China hosted a major international gathering on May 14 and 15. Over a thousand delegates from 110 countries, including 29 world leaders, flocked to Beijing to attend the so-called One Belt, One Road Summit. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was first proposed by Chinese... MORE

It takes three separate diplomatic efforts for three countries to sign three bilateral strategic partnership agreements. That is exactly what happened over the past four years in Central Asia: first Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan signed a strategic partnership in June 2013; then Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan concluded... MORE

Uzbekistan’s new head of state, President Shavkat Mirziyaev made his first official visit to Moscow, on April 4–5. Though the visit was in fact the Uzbekistani leader’s third foreign trip as president, after traveling to neighboring Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, Russian commentators nevertheless called it Mirziyaev’s... MORE

Three months since his election last December, Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirziyaev made his first official trip abroad, visiting neighboring Turkmenistan on March 6–7. The visit put an end to rampant speculation about where his maiden foreign trip would take him. Some, for instance, had expected... MORE

Even though fertility rates have fallen in Central Asia over the last two decades, the earlier rise in the number of births means that the populations of these countries continue to grow far more rapidly than anywhere else in the former Soviet space. Tajikistan is... MORE

On January 13, 2017, the newly elected president of Uzbekistan, Shavkat Mirziyaev, attended a ceremony commemorating the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the independent Uzbekistani army (January 14, 1992). The event is an annual fixture on Uzbekistan’s calendar. But this year, the celebration gained... MORE

Incoming presidents put in place their own teams of subordinates and government functionaries; this is true for Uzbekistan as much as for the rest of the world. Since Shavkat Mirziyaev was sworn in as Uzbekistan’s new head of state on December 14, 2016, he has... MORE

The fifth presidential election in the history of independent Uzbekistan on December 4 has ended with a definite win for Shavkat Mirziyaev, previously the country’s prime minister for 13 years under the late Islam Karimov. As Uzbekistan enters its post-Karimov era, it is important to... MORE

In offering his condolences on the death of Uzbek President Islam Karimov in September, Chinese president Xi Jinping expressed that the Chinese people had lost a true friend. Earlier, in late June Xi had delivered a speech in Uzbekistan’s parliament in which he called for... MORE

The following political landscape piece is a part of Eurasia Daily Monitor’s special quarterly series of strategic assessments of developments across Eurasia. These pieces examine recent important developments and trends in the region, particularly since this past summer, and anticipate where those trend lines may... MORE