China's Policy Bank Investment Profits from Uzbekistan's Monetary Policy Reform
By Tristan Kenderdine
April 16, 2018, the CACI Analyst
Following high-profile visits by Premier Li Keqiang in 2015 and Xi Jinping in 2016, China’s is domestically devolving its trade and industrial relationship with Uzbekistan to provincial and prefectural levels of government. However, financing for China’s investment in Uzbekistan remains either directly invested or indirectly coordinated by one of China’s three central policy banks, Export-Import Bank of China, China Development Bank, and the Agricultural Development Bank of China. Since 2014, the Exim Bank has committed to fund Belt and Road projects worth around US$ 120 billion, which corresponds to nearly a full year’s GDP for Uzbekistan. These quasi-sovereign wealth funds certainly pose a systemic debt risk, but are not necessarily a debt-trap.
A Chinese Base in Central Asia
By Stephen Blank
April 12, 2018, the CACI Analyst
During January and February, several reports surfaced of a new Chinese military base in Afghanistan’s Wakhan corridor. According to Afghan officials, China and Kabul discuss building a base in Badakhshan and China will send an expert delegation to Kabul to determine the exact site, and will fund the base and all of its material and technical expenses, including weapons and equipment. China has denied these reports as they contradict its long-standing position that it is not seeking foreign bases or intends to intervene militarily in Central Asia. However, witnesses have reported seeing Chinese and Afghan troops on joint patrols. Moreover, there is a long record of signs of a growing Chinese military interest in Central Asia.
New Central Asia But Old Great Game? Ramifications of the Consultative Meeting in Astana
By Farkhod Tolipov
April 10, 2018, the CACI Analyst
On March 15, 2018, the presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and the speaker of Turkmenistan’s parliament gathered in Kazakhstan’s capital Astana for a long-awaited meeting. Notably, the meeting was five-lateral, not four-lateral like previous meetings, and was consultative. Over 10 years have passed since the latest regional meeting of the Central Asian leaders. Not least for geopolitical reasons, the regional integration process that started in 1991 has since declined. This consultative meeting signaled a possible revitalization of regional cooperation, while the region remains in the shadow of great power politics.
Armenia Elects New President
By Natalia Konarzewska
April 2, 2018, the CACI Analyst
On March 2, Armenia’s National Assembly elected Armen Sargsyan as president. This was the first presidential election in Armenia after the constitutional amendments adopted in 2015, which envisage a shift from a semi-presidential to a parliamentary system of government. The new system limits the president’s role to a ceremonial figure, while allocating more executive power to the prime minister who will be nominated in April when incumbent President Serzh Sargsyan’s (not related) term ends. The new president’s strong foreign policy credentials will expectedly advance Armenia’s interests abroad, which is especially important as the country hopes to rekindle relations with Euro-Atlantic structures.
Visit also
Joint Center Publications
Article S. Frederick Starr, "Why Central Asia Counts", Middle East Insights, November 6, 2017
Article Mamuka Tsereteli, “Russian Aggression in the Black Sea Cannot Go Unanswered” The Hill, September 11, 2017
Article Bilahari Kausikan, Fred Starr, and Yang Cheng, “Asia’s Game of Thrones, Central Asia: All Together Now.” The American Interest, June 16,2017
Article Svante E. Cornell “The Raucous Caucasus” The American Interest, May 2, 2017
Resource Page "Resources on Terrorism and Radical Islamism in Central Asia", Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, April 11, 2017.
Silk Road Monograph Nicklas Norling, Party Problems and Factionalism in Soviet Uzbekistan: Evidence from the Communist Party Archives, March 2017.
Oped Svante E. Cornell, "Russia: An Enabler of Jihad?", W. Martens Center for European Studies, January 16, 2017.
Book Svante E. Cornell, ed., The International Politics of the Armenian-Azerbaijani Conflict: The Original 'Frozen Conflict' and European Security, Palgrave, 2017.
Article Svante E. Cornell, The fallacy of ‘compartmentalisation’: the West and Russia from Ukraine to Syria, European View, Volume 15, Issue 1, June 2016.
Silk Road Paper Shirin Akiner, Kyrgyzstan 2010: Conflict and Context, July 2016.
Silk Road Paper John C. K. Daly, Rush to Judgment: Western Media and the 2005 Andijan Violence, May 2016.
Silk Road Paper Jeffry Hartman, The May 2005 Andijan Uprising: What We Know, May 2016.
Silk Road Paper Johanna Popjanevski, Retribution and the Rule of Law: The Politics of Justice in Georgia, June 2015.
Book S. Frederick Starr and Svante E. Cornell, eds., ·Putin's Grand Strategy: The Eurasian Union and its Discontents, Joint Center Monograph, September 2014.