China's Cooperation with Central Asia with an emphasis on Artificial Intelligence

Introduction: After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the newly established Central Asian countries sought to expand their political, economic, and security relations beyond their former Soviet allies. With its regional approach, China managed to turn the challenges in Central Asia into opportunities. China's interests in Central Asia include, preventing terrorist activities in Xinjiang province, accessing new markets for goods and infrastructure companies and building transportation networks to support imports and exports. The importance of Central Asia in China's point of view is expected to increase in the 21st century. This shift is related to the strong technological advancements that are occurring in areas such as the Internet of Things, 3D printing, Industry 4.0, and artificial intelligence. Now China has positioned itself as a great power with a vision to become a leader in science and technology. Thus, Central Asia has a significant potential as a suitable region for China's presence and manufacturing technologies.
Research question: With special emphasis on China's strategy in Central Asia, this research seeks to answer the question, what are China's goals in the framework of the strategy of using artificial intelligence in Central Asia?
Research hypothesis: Through artificial intelligence technology, China seeks to increase its position and influence in a wide range of economic, political and military fields in Central Asia, such as creating a smart city, establishing a large data center, gaining information superiority, fighting cybercrimes and Smart military cooperation, etc.
Methodology and theoretical framework: The research method in the article is a qualitative method with a sample study method as well as a process study with a descriptive-analytical approach. In this research, attention has been paid to the subject of artificial intelligence from the perspective of realism. The most important question facing realists with the advent of artificial intelligence is the question of power and security. It seems that based on the logic of realism, artificial intelligence can increase the concern of governments about their security and sovereignty. Artificial intelligence creates many capabilities in the field of decision-making, simulation, war calculations, etc., which cannot be recorded or measured anywhere. Therefore, from the point of view of realism, it is artificial intelligence that gives power to China in the present era so that it can seek to improve its position as a main player in the world arena.
 Results and discussion: Based on these data, China is looking for the development and application of artificial intelligence in various fields in order to improve its position in the international system. In this regard, China has presented one of the most comprehensive strategies in the field of artificial intelligence by combining various elements of technologies. China's AI strategy has set ambitious goals to achieve global leadership by 2025 in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), voice and image recognition and to become a global AI innovation center by 2030. China's AI strategy emphasizes the importance of research and development areas and ethical norms, with special emphasis on the concepts of talent development and national security. According to the existing discussion of artificial intelligence technologies, it has played an important role in strengthening China's interaction with the world, especially in the geography of Central Asia. In fact, artificial intelligence, like everything that a country produces in important economic sectors, services, technology, etc., needs a sales market. A country cannot claim to be in the world arena, but use artificial intelligence, which is a product with very diverse capacities, at the domestic level only for the consumption of domestic people.
Therefore, based on the data, Chinese technology companies entered the Central Asian market at the beginning of the 21st century, but their real growth as one of the global powers in the field of information and communication technology and digitalization began in the second decade of this century after Xi Jinping came to power. China is systematically integrating new AI technologies into its economic and technological investments and continues to increase smart weapons exports and military deployments in Central Asia. China's advanced position in artificial intelligence is likely to create significant geopolitical implications in the region through an active digital export policy and increased asymmetric dependence in different regions. Overall, according to the data, China has influence in three sectors of political, economic and military in Central Asia using programs and projects such as the Silk Road and Beijing's programs in the field of artificial intelligence.
Conclusion: China's development and use of artificial intelligence technology plays an important role in the country’s active initiatives and policies in the Central Asian region. In this regard, China is following a comprehensive path to integrate artificial intelligence technologies in various fields. China's artificial intelligence strategy serves to reinforce its growing asymmetric dependence with the countries in the region and hence this fact facilitates the risk of vulnerability against China. China is systematically integrating new AI technologies into its economic and technological investments and continues to increase smart weapons exports and military deployments in Central Asia. By skillfully introducing the project of smart cities, China not only strengthens economic and strategic opportunities but also creates information on the issue of exporting digital authoritarianism to the region. In this sense, the tools of artificial intelligence technology have been applied in China to help and facilitate the asymmetric dependence of this country. Despite criticisms of exporting digital authoritarianism, China continues to sell surveillance technologies and increase its share and influence in Central Asia. Therefore, based on the existing hypothesis, China has actively cooperated with regional countries in the field of security-political issues and maintaining the stability of local regimes as well as the economy based on artificial intelligence. This center was at a favorable level (asymmetrically), but according to China's strategy in the field of artificial intelligence, this trend has continued in a new and more favorable way.