After 30 years of independence, the five Central Asian countries have been looking for a path of development

Calm quickly returned to the situation in Kazakhstan. On the 19th, all the peacekeepers of the CGIA organization were evacuated as planned. On the 18th, the Kazakh government adopted a plan to stabilize the social and economic situation, promising to increase the income of residents as the main task, and providing various supports such as deferring the repayment of small and micro loans to individuals and business groups affected in the riots. The turmoil in Kazakhstan is also reminiscent of the 30 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the 30 years of independence for the five Central Asian countries. The five Central Asian countries in the transition period have different degrees of development: some are large in size and have a good degree of development; some have large populations and have a thick foundation left by the Soviet Union; some have a poor economic foundation and have experienced civil wars or "color revolutions"; some are rich in energy but very closed to the outside world. According to the Observation of the Global Times reporter, Central Asian countries are still facing many "uncertainties" in development, and they are also striving to explore their own models in international competition.

"The same disease as the countries of the post-Soviet space"

With the government's efforts to stabilize society and the economy, the mainstream media in Kazakhstan have more positive expectations for the country's future development. Kazakhstan "Tengger News Network" with "Congratulations to the new Kazakhstan! President Tokayev's directive on the next stage of the matter" focused on the analysis of the government's improvement of people's livelihood and stated that "in fact, Kazakhstan has been reborn". As the unrest subsided, the Kazakh people began to help each other, and the banks postponed the repayment of loans. The Kazakh people interviewed by Western media said that they hate violent and disorderly social chaos and are eager to return to normal life at an early date.

"China and Russia will not allow chaos and war in Central Asia." This is a phenomenon that the Russian media has paid the most attention to after the turmoil in Kazakhstan has gradually subsided. Maslov, dean of the School of Oriental and African Studies at Moscow University, stressed that the evaluation of the events in Kazakhstan between China and Russia is basically in line with each other, and will not allow the West to carry out "color revolutions" in Central Asia, and will also actively prevent terrorism from causing chaos in the region.

Taking advantage of the changes in the situation in Kazakhstan and the celebration of the 30th anniversary of independence by the five Central Asian countries, the Russian media also made an inventory. According to the Russian "Kommerskant" article, the situation in the region has been unstable since independence. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the five Central Asian countries went their separate ways, but it turned out that each country shared the same disease as other countries in the post-Soviet space, such as civil wars, conspiracies, "color revolutions", unsuccessful reforms, not only internal strife, but also conflicts with neighboring countries. The first major shock came from Tajikistan, a country that began in 1992 and killed tens of thousands of people in a bloody civil war that took more than eight years to achieve final peace. Turkmenistan has always isolated itself from the outside world, but its neutrality in foreign policy also guarantees the country's relative stability. Kyrgyzstan has experienced numerous "color revolutions" and political upheavals. For Uzbekistan, the worst impact was the may 2005 riots in Andijan. Referring to Kazakhstan, the "island of stability in Central Asia," the article reads: Despite the efforts of the first president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, to minimize risks and vigorously develop the country's economy, the country has also experienced many upheavals. In December 2011, for example, oil workers in the small town of Zanauzin in the western part of Kazakhstan protested, demanding higher salaries and sparking riots. Other experts say one of the main problems in Central Asia at present is that population growth has not yet been resolved. At the same time, a large number of Central Asian countries have immigrated to Russia, and the shortage of labor has affected the economic development of the region.

30 years ago, history created unique opportunities for Central Asian countries, and in the 30 years of independence, the success or failure of these countries depended not only on what kind of resources and industrial base the Soviet Union left behind, but also on how they achieved self-development and integration into the regional and global economy. Professor Andrei Kazantsev of the Higher Russian University of Economics believes that Kazakhstan's oil and gas industry is almost self-made, which is not only due to huge international investment, but also to the decisive role played by the country's leaders. Yuri Solozov, an expert at the Russian Institute of National Strategic Studies, said none of this would have been possible without Nazarbayev's personal talent.

The West is more concerned about the future of Central Asia. According to the British magazine The Economist, Central Asia is a divided region with many languages and ethnicities, and the "arbitrarily demarcated borders" of the Soviet union also brought strife and conflict to some countries. Although the majority of the 75 million people in Central Asian countries are Muslims, government is mostly secular. All five Central Asian countries, dependent on the export of goods and labor, face problems such as high economic fluctuations, difficult to eliminate corruption, and instability in some of the transition of power.

