Xi’s strategy is as meticulous as it is bold. He has purged opposition within his ranks, securing a loyal cadre committed to his vision of Chinese supremacy on the world stage. His deft handling of relationships with giants like the US, India, Japan, and Russia has redefined traditional alliances and rivalries. For those watching, there’s a palpable sense of urgency – a recognition that we are witnessing the dawn of a new global order where China’s influence is inescapable and undeniable.

Meanwhile, the stage is set in India for a political showdown as the Lok Sabha Elections close. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is poised to secure a third consecutive term with his charisma (for his critics – an engineered charisma) and steadfast leadership. Despite murmurs of an upset from the Opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), Modi’s decade-long tenure has undeniably transformed India into a formidable force on the global stage despite growing dissent, frustrations, and inequality in the constituency. 

Under his watch, India’s economy has flourished and its population of 1.5 billion stands as its greatest asset, driving innovation and growth. As the election results loom, the world watches closely, recognising that India’s trajectory under Modi’s continued leadership could redefine the balance of power in Asia and beyond.

China and India hold the key to unlocking the full potential of Asia, bearing the hopes and aspirations of 4.5 billion people in the region. This is undeniably Asia’s century, a period marked by rapid growth, technological innovation, and unprecedented influence on the global stage. As China leverages its economic clout and India capitalises on its vast human resources, both nations are poised to lead Asia into a new era of prosperity and power. The world can no longer deny these two giants’ pivotal role in shaping Asia’s future and the world. 

Anti-Modi narratives

Focusing on the Indian elections, many predicted an easy victory for Modi, yet doubt crept in during the campaign trail with various narratives at play. A section of Western media and their proxies crafted stories forecasting Modi’s downfall, challenging his bid for a third consecutive term. 

Historically, Western media narratives have often been critical of Asia’s rise and this election cycle was no different. For decades, one of Asia’s finest, Lee Kuan Yew, showcased the hypocrisy of Western media with one-sided narratives and it was the turn of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to turn the heat on the Western press this time.

Hundreds of op-eds and articles from around the globe were critical of Premier Narendra Modi, and the BJP mushroomed during the campaign trail. Some projected Modi as a face and Home Minister Amit Shah as everything else. It would have been a tremendous and balanced story if they had also mentioned the Bush-Cheney and Blair-Mandelson combinations without projecting only in Asia, as these things occur. Politics is universal; no one has a monopoly on the power play.

However, dissent is reasonable as it allows you to recreate your narrative compellingly, if necessary; otherwise some of it can be ignored. Premier Modi and the Opposition leaders, such as Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal, all faced cyberbullying and hate from millions of social media critics. 

Dhruv Rathee, a young Indian YouTuber with 20.8 million subscribers, was adored by the anti-Modi section and hated by the Modi lovers. On average, his videos had 15 million views; some reaching 25 million views based on controversial subjects. Some of my colleagues who held independent or anti-Modi sentiments wanted to end Modi rule. Some were fearless and some were fearful. Young Rathee has shown the price of being daring, taking on a “tyrant,” as he narrated. Some enjoy money, some want fame, and some want power. Some want all three.

In our digital age, anti-Modi sentiments were widely disseminated and consumed. However, the impact on India’s 960 million voters will only become apparent in a few days as the world watches to see if these narratives swayed the electorate.

Modi and BJP campaign

The Modi and BJP campaign was bolstered by a decade of tangible successes, earning credibility despite facing numerous challenges and frustrations. Modi was presented as the definitive leader, synonymous with India’s recent economic strides and global presence. 

In contrast, the Opposition’s campaign lacked a singular anchor, relying instead on a collective team effort. Going up against a worldwide brand like Modi, with his track record of economic achievements, demanded a monumental and unified Opposition strategy. As election results loom, the question remains whether this collective effort was enough to challenge the incumbency and sway the electorate.

Modi projected himself as a divine gift to rejuvenate India and secure its rightful place on the global stage. This ‘messiah’ narrative is a familiar trope in political communications, evoking a sense of destiny and inevitability. 

The Opposition needed another charismatic leader or a robust alternative policy, action plan, and narrative to counter such an influential figure. However, Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi, the latest torchbearers of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, were criticised for their lack of imagination and coherence in their campaign. As a result, their efforts struggled to gain traction against Modi’s well-crafted persona and proven track record. 

