Antoine Blua and Kathleen Moore | RFE/RL

Prague - Since China's annexation of the Xinjiang-Uighur autonomous region in 1950, Beijing has pursued policies that have put considerable pressure on the local environment. This western region, which borders Central Asia, is home to China's main nuclear testing site. Pollution does not respect political boundaries, which is why the impact of the 42 reported tests at Lop Nor worries Central Asians, as does the planned construction of oil and gas pipelines linking Xinjiang to Central Asia. But the most immediate concern is water. China's "go west" policy aimed at further developing its northwestern province requires ever-growing amounts of water.

Xinjiang's growing thirst for water is raising fears of a major catastrophe in Kazakhstan.

Mels Eleusizov heads the Kazakh non-governmental organization Tabigat (Nature). He said the Irtysh and Ili rivers, which both originate in mountainous areas of Xinjiang before crossing into Kazakhstan, are being increasingly drained to serve China's needs.

"For Kazakhstan, the most alarm concerns two rivers - the Ili and Irtysh," Eleusizov said. "The new infrastructure and factories in Xinjiang consume a lot of water. The drinking water needs are increasing, too. If China continues to increase water consumption in the area, it will certainly affect the water resources on our side."

The Ili flows through Xinjiang into southeastern Kazakhstan and terminates in Lake Balkhash. The Irtysh rises in China's Altai Mountains and also crosses into northeastern Kazakhstan, before flowing through Lake Zaysan to the Russian city of Omsk and then into the Ob River. The increasing usage of river water in Xinjiang, which has relatively few water resources of its own, is inherent in Beijing's aim of attracting ethnic Han Chinese to the region and developing the local economy.

Ann McMillan, a scholar at Griffith University in Queensland, Australia, has been researching the interdependency between Xinjiang and Central Asia. "There's actually a lot of concern coming out in China in the government [media]," McMillan says. "There have been reports about the water table dropping, especially around Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang. So they are aware that they've got major problems. And they've even started charging for water in some places. But for their development to go ahead, they need water. So you've got a 'Catch 22' situation."

The Irtysh and Ili are crucial sources of fresh water for the Kazakh population. Both also play a vital role in the economy, providing water for the industrial, agricultural. and fishing sectors.

Myrzageldy Kemel is a member of the Kazakh parliament's committee on the protection of the environment and ecology. He talked about the environmental consequences of the increasing usage of the Ili's water.

"If the level of the [Ili] River decreases, the environment along the banks will be affected drastically," Kemel said. "Local citizens will suffer a lot. Now, nobody is paying attention to this, although in about 50 years [the situation] might be even worse than in the Aral Sea."

The Aral Sea has lost three-quarters of its volume since 1960, when Soviet-era planners began diverting its feeder rivers to irrigate cotton fields. The Aral Sea is widely acknowledged to be one of the world's worst man-made environmental disasters.

The United Nations Development Program has warned that Kazakhstan's largest lake, Lake Balkhash, is in danger of drying out if Astana does not adopt better water management practices or else gain Chinese cooperation over the usage of the Ili, the lake's main contributor. The current construction by China of a canal - 300 kilometers long and 22 meters wide - to reroute water from the Irtysh is also of great concern.

Abai Tursunov is a professor at the Kazakh Institute of Geology and Geography in Almaty. He said he is worried about the environmental impact when the canal becomes fully operational, which is estimated to be in 2020. "The completion of the canal will affect us drastically," Tursunov said. "Power stations will be very much affected. Nobody is raising the issue, but gradually all of this can lead to major environmental problems."

Hydropower stations and factories are located along the Irtysh, while the Irtysh-Karaganda canal makes agriculture possible in central Kazakhstan. The river also provides drinking water to the capital, Astana, as well as to three other major cities - Karaganda, Semipalatinsk and Pavlodar.

Chinese authorities have provided little information on the canal project. But speaking to RFE/RL's Kazakh Service, China's ambassador to Kazakhstan, Zhou Xiao Pei, tried to be reassuring: "We currently use 10% to 20% of the [Irtysh's] waters. We are building a new infrastructure. [But] we are going to use no more than 40% [of the water]."

In 2001, Kazakhstan and China signed an agreement aimed at facilitating cooperation on trans-boundary water management. Through consultations, the two states agreed to share information concerning the Irtysh.

Zhakybay Dostay, also of the Kazakh Institute of Geology and Geography in Almaty, said the talks have led nowhere so far. "The [joint Kazakh-Chinese intergovernmental] commission meets every year without results," Dostay said. "They just give figures, make statements and sign documents. The problems remain."

