Executive Summary: Mongolia is engaging in efforts, including bilateral negotiations and official visits, to improve relations with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan following a long period of stagnant foreign policy toward Central Asia. These states share a Soviet legacy, resource extraction-oriented economies, and similar geopolitical and... MORE

Executive Summary: Beijing, Bishkek, and Tashkent signed a joint agreement in June to finance and begin constructing the oft-discussed China–Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan railway by October 2024. After many years of discussion, China finally pledged to finance over half of the project’s costs, and the parties appear to... MORE

Executive Summary: The People’s Republic of China (PRC) sees the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as an important part of a wider strategy to construct a new international order. Beijing projects soft power through promoting norms, discursive constructs, and policy preferences in the SCO which member states... MORE

Executive Summary: Beijing pressures the Kyrgyz government to censor voices criticizing the People’s Republic of China (PRC), its companies, and its citizens within the Kyrgyz Republic. As PRC companies have expanded in country—particularly in the mining sector—extensive environmental damage has provoked local protests. Some cultural... MORE

Executive Summary: The issue of domestic violence in Central Asia has increasingly gained attention since a former Kazakh economic minister tortured and killed his wife and was convicted of murder, inspiring reform movements throughout Kazakhstan. Corruption plays a significant role in the condoning of domestic... MORE

Executive Summary:  The enormous rare-earth mineral reserves in Central Asia are intensifying geopolitical competition among China, the West, and Russia and have been complicated by their competing agendas. Beijing wants to develop a monopoly on rare earths, the United States and the European Union want... MORE

Executive Summary: Beijing aims to enforce censorship outside its borders by targeting the gatekeepers of information and manipulating narratives that it does not currently monopolize. Over the past two hundred years, groups like the Uyghurs, Dungans, and ethnic Kyrgyz have fled China for the territory... MORE

Executive Summary: A Kyrgyz mob stormed dormitories housing foreign students in Bishkek, targeting South Asian students and causing hundreds, possibly thousands, of foreign students to evacuate the country. The attack has left the Kyrgyz government concerned about economic losses and the destabilizing effects on the... MORE

Executive Summary: Bishkek has sought to attract workers from other countries to fill the void of a million Kyrgyz workers abroad, a substitution that has sparked xenophobia and violence, most recently on May 17 and 18. The tense situation has been exacerbated by Kyrgyzstan’s weak... MORE

Executive Summary: The Crocus City Hall terrorist attack has led to a rise in Russian xenophobia against Central Asians and a strong crackdown on Central Asian migrants from the Kremlin. Labor migrants from Central Asia make up a majority of Russia’s migrant labor market, and... MORE