Central Asia

In recent days, Uzbekistan welcomed the Chinese and American governments in quick succession. During Chinese Premier Li Qiang’s visit on 17-18 October, the Uzbek presidential administration said that joint projects backed by firm agreements had reached nearly $60 billion. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio then arrived in Samarkand for C5+1 talks, accompanied at the time by American business leaders seeking contracts, particularly in critical minerals. During the visit, Uzbekistan announced 54 agreements covering trade, investment, and technology. The agreements are said to be worth a total of $12 billion, according to Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Investment, Industry and Trade. However, China still accounts for 23% of Uzbekistan’s foreign trade in January-August 2026, while US goods trade with Uzbekistan totalled at $1.05 billion in 2025, which is less than a fifteenth of the value of its trade with China. Rubio said Washington was not asking Central Asian countries to stop cooperating with other partners, but would instead compete for investment. Tashkent is likely to welcome investment from both sides, but the trade gap shows how challenging it will be if it were to decrease its dependence on Beijing. “Chinese Premier Li Qiang visited Uzbekistan on October 17–18, just ahead of United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who arrived in Samarkand on October 18 with a delegation of American business leaders seeking new contracts. While China already has a substantial presence in Uzbek manufacturing and energy, Washington is seeking to expand American involvement in critical minerals and technology. The visits highlight the growing competition between the world’s two largest economies for influence in Central Asia. On October 17, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev received Li Qiang. According to the Uzbek presidential administration, the portfolio of joint projects backed by firm agreements has reached nearly $60 billion. More than 6,000 joint ventures with Chinese participation have been established in Uzbekistan. (...) Construction of the China–Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan railway was another topic of discussion. Work officially began in December 2024. The route will cross mountainous areas of Kyrgyzstan and connect the railway networks of China and Uzbekistan. The 304-kilometer section through Kyrgyzstan alone is estimated to cost $4.7 billion and will require 50 bridges and 29 tunnels. (...) On October 19, Rubio attended talks in Samarkand under the C5+1 format, bringing together the U.S. and Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Rubio said nearly 300 American businesses were represented in Samarkand. Companies were discussing agreements potentially worth billions of dollars, with concrete announcements expected following the meetings. Among Washington’s priorities are critical minerals used in advanced technologies, including electronics and batteries.”

Until recently, the Organization of Turkic States (OTS) could best be understood in terms of identity, language, culture, and economic collaboration. This is changing. On September 17, Baku played host to the Fifth Meeting of the Secretaries of the Security Councils of the OTS countries. In his message to the meeting, the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, noted that cooperation among the Turkic peoples no longer consisted of political, economic, and cultural matters only but had gained a “long-term strategic nature.” More importantly, he referred to the consultations of the national security councils as a factor facilitating the emergence of a “common security architecture.” Clearly, it does not mean that the OTS is evolving into a military organisation of the NATO kind: there is no commitment of collective defence similar to that of NATO’s Article 5, and there is no evidence of this desire on the part of all members of the organisation. Yet, the September meeting means something different: security collaboration within the Turkic context is becoming more regular and operational. This process has been quite gradual. The OTS started organising meetings of national security council secretaries since 2022. As of September 2026, the mechanism had attained its fifth meeting. The organisation itself considers security cooperation to be an increasingly important area of interest in relation to both conventional and non-conventional threats. This includes such areas as terrorism, transnational organized crime, drug trafficking, extremism, hybrid threats, and critical infrastructure protection. (click image to read the op-ed in full)