Central Asia Archive

Recent armed clashes in Tajikistan have raised new questions about Central Asia’s stability, just as China is deepening its role in the region and tying it to signature trade and investment plans. Chinese leaders have touted the region as an essential part of Beijing’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative, a land- and sea-based infrastructure network to connect eastern China with Western Europe through what it calls the Silk Road Economic Belt and the Maritime Silk Road. But China is not alone in Central Asia. Overlapping interests with Russia, the long-time kingmaker in a region that was part of the Soviet […]

Earlier this week, during his address to the United Nations General Assembly, Russian President Vladimir Putin touched on a topic that was easily overlooked amid his claims about Ukrainian and Syrian sovereignty. “Contrary to the policy of exclusiveness, Russia proposes harmonizing original economic projects,” Putin intoned, citing “plans to interconnect the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), and China’s initiative of the Silk Road Economic Belt.” Putin promptly turned to other topics, letting any further details about linking the troubled Kremlin-backed EEU—made up of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia—with one of the two principal components of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s ambitious […]