By Dr. S. Frederick Starr

May 26, 2023

American Foreign Policy Council Insights

REPRINTED with permission from Voice of America News
By Navbahor Imamova

WASHINGTON -- U.S.-based diplomats from Central Asia, a region long dominated by Russia and more recently China, say they are eager for more engagement with the United States.

Many American foreign policy experts agree that a more robust relationship would be mutually beneficial, though U.S.-based nongovernmental organizations express deep concerns about human rights and authoritarian rule in the five countries: Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.

Michael Delaney, a former U.S. trade official, argued in favor of greater engagement this week at a webinar organized by the American-Uzbekistan Chamber of Commerce.

He noted that three of the five republics are World Trade Organization members and the other two are in the accession process — a goal actively encouraged by the U.S. government.

"I've always believed that this is a geographically disadvantaged area. There are relatively small national economies," he said. But, he said, collectively the region represents a potentially more connected market, about 80 million people.

Key issues

In this virtual gathering, all five Central Asian ambassadors to Washington expressed eagerness to work on issues the U.S. has long pushed for, such as water and energy sustainability, security cooperation, environmental protection and climate, and connectivity.

Kazakhstan's Ambassador Yerzhan Ashikbayev said that despite all factors, the United States does not want to leave the field to China, its global competitor, which actively invests in the region.

"Recent visit by 20 companies to Kazakhstan as a part of certified U.S. trade mission, including technology giants like Apple, Microsoft, Google, but also other partners like Boeing, have shown a growing interest," Ashikbayev said.

The Kazakh diplomat described a "synergy" of economies and diplomatic efforts. All Central Asian states are committed to dialogue, trade and multilateralism, he said. "As we are witnessing the return of the divisive bloc mentalities almost unseen for 30 years, it's in our best interest to prevent Central Asia from turning into another battleground of global powers."

During his first tour of Central Asia earlier this year, Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, meeting separately with the foreign ministers of all five countries.

That was deeply appreciated, said Meret Orazov, Turkmenistan's longtime ambassador, who also praised the regular bilateral consultations the U.S. holds with these countries.

Uzbek Ambassador Furqat Sidiqov sees the U.S. as an important partner, with "long-standing friendship and cooperation which have only grown stronger over the years."

"The U.S. has played a significant role in promoting dialogue and cooperation among the Central Asian nations through initiatives such as the C5+1," he said, referring to a diplomatic platform comprising Washington and the region's five governments.

"This is where we address common concerns and enhance integration," said Sidiqov. "We encourage the U.S. to bolster this mechanism."

Tashkent regards Afghanistan as key to Central Asia's development, potentially linking the landlocked region to the markets and seaports of South Asia. Sidiqov said his country counts on American assistance.

'Possibility of positive change'

Fred Starr, chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute in Washington, ardently advocates for the U.S. to adopt closer political, economic and people-to-people ties with the region.

In a recent paper, he wrote that among dozens of officials, diplomats, entrepreneurs, experts, journalists and civil society leaders interviewed in Central Asia, "even those most critical of American positions saw the possibility of positive change and … all acknowledged that the need for change is on both sides, theirs as well as ours."

This is the only region that doesn't have its own organization, said Starr, arguing that the U.S. could support this effort. "We have not done so, probably because we think that this is somehow going to interfere with their relations with their other big neighbors, the north and east, but it's not going to. It's not against anyone."

"Easy to do, low cost, very big outcome," he added, also underscoring that "there is a feeling the U.S. should be much more attentive to security."

"Japan, the European Union, Russia, China, their top leaders have visited. … No U.S. president has ever set foot in Central Asia," he said. He added that regional officials are left to wonder, "Are we so insignificant that they can't take the time to visit?"

Starr urges U.S. President Joe Biden to convene the C5+1 in New York during the 78th session of the U.N. General Assembly in September. "This would not be a big drain on the president's time, but it would be symbolically extremely important," he said. "All of them want this to happen."

Read at VOA News

Click to Register. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

About the event: Join the U.S.-Uzbekistan Chamber of Commerce webinar which will focus on the unprecedented challenges that the U.S. and Central Asian countries are currently facing. It is an excellent opportunity to learn from Dr. S. Frederick Starr about how Central Asian governments perceive American policies. 

"Today both the countries of Central Asia and the U.S. itself face unprecedented challenges at the global and national levels... It is important for Washington to know how its positions and actions are perceived by the countries towards which they are directed. Official statements by Central Asian governments and on-the-record comments by their officials touch on this question but cannot answer it, for they often gloss over the officials’ real concerns or present them in such watered-down generalities as to render them unrecognizable. In an effort to gain a better understanding of how Central Asian governments perceive American policies we have therefore turned to the Central Asians themselves, including senior officials, diplomats, business people, local policy experts, journalists, and leaders of civil society organizations. In all, we have conducted some fifty interviews. All our subjects spoke on the condition of strict anonymity and “not for attribution".

