blank, you noted that there was a military exercise done under the auspices of SCO or just SCO members?

MR. BLANK: There have been several military exercises, going back, I believe, to 2002. There have been bilateral Chinese exercises with Kyrgyzstan in 2002 and, I believe, 2003. There was just a recent one that concluded last week with Tajikistan.

There was an anti-terrorist operation in both Central Asia and China, which embraced all the members of the organization, in 2004, I believe. And last year, there was a major division-size operation involving combined joint arms with Russia, which was allegedly conducted under the auspices of the SCO, but which was billed as an anti-terrorist operation. But if you look at it closely, it involved every kind of conceivable theater, conventional operation, amphibious operations, paratroop landings, and the like, leading observers to speculate it was aimed either at Taiwan or at Korea, despite the fact that it was billed as an SCO operation.

SEN. BROWNBACK: Do we have any recent history of Russia and China doing military exercises like this outside of an SCO organization umbrella?

MR. BLANK: There had been smaller scale naval exercises between Russia and China about five or six years ago, before the SCO formally became a security agency, at the time when it was basically a discussion club and a border-monitoring or confidence-building operation.

The 2005 exercises were significant as a new departure. The earlier operations were multilateral or involved China and a Central Asian government, Russia exercises with Central Asian states, under the Collective Security Treaty Organization, which is its attempt to build a military organization to defend against threats in Central Asia.

So last year's operations were the first of their Russo-Chinese type. And more are scheduled, I believe, for this year and next year, which may also involve India.

SEN. BROWNBACK: Doesn't that raise your awareness on this issue quite significantly, when you talk about -- I don't know if it was quite you or Dr. Olcott or others, talking about the lack of ability of China and Russia to be able to cooperate or the Russians wanting it to be a military organization, but the Chinese not wanting it to be a military cooperation organization, and yet you're seeing these exercises happen at pretty significant levels?

MR. BLANK: Yes, that does raise a flag. But the point is that the Chinese still say this is not going to be a military organization, and it is still clear to me that this is a work in progress. This is a debate that has not yet been resolved in favor of the SCO becoming a trade- and economic-security-providing organization or a hard security organization.

And the membership has not yet -- the smaller states have not yet stated their position. It is, I think, a significant point that they did -- Russia and China did carry out this kind of operation in 2005 and that we may see something like it again. But it is not clear what the next operations are going to look like, so we cannot say in advance what they represent.

However, it does suggest to me an attempt to create a deeper political and military alliance against U.S. interests, not only in Central Asia, but perhaps in East Asia, as well.

SEN. BROWNBACK: That seems to me to be pretty significant.

MR. BLANK: I agree it's significant, but we haven't seen any follow-up as to what that may mean for the future. It certainly does not mean that if -- let's say, for example, there was a scenario involving Taiwan that the Russian army would get involved in that.

(Cross talk.)

MR. BLANK: On the other hand, Korea is an area where both Russia and China have vital interests, as is in Central Asia. So conceivably, if some sort of major crisis developed in either of those two theaters, we could see perhaps joint operations or joint action or the threat even of joint action by them, but that's only a hypothetical possibility. And we don't know for sure what's going to come out as a result of that.

In the meantime, though, it's very clear that there are divergences between Moscow and Beijing, with regard to the future orientation of the SCO.

SEN. BROWNBACK: Which there have been for years and years differences between Moscow and Beijing, going back to many years, in different times. But it sounds like some of those are being overcome --

MR. BLANK: Well, they're being overcome --

SEN. BROWNBACK: -- by common desires here in the region or common desires to offset U.S. influence.

MR. BLANK: Well, it's our policies that drive them together. And, you know, we have to examine why they're being driven together, and what the consequences of that are, and what we can do about it, so as to prevent what could develop into a full-fledged strategic partnership.

SEN. BROWNBACK: What policies on our part would you change to prevent them from being driven together?

MR. BLANK: Well, it's not up to me to change U.S. policy, but it's very clear that they take exception to what they believe to be our unilateralism and disregard for their interests, for example, in going to war with Iraq without going through the final U.N. approval stage, or disregarding their interests in Iraq.

They certainly do not approve of our efforts to tie what they see as regime change to nonproliferation in both Iran and North Korea. And what certainly exercises them the most is the combination of what they believe is American efforts to spread democratization in the former Soviet Union, at the same time as we are building military bases in and around the former Soviet Union, which they both regard as strategic encirclement and as a kind of ideological campaign against the stability and integrity of their governments or of their vital interests.

SEN. BROWNBACK: Dr. Olcott, I always appreciate your opinion and thoughts. I gather from your comments you really don't have a lot of concern about this SCO, what it's doing or what it's likely to do?

