Central Asia

East Asia Summit: China Checkmated
by Robyn Lim

Published on January 8th, 2006
The rapid force modernization of a ‘rising China’ provided the backdrop for the meeting of sixteen heads of government in Kuala Lumpur on 14th December. China did not succeed in its ambition to see created an East Asia Community (EAC) that Beijing could use as a vehicle for accommodating growing Chinese power. Thus the next meeting of this amorphous group will not be held in China, but in Cebu in the Philippines, a US ally. Moreover, the Kuala Lumpur summit ruled out Beijing as a future venue as well, deciding that all EAC meetings would be held annually in conjunction with the ASEAN summit. That summit is held only in ASEAN countries. Moreover, Japan’s Prime Minister, Junicho Koizumi, did indeed checkmate China, with considerable help from his friends.

Central Asia Winds of Change
by Arthur Waldron, Ph.D

Published on April 4th, 2005
There has been a “change of sky” [biantian—i.e. the appearance of a new regime] in Kyrgyzstan, where the post-Soviet government, once one the most promising in Central Asia but later just another dictatorship, has been overthrown by people power, with its president fleeing to Moscow and then resigning. Almost certainly this is a glimpse of things to come, with immense strategic and economic interests at stake.