China has been investing in solar and wind energy projects in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, increasingly adapting its approach to the needs and regulations in each country.
The Uzbek regime is losing stability because its objectives increasingly diverge from the public expectations that President Mirziyoyev himself worked to create.
The political elites of Central Asia view the invasion of Ukraine through the prism of their own interests, top of which is the preservation of their own regimes. For this reason, they will continue to show loyalty to Putin.
By continuing to rely on Russia’s ethnic minorities and foreign labor migrants to do its dirty work in Ukraine, the Kremlin is inadvertently damaging ties to its former colonies.
Some speculate that by drawing its southern neighbors into closer cooperation on gas, Russia wants to gain control over Central Asian exports to China. That won’t be easy.
Moscow had every opportunity to make the Central Asian nations gravitate toward it of their own accord. Yet now Russian soft power in Central Asia is dissipating before our eyes.
This time Uzbekistan brought together special representatives and policy experts researching Afghanistan from around the world.
