... of the arms market in the whole region. This percentage has considerably increased during the last decade, with Kazakhstan being the largest consumer of the area [
viii
]. However, this monopoly is not equally distributed among Central Asian states. Uzbekistan prefers buying weapons from China, while Turkey is the largest arms supplier for Turkmenistan [
ix
].
In case of a conflict, together with the actual military presence on the ground, Russia holds another two trump cards. In peacetime, Central Asian bases are under direct control ...
... and the Pakistani terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba. In the late 1990s, the IMU consisted of several hundred Uzbek and Tajik militants. In contrast, today it
includes
hundreds of thousands of militants from all the Central Asian countries, as well as China, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Chechnya.
The ultimate reasons for the rise in extremism in Uzbekistan lie in its political, socioeconomic and inter-ethnic problems, which are especially typical of the most populated areas of the Fergana Valley. The
Fergana and Karategin valleys
are still convenient platforms for covert terrorist activity.
...
The Working Group on the Future of U.S.-Russia Relations’ Report
Central Asia stands out as a comparatively “nontoxic” region where there are limited, but not insignificant, opportunities for U.S.-Russia collaboration both bilaterally and within multilateral frameworks: in the space industry, civil security, job-creation mechanisms and rural human capital, and knowledge sharing for instance. Any proposal of U.S.-Russia cooperation in a concrete domain will have to be made in a tri- or-multipartite...
... however, it looks like the death of competition on the Belt and Road.
It is this kind of institutional risk underwriting that allows the policy banks to move so easily into external geographies in Eurasia. At the SCO meeting in Qingdao in June 2018, Uzbekistan set up a
US$ 750 million line of credit with China Development Bank and Exim Bank
. While the Exim US$ 500 million is a blank cheque for Uzbekistan to spend however it wishes, the 250 million with CDB for support Chinese SMEs to bring technology transfers to Uzbekistan. This development is mirrored ...
... with Kuchera and turns its attention to Russia and China, waiting to see how the withdrawal of coalition leads the players of the Central Asian “Game” to change their behaviour and bid on different CA countries. United States - focusing on Uzbekistan, Russia - on Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan and China - on everyone, but the least of all on Kyrgyzstan. Since the beginning of 2013 CA countries started to declare the willingness of their major partners, mostly Russia and China, to make huge donations to the regions economies. Although this donations ...
