China In Eurasia

Welcome back to the China In Eurasia briefing, an RFE/RL newsletter tracking China's resurgent influence from Eastern Europe to Central Asia.

I'm RFE/RL correspondent Reid Standish and here's what I'm following right now.

A New Layer To A Baltic Mystery

China has, for the first time, acknowledged that the Chinese-owned cargo ship NewNew Polar Bear was responsible for damaging the Balticconnector gas pipeline in October 2023.

However, European officials may not be buying the explanation for how.

Finding Perspective: The South China Morning Post reported on August 12 that Chinese authorities conducted their own internal investigation and have shared the results with the Estonian and Finnish governments.

According to the Chinese report seen by some ministries, the incident is said to be an accident that resulted from a severe storm, although details about exactly how the pipeline was damaged are not mentioned.

The 77-kilometer pipeline that travels from Estonia under the Baltic Sea and connects Finland to the European gas network was damaged along with two nearby telecoms cables on the night of October 7 or the morning of October 8, according to investigators.

The Finnish National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) led a probe into the incident and concluded that the damage, which sliced the pipeline and left a large dragging trail in the seabed, was done by a ship's anchor.

Speaking to local media following the South China Morning Post report, Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur expressed skepticism over the Chinese explanation.

"Personally, I find it very difficult to understand how a ship's captain could fail to notice for such a long time that its anchor had been dragging along the seabed," he said on August 13.

Both Estonian and Finnish authorities said that the NewNew Polar Bear, a container ship that was flying the Hong Kong flag and is registered to the Chinese firm NewNew Shipping Line, was in the area and the culprit of the incident.

The damage and the location of the ship made international headlines in October and into November when it was tracked as it was sailing back to China through Russian waters after Finnish authorities had unsuccessfully tried on multiple occasions to contact the vessel.

What's Next?: While the acknowledgement adds a new layer to the story, Estonian and Finnish investigators have said that the Chinese report does not qualify as official evidence.

The Estonian prosecutor's office also told the South China Morning Post that they have not received the document and they have submitted requests for legal assistance with Chinese authorities to gather evidence and interview the crew. Finland's NBI declined to comment.

Those requests for further investigation remain unanswered by Beijing.

Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal has also reportedly not seen the Chinese report and said that "the practical task remains to repair the damage, and the question remains of who will bear the cost."

Both the Estonian and Finnish inquiries are ongoing.

Sari Arho Havren, a Helsinki-based researcher with the Royal United Services Institute who has been tracking the case, told me that it shouldn't be surprising that China has acknowledged involvement given the amount of evidence, but now "the narrative that this was an accident will be used to deflect calls for a deeper investigation."

Why It Matters: Since the incident took place, the main question has been whether it was an accident or an act of sabotage.

The damage happened months after Finland had formally joined NATO and amid rising concerns from the Western military alliance over attacks on its critical undersea infrastructure like Internet cables, power cables, and pipelines.

The Balticconnector incident also unfolded a little over a year after the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines that brought gas from Russia to northern Germany were damaged by explosions.

Estonian and Finnish authorities have been careful in commenting about the investigation and how amenable their Chinese counterparts are.

"If China doesn't comply, it will be very difficult to open it up any further," Arho Havren said. "How this case is handled will set an important precedent one way or the other."

Three More Stories From Eurasia

1. China's Space Program Pushes Into Central Asia

A new agreement for Kazakhstan to join Chinese-led plans to build and operate a research base on the moon could set the stage for deepening cooperation between the two countries, I reported here.

The Details: This deal was signed in July, but its details were expounded during an August 5 press conference in Astana.

Not only will Kazakhstan be the 12th member of the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), a Chinese-led initiative with Russia's Roskosmos for a lunar base, but Astana and Beijing also set up new exchanges and agreed to explore the commercial use of each other's spaceports.

It's a significant development that sets Kazakhstan on a path to further integrate into China's booming space industry at a time when Beijing and Washington's rivalry is also playing out in outer space.

The ILRS and its companion coordination organization are seen as a China-led response to NASA's Artemis Program, a U.S.-led initiative that aims to send a crewed mission to the moon by 2025, with a continuous presence by 2028. As part of its own diplomatic push for space, Washington has gotten more than 40 countries to sign the Artemis Accords, a set of principles for the exploration and use of outer space.

Beyond the moon base, Kazakhstan's deal with China could also have implications for the future space economy.

The Central Asian country has a storied legacy within the Soviet and Russian space programs and could help China in its satellite competition, which will sway the future of Beijing's Beidou Satellite Navigation System (BDS), which is its answer to the American GPS, Russian GLONASS, or the European Galileo navigation systems.

Widespread adoption of either system carries immense commercial value and China wants BDS to be used for aircraft, auto, and ship navigation, as well as humanitarian and disaster assistance, agricultural improvement, weather forecast, and military applications.

2. Traditional Chinese Medicine Comes To Romania

Under the tenure of Chinese leader Xi Jinping, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has spread and been actively promoted by Beijing abroad.

