On November 29, 2013, an international cargo train Chang’an (“Lasting Peace”) departed from Xi’an, the capital city of Shaanxi province in central China, and traveled westward toward Central Asia. On December 9, after a journey of more than 5,000 kilometers, the 49-car train arrived in... MORE

On February 3, Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans made his first official visit to Kazakhstan. In Astana, he met with President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Speaker of the Senate of Parliament Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Deputy Prime Minister Bakhytzhan Sagintayev, Foreign Minister Erlan Idrisov and other senior Kazakhstani officials... MORE

Russia’s economic leverage on Moldova has tended to diminish in recent years, but it remains strong on several key dimensions, and can be used with short-term devastating consequences, if the Kremlin decides to use this leverage punitively. The European Union and the Moldovan government worry... MORE

Mongolia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs L. Bold made an official visit January 16–21, 2014 to the PRC at invitation of his counterpart Wang Yi. The most interesting result from the trip may have been the fact that it was widely covered by Chinese media, while... MORE

The firing and arrest of more than 50 officials “from the number one down to the grassroots” in the Provincial Science and Technology Department of Guangdong has been hailed in Chinese official media as a step forward in the fight against corruption—but, as they take... MORE

President Nursultan Nazarbayev has suggested changing his country’s name from Kazakhstan to “Kazakh Yeli”—meaning the “Land of the Kazakhs”—during a visit to the nation’s oil capital Atyrau on February 6. By dropping the “stan” from Kazakhstan, the country would differentiate itself from its Central Asian... MORE

China is increasingly interested in railway construction in the former Soviet Central Asian states as a land alternative to maritime transit for shipping high-value, low-volume products such as electronics to European markets. If all goes according to plan, in May 2014 the final technical decisions... MORE

The events in neighboring Ukraine have spawned multiple publications in which Ukraine and Belarus are compared and contrasted and the potential effect of the Ukrainian events on Belarus is analyzed. “Yanukovych may not survive politically even until the 2015 elections,” writes Alexander Klaskovsky, one of... MORE

The opening ceremony of the Sochi Winter Olympic Games (February 7) was just about picture-perfect, and the sizeable legion of critics, including most of the home-grown disbelievers in the ability of the ruling plutocracy to organize this mega-event, had to eat their words. It is... MORE

On January 17, Kazakhstani President Nursultan Nazarbaev delivered his annual address to the nation, titled “Kazakhstan’s way—2050: common aim, common interests, common future.” The address largely elaborated on the national development plan and ways to achieve the goal of bringing Kazakhstan into the group of... MORE