Vladimir Putin’s much-publicized program to promote import substitution is failing. Indeed, Russia may be in worse shape now than it was a decade ago as sanctions and declining earnings from the sale of raw materials leave the central government with less money to spend. Moreover,... MORE

Introduction This month, the National People’s Congress (Quanguo Renmin Daibiao Dahui, 全国人民代表大会), or NPC, and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (Zhongguo Renmin Zhengzhi Xieshang Huiyi, 中国人民政治协商会议) convened concurrently in Beijing. Collectively known as the “Two Sessions” (Lianghui, 两会), the annual meetings of these bodies—normally... MORE

Introduction On March 15th, the National People’s Congress (NPC) of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) formally passed a new Foreign Investment Law (waishang touzi fa, 外商投资法) to govern the increasingly complex issues surrounding foreign direct investment (FDI) in the country. According to the state... MORE

Introduction Amid the ongoing crisis in Venezuela—in which the country faces not only economic meltdown, but also a division between two rival presidents, in the persons of incumbent President Nicolas Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaido—the People’s Republic of China (PRC) remains one of the... MORE

Chinese plans to construct a railway from Xinjiang through Kyrgyzstan to Uzbekistan and onward to Turkmenistan will, if realized, transform the geopolitical situation in the region. This rail corridor promises to open up new possibilities for regional countries to bypass Russia in pursuit of foreign... MORE

Iranian-Azerbaijani relations have been firmly on track toward rapprochement since the election of President Hassan Rouhani in Iran and the subsequent progress on the nuclear deal and lifting of Western sanctions. In the last five years, the presidents of Azerbaijan and Iran met 12 times,... MORE

By mid-March 2014, Russian “little green men” took full control of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. And on March 18, President Vladimir Putin made a jubilant address to the Russian Federation Council (upper chamber of parliament) on the “reunification” with Crimea, asserting, “In people’s hearts and minds,... MORE

The newly elected president of Georgia, Salome Zurabishvili, is using the first hundred days of her presidency to demonstrate her country’s ongoing commitment to integration into Euro-Atlantic structures. This was recently clearly evidenced by her visits to Brussels, Paris and Berlin. Some experts believe that... MORE

Since Shavket Mirziyoyev’s succession of Islam Karimov as president in 2016, concerns have been mounting regarding the apparently growing ties between Russian and Uzbekistan. Indeed, Uzbekistani-Russian cooperation has been intensifying, reinforced by multi-day official visits by both President Mirziyoyev to Russia in April 2017 and... MORE

Newly elected Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili made her first regional visit to the neighboring country of Azerbaijan. Her trip was of critical importance in terms of both bilateral relations and wider geopolitical developments in the South Caucasus. Specifically, Zourabichvili’s arrival in Baku, on February 27,... MORE