Global Courant 2023-05-18 08:57:47
The leaders of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are in Xian for a two-day meeting.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is in the central city of Xian, hosting his first ever summit with the leaders of five Central Asian countries, underlining Beijing’s growing influence in a region that Russia has long considered its own backyard .
The two-day event brings together the leaders of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, whose countries are critical to China’s trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
It is held in Xian, the historic city that once marked the beginning of the legendary Silk Road.
Yu Jun, deputy director-general of the European-Central Asian Affairs Department of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told a press conference on Tuesday that the leaders will exchange views on establishing a cooperation mechanism and on international and regional issues of concern. be importance. A number of agreements are expected to be signed, he said at a news conference on Tuesday.
While the summit coincides with the high-profile G7 summit in Japan, analysts said the significance of the China Central Asia summit was that it underlined changing patterns of influence in former Soviet states, where Russia has long been influential.
“I would say that the Ukraine conflict is more of an accelerator of pre-existing trends in the region — the biggest of which is China displacing Russia as the region’s biggest hegemony,” said Bradley Jardine, the general director of the Oxus Society for Central. Asian Affairs in Washington, DC told Al Jazeera.
“Many regional governments are increasingly skeptical of Russia’s objectives in the region and China has tried to reassure them of their sovereignty.”
China’s General Administration of Customs released data on Wednesday showing that China’s import and export volume with Central Asian countries was 173.05 billion yuan ($24.8 billion) in the first four months of 2023, an increase of 37. 3 percent compared to the same period last year.
About 55 percent of China’s imports were energy products such as coal, crude oil and natural gas, state media said.
Still, some analysts said China’s influence in the region doesn’t mean Moscow is any less important.
China and Russia agreed on a borderless partnership last February, less than three weeks before Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Xi Jinping was in Moscow in March where he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin and signed an agreement to take their ties into a “new era” of cooperation.
Li Yongquan, director of Eurasian research at the State Council’s China Development Research Center, told the state-run Global Times on Thursday that “Central Asia has been in a complicated geopolitical atmosphere for 30 years. One of the reasons regional countries are able to thrive despite the many volatile factors is that China and Russia have worked together to maintain security and stability in the region. China and Russia have a common interest in this matter.”
