JRL NEWSWATCH: “Is Russia Losing Its Grip on Central Asia? What China’s Growing Regional Ambitions Mean for Moscow” – Foreign Affairs/ Temur Umarov, Alexander Gabuev

June 30, 2023 JRL Russia List Central Asia, Far East, Siberia, APEC, Headlines, JRL NewsBlog, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan

“Last month … [in] a diplomatic milestone … Chinese President Xi Jinping[] … invited … leaders of five Central Asian states to … Xian for their first-ever joint summit with China. … [part of] China’s foray into a region … often referred to … as Russia’s backyard. … [P]raise … Xi and his guests from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan heaped on one another[] led some observers to proclaim a Sino-Russian scramble for Central Asia in which Beijing had just notched a victory at [Russian] expense. … The Central Asian states … are landlocked … wedged between two increasingly aligned great powers. … [with] nothing to gain from replacing near-total dependence on Russia with near-total dependence on China. All of them are trying to diversify … ties to the outside world, and … both Russia and China are equally important to them. … Sino-Russian power asymmetry could … [eventually] grow lopsided enough for Chinese leaders to interfere in Central Asian politics with little need for [Russian] consent or aid. But it is unlikely that this would diminish their shared interests and … mutual support for authoritarian regimes in the region. The potential for cooperation remains far greater than the risk of conflict ….”