ASHGABAT (Turkmenistan)

Turkmenistan’s autocratic leader has awarded Japanese ex-premier Shinzo Abe with a state medal, state media reported Saturday, after Tokyo invested heavily in the gas-rich country to counter China’s clout.

Abe, who resigned his post earlier this year owing to poor health, was among the more than 20 foreign dignitaries to receive medals from Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov as Turkmenistan celebrated a quarter-century of neutrality.

Other recipients included UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, his predecessor Ban Ki-moon and the Russian ambassador to Turkmenistan Alexander Blokhin.

There were no Chinese nationals on the medal list.

Under Abe, Japanese banks and firms began pouring money into Turkmenistan, mostly in industrial projects that tapped the desert nation’s vast gas reserves.

Experts saw the trend as part of Tokyo’s bid to balance China in ex-Soviet Central Asia, which has fallen firmly under Beijing’s economic sway during the last decade.

China imports more than 30 billion cubic metres (1.1 trillion cubic feet) of Turkmen natural gas annually via the Central Asia-China Gas Pipeline that was completed in 2009 and saw Beijing displace Moscow as the region’s top gas purchaser.

Turkmenistan’s reserves are the fourth largest in the world, but the republic of six million people has struggled to diversify export routes and remains heavily reliant on sales to Beijing.

Abe became the first Japanese leader to visit the isolated country in 2015, signing deals with Berdymukhamedov worth more than $18 billion.

Notable projects completed with finance from Japanese banks since then include a $1.7 billion gas-to-liquids plant and a $3.4 billion petrochemical plant.

AFP