Washington, Beijing and Moscow are competing for influence in Central Asia with a parade of visits in recent days. But the locals can see them coming.
The return of ‘the Heartland’
When Marco Rubio arrived on Sunday in Samarkand, an ancient Silk Road city in the Central Asian republic of Uzbekistan, he was at the head of a delegation of more than 200 business representatives. The American secretary of state’s visit came a day after China’s premier, Li Qiang, was in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent promising more co-operation on everything from critical minerals to artificial intelligence.
More than a century after the British geographer and politician Halford Mackinder identified a vast area of Eurasia as “the Heartland” that was key to controlling the world, Central Asia is back at the heart of competition between the great powers. And for all the economic firepower Rubio is taking with him, every government in the region enjoys important relationships with Beijing and Moscow as well as with Washington.
He is attending a summit of the C5+1, which includes Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and the United States. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan are also part of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which held its 25th anniversary summit in the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek a few weeks ago with Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and Narendra Modi among those present.
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The Bishkek Declaration that emerged from that summit condemned the US war against Iran and criticised unilateral economic sanctions such as those imposed by the US and the European Union. Central Asian states have been the targets of sanctions from Washington and Brussels in recent years because of their trade with Russia after Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Mackinder saw control of the vast area that stretches from the Kazakh steppes into southern Russia as carrying the possibility of dominating everything around it because it was immune to the threat of sea power. The theory went out of vogue during the Cold War, when the region was under Russian control, and during the heyday of globalisation that followed the fall of the Soviet Union.
But for today’s great powers, Central Asia is not only important because of its geographical situation but also on account of its huge resources of oil, gas, rare earths and other minerals that are essential to advanced manufacturing. China has become an increasingly important economic and infrastructure partner for the region, although economic, political and cultural ties to Russia also remain strong.
The Trump administration has brought a renewed enthusiasm for cultivating relationships with Central Asia and although it no longer bothers to pretend that Washington cares about human rights or promoting democracy, it is trying to bind the region more closely into the western embrace. Central Asian governments meanwhile have become increasingly adept at playing the great powers off against one another while promoting their own interests with a higher international profile.
Kazakhstan pleased Trump by joining the pro-Israel Abraham Accords, buying American aircraft and selling minerals the US needs, but Russia is building the former Soviet republic’s first nuclear power plant and the country offers an important transit corridor for Chinese exports. Kyrgyzstan was elected to the United Nations Security Council this year and will take up its seat in January, while Tajikistan is seeking a seat for the first time in 2028-2029 and Uzbekistan is hoping for a place in 2035-2036.
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