As Russia presses on with its brutal invasion of Ukraine and the EU wrestles with an power disaster, the European Union has taken seen steps to construct nearer ties with Central Asian international locations. In 2022, the European Council president Charles Michel said that the 2 areas are ‘becoming more and more connected’.
Given Central Asia’s geographical location, considerable uncooked supplies, and key position in world safety, this heightened curiosity comes as no shock.
Regardless of enhanced efforts at regional cooperation, nonetheless, every state in Central Asia – a area that Russia has usually characterised as its ‘near-abroad’ – is extraordinarily completely different. Within the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Central Asia’s 5 closely subsidised Soviet republics turned unbiased nations. This was largely towards their residents’ will, as was made clear within the 1991 all-union referendum on the way forward for the Soviet Union, the place 9 in 10 folks within the Central Asian republics voted to protect it. Since then, nonetheless, every nation has solid its personal distinct path.
Within the multifaceted area of Central Asian politics, nothing is black-and-white. It’s a area of immense disparities, the place each determination is a geopolitical tightrope act; a area of huge wealth and crippling poverty; of remittance-based economies the place labour migrants are each marginalised and indispensable.
As energy balances shift within the face of mounting pressures, Central Asia is ever extra reliant on China as a buying and selling and logistics accomplice, significantly within the Belt and Street Initiative (BRI). Concurrently, to various levels, the area has more and more begun to look west to the EU and the US, even when Russia stays an necessary, although more and more erratic neighbour.
Except for Central Asia’s geopolitical location, the important thing to this four-way tussle for affect, which has seen the 5 nations pull in numerous instructions, is the area’s pure assets, together with its largely untapped uncommon earth components (REEs).
Kazakhstan
Over the previous decade, Kazakhstan – an unlimited nation the scale of western Europe, with highly effective neighbours within the type of China and Russia – has turn into an more and more necessary hyperlink between east and west, each by way of commerce and diplomacy. Given its geography, many choices in Kazakhstan necessitate a balanced and far-reaching overseas coverage outlook. Certainly, ‘mutually beneficial cooperation’ and ‘mutually beneficial strategic partnership’ have turn into the watchwords of Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s presidency.
Initiatives resembling BRI and the Center Hall have made Kazakhstan an indispensable ally for China, with estimates of the entire quantity of Chinese language funding in Kazakhstan over the previous 18 years reaching as much as $36 billion. Commerce turnover between the 2 international locations continues to increase, reaching $31.5 billion in 2023 (a 30-percent improve on 2022), and new transit routes are always underneath building. The Bakhty-Ayagoz railway line, for instance, will see the opening of a 3rd border crossing and improve throughput capability between the 2 nations from 28 to round 48 million tons. Cultural and political ties proceed to increase, with a 30-day visa-free journey regime coming into drive in November 2023.
As a bloc, nonetheless, the EU is Kazakhstan’s largest general buying and selling accomplice. Talking in February 2024, the Kazakh Deputy Overseas Minister Roman Vassilenko hailed the EU as ‘the largest trade and investment partner for Kazakhstan, accounting for approximately 40 percent of the country’s overseas commerce and 45 % of attracted investments since 2005’. Brussels and Astana are additionally deepening their power collaboration, with Kazakhstan to provide extra power assets to the EU.
Kazakhstan additionally goals to supply 2 million tons of inexperienced hydrogen yearly by 2032, which might make it a significant participant available in the market. In 2022, Kazakhstan signed a $50 billion deal with the German power group Svevind to construct one of many world’s largest inexperienced hydrogen crops supplying Europe.
By initiatives such because the C5+1 and the B5+1, platforms that advance American collaboration with Central Asian international locations, Washington has additionally more and more sought to interact with the area, and with Kazakhstan particularly. With funding totalling $19.4 billion, the US ranks second by way of overseas funding over the previous 5 years. A driving drive behind this engagement has been Kazakhstan’s big untapped reserves of REEs. With Brussels having concluded a ‘strategic partnership with Astana on raw materials, batteries and renewable hydrogen’, this scramble for REEs has additionally pitted the US towards the EU, which is more and more seen within the US as eager to ‘do their own thing’.
Given its shared Soviet previous and its huge 7,600-kilometre shared border, Russia stays of big significance to Kazakhstan. In 2023, commerce turnover with Russia amounted to $26 billion, although this represented a 3.7% lower on the earlier yr. While preserving ties, nonetheless, Kazakhstan has constantly distanced itself from Russia’s conflict in Ukraine, with the authorities allowing rallies towards the invasion. Even the dying of Alexei Navalny – traditionally no good friend of Central Asia – noticed makeshift memorials erected.
Some western specialists have characterised Kazakhstan’s relationship with Russia as fraught and even outlined by ‘multi-generational trauma’. Others, nonetheless , have claimed that Russian affect continues to develop, citing Russia’s management over the Caspian Pipeline Consortium and 25 % of Kazakhstan’s uranium manufacturing. General, evidently Kazakhstan is trying to edge away from Russia with out scary its extra highly effective neighbour. In some ways, this rivalry over Kazakhstan’s orbit speaks to the effectiveness of Tokayev’s multi-vector overseas coverage, an strategy primarily based not on selecting sides, however on maximising potential advantages for the nation.
