By Stephen Blank

April 18, 2019, the CACI Analyst

The Washington Post recently reported that China has an operating military base in Tajikistan, confirming earlier accounts of this base and opening a window on China’s interests and strategic developments across Central Asia. However, China may have a second base situated in the Wakhan corridor of Afghanistan. Chinese forces have been present there since 2017, around the same time that the base in Tajikistan became functional. The newly discovered base, along with the base in Djibouti and the possible base in Afghanistan, reflects the pressures building from within the PRC and PLA to project military power beyond China’s borders, e.g. in the South China Sea.

By Nurlan Aliyev

April 16, 2019, the CACI Analyst

An anti-Chinese protest took place in Bishkek on January 17, 2019, the third in recent months. The protesters demanded a moratorium on issuing Kyrgyz passports to Chinese citizens, except for ethnic Kyrgyz, to scrutinize all Chinese-funded enterprises and also to test the appropriateness of loans taken from China. They demanded that Chinese citizens who reside illegally in Kyrgyzstan should be deported and a halt to labor quotas for Chinese. Other topics raised were high-level corruption and demands for transparency in the government’s financial activities, especially regarding its expenditure of Chinese grants and loans. Protesters also expressed disapproval of marriages between Kyrgyz women and Chinese men, demanding prohibited registration of mixed marriages and fines for newlyweds. The anti-Chinese protests in Kyrgyzstan take place in a broader context of rising sinophobic sentiments in Central Asia in recent years.

By Rafis Abazov

April 5, 2019, the CACI Analyst

Recent initiatives on stabilizing Afghanistan and security in the region during the high-level International Conference on Afghanistan in Geneva, and discussions of reconciliation with the Taliban in Doha and Moscow, have offered a number of conventional measures helping to resolve some of the area’s problems, but often only in the short run. However, below the radar of the heavyweight political players, groups of dedicated youth quietly work on the long-term solution through replicating the international efforts inside and outside of Afghanistan in their Model UN. Every year tens of thousands of students from across Greater Central Asia not only discuss the most pressing regional issues, but also educate and train the next generation of young people on diplomatic, negotiation and conflict prevention issues. The question is, will it work?

By Huseyn Aliyev

April 3, 2019, the CACI Analyst

On December 20, 2018, Grozny city court ruled that the regional branch of Gazprom, Mezhregiongaz, should write off most of the republic’s gas debt. The court’s unprecedented ruling has caused four other indebted federal Russian regions to file similar appeals to their regional courts. The Chechen Prosecutor’s Office explained that it filed the appeal to the court due to concern over the threat of popular protests. Chechnya’s leader Ramzan Kadyrov insisted that Chechnya’s gas debts are due to Gazprom’s long-term mismanagement and miscalculations. While the Federal Attorney Office is currently investigating the issue, neither Kadyrov nor Gazprom have made any concessions. Since the start of scandal, the Kremlin has kept its distance from both sides.