Xi Jinping Invites Central Asian Leaders to First Summit in China

Tue Mar 21 2023
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BEIJING: Chinese President Xi Jinping this week invited the leaders of the ex-Soviet republics of Central Asia to a first joint summit in China, a bid to enhance Beijing’s influence in Russia’s backyard.

XI extended the offer to the “first China-Central Asia summit”, scheduled for May, in similar telegrams sent on Monday and Tuesday to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan leaders, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan and made public by the recipients.

Turkmenistan, being China’s top gas supplier, has not yet announced whether it has been invited to the gathering.

The authoritarian republics of Central Asia were part of the Soviet Union and have been dominated by the then-Russian Federation since the mid-19th century.

But Moscow’s influence is being challenged, increasingly since the invasion of Ukraine.

Xi Jinping’s interest in Central Asia

Beijing is courting Moscow’s traditional partners in the region, both economically and politically– the former via projects such as the mammoth road, rail and port infrastructure projects designed as a modern iteration of the Silk Road through Central Asia and beyond.

Turkiye and Western powers are also struggling to enhance their influence in the strategically located mineral-rich region.

Moreover, Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, chief European Union diplomat Charles Michel, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan have all beaten a path to the door of Central Asia in the recent past.

Chinese President also hosted an online regional summit in January 2022 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Sino-Central Asian diplomatic ties since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

In the four invitations being sent out on Monday and Tuesday to mark Nowruz, the Persian New Year celebrated in the region, Xi Jinping underlined the strengthening relations between China and the Central Asian regimes.

The document published by the official Tajik news agency Khovar quotes Xi Jinping as saying he is “eager to discuss a grand plan to develop ties” between China and the region.

However, China’s increasing influence is not universally welcomed.

Swathes of the population in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, which along with Tajikistan, have borders with China, have voiced a degree of concern and opposition. All have Muslim majorities.

These concerns are related particularly to land acquisition by China, government debt owed to Beijing and China’s brutal treatment of its Muslim Uyghur minority, which also has representation in Central Asia.

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