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Uzbek leader wants to stay until 2040
Uzbekistan on Sunday held a rare national referendum on changes to the constitution that promise more social protections like abolishing the death penalty, cracking down on forced labor in cotton fields, or criminalizing domestic violence.
But there's a catch: In a classic move from the authoritarian playbook, the proposed tweaks to the charter also include extending the president's term in office to two seven-year periods and resetting the current one to zero upon its conclusion. That means President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who just began his second five-year term, could stay in office for another 14 years after 2026.
After taking power in 2016 upon the death of former dictator Islam Karimov, Mirziyoyev was "reelected" in October 2021 with 90% of the vote, par for the course for a despot in the post-Soviet 'Stans of Central Asia. He's widely perceived as being less thuggish than Karimov — famous for (allegedly) having his enemies boiled alive — but so far Mirziyoyev is ruling with a similar iron fist and zero tolerance for dissent.
The referendum passed with 90.21% of the vote, unofficial early results showed Monday.
What We’re Watching: SCOTUS mulling student debt relief, Blinken visiting Central Asia, Biden's partial TikTok ban, Petro’s post-honeymoon phase
US Supreme Court weighs student loan forgiveness
The US Supreme Court began hearing arguments on Tuesday in a pair of cases that will test the limitations of presidential power and could derail Joe Biden’s plan to forgive $400 billion in student debt. Biden campaigned on debt relief, promising to help families burdened by the pandemic-fueled economic crisis. But now the court will decide whether Biden has the authority to forgive student loans. The White House cites a 2003 law aimed at alleviating hardship suffered by federal student loan recipients following a national emergency, but opponents say debt relief should require congressional approval. Biden hopes to fulfill his campaign promise ahead of next year’s presidential race, and millions of millennials and Gen-Z scholars – many of whom could see up to $20,000 of their federal student loan debt wiped away – will be waiting with bated breath. A decision will drop before the court adjourns in June, but so far, justices in the conservative majority seem critical of Biden’s move.
Blinken’s trip to Central Asia
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday met with foreign ministers from five former Soviet Republics: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. Blinken wants to signal solidarity with Russia’s neighbors and try to ensure that trade routes in these countries are not used by Russia to evade Western sanctions. The 'Stans are happy for the support because they have all felt pressure from Moscow to form closer ties with Russia. In particular, Putin has pressed Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, without success, to support Russia’s war in Ukraine. Tokayev has a reason for concern: Putin has cited the defense of persecuted ethnic Russians in Ukraine as a motive for his war, and Kazakhstan is home to the second-largest population of ethnic Russians among former Soviet Republics. These states, faced with varying degrees of economic trouble exacerbated by the food and fuel inflation that followed the invasion of Ukraine, could also use some direct US help. During the visit, Blinken announced $25 million of new funding to support economic growth in the region in addition to $25 million the Biden administration had already pledged.
Will China respond to Biden’s government TikTok ban?
China hit back at the US on Tuesday for joining the European Union in banning TikTok from government devices. China’s foreign ministry said that Washington’s move – which gives government employees 30 days to remove the social app from their phones – is an abuse of “state power.” Canada, for its part, followed up with a similar ban. These developments come amid fears that the app, owned by Chinese company ByteDance but based in Singapore, is being used by China’s Communist Party to gather government data. Will Beijing retaliate? Anna Ashton, a China expert at Eurasia Group, thinks any significant reprisal by Beijing for a partial or even a full TikTok ban in the US is unlikely. “It isn’t clear that Beijing will bear any significant loss if TikTok stops operating in the United States, nor is it clear that there would be any real gain in lashing out over such a ban,” she says, noting that there was no clear retaliation from Beijing when India banned TikTok a few years back. What’s more, Ashton says, “TikTok is a private company, and social media companies (much like online sales platforms) are not strategic priorities in China’s technological development plans.” Meanwhile, Congress will proceed on Wednesday to further a bill that would allow the Biden administration to ban TikTok for America’s 100 million users. Being tough on China is a rare bipartisan policy issue. Still, it’s unclear whether the Democratic-controlled Senate will back the GOP-sponsored legislation.