My colleague Ionut Benea from RFE/RL's Romanian Service looks at how the practice has become a centerpiece of the programs offered at two of the country's top four medical universities.

What You Need To Know: Ionut's reporting centers around the inroads made at the medical schools in Bucharest and Iasi in eastern Romania, where TCM has become part of the curriculum.

Program heads and administrators at both universities have been the target of a push by Chinese officials to promote the style of medicine for years, including paid exchanges, scholarships, and sustained outreach from the Chinese Embassy in Bucharest.

TCM has become part of a broader soft-power push by China. Xi often refers to the practice as a "national treasure" and has directed significant resources to research and promotion of TCM. In December 2016, China issued its first white paper on TCM which called for "equal status" between TCM and Western medicine as well as greater investment in TCM research and education.

The document also calls for China to "actively introduce TCM to the rest of the world" through its bilateral relations and presence in multilateral organizations.

Read the full report here.

3. Kazakh Crackdown

Members of Naghyz Atazhurt, an unregistered political party in Kazakhstan that was founded to defend the rights of ethnic Kazakhs in neighboring Xinjiang, say they've recently come under increased pressure from the government, RFE/RL's Kazakh Service reports.

What It Means: Speaking at an August 7 press conference, members of the group said their ranks faced a steep uptick in fines leveled against them.

Bekzat Maqsutkhan, the head of the party, was recently sentenced to 10 days in jail on a charge of violating regulations for holding public events without a permit.

Naghyz Atazhurt's leaders have been trying to officially register as a political party since May 2022, but have had their applications denied by the authorities.

The organization was formerly known as Atazhurt Eriktileri and was originally founded as a grassroots organization that campaigned for the release of ethnic Kazakhs from Xinjiang's internment camps in western China as they began to fill up with Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other mostly Muslim minorities in 2017 and 2018.

In 2022, a group of leading members announced a plan to become a political party "to contribute to the process of the democratic political system while taking into account the Kazakh people's traditions, language, and national characteristics."

Across The Supercontinent

IPAC Threats: Romanian member of parliament Catalin Tenita participated in the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) in Taiwan in late July.

Tenita, along with several other IPAC members, was contacted by the local embassy threatening strained ties with Beijing in an attempt to dissuade him and other lawmakers from attending the summit.

German Surge: Despite calls from the German government to diversify away from China into less geopolitically risky markets, German direct investment soared in 2024, according to central-bank data seen by the Financial Times.

The sharp rise is largely from the auto industry and is a sign that companies are ignoring the pleas of the government. German investment for the first half of 2024 has reached 7.3 billion euros ($8 billion), already more than the 6.5 billion euros for the whole of 2023.

Chip Wars: Huawei is preparing to launch a new AI chip to challenge Nvidia's H100 amid U.S. sanctions aimed at curbing its tech advances, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Kursk Reaction: Beijing has been relatively muted amid Ukraine's incursion into Russia's Kursk region.

The only comment so far came on August 12 when the Chinese Foreign Ministry issued a statement calling on Kyiv and Moscow to "observe the three principles for de-escalating the situation, namely no expansion of the battlefield, no escalation of fighting, and no fueling the flame by any party."

One Thing To Watch

Environmental protests are under way in Serbia over the government's plan to allow the British-Australian company Rio Tinto to open a lithium mine in western Serbia.

The Serbian government tried to push through a similar deal in 2021 but backed off after months of widespread protests over environmental and pollution concerns engulfed the country.

As tens of thousands of protesters again take to the streets, it's worth noting that it was during those 2021 demonstrations that Serbian law enforcement first tested some of the Chinese-made surveillance equipment it had purchased, as was documented in this RFE/RL investigation. Could the current protests be another opportunity to try out more new equipment?

That's all from me for now. Don't forget to send me any questions, comments, or tips that you might have.

Until next time,

Reid Standish

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A new agreement for Kazakhstan to join Chinese-led plans to build and operate a research base on the moon could set the stage for deepening cooperation between the two countries as Beijing makes strides toward becoming a leading power in space.

The July 3 agreement was signed on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit and admitted Kazakhstan as the 12th member of the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), a Chinese-led initiative with Russia's Roskosmos for a lunar base that was announced in 2021 and includes Azerbaijan, Belarus, Egypt, Nicaragua, Serbia, Pakistan, South Africa, Thailand, and Venezuela.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a joint statement that, as part of the deal, Beijing and Astana would "support exchanges and cooperation between the two countries' aerospace agencies…in the peaceful use of outer space" and to "promote mutually beneficial cooperation in the moon and deep space."

The Kazakh Digital Development, Innovation, and Aerospace Industry Ministry revealed new details of this cooperation on August 5, saying that Beijing and Astana would explore the commercial use of each other's spaceports and Kazakhstan would also be part of the development and launch of a lunar telescope project.

The addition of Kazakhstan bolsters China's lunar exploration plans and puts the Central Asian country on a trajectory to further integrate into China's booming space industry, which is part of a drive by Beijing that experts say is motivated by an ambition to rival the United States.