Uzbekistan
Previous to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the connection between the EU and Uzbekistan was of restricted scope, with the EU solely establishing a delegation in Tashkent in 2011. Nevertheless, the conflict has offered recent impetus for cooperation, with Uzbekistan desirous to safe steady progress and forge a path for integration into the worldwide financial panorama. With this in thoughts, President Mirziyoyev’s authorities has adopted worldwide sanctions towards Russia and issued a assertion supporting the ‘territorial integrity of Ukraine’, with the courts going as far as convicting a citizen for becoming a member of Russian troops preventing in Ukraine.
Uzbekistan shouldn’t be a member of both the Russian-led Collective Safety Treaty Organisation (CSTO), nor the Eurasian Financial Union, and for the reason that begin of the battle Tashkent has been actively ‘strengthening relations with Azerbaijan and Turkey’ because it seeks new commerce routes. However Uzbekistan’ huge power deficit (having turned from a gasoline exporter to a gasoline importer, because of rising home calls for) places it in a precarious place. With Russian pure gasoline transiting by Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan set to extend from three to 11 billion cubic metres by 2026, Moscow will proceed to have appreciable leverage. Power aside, nonetheless, Uzbekistan has huge reserves of quite a few uncooked supplies, together with silver, titanium, lithium, copper and uranium.
Surpassing Russia, China is now Uzbekistan’s largest buying and selling accomplice as of 2023, with commerce between the 2 rising 1.5-fold to achieve over $13.7 billion, or roughly 22 % of complete turnover. An extended-mooted railway undertaking connecting Uzbekistan and China, nonetheless, appears to be dropping momentum. It must also be famous that this stays a deeply unequal relationship, with Uzbek exports accounting for simply $1.6 billion of the entire determine.
However, Uzbekistan’s financial outlook has been step by step bettering, and, in October 2023, the EU reached an settlement confirming the nation would be a part of the Vital Uncooked Supplies Discussion board. In April 2024, Tashkent signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the EU, although sceptics have described the doc as a ‘list of possibilities for cooperation without a guarantee of follow-through’. In Might 2024, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan additionally signed a Memorandum of Cooperation on the mixing of their energy techniques to supply inexperienced power for export to Europe. At this stage, nonetheless, the deal stays little greater than an settlement to discover potentialities.
Uzbekistan has additionally been actively courting the US, with commerce between the 2 nations persevering with on a gradual upward trajectory. A sweeping programme of privatisation of state enterprises and properties is gathering tempo, while in Washington, Uzbekistan has been desirous to play up the tempo of reform and anti-corruption measures, and plans to loosen up the tax burden on overseas buyers.
With its price range deficit increasing, Uzbekistan will be characterised as having a multi-vector overseas coverage and to be actively in search of new companions.
Tajikistan
Tajikistan’s relations with the EU are on a constructive trajectory, as demonstrated by the events’ ongoing negotiations over the Enhanced Partnership and Cooperation Settlement (EPCA), which, they’ve stated, will deliver the EU’s partnership with Tajikistan to a brand new degree. On 16 January 2024, Vice President of the European Fee Margaritis Schinas made an official go to to Tajikistan. While in Dushanbe, he met with Tajik prime minister Qohir Rasoulzoda and different high-ranking officers.
The EU’s ongoing dialogue with Tajikistan’s management is concentrated on connectivity points within the context of its International Gateway technique, with talks touching upon transport, digital connectivity and the water-energy nexus. Subjects resembling Tajikistan’s funding potential, local weather change and safety threats – together with the combat towards terrorism – are additionally being coated.
There are indicators, nonetheless, that the EU can be paying nearer consideration to the state of civil society in Tajikistan. In January 2024, the European Parliament adopted a decision on human rights within the nation, which condemns the continuing crackdown towards authorities critics, human rights activists and unbiased attorneys, in addition to the closure of unbiased media and web sites.
Tajikistan’s mass media panorama is overwhelmingly state-controlled, underscored by the truth that the nation fell two locations within the World Press Freedom Index in 2024, to 155 out of 180 international locations. Solely two important unbiased media voices now stay; the privately owned information company Asia-Plus and the Prague-based Radio Ozodi, the native service of the US Congress-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Each usually face harassment and threats.
Within the aftermath of the Crocus Metropolis Corridor terrorist assault in Moscow, when 4 Tajik suspects affiliated to ISIS-Ok have been arrested for the homicide of a reported 145 folks, uncommon fissures have appeared within the relationship between Tajikistan and Russia. Tajikistan’s overseas minister denounced the ‘torture’ of the Tajik suspects within the Moscow atrocity, urging the necessity for a ‘thorough investigation and a fair trial’.