First cabinet reshuffle in Petro’s Colombia
A clash over healthcare and education reforms has provoked the first reshuffle of Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s government since he took power last August. The left-wing leader’s plans to expand the government’s role in both sectors drew a public backlash from several of his more centrist cabinet officials. Among them was Education Minister Alejandro Gaviria, whom Petro promptly sacked along with the ministers of sport and culture. Petro – a notoriously headstrong former guerilla – was elected on a change platform, but at the outset of his term, he brought in centrist allies to quell fears that he’d govern as a wild-eyed revolutionary. Now, as his honeymoon period melts away, is this reshuffle simply a necessary move to preserve policy unity, or is he starting to show his true colors?What We’re Watching: US mulls China sanctions, Uzbek talks focus on ‘cooperation,’ US train strike averted
Will the US preemptively sanction China over Taiwan?
If you thought US-China ties couldn't get any icier, think again. Washington is reportedly mulling sanctions in a bid to deter Beijing from invading Taiwan — and nudging the EU to follow suit. No specifics yet, but the package would presumably target the Chinese military, which has upped the muscle-flexing ante near the self-ruled island since US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei in early August. Such a move would be similar to how the US and its allies warned Russia there would be a steep price to pay for invading Ukraine. Taiwan would welcome preemptive sanctions and has long called for the Americans and, more recently, the Europeans to do more to protect the island against Chinese aggression. But any sanctions would also rile Xi Jinping, who’s up for “reelection” next month and has vowed to reunite the island with the mainland before the 100th anniversary of the People's Republic in 2049 – by force, if necessary. While the White House has refused to comment, a sanctions plan could signal that US intelligence believes Xi might make a play for Taiwan sooner rather than later.
Cooperation at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
This week, Uzbekistan will host the latest meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a gathering of world leaders who present their club as an alternative to Western-led institutions, such as the G7 and NATO. There will be photos of powerful people like China’s Xi Jinping, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, India’s Narendra Modi, and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan smiling and shaking hands, and in some ways, they can help one another. Xi can make a show of embracing Putin as Europeans and Americans work to isolate his government. Putin can offer Modi more oil at even more sharply discounted prices. Erdogan can back Putin’s bid to include Russian grain and fertilizer alongside permitted shipments of Ukrainian grain. Modi can reassure Xi that his security partnership with Washington remains limited. But behind the scenes, there is friction. Xi will talk up his friendship with Putin, but he won’t create bigger problems for China’s economy by openly ignoring Western sanctions on Russia. Just this week, Xi and Modi pulled troops back from their shared Himalayan border, but deadly hostilities between them could restart at any time. Putin and Erdogan remain on opposite sides of a shooting war between Armenia and Azerbaijan. In short, there’s plenty for these leaders to talk about, but this cooperation forum won’t sharply increase their actual cooperation.
US iron horse strike averted
Think you’re annoyed at all those work demands during your time off? Unions representing half of America’s organized freight rail workers were ready to go on strike this Friday unless they reached an agreement with rail companies that would, among other things, relax the requirement that they stay “on call” 24/7. The economic impact of a strike would have been huge as nearly 30% of US freight moves by rail. It also would have affected many passenger services and driven already-dizzying inflation rates even higher. But just in the nick of time, known “ferroequinologist” (that’s your word of the week — more below) Joe Biden announced a tentative deal early Thursday between unions and companies to stop the strike. It’s a big relief for the president, who didn’t want to clash with organized labor, an important Democratic constituency, by asking Congress to use its authority to impose an agreement on unions as Republicans wanted. What’s a ferroequinologist? From the Latin ferrum (iron) and equus (horse), it’s literally an enthusiast of “iron horses,” an early 20th-century term for trains. “Amtrak Joe” loves trains!
China-Russia relationship status: It’s complicated
The presidents of China and Russia will meet in person this week for the first time since early February, shortly before Russia invaded Ukraine. Back then, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin announced in Beijing a bilateral friendship "without limits." Seven months later, the relationship has strengthened but also seen trouble — and this is likely to continue.
Xi — on his first trip outside China since early 2020 — and Putin will hang out in the Uzbek city of Samarkand for the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a China-led regional bloc initially set up to fight Islamic terrorism across Central Asia. But the agenda will mainly focus on Ukraine, common grievances with the West, and further deepening bilateral ties on things like a mammoth pipeline that’ll pump Russian natural gas to China via Mongolia.
When the famously stone-faced Xi and always-smirking Putin "smile" for their photo-op, they'll put on a brave face. The two want to appear as BFFs standing strong and tall against America and its allies — a bulwark of resistance to the US-led liberal international order that won't give them a fair shake. Their handshake will dominate state media in Beijing and Moscow, and it will raise the usual alarm bells in Washington.
