president Xi Jinping increases efforts to improve Beijing’s influence in Central Asia by hosting the first regional summit, aiming to strengthen ties with a traditionally troubled region Wladimir PutinInfluence.
What happened: As Moscow continues to focus on the conflict in Ukraine, Beijing’s two-day summitThe conference, which begins Thursday, offers Xi an opportunity to strengthen economic and political ties with five key former Soviet republics — Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.
Chienyu Shih, research fellow at the Taiwan Institute for National Defense and Security Research, told The Financial Times said: “I don’t think China will replace Russia’s importance in Central Asia in a very short time, but it will [competition for influence] has already started.”
“They’re in a kind of silent competitive mode.”
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Why it matters: The summit offers President Xi an opportunity to demonstrate his statesmanship at a time when Japan is prime minister Fumio Kishida prepares to host the G7 summit at the weekend in Hiroshima.
The Central Asian allies are of great importance to Xi’s government due to their perceived role in the country’s security politically sensitive Xinjiang region in western China – where Beijing is accused of oppressing the indigenous Uyghur Muslim population.
The region also serves as an important source of energy and a land trade route with Europe.
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