On April 10, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev paid a one-day official visit to Kazakhstan (President.az, April 10). This visit took place about six months after the first official visit of Kazakhstani President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev as the head of state to Azerbaijan in August 2022 (The... MORE

In March 2023, at his summit meeting in Moscow with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that he was ready to create a joint Chinese-Russian working group to develop what the Russians call the Northern Sea Route (NSR) and the Chinese the... MORE

Against the backdrop of the Russo-Ukrainian war and fluctuating relations between Kazakhstan and Russia, Uzbekistan is gaining strategic importance for China as a potential stable emerging market in Central Asia. As a result, Beijing has made more concerted efforts to expand its soft power throughout... MORE

Introduction In a speech to the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and the People's Armed Police Force (PAP) delegation to the National People's Congress (NPC) on March 8, Chinese President and Central Military Commission Chairman Xi Jinping called for accelerating the development of "integrated national strategies... MORE

Introduction In March, at the opening session of the 14th National People’s Congress (NPC), the top legislature of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) announced an annual defense budget of roughly 1.55 trillion yuan (about $224.79 billion) for fiscal year 2023, which is a 7.2... MORE

Kazakhstan has recently proposed the building of a new international gas pipeline to Russia that would run through Kazakhstani territory and connect to China (Interfax, February 22; Astana Times, March 25). The new pipeline project has emerged as a vital need in delivering natural gas... MORE

Despite the Russian ruling elite’s optimism about the Russian economy “stepping into a positive trajectory of growth” (RIA Novosti, February 28), the real state of affairs in economic development may not be as bright as the Russian authorities portray. Despite propaganda, Russia`s economic troubles—caused by... MORE

Russia’s war against Ukraine has diverted observers’ attention away from its policies in Latin America. While the blockade of the Black Sea and ensuing weaponization of both Russian and Ukrainian exports has triggered significant attention to, in and around great-power rivalries in Africa, nothing of... MORE

Moscow had counted on the expansion of its north-south trade via the Caspian Sea to help end-run Western sanctions (Casp-geo.ru, August 3, 2022); however, the sanctions regime, which led the Russian government to seek to expand the capacity of this route in the first place,... MORE

In the three decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation and China have pursued divergent interests in post-Soviet Central Asia, as Moscow seeks to retain its influence even as Beijing’s “soft power” grows, underpinned by its dynamic economy. In a recent... MORE