Beijing and Bishkek have started negotiations on relocating 40 Chinese factories and plants to Kyrgyzstan. While Kyrgyzstan’s government says that this will help reindustrialize the country, there are concerns in Kyrgyz society that such plans will exacerbate Chinese expansion domestically. The government in Bishkek has... MORE

Kazakhstan has traditionally been considered the most stable and prosperous country of Central Asia and was even dubbed by external observers an “island of stability” in a chronically volatile region. Yet, on June 5, this image was shattered when a group of more than 20... MORE

At the recently convened Central Religious Work Conference Chinese President Xi Jinping stressed the importance of fusing religious doctrines with Chinese culture and preventing the interference of religion in government affairs and education (Xinhua, April 23). These comments were directed, at least partially, at the... MORE

During his recent trip to Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Iran, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu repeatedly spoke about the need for a joint effort against terrorism. “We need to discuss everything happening in the world, to look at and draw up additional joint measures in the... MORE

On May 12, the $1.17 billion CASA-1000 energy mega-project was inaugurated, in Tajikistan, by top-level officials from its participating countries—Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan and Kyrgyzstan (News.tj, May 12). Although CASA-1000 has secured financing from the United States, the United Kingdom, the World Bank and the European... MORE

In recent months, the Federal Security Service (FSB) allegedly thwarted several terrorist attacks on Russian soil by migrants from Central Asia. In April, Russian security services claimed that four citizens of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan were planning terrorist acts in Moscow (Kommersant, May 6), while in... MORE

Although Central Asia as a whole has enough water to promote development, problems in sharing this critical resource among the region’s five post-Soviet republics—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan—are becoming downright severe. According to a new World Bank study, such localized water crises could reduce... MORE

Less than five years have passed since Kazakhstan experienced what may have been its most serious post-independence test of stability to date when, in December 2011, hundreds of people took to the streets in the western town of Zhanaozen, on the Caspian Sea. Clashes with... MORE

Uzbekistan’s President Islam Karimov visited Moscow for talks with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on April 25–26, 2016. The visit was widely hailed as the opening of a new chapter in bilateral ties (Uza.uz, April 27). President Putin called Uzbekistan “a strategic partner and a... MORE

The renewed violence in Azerbaijan’s separatist region of Karabakh (see EDM, April 6) is attracting attention to three larger problems in other parts of the former Soviet space: the existence of ethnic exclaves in neighboring countries, the continuing failure of the states of the region... MORE