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev visited Xinjiang in September. But there is no indication that he raised the issue of trans-boundary rivers with Chinese officials.

Facing militant threats

China and Central Asia face similar threats from militant Islamic groups, but are they working together to fight them? China and four Central Asia states are members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which has focused on cooperation in the name of security. Such cooperation has involved information-sharing, some joint military exercises and, as of this year, an antiterrorism center in Tashkent. But experts also say cooperation appears to be a way for China to restrict activity by Uighur nationalists in the region.

"There was an explosion. Are you a journalist?" "Yes," he said. "One man blew himself up over there." "Did you see it?" asked the journalist. "When I came he had already blown himself up. I came five or 10 minutes after the explosion," said the man. "Did people die?" "One person died," he answered.

That was the scene outside the US Embassy in Tashkent in July, on the day suicide bombers attacked it, the Israeli Embassy and the state prosecutor's office.

Uzbek authorities blamed radical Islamist groups for the blasts, which killed seven people, as well as for an earlier wave of violence in March that left nearly 50 people dead. They presented the violence as part of global terrorism, saying the attackers may have had links with al-Qaeda.

Other Central Asian countries say they are also worried about the rising influence of radical Islamist groups. China, too, has seen violence in its region that borders several Central Asian countries, and blamed a series of bombings and assassinations in the late 1990s on separatist Muslim Uighurs.

But the radical groups appear to have different agendas. Those believed to be behind the Uzbek violence - or at least the main suspects, as it's still unclear who's responsible - seek social as well as political change with the creation of an Islamic state in the region.

In the case of China, it's separatism - Muslim Uighur groups seeking an independent state in the northwestern Xinjiang region. So how are the countries working together to solve the problem? Uzbek President Islam Karimov said: "We are in full solidarity with China in the fight against the three evils - international terrorism, extremism and separatism."

Karimov was speaking in June, on the eve of a summit of the SCO. The grouping is the main regional forum for cooperation in security, as well as other spheres. Its members - Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, along with Russia and China - pledged to unite and step up regional efforts against terrorism and extremism.

So far, experts say that has meant some intelligence sharing, treatie allowing joint criminal investigations, and military exercises. In 2002, Kyrgyzstan became the first foreign nation to hold military maneuvers with China. The following year, there were exercises involving SCO members in Kazakhstan and China. But experts say the cooperation is mainly a way for China to restrict activity by Uighur nationalists in the region. China has asked for help in capturing Uighur exiles it calls terrorists. In recent years, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan have both deported Uighurs at China's request.

Li Hua, first secretary at the Chinese Embassy in Bishkek, says it is normal to deport what he called "criminals". "There are laws in the world according to which criminals must be held responsible," he said. The trouble is, says regional expert Niklas Swanstrom, that some of those who are being deported may be innocent. Swanstrom is executive director of the program for contemporary Silk Road studies at Sweden's Uppsala University: "When a country comes and says, 'Hand over the terrorists', it's really hard to say, 'No, we're not going to do that'. But in many of those cases, they are not necessarily terrorists."

Sadyk, a Uighur living in Bishkek, told RFE/RL earlier this year that Uighurs who are deported are in grave danger: "Last year, Kyrgyzstan deported two young [ethnic Uighurs] to China. The Chinese authorities tortured and killed them. Then they gave their bodies to their parents in [the Chinese city of] Kashgar [in Xinjiang] last September, saying disease had killed them."

Kamron Aliyev, an independent Uzbek analyst, believes Central Asian authorities will seek to clamp down further on Uighur groups in order to foster good relations with China: "In Uzbekistan and in other Central Asian countries, there are a number of independent Uighur organizations that deal with their cultural, language, human rights and national dignity issues. Local governments that are getting assistance from China now will be trying to close them down. Governments will try to restrict freedom of their activities. We can expect that Uzbekistan's security service will be conducting talks with China on these issues."

To be sure, experts say there are limits to cooperation in the name of security. Alex Vatanka says that, on paper at least, there is a strong incentive for China and Central Asia to cooperate. Vatanka is a regional security expert with the Jane's military publishing group in London: "One o the main characteristics of these states is that they are suspicious of one another, which is obviously a major, major obstacle to any deep-seated and fundamental shifts in attitude in regards to transnational threats such as terrorism and drug trafficking. [Central Asian countries are] suspicious of the Chinese, and I think they're trying to balance the Russians, the Chinese, the Americans against one another and - given the relative poverty of the region - maximize benefits to themselves. So far they seem to have done an okay job, but nothing is standing out as a prime example of how regional cooperation has achieved specific objectives. As far as the pan-Islamism goes in the region, the threat is exactly today what it was two, three years ago."