SHANGHAI, China — The leaders of China, Russia and four Central Asian nations signed an agreement Friday on promoting trade and combating Islamic militancy.
They hailed it as a step toward building a new economic and security bloc in Central Asia, which Beijing and Moscow are also promoting as a way to counter U.S. and European influence in the region.
Friday's agreement called for more open trade and investment and stronger security ties between the six members of the new regional group, to be called the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
The new group will replace the Shanghai Five, a loosely knit forum created in 1996 to resolve border disputes and fight rising Islamic militancy.
The group also includes the Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan — and Uzbekistan was admitted on Thursday, the first day of the two-day summit here.
Joint efforts against separatist groups were at the center of Friday's agreement, and the leaders said they discussed setting up an anti-terrorism center agreed upon last year.
Central Asian governments, including China, are grappling with religious rebel groups, many receiving arms and training from the Taliban, Afghanistan's extremist Islamic rulers.
"The cradle of terrorism, separatism and extremism is the instability in Afghanistan," President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan warned in a speech during the signing ceremony.
China touted the peaceful intent of the new grouping announced Friday, saying its focus was economic. "It's not a military alliance, as in the Cold War," Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Deguang said.
But Beijing and Moscow view the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as a way to offset growing U.S. and European investment in the region. Russia in particular hopes to regain more influence over Central Asian republics that became independent with the 1991 Soviet collapse.
Russia and China are also united in unease over what they see as America's dominance of world affairs and Washington's plans to build a missile defense shield.
Defense ministers from the six nations meeting Friday said the U.S. missile system would have "a negative impact on world security," Zhang said.
After signing the agreement, President Jiang Zemin heralded creation of a "brand new multilateral cooperation organization on the Eurasian continent."
Russian President Vladimir Putin called stronger economic ties a key aim.
"Cooperation in the economics, trade and culture is far more important than military cooperation," he said.
The leaders called for joint efforts to exploit the region's large reserves of oil, natural gas and minerals.
China is keen to gain access to new energy sources for its expanding economy.
But economic ties between the members remain tenuous. Trade between China and Russia totals about $8 billion a year, less than a tenth of China's trade with the United States. Russia is also closely bound to the West, especially Germany, for the investment it desperately needs to revive its faltering economy.
Central Asia's republics are wary of handing too much influence to Russia and China, which for centuries have competed for power in the region.