The ethnic rioting that has rocked China’s northwestern province of Xinjiang over the past few days has badly poisoned the already tense relations between the region’s Uighurs — Muslims who make up a plurality of Xinjiang’s residents — and the Han Chinese. It could also complicate China’s increasingly important ties with its neighbors in ex-Soviet Central Asia. The Chinese presence in Central Asia has grown in recent years, especially in neighboring Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. Trade between China and Kyrgyzstan — much of it exports of cheap Chinese manufactured goods — tripled between 2004 and 2006 (the last year for which [...]
SOFIA, Bulgaria — On July 5, Bulgarians voted in legislative elections that seated 240 members of Parliament for the next four years. Although the campaign generated little excitement in this country of 7.2 million inhabitants, the election’s outcome could have a significant impact on an energy tug of war between Europe and Russia. As was widely expected, center-right Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB), led by Sofia’s Mayor Boiko Borisov, defeated Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev’s Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP). GERB took 40 percent of the vote, while the BSP-led Coalition for Bulgaria came in second with 18 percent, followed [...]
On June 28, Argentina and Uruguay held simultaneous elections that fell largely under the radar of the U.S. media, focused as they were on events in Honduras. However, while less dramatic than the coup in Tegucigalpa, the two elections are significant in that they herald an emerging shift in the South American political pendulum towards the center-right. Both elections brought back political forces that were convincingly defeated in previous contests. Moreover, according to some polls, major changes are likely in key presidential elections taking place in Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay in 2009 and 2010. Although electoral processes in the Southern [...]
