There was something different about the November 6 summit of the US and five Central Asian countries. It was the first such event held in the White House and followed the US president’s meetings with his Uzbek and Kazakh counterparts, where big deals were signed to boost America’s manufacturing sector.
The US had a clear pre-summit agenda. It pursued two goals: to gain access to mineral resources and to develop the Middle Corridor route to reach Central Asia by skirting Russian and Iranian territory.
Another striking change was that the US approach made little mention of human rights, democracy promotion, and the transfer of the Western governance model into the region. This appeals to the Central Asian states, which have poor records on basic liberties but are eager to build partnerships with Washington and to pursue tighter integration with global markets. Under President Donald Trump, priority goes to economic, connectivity, and security deals.
This has not always been the case. The first summit held within the C5+1 framework was first established under President Barack Obama in 2015 and was less about deepening economic and trade ties and more about denying Russia and China greater influence in the region. Yet it proved impossible to achieve concrete results without meaningful economic engagement, something the Trump administration is trying to change, and with some success.
Read the full article on the Center for European Policy Analysis.
Emil Avdaliani is a Research Fellow at the Turan Research Center.