Akram Marov, a visiting scholar at the Governance and Market Center of the University of Pittsburgh, recently wrote in the National Interest magazine that the sustainable development and sovereignty of Central Asian countries are facing the biggest challenge in the past 30 years of independence: the government lacks independent analysis and attention to the growing socio-economic problems and national dissatisfaction; the transfer of power is too long and the division of powers and responsibilities is not clear; and the government departments are plagued by nepotism and corruption and cannot withstand internal and external shocks. Regime changes in Kyrgyzstan at the end of 2020, border clashes between the two countries, and the impact of continued instability in Central Asia after the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan have all created strategic uncertainty about the region's future development. Marov believes that Central Asian countries should establish effective and stable political institutions, but this does not mean that they must follow the practice of liberalization and democratization, but should establish performance-based bureaucracy, "without deep institutional reforms and economic transformation, the future of Central Asia may be bleak."

"There are big differences and many common problems"

At the end of 2005, a Global Times reporter came to a Central Asian country for the first time. I remember that when the plane landed at Kyrgyzstan's Manas International Airport, the first thing we saw was a row of US C-130 transport planes parked not far away. After the 9/11 incident in 2001, the US military entered Central Asia on the pretext of going to Afghanistan to fight terrorist organizations, and Manas Airport became one of the main bases of the US military in Central Asia. Dozens of kilometers away is the Kante Air Base for the Russian-led security group. The two bases echo each other, reflecting the fact that the Central Asian countries, independent from the ruins of the Soviet Union, mostly pursued a pluralistic and balanced foreign policy to avoid the dominance of Russia or the United States.

At that time, the first impression of Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, was that it was very similar to the county town in China in the 1980s and 1990s, with not wide roads, old buildings, and a slow pace of people's lives. But a little deeper into the local society, you will find that the local municipal hot water supply is 24 hours a day, the street restaurants are clean and hygienic, the citizens are neatly dressed, and few people are loud in public places. The social security and humanistic qualities of the Soviet period still have a certain accumulation in Central Asia. In recent years, the reporter has returned to Kyrgyzstan and found that the local infrastructure construction has not changed much.

A Chinese scholar who has worked in Central Asia for 8 years told the Global Times reporter: "My deepest feeling is that although the Central Asian countries are China's close neighbors, the people's understanding of each other is far from enough. For example, we are accustomed to seeing the five Central Asian countries as one, but in fact these five countries are very different. In his view, the "bellwether" of Central Asia, Kazakhstan, has the largest territory area, reaching more than 2.72 million square kilometers, and the country has achieved rapid economic development by relying on oil and gas exports since independence, with a total GDP value of nearly 170 billion US dollars in 2020, more than the GDP of other four Central Asian countries combined. Uzbekistan is located in the center of Central Asia, and the ancient cities of Samarkand and Bukhara bear witness to its glorious history, the country's agricultural economy is relatively developed, and the largest population among Central Asian countries, with a population of 34.86 million in 2021. Both Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are large territories and are relatively poor in Central Asia, with GDP per capita of only about $1,000 in 2020. Kyrgyzstan claims to be the most "democratic" country in Central Asia, with a mix of Western-backed non-governmental organizations and a plethora of political forces in the country, which overthrew the regime twice in 2005 and 2010; Tajikistan is the only country in Central Asia that has experienced civil war, and the civil war after independence has brought endless pain to the people. Turkmenistan is more unusual, although the economy relies on oil and gas exports to develop rapidly, but there is still some atmosphere of the Soviet period, political power is highly concentrated, the planned economy is dominant, the scope of social security is wide but the level is not high, and the Internet is not developed.

According to Chinese scholars studying the issue of Asia, the five Central Asian countries, which are very different, have also faced some common problems in the past 30 years. Countries are still exploring a political system model that suits their own national conditions, and the mode of political power transfer is not yet mature. After independence, the five Central Asian countries all practiced a Western-style democratic system in form, but in fact, the political elite in power often tried to monopolize power, which brought certain risks to the country's political and social stability. For 30 years, countries have not found a sustainable path to economic growth, and there is not much large-scale infrastructure construction, and new cities such as Nur-Sultan, the capital of Kazakhstan, are rare in Central Asia. There is a certain degree of confusion in the social trends of various countries. After independence, some Central Asian countries committed themselves to safeguarding sovereign independence, trying to fill the collapsing Soviet communist ideological vacuum with Islamic culture and Western liberal ideas, weakening and balancing the profound influence of Russian culture. These attempts have helped to free Central Asian societies from Russian influence, but they have also created a clash of cultures and confusion in social thought. The unrest in Kazakhstan, which has just subsided, clearly shows the negative effects brought about by the chaos of social and ideological trends: at a time when the economy is generally in a downward trend, some people are casually spreading rumors on the Internet, fanning the flames and instigating people to take to the streets to oppose the government; some religious extremists have taken advantage of the opportunity to cause chaos, killing the police, and forcibly occupying state government organs and important social facilities in an attempt to overthrow the regime; some Kazakh nationalists are also resolutely opposed to the dispatch of troops to peacekeeping by the collective security organization.

