China Looks to Fill a Void in Central Asia

China Looks to Fill a Void in Central Asia

Thursday, May 25, 2023

By: Carla Freeman, Ph.D.;  Gavin Helf, Ph.D.;  Alison McFarland

As the Group of Seven met at the end of last week in Hiroshima, Japan, China organized a summit with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, marking a new chapter in Beijing’s engagement with the region. Central Asian states are looking for a new partner to help ensure their own security against domestic rebellions, as Russia’s war in Ukraine has limited Moscow’s ability to fulfill a longstanding role as a guarantor of domestic stability in the region. While most of the summit’s public discussion focused on economic and trade issues, China noted that it would help Central Asia enhance it’s law enforcement and security capabilities, which aligns with Beijing’s intensifying campaign for “global security.”

Type: Analysis

Global Policy

Central Asia Needs a New Approach to Security

Central Asia Needs a New Approach to Security

Thursday, March 9, 2023

By: Ilya Jones;  Shamsiya Rakhimshoeva

After three decades of independence following the fall of the Soviet Union, Central Asian countries continue to face challenges to their stability and governance. Last year saw large-scale domestic unrest in three of the region’s five countries — Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan — and a devastating cross-border conflict between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan was the largest ever trans-boundary escalation in the region. Many of these events follow similar patterns: growing tensions and grievances among citizens lead to protests, which are met with a harsh and disproportionate response including the use of lethal force by security forces, feeding into further mistrust between authorities and the population.

Type: Analysis

Conflict Analysis & PreventionViolent Extremism

Blinken Debuts New U.S. Approach in Central Asia

Blinken Debuts New U.S. Approach in Central Asia

Thursday, March 2, 2023

By: Gavin Helf, Ph.D.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan this week, where he signaled that Washington is changing tact in the region. For nearly two decades, U.S. engagement in the region focused on how it could help Washington in Afghanistan. Following the Afghanistan withdrawal, U.S. policy in Central Asia should be more modest, focused on helping these countries achieve balance in their relations with each other and the outside world, particularly in an era of great power competition. After all, these countries are neighbors of Russia and China and can’t afford to choose sides.

Type: Analysis

Global Policy

Looking for Trouble: Sources of Violent Conflict in Central Asia

Looking for Trouble: Sources of Violent Conflict in Central Asia

Wednesday, November 18, 2020

By: Gavin Helf, Ph.D.

This report offers a road map for understanding the most likely sources of violent conflict in the post-Soviet nations of Central Asia—ethno-nationalism and nativism, Islam and secularism, water resources and climate change, and labor migration and economic conflict. The analysis draws from emerging trends in the region and identifies the ways in which Central Asia’s geography and cultural place in the world interact with those trends. It suggests that the policy goals of the United States, Russia, and China in the region may be more compatible than is often assumed.

Type: Special Report

Conflict Analysis & Prevention

Central Asia and Coronavirus: When Being Nomadic Isn’t Enough

Central Asia and Coronavirus: When Being Nomadic Isn’t Enough

Friday, April 3, 2020

By: Gavin Helf, Ph.D.

“Do you know how nomads prevent conflict?” a Kazakh friend once asked me. “I turn this way; you turn the other way. We start walking.” In ordinary times in Central Asia, this traditional “social distancing” may be enough to avert friction. But in a time of pandemic, it isn’t. Like elsewhere, the novel coronavirus is challenging Central Asian states and societies in new ways and revealing a great deal about the character of peoples and their governments. Here’s a look across the region at how the crisis has affected its states and how leaders have responded.

Type: Analysis

Fragility & ResilienceGlobal Health

Central Asians Take Stock: Reform, Corruption, and Identity

Central Asians Take Stock: Reform, Corruption, and Identity

Wednesday, February 1, 1995

By: Nancy Lubin

The United States is interested in encouraging the development of stable, democratic systems, and market economies in new countries such as Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan, and to minimize the social, ethnic, religious and other sources of conflict that could destabilize the region further. But increasingly, effectiveness in these efforts will depend as much on the views from below as from policies promulgated from above.

Type: Peaceworks