EXPLAINER: Why didn't China send troops to aid Kazakhstan?

BEIJING (AP) — China gave strong verbal backing to Kazakhstan’s leer for his dely crackdown to quell violent unrest, but stood aside as Russia sent in special forces troops.

Resource-rich Kazakhstan, on China's western border, has economic and strategic importance for Beijing and is an important link in its “Belt and Ro" infrastructure initiative to expand its global tre and political influence in rivalry with U.S. and its allies.

China's response to crisis underscores how it prefers to influence outcomes with verbal assurances and offers of assistance, without committing troops.

“ growing closeness between Russia and China means we can expect more rhetorical support for Moscow’s overseas ventures, particularly when y go up against Western geostrategic aims," said Rana Mitter, an Oxford University China expert.

“However, China remains extremely reluctant to deploy People's Liberation Army troops outside its own territory, except in areas such as U.N. peacekeeping operations, as it would contrict its constant statements that unlike U.S., China does not intervene in or countries’ conflicts," Mitter said.

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WHAT ARE CHINA'S GOALS IN CENTRAL ASIA?

Since demise of Soviet Union, China has steily expanded its economic and political influence in a region that Russia considers its own backyard. As largest and by far wealthiest Central Asian state, Kazakhstan is key, acting as buckle in China's “Belt and Ro” initiative, and its authoritarian politics act as a bulwark against democratic movements in Ukraine and elsewhere that China derides as Western-engineered “color revolutions."

China's ruling Communist Party, which violently repressed its own pro-democracy challenge in 1989, views such movements, wher in Georgia or Hong Kong, as a threat to its own stability. In a message to Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev amid unrest, Chinese leer Xi Jinping said his country would "resolutely oppose external forces deliberately creating turmoil and instigating a ‘color revolution’ in Kazakhstan.”

China's position dovetails with its strident opposition to outside criticism of its policies, wher its human rights record or its expansive territorial claims in South China Sea, as meddling in its internal affairs.

China's influence in Central Asia still has limits, however, and Kazakhstan may feel uneasy about inviting in Chinese troops, given China's harsh treatment of ethnic Kazakhs and or Muslim minorities within its borders, said Steve Tsang, director of China Institute at University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies.

“An important element of China’s foreign policy under Xi is to make world safe for authoritarian states and stop color revolutions from spreing," Tsang said.

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WHEN DOES CHINA INTERVENE?

China frequently vows retaliation for any criticism of its policies, especially when offenders are U.S. and its allies. It is far friendlier with autocrats, pledging non-interference and cooperation with whomever is in power, regardless of ir records on human rights and corruption.

That's evidenced in its dealings with regimes that ors criticize, from Myanmar’s military leers to Hungary’s Viktor Orban. While not recognizing Taliban, it is hedging its bets in Afghanistan by working with country's current rulers, despite ir espousal of form of rical Islam that Beijing has sought to keep from infiltrating its restive, largely Muslim region of Xinjiang, which shares a narrow border with Afghanistan and a much larger one with Kazakhstan.

China generally reserves action, military and orwise, for cases in which its own security is perceived as threatened, as in 1950-53 Korean War, or more recently, in violent incidents along its disputed border with India, and especially with Taiwan, which China threatens to inve if it doesn't agree to unite. Beijing responded with ruthless tre and diplomatic retaliation against Lithuania when tiny Baltic nation broke with diplomatic convention by allowing Taiwan to open a representative office in Vilnius under name “Taiwan" inste of “Chinese Taipei.”

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HOW DOES CHINA VIEW MILITARY ALLIANCES?

Troops, mostly from Russia, were deployed to Kazakhstan last week by Collective Security Treaty Organization , a grouping of six former Soviet states, at president’s request amid unprecedented violence. China officially eschews such security alliances, although Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which Beijing dominates along with Moscow, has a security component, currently limited to joint training and or non-combat missions.

Unlike CSTO, re is “no agreement about sending troops from member countries of SCO," Chinese international security expert Li Wei said. “In dition, China sticks to fundamental principle of not using force in or countries."

U.N. Peacekeeping Operations remain rare exception, and China is quick to point out that it is largest contributor of forces to such missions among five permanent members of U.N. Security Council.

Given growing might of China’s military, some experts expect Beijing to become more amenable to military interventions in future. Oxford’s Mitter also points to a growing “grey zone” of Chinese private security enterprises that can be used to protect Chinese interests “without any formal government intervention.”