"Central Asian countries will seek to avoid being involved in international competition"

When it comes to diplomacy throughout the Central Asian region, Russian experts believe that in the 1990s, Central Asian countries had much more contact with external actors than those countries had with each other, which led to the region's "centrifugal tendencies over centripetal tendencies." In the 21st century, with the establishment of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the ties in central Asia have gradually begun to improve.

According to the Russian "Kommersant" report, the Uzbek government has actively established contacts with the United States to let the Americans establish bases, and in 2006, it raised the issue of withdrawing US troops. Ukraine joined and withdrew from the "GUAM Group" (Georgia, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova) that wanted to counter Russia's replacement of the CIS, and maintained immediate relations with the CSOS.

"Russians are teachers". Ordinary people in many Central Asian countries, especially In Kazakhstan, have said this to the Global Times reporter. Even the great Kazakh poet Abai Kunanbayev, who abhorred Russian rule, said: "Wisdom, treasure, science, skill, everything is hidden in Russia." "Whether it was during the Soviet era or in russia today, the influence of Russian culture on Central Asia is still very deep, and Russian is the lingua franca of many countries, and even one of the official languages of some countries. In bookstores in some countries, most of the books, especially academic books, are in Russian.

The New York Times recently published an article saying that Kazakhstan, sandwiched between Russia and China, is the world's largest landlocked country, with a population of only 19 million, but an area larger than the entire Western Europe. Kazakhstan has previously been seen as a pillar of political and economic stability in this unstable region. Because of the Kazakh-Russian alliance, its political and economic system can almost be said to be a "replica of Russia." Kazakhstan is also important to the United States, which has become a country that plays a pivotal role in U.S. energy issues, with ExxonMobil and Chevron investing tens of billions of dollars in western Kazakhstan, where this month's unrest began. Despite its close ties with Russia, successive Kazakh administrations have maintained close ties with the U.S. side, and the U.S. government has long criticized Kazakhstan's "post-Soviet authoritarianism" less than Russia and Belarus. As a "latecomer", the United States has been stepping up its efforts to develop its own power in Central Asia in the 30 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Some People in Kazakhstan once told the Global Times reporter that many American volunteers are active in rural areas throughout Kazakhstan, especially in the southern regions with large populations. Radio Free Europe recruits journalists in Central Asian countries and reports in local languages.

Due to geographical and historical factors, EU countries are not close enough to Central Asia, except for foreign countries such as Germany and Italy. Germany is currently the only country in the European Union to have embassies in all five Central Asian countries, almaty with the Goethe-Institut and the Kazakh-German University, as well as some German foundations, which are more academically active. The top three major export destinations for Kazakhstan are China, Italy and Russia. Italian dignitaries such as Berlusconi and Prodi also maintained good personal relations with Nazarbayev. Italy and the five Central Asian countries have also established a diplomatic summit in the form of a "5+1". Turkey, which straddles Europe and Asia, also attaches great importance to the countries of Central Asia. In November last year, four Central Asian countries, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, as well as Turkey and Azerbaijan, announced the establishment of the "Turkic State Organization".

Igor Savin, an expert at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said that over the years, Central Asia and its surrounding areas have begun to form a complete transportation network system, and gradually cover the entire region from different aspects, "especially the North-South Transport Corridor, the Eurasian Economic Union institutions and China's 'Belt and Road' project." The Economist analysis said that in recent years, China has invested a lot of money in infrastructure construction in Central Asian countries, at least making it economically less dependent on Russia. Of course, Western countries will also increase their investment in Central Asia, not only because these countries occupy strategic locations close to China and Russia, but also because they are the source of commodities such as uranium. American scholar Akram Marov believes that considering the close relations with its close neighbors Russia and China, as well as the willingness to maintain favorable relations with the United States, the European Union, Turkey, etc., Central Asian countries will definitely seek to avoid being involved in international competition.

Source: Global Times

Special correspondent in Kyrgyzstan, the United States, and Italy, Chang Dong, Lin Ri, Xie Yahong, And Liu Yupeng