In private, though, Xi is anything but pleased. We'll never know whether Putin told Xi in February he'd already decided to invade Ukraine, but China’s leader likely expected a swift campaign that wouldn't give the US or its NATO allies time to respond.
"Obviously, the war hasn't gone the way that Russia intended or the way that China expected," says Eurasia Group senior analyst Ali Wyne. The longer it drags on, and China stays non-committal about Russian aggression, the further it'll strain Beijing's already-fraught relationships with its top trading partners in the West.
What’s more, both Xi and Putin have a lot going on these days. Xi is freaking out about China's economy, which is in the doldrums thanks in no small part to his stubborn refusal to relax the zero-COVID policy. Hardly the rosy outlook he was hoping for just one month before the 20th Communist Party Congress, where Xi will get a norm-defying third term as CCP secretary-general.
Putin, for his part, is losing Russian-held territory to the Ukrainian counteroffensive, bracing for a G7 cap on the price of Russian oil, and facing rare internal pushback. The "special military operation" is not going according to plan — to the point that Putin might soon need to admit it's actually a "war".
Personality matters, too. Like classic Bond villains, the two autocrats would rather jump out a window than admit to being wrong and reverse course for fear of appearing weak or losing face with their people. This rigidity extends to foreign policy, where Wyne says that Xi has boxed himself in with Taiwan much as Putin has with Ukraine.
Xi might not be happy with the current state of the relationship, but he knows that China and Russia now need each other more than they have in decades. And while Putin is a lot needier — especially to sell Russian oil and gas in roubles and yuan — Xi has invested so much politically in their bromance that China is stuck in a toxic relationship it can’t escape.
So, how might the China-Russia friendship evolve in the near future? Expect it to get stronger but even more complicated, since Beijing and Moscow are as nervous about Western opposition as they are suspicious of each other.
For instance, Russia frets about China's growing security clout among the Central Asian republics, part of the former Soviet sphere of influence. Interestingly, the Xi-Putin meeting is taking place in Uzbekistan, one of the ‘Stans that Wyne says is getting cold feet about dealing with Moscow after witnessing Russia's brutality in Ukraine. Putin has responded to Beijing's charm offensive by reaching out to India, China's strategic rival and eager to play a bigger role in Central Asia.
Still, Xi and Putin will continue going steady because neither can afford to part ways with the other.
"China is wary of throwing Russia under the bus," says Wyne. If Beijing abandons Moscow, it really has no on other major powers to turn to. "That scares China," which is doubling down on the Russian friendship out of anxiety, not confidence.
“How do we live?” Central Asia treads carefully with Ukraine war
The impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has echoed around the world, but spare a thought for the five former Soviet republics of Central Asia. All have close economic and cultural ties to Russia, but they also have reasons to be wary of what Vladimir Putin has done in Ukraine.
For one thing, Western sanctions meant to cripple the Kremlin war machine could cause serious collateral damage in the region. Over the past several decades, millions of people from Central Asia have migrated to Russia in search of work. The most famous one outside of Russia was probably this guy.
Today, the money they send home keeps the region’s smaller economies afloat. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, two of the poorest countries in Asia, rely on remittances for between a quarter and a third of their economies overall. Most of that comes from Russia.
But now, with sanctions projected to shrink the Russian economy by as much as 7% this year, millions of those people could be out of work. The World Bank already says remittances to Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan alone will fall by up to 30% this year.
What’s more, says Erica Marat, a regional specialist at the National Defense University, there is a real fear of what could happen if large numbers of migrants or second generation citizens of Russia decide to come home looking for work. The official unemployment rate in Tajikistan, for example, is already at 7%.
“We’ve never seen such a large population returning home,” Marat says, “and everyone sort of hopes it won’t happen because it would destabilize a lot of things. It’s just a huge wild card.”
At the same time, Russia’s invasion sets a scary precedent. The sight of Putin invading a neighboring country under the pretext of protecting ethnic Russians raises some uncomfortable questions for the Central Asian countries, all of which, like Ukraine, have sizable ethnic Russian minorities of their own.
That’s especially true in Kazakhstan, where Russians make up some 30% of the population, and are heavily concentrated in northern regions that border Russia. Prominent Russian officials have in the past questioned whether Kazakhstan is even a real country at all — an echo of Putin’s views on Ukraine.
Within the region, everyone is treading carefully, but some more so than others. No one has openly criticized Putin, of course. And Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan – both of which also depend on Russian troops for security — have kept particularly mum.
