CHINA’S BORDER POLICY TOWARDS ITS NORTHERN NEIGHBORS

Date

2023-4-06

Author

Kılıç Mutlu, Gülay

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This dissertation explores China’s border policies towards Mongolia, Russia, and the three Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan from 1991 to 2019. This research aims to understand better how China’s political interests affected its border politics towards the northern periphery. The framework used to organize this research is the English School conceptual framework. China’s foreign policy towards the northern neighborhood has changed since the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991. China's main focus has been on security and economic interests in the region. After resolving border disputes, China has focused on maintaining stability in its north and northwest regions and combatting separatism. China has also used economic development in Xinjiang-Uyghur as a way to promote stability and opened up borders for trade. Recently, China has also relied on oil and gas from Central Asia to secure its energy supply. China furthers its interests in Central Asia and Mongolia by building friendly relations with each country individually, providing aid and financial support, and promoting the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) as a regional multilateral framework. In addition, China has established good relations with Russia in both foreign and border policy. This thesis aims to examine how China's border policy towards Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, specifically in the northern region, is shaped by the arrangements of border management such as trade, transportation, mobility (tourism and immigration), and security. The study will provide a generalization of China's border policy in this specific region. The hypothesis being examined is that there is a dialectical and concurrent relationship between China's interests and border policy towards the region. The research findings support the hypothesis and this thesis concludes that the English School framework can effectively explain both the process of formulating China's border policy and the policy itself.

Subject Keywords

China, Mongolia, Russia, Central Asia, border management, English School

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/102782

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis