The decision by Kyrgyzstan to close a small but significant US military post in the Central Asian republic has been portrayed as a classic cold war chess move, with Russia squeezing the Americans out of its traditional backyard. But China's role, albeit indirect, has also been critical in bringing about the closure of the Manas base, which will deprive the American military of a vital supply line to its forces in Afghanistan.
It is linked to China's continued emergence as a power broker, and buyer, in the region. China's small western neighbour is betting on selling to Beijing the surplus power from the US$2 billion Kambarata hydropower station which Russia is financing - a condition of Moscow's loan being the Manas shutdown. '[Kyrgyzstan] needs to have more stations built, that is why the Russian proposition for Kambarata was accepted at the price of the closing of Manas,' says Sebastien Peyrouse, a fellow at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at Johns Hopkins University in the United States.
After enduring the worst winter in local memory in 2007-08, Kyrgyzstan, one of the poorest members of the World Trade Organisation, is keener that ever to build hydropower capacity as an engine of economic growth. The Russian-funded Kambarata I and II hydropower projects on the rocky Naryn River will install 2,260MW of capacity.
Locals, who complain of a lack of job opportunities, see in Kambarata a solution to economic woes and the misery of year-round power cuts. 'Hydropower is the way to solve electricity shortages,' says Erkin Orolbaev, a Kyrgyz consultant to a project on regulating Central Asia's rivers funded by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
For Kyrgyzstan to make its dream a success, it needs China. Domestic power demand does not justify the investment in such projects, says Anil Terway, senior adviser with the Asian Development Bank's regional and sustainable development department. 'The large power projects in Central Asia would be 'bankable' if they have power purchase agreements with China, Russia or India,' he says. Hence, Kyrgyz officials have lobbied Beijing to import electricity generated from Kambarata.
The bank wants China and other large regional economies like India to open their energy markets to poorer central Asian states. Mr Terway says the involvement of 'financially robust' Chinese or Russian power companies would attract international investors and developers to ensure hydropower projects in Kyrgyzstan and neighbouring Tajikistan are built to sound environmental standards.