MS. OLCOTT: I don't have concern about the SCO. I accept a lot of what Steve has said. I mean, there's actually a huge amount of overlap between our positions.

I think that -- I'm trying to think of how to put it -- I don't think the structure of the SCO is going to turn into a structure that is used to successfully destabilize the U.S. position in Central Asia. I mean, I think what Steve said about the Russo-Chinese military activities are really interesting, and I wonder whether that would have been possible in Central Asia, you know, that this was not a theater of operations that Russia has a large military presence in.

And I think that the SCO plays a very important role in Russia for groups that want closer cooperation between the Russian and Chinese military to conceal some of what they're doing, because Russian policy, Russian public opinion is still very, very strongly anti-Chinese. And this creates an umbrella for that.

I think that the concern that we should have is what I tried to allude to in the testimony, that we understand risk in very different ways than they understand risk. And that really is our burden, if you like. We have to get these states to understand that their policies are putting their stability at risk and that the SCO is not meeting their security burden, that it's not the ideologies that create the risk, but the policies of governments take the presence of ideologies and make them much more dangerous, as catalysts.

No one talks about Great Britain falling apart because there were the threat of Islamic terrorism on U.K. soil. But when you go to Central Asia, you have other fears, because the governments themselves are destabilizing their own situation. I think the danger that the SCO has is that it creates an atmosphere where people just reinforce each other's prejudices, and it's that, these prejudices, are what are hampering the U.S. effort to spread our policies.

One thing I'd like to very briefly say that I really disagree with Dr. Blank on, is I've had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with some of the Chinese advisers to the SCO over the past seven or eight months, in various settings, in China, in Central Asia. And I find that where they disagree with us is the question of what constitutes stability and destabilizing.

But they're really much more interested in balance in the region than in excluding the U.S.

So I don't think the U.S. military bases -- rhetoric at some of these meetings notwithstanding -- become the real point where we disagree with China on policies in Central Asia. I think where we have not managed to convince the Chinese is that our understanding of what's creating security risk there is really what's at stake, that they're making the situation more unstable, not less unstable, by their policies. So it's not the SCO, but the mindsets that I think we need to do battle with.

SEN. BROWNBACK: Dr. Roberts, you've spent quite a bit of time in Uzbekistan, a student and other times.

MR. ROBERTS: Also in Kazakhstan, as well.

SEN. BROWNBACK: My experience in that region, but particularly in Uzbekistan, with the leadership that's there, is that they are deeply concerned about Islamic fundamentalism spreading and taking over. And what they kind of look for, at least the leadership looks for, probably more than anything, is somebody to be able to, no matter what, back them whenever or if some sort of threat starts to mount up in any form.

And you saw the very aggressive position that they took when there was a perceived threat that comes on forward. Is that what they get out of this SCO organization, that if an Islamic fundamentalist threat mounts up, that Chinese and Russian troops, if it becomes serious enough, will be present?

MR. ROBERTS: Well, I think that that's what they think they get. I agree with Professor Olcott that it's a question as to whether Russian or Chinese troops, for example, are enough to deal with a problem of fundamentalism in Uzbekistan, when you have a country that's not very effectively governed.

But certainly they perceive of working with the Russians and Chinese through the SCO as more comfortable than working with, say, the OSCE on terrorism, because they feel that the OSCE is trying to undermine their authority through democratization, which is also why I was bringing up this issue that I think one policy the U.S. has to seriously consider is the way we're going about democratization.

And actually, it's not as much the approach, because I actually was working in USAID on and off for the last eight or nine years in Central Asia doing democratization work. And the approach has not changed, but the way it's perceived has changed, partly because of other things that have happened in the world. As Dr. Blank mentioned, the Central Asian leadership definitely perceives of our campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan as being somehow linked to assumed involvement of the U.S. in these colored revolutions, in Ukraine, Georgia, in Kyrgyzstan.

They see this as all a large kind of plan to take selected moves for regime change that benefit U.S. interests. And part of the problem is they don't really believe that we're doing this -- first of all, they believe that we're doing it conspiratorially, but they don't believe we're doing it ideologically for democracy. They believe we're doing it for our own interests and we're just using democracy as an excuse.

SEN. BROWNBACK: Well, I appreciate very much your thoughts on this. I think this one bears watching really quite closely and intensely and one that could develop quickly, as well. But I appreciate your thoughts, appreciate your expert advice and opinion on this. And we'll continue to look and listen to what people have to say about this group and how it develops further.

Thank you all for coming. The hearing is adjourned.

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