Whereas Moscow has taken steps to protect the ‘time-tested alliance’ between the 2 international locations, Russia is now not an accessible vacation spot for Tajik migrant employees, upon whose remittances a couple of third of Tajikistan’s financial system ($2.5 billion in 2023) relies upon. Amid stories that Tajik residents are being singled out for mistreatment for the reason that assault, Tajikistan’s authorities has urged its nationals to briefly chorus from travelling to Russia ‘unless absolutely necessary’.
Regardless of this, Tajikistan’s pursuits nonetheless rely closely on cooperation with Russia. For instance, the nation nonetheless makes use of Russian navy personnel to coach its military. In 2024, based on the Russian Ministry of Defence, officers from the Russian 201st base in Tajikistan will practice 1,000 members of Tajikistan’s armed forces.
Kyrgyzstan
In Kyrgyzstan, the tightening of controls on foreign-funded NGOs as a part of a proposed Russian-influenced ‘foreign agents law’ has been seen in lots of elements as backsliding on democracy. The legislation has led the George Soros-funded Open Society Basis to say it should shut its doorways within the Central Asian nation. Since 1993, a yr through which Kyrgyzstan was mired in disaster, the Basis has spent greater than $115 million within the nation on tasks in training, public well being, prison justice, supplying water to rural communities and different areas.
Kyrgyzstan’s ‘foreign agents law’ is certainly one of Kyrgyzstan ’s details of contact with the EU. In February, a number of European human rights our bodies, together with the Norwegian Helsinki Committee and Eire’s Entrance Line Defenders, wrote an open letter to the EU’s representatives and member states, urging the European Union to assist Kyrgyz civil society in difficult what they referred to as a ‘Russia-inspired draft law’.
The European Union is simply a really minor commerce accomplice for Kyrgyzstan. Solely Germany (which receives 1.7 % of Kyrgyz exports and offers 0.7 % of the products that it imports) and Belgium (0.7 % of exports) do considerable volumes of enterprise with Kyrgyzstan. By comparability, the nation imports over 41 % of its items from China.
The terrorist assault on the Crocus Metropolis Corridor music venue has led to a backlash of suspicion, harassment and violence in Russia in direction of Central Asian migrants, together with these from Kyrgyzstan. The federal government of the Kyrgyz Republic has urged its residents to keep away from travelling to Russia if attainable, citing media stories of the ‘mass refusal of entry’, and saying folks ought to wait till Russia lifts tighter safety measures at its borders.
Kyrgyz-Chinese language relations, in the meantime, are having fun with a fruitful interval. In line with Kyrgyzstan’s Basic Customs Administration, the nation elevated its annual exports to China greater than two-fold within the first quarter of 2024, and complete bilateral commerce turnover presently stands at $4.5 billion per yr. In line with Chinese language statistics, commerce turnover between the 2 international locations in 2023 amounted to $19.8 billion.
Beijing and Bishkek are discussing the potential for increasing their collaboration in uncommon metals mining, in addition to opening a brand new air route between Kyrgyzstan’s second metropolis of Osh and Kashgar in China’s western Xinjiang province.
Turkmenistan
As one of many world’s most closed-off international locations, Turkmenistan stays an outlier, even inside the area. While the vast majority of Central Asia has been searching for methods to extend tourism and engagement on a world scale usually, Turkmenistan retains some of the restrictive visa regimes on the earth, and is equally reluctant to let its personal residents depart.
As famous by the Worldwide Commerce Administration of the USA, ‘reliable and timely trade data is not available’ for Turkmenistan. In line with figures from CAREC, in 2021, Turkmenistan’s exports to China – nearly all of which have been pure gasoline – amounted to $5.63 billion, greater than ten occasions greater than its second largest buying and selling accomplice, Turkey. Maybe surprisingly, Turkmenistan’s high supply of imports was Italy (plane), adopted by the US and Germany (tractors).
For a few years, Turkmenistan has performed up the potential for a Trans-Caspian pipeline delivering gasoline to Europe. This was on the agenda once more at a discussion board held in Paris in April; on 14 Might, an settlement was inked on the transportation of pure gasoline from Turkmenistan to Turkey by way of Azerbaijan and Georgia, with the purpose of offering further gasoline in unspecified volumes to Europe by 2030.
Turkmenistan, in the meantime, stays a ‘loyal partner in the region for Russia’, with pro-Russian propaganda ‘vilifying the West for supporting Kyiv and whitewashing Moscow’s picture’.
Prospects
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has considerably altered the extent of engagement between the EU and Central Asian international locations. The Council of the European Union’s Joint Roadmap for Deepening Ties between the EU and Central Asia, launched in October 2023, alerts that additional growth of commerce and cooperation with the EU is for certain. On the identical time, nonetheless, the area continues to courtroom China and deal with Russia.
Is location and nice mineral wealth (in sure states) has elevated Central Asia’s standing on the worldwide stage. However this stays a dangerous time of realignment for the area, one fraught with repercussions, each inside and exterior.