We have been impressed not only with the candor of our interviewees but also the positive spirit in which they made their comments... Even those most critical of American positions saw the possibility of positive change and looked forward to improved and deepened relations with America in days to come. And all acknowledged that the need for change is on both sides, theirs as well as ours." Continue reading here. 

Svante E. Cornell, ed. 

Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program 
Silk Road Paper
December 2022

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Introduction 

How does political change happen? This question, which has occupied the minds of scholars and analysts for many decades, has been especially vexing for the broad lands that include the Middle East and Central Asia. Samuel P. Huntington identified a “third wave” of democratization between the mid-1970s and 1990, and the collapse of the Soviet Union appeared to confirm that democracy would now spread unhindered across the world. But in the Middle East and Central Asia, this did not happen. Quite to the contrary, in spite of some liberalizing efforts in the 1990s, what occurred in this region was more akin to what Huntington, who passed away in 2008, would have called a “reverse wave” – with authoritarian governments proving not only resilient but able to consolidate control over societies.

The political stagnation of the broader region led to considerable frustration among foreign well-wishers of these regions – and more importantly, among large strata of people in these regions that experienced heavy-handed government, mismanagement, and systematic corruption. Between 2003 and 2011, popular revolts overthrew a series of governments – first in the post-Soviet space, particularly Georgia and Ukraine, and subsequently in the Middle East and North Africa. These upheavals were met with great enthusiasm in western circles, who were convinced that democracy had finally come to the Middle East and North Africa.

Except it did not work out that way. The “Color Revolutions” in the former Soviet Union and the Arab upheavals largely failed, as no country that experienced these upheavals has progressed in a sustainable way toward democracy. Most are worse off than before these upheavals. Libya, Syria and Yemen have descended into civil war. Georgia and Ukraine were invaded by Russia, in part because of their political changes, and Kyrgyzstan descended into instability, with two additional upheavals as well as ethnic rioting. Egypt almost saw state capture by the Muslim Brotherhood, which was only undone through a military intervention that proved lasting. For some time, Georgia and Tunisia appeared to go against the grain, and make sustained progress – but in recent years, those two have backtracked significantly. While many of these societies underwent change that increased the level of pluralism in the political system, mostly they did not succeed in addressing underlying causes of public frustration, such as mismanagement and corruption. All in all, it seems clear that revolution did not prove a sustainable model to liberalize societies.

In the past several years, however, an alternative model of political change has been on display in the region – an evolutionary model of political development. Following the political and economic upheavals of the past decade, the leadership in some countries appear to have concluded that “business as usual” is no longer feasible; they must answer to popular demands for change, while seeking to manage the political process to maintain stability and avoid upheavals. As a result, they have implemented reforms from the top down, seeking to improve the efficiency of government and in a controlled and gradual manner expand political rights. This is happening in countries as diverse as Azerbaijan and Jordan, Kazakhstan and Morocco. But Uzbekistan plays a particular role because of the sheer rate of change in the country.

Nowhere is the contrast between the “before” and the “after” as dramatic as in Uzbekistan following the accession to power of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev. While paying respects to his predecessor Islam Karimov, Mirziyoyev departed dramatically from Karimov’s approach to both foreign and domestic policy, unleashing a torrent of reform initiatives that have changed Uzbek society for the better.

Of course, it should be understood that the evolutionary process of reform will not turn Uzbekistan, or any other country engaging in it, into a model democracy in the short term. That is not the purpose of these reforms. That does not mean these reforms are “cosmetic,” as they are frequently called: they are highly ambitious in scope, because they aim to fundamentally change the relationship between state and society. It should be recalled that in the Soviet system, the individual was subordinated to the all-powerful state. This in turn bred impunity and corruption, as documented already in 1982 by Soviet exile Konstantin Simis in his book USSR: the Corrupt Society. This Soviet legacy is one that in some ways continues to this day – but is one that reformist leaders like President Mirziyoyev are now trying to reckon with. In the place of the old logic, they are seeking to turn the tables, and turn state institutions into bodies that exist to serve the citizens of the country rather than to control them or extract rents from them.

This is the background to the constitutional reform process in Uzbekistan, launched in the summer of 2022. As such, it is not an isolated event, but very much a step in the process of reforms that have been introduced since President Mirziyoyev acceded to the presidency in 2016.

This process is one that the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program documented in several entries in the Silk Road Papers series, and in the 2018 book, Uzbekistan’s New Face. This time, the Joint Center was pleased to have the opportunity to cooperate with the Center for Development Strategy in Tashkent to organize a Symposium on the constitutional reform process. This event, held in July 2022, provided an opportunity for Western and Uzbek researchers to exchange views on the reforms process. This publication is a collection of their presentations.

We are grateful to the authors of these papers and to the Center for Development Strategy, and particular its Director Eldor Tulyakov, for the opportunity to bring these papers to print.