"China intends to equal and eventually surpass the United States as a space power," Bruce McClintock, a former defense attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and senior researcher on space policy at the RAND Corporation, told RFE/RL. "The recent return of a lunar sample mission from the moon demonstrates China's financial commitment to lunar exploration and their technical ability to achieve their long-term goals."

The return to Earth of China's Chang'e-6 lunar module in June was the latest accomplishment as Beijing aims to finish building the ILRS in the 2030s. The China National Space Administration also said it plans to send astronauts to the moon before 2030 and Beijing established the International Lunar Research Station Cooperation Organization (ILRSCO) in April, a Chinese-led body to coordinate lunar missions with member states.

The plans around the ILRS are seen as a response to NASA's Artemis Program, a U.S.-led initiative that aims to send a crewed mission to the moon by 2025, with a continuous presence by 2028. As part of its own diplomatic push for space, Washington has gotten more than 40 countries to sign the Artemis Accords, a set of principles for the exploration and use of outer space.

"The Chinese are trying to build their own duplicative organizations as a race develops to see who can get the most support for their programs," Eva Seiwert, an analyst at the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) think tank, told RFE/RL. "For Kazakhstan, it's clear that they see China as a future source of knowledge, training, and financing for their space industry."

Liftoff For China

Kazakhstan has been an integral part of the Soviet and Russian space programs for nearly 70 years.

Baikonur, an expansive complex located in southern Kazakhstan, has shot hundreds of rockets into space and holds a special position as a launching pad for some of space flight's most historic achievements, such as the 1957 Soviet launch of Sputnik, the world's first satellite, and cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's first human journey to outer space in 1961.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Baikonur remained a launch site for Russia's Roskosmos, which maintained a dominant position within the space industry.

But both Russia and Baikonur's places have begun to shift.

The space complex has been at the center of a contract dispute between Russia and Kazakhstan for years, and Roskosmos is planning to move its space launches to Russian territory.

At the same time, Russia's space program has faced funding cuts, technical setbacks, and scandals. Western sanctions first brought against Russia in 2014 and expanded following its February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine have further dimmed its space program as it has been cut off from some essential Western-made components.

These changes have taken place as China's own space program leapt forward in recent years, with billions of dollars being invested.

SEE ALSO:

Russia's Moon Crash 'Speaks Volumes': A Storied Space Program Falls Short. Again.

When the space partnership between Russia and China first gained traction in 2014 and gradually grew over the years, it culminated in joint projects like the ILRS.

"I don't think Russia has many other choices," Juliana Suess, a fellow for space security at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank, told RFE/RL. "Russia has a lot of legacy and expertise, but that's all very much behind it. When it comes to space, Russia looks more like the junior partner in the China-Russia relationship."

Beijing, meanwhile, has continued to broaden its outreach, even adding a space component to its multibillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as it has looked to build up and link its space industry with other countries.

This has included deploying satellites, building ground stations, erecting data centers, and training foreign space personnel as part of the foundations of a Beijing-led space network.

"China is actively building up its status as a space power, and this lunar base that Kazakhstan has signed up to is just one piece of a constant effort for space soft power," Suess said.

A New Era In Space

While Kazakhstan signing on to the ILRS marks another step forward for China's space ambitions, Bleddyn Bowen, an associate professor specializing in space policy at the University of Leicester, says the other aspects of the agreement reached between Astana and Beijing may be more significant in the long run.

"The moon is for scientific or research projects," Bowen, also a fellow at RUSI, told RFE/RL. "Whereas a launch service agreement would mean putting more satellites into the Earth's orbit, which matters because it provides the daily infrastructure that we rely on and is central to the space economy."

For Beijing, a crucial area for enhancing its capacity for competition in space with the United States is the Beidou Satellite Navigation System (BDS), which is China's answer to the American GPS, Russian GLONASS, or the European Galileo navigation systems.

Widespread adoption of either system carries immense commercial value and China wants BDS to be used for aircraft, auto, and ship navigation, as well as humanitarian and disaster assistance, agricultural improvement, and weather forecasts. As a report by the U.S. Air Force's China Aerospace Studies Institute noted, all 30 BDS global networking satellites have been in place since 2020, and more than 120 countries have begun using BDS.

For Kazakhstan, the drift toward Beijing began in 2013 when Chinese and Kazakh private space companies began cooperating. The collaboration has accelerated as Russia's space program has failed to keep pace with China's.

"China is much more attractive now as an investor with money to spend," Bowen said. "China is also a massive market where anything that Kazakhstan's space industry produces is likely to find a use."

Using Kazakh territory for space launches is also important as Russia looks to divest from the Baikonur complex.

While Russia has a lease on the facility until 2050, China is currently working to boost launch-pad access around the world for commercial space providers and Kazakhstan, which shares a long border with China, also hosts the Sary Shagan anti-ballistic missile test site.

"Kazakhstan needs to diversify and bring in new countries to pay for what Russia used to provide," said Bowen. "Partnering more with the Chinese is part of that plan for the future."