But energy-rich Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the region’s top two economies, have sailed a little closer to the wind, declaring support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sending aid to the country directly.
Kazakhstan, for its part, even refused a Russian request to send troops to Ukraine — a striking move for President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, whom Russia saved from a popular uprising just months ago.
In part, says Marat, that could be because Tokayev wants to demonstrate, however carefully, that he is not in fact totally beholden to Moscow. Kazakhstan has always prided itself on having a “multi-vector” foreign policy — carefully balancing its ties with Russia, China, and the West. It may also be a shrewder play to attract Western businesses that are fleeing Russia but wish to stay in the region.
Overall, the Central Asian states are in a kind of limbo — waiting to see how bad the economic fallout in Russia is, and how far Putin really tries to go in Ukraine. Everyone understands that they are now living with a new and more internationally isolated Russia, says Marat, but it’s a Russia that they are still tied to in many ways.
The prevailing mindset right now, she says, is an anxiously pragmatic one: “How do we live?”
Watching the War: Zelensky tsks Germany, economic impact, Mars trip on hold, corporate decisions, Uzbek U-turn
Zelensky blasts Germany. In a spirited address to German legislators on Thursday, the Ukrainian president blasted Europe’s largest economy for its long history of close commercial ties to Putin’s Russia, as well as Berlin’s unwillingness to fast-track Ukraine’s application to the EU. Zelensky’s remarks to the Bundestag were made as Ukrainian rescuers continued to find survivors amid the rubble of a reported Russian airstrike on a Mariupol theater that had been serving as a bomb shelter. Kyiv’s air defenses, meanwhile, worked overtime to repel a barrage of missile attacks in the capital. No major changes were reported from the frontlines on Thursday, but civilian casualties continued to rise.
War to hit global economy. The war in Ukraine could shave a full percentage point off global economic growth over the next year, according to the OECD, a club of industrialized nations. And Europe, which depends heavily on the two warring nations for imports of energy and food, could shed as much as 1.4 percentage points of growth. Across the EU, rising costs could soon become a bigger political problem: inflationary pressures often hit hardest for lower- and middle-income people who spend a higher proportion of their income on food and energy. Will that have an effect at the ballot box?
Mars mission falls apart. The European Space Agency on Thursday suspended a planned $1.9bn joint EU-Russian mission to Mars. The decision, taken in light of Moscow’s “aggression towards Ukraine” means the mission — which was to search the red planet for signs of life — will be postponed at least four years as Brussels looks for new partners. Russia, for its part, said it regretted the “bitter” decision and that it would continue the mission, somehow, alone.
Ukraine takes aim. Ukrainian PM Denys Shmyhal called out Nestlé on Thursday morning, tweeting that its CEO “shows no understanding” about why the Swiss company’s decision to stay in Russia “means killing defenseless children&mothers (sic.)” Nestlé, like many businesses, has scaled back its operations in Russia and halted new investment, but it hasn’t left the country entirely. The PM’s salvo came just days after President Volodymyr Zelensky made a similar call for several major US tech companies to “stop supporting your products in Russia.” So far, dozens of Western companies from industries as wide-ranging as consumer goods, energy, payments, apparel, and technology have left Russia or drawn down their operations there. A comprehensive list, compiled by the Yale business school, is here. With much of European and American public opinion squarely behind Ukraine, many companies are finding themselves in a tough position. They have to assess sanctions risks and the moral imperatives to leave Russia against revenue losses and obligations to Russian employees. Of course, not everyone in Russia is sad about Western departures: the Russian speaker of parliament has proposed a replacement for McDonald's, which temporarily shut its locations in Russia — it’s called Uncle Vanya’s. Looks delicious!
Uzbekistan’s Ukraine U-turn. In an unexpected twist from an otherwise reliable Russian ally, Uzbekistan on Thursday formally recognized the “independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.” Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov also said his government does not recognize the independence of pro-Moscow separatist republics in Ukraine. Uzbekistan, a former Soviet republic, is heavily dependent on Russia for trade and remittances from the 4.5 million Uzbek migrants living there. It's part of the Russia-led regional economic bloc but interestingly dropped out of Moscow's answer to NATO (which other Central Asian states have joined) in 2012. Until now, none of the "Stans" had backed the Russian invasion or clearly opposed it, although both Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have sent humanitarian aid to Ukraine. What'll likely happen next? Expect fierce pushback from Moscow and a return home for a lot of Uzbeks. The bigger question is whether other Central Asian states will follow suit.