During a January 11 meeting with the editors of major Russian print media outlets, President Vladimir Putin praised the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, as a mature and “absolutely learned politician.” According to Putin, Kim “has, without a doubt, won the game and achieved... MORE

When Uzbekistanis elected Shavkat Mirziyoyev as their president on December 4, 2016, they entered 2017 with a healthy dose of skepticism that real change would follow. Indeed, during his first public address as the interim head of state, Mirziyoyev, previous president Islam Karimov’s prime minister... MORE

Serious differences have come to the fore between China and Pakistan over the $60-billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). At a Joint Working Group (JWG) meeting at Islamabad in November 2017, China announced its decision to suspend funding for at least three road projects in Pakistan, pending... MORE

Following bloody clashes between ethnic Uyghurs and Han Chinese in the city of Urumchi, in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, in the summer of 2009, Beijing resorted to both carrot and stick policies to secure stability in this volatile territory. On the one hand, the central... MORE

In early August 2017, Malhama Tactical, an unusual militant group operating in Syria and sometimes labelled the “Blackwater of jihad,” issued a statement in which it hinted at a planned expansion into China and alluded to the experiences of China’s Uighur population in the western... MORE

In the plenary session of the XIV Forum of Interregional Cooperation of the Russian Federation and Kazakhstan, held on November 9, the presidents of the two countries, Vladimir Putin and Nursultan Nazarbayev, announced plans for a new railway route from China to Europe via the... MORE

On November 5, a cargo train from Kokshetau, North Kazakhstan, carrying 30 containers of wheat, arrived in the Turkish harbor city of Mersin, on the Mediterranean coast. What made this event so notable was that this was the first train from Kazakhstan to use the... MORE

In October the Chinese Communist Party enshrined Xi Jinping’s “One Belt, One Road Initiative” (OBOR) in its constitution. The move again demonstrates how the sweeping plan linking China and Europe via land and sea routes now is at the heart of China’s foreign policy and... MORE

Russian state-owned oil giant Rosneft continues to think big and strike major deals on the global stage. It recently announced a program to sell bonds worth 1.3 trillion rubles ($22.53 billion) (Vedomosti, October 26). This gargantuan bond sale will not be used merely for domestic... MORE

On May 5, India began a new diplomatic push in South Asia by launching the “South Asia satellite” into space. Built and launched by the government-run Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), the satellite will provide communications and meteorological data to India’s South Asian neighbors (Economic... MORE