It is seldom that a leader can blow his own trumpet. You need your allies to project how great you are. However, Modi said he was a godsend and gifted and his team said he was a godsend and gifted. It was missing in the Rahul and Priyanka duo. INDIA leaders like Kumar, Banerjee, Kejriwal, Yadav, Stalin, and Pawar seldom backed an anchor in cohesion. It’s understandable; all the above political brands are too big to sing hosanna for someone else. The fragile egos, personal interests, and political empires do not allow you to be united. Even in sports, all-star teams end up faring poorly. 

Modi, the saviour

Modi’s projection of himself as India’s saviour draws parallels to historical figures like Ashoka, Napoleon, and Alexander the Great, who also cast themselves as divinely-ordained leaders. After his transformative embrace of Buddhism, Ashoka positioned himself as a benevolent ruler destined to bring peace and prosperity to South Asia. Similarly, Napoleon portrayed himself as bringing order and reform to post-revolutionary France. At the same time, Alexander the Great saw himself as a destined conqueror, spreading Greek culture across the known world. 

In the book ‘Discovery of India’ (written in 1946), the great Jawaharlal Nehru (first Prime Minister of India from 1947 to 1964) writes: “Often, as I wandered from meeting to meeting, I spoke to my audience of this India of ours, of Hindustan and of Bharata, the old Sanskrit name derived from the mythical founder of the race. I seldom did so in the cities, for their audiences were more sophisticated and wanted strong fare. But to the peasant, with his limited outlook, I spoke of this great country for whose freedom we were struggling, of how each part differed from the other and yet was India, of common problems of the peasants from north to south and east to west, of the swaraj that only could be for all and every part and not for some. 

“I told them about journeying from the Khyber Pass in the far northwest to Kanyakumari or Cape Comorin in the distant south and how everywhere the peasants put me identical questions, for their troubles were the same – poverty, debt, vested interests, landlords, moneylenders, heavy rents and taxes, police harassment, and all these wrapped up in the structure that the foreign government had imposed upon us – and relief must also come for all. 

“I tried to make them think of India as a whole and even to some little extent of this wide world of which we were a part. I brought in the struggle in China, Spain, Abyssinia, Central Europe, Egypt, and the countries of Western Asia. I told them of the wonderful changes in the Soviet Union and the great progress made in America. The task was not easy, yet it was not so difficult as I had imagined, for our ancient epics, myths, and legends, which they knew so well, had made them familiar with the conception of their country. Some there were always who had travelled far and wide to the great places of pilgrimage, situated at the four corners of India.”

I quote him again: “Sometimes I reached a gathering, a great roar of welcome would greet me. ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ – ‘Victory to Mother India’. I would ask them unexpectedly what they meant by that cry: who was this ‘Bharat Mata,’ Mother India, whose victory they wanted? My question would amuse them and surprise them, and then, not knowing exactly what to answer, they would look at each other and me. I persisted in my questioning. At last, a vigorous Jat, wedded to the soil from immemorial generations, would say it was the ‘dharti,’ the good earth of India, that they meant. What earth? Their particular village patch, or all the patches in the district or province, or in the whole of India? And so question and answer went on till they would ask me impatiently to tell them all about it. 

“I would endeavour to do so and explain that India was all this that they had thought, but it was much more. The mountains and the rivers of India, and the forests and the broad fields, which gave us food, were all dear to us, but what counted ultimately were the people of India, people like them and me, who were speared out all over this vast land. ‘Bharat Mata,’ Mother India, was essentially these millions of people, and victory to her meant victory to these people. You are parts of this ‘Bharat Mata,’ I told them, you are in a manner to yourselves ‘Bharat Mata,’ and as this idea slowly soaked into their brains, their eyes would light up as if they had made an extraordinary discovery.”

Rahul and Priyanka, the great-grandchildren of the great Jawaharlal Nehru, were leading the anti-Modi campaign. The above paragraph could have been their campaign narrative, but it was Modi’s campaign line for the last 10 years – and for the next five years, if he succeeds in securing a third successive term on 4 June. 

Religio-political wars

‘Bharat Mata’ was the underlying campaign theme for Modi 3.0, which took Nehru’s ‘Bharat Mata’ concept to a different level. Nehru was widely regarded for his stand for secular India but there are severe questions and critics of Modi’s path for India – weaponising Hinduism for political power. In India, approximately 80% of the population by religion are Hindus and 14% are believers of Islam as per the 2011 census. As per census reports, a 1951 to 2011 comparison shows a 5% reduction of Hindus and in the same period a 45% growth of believers of Islam. 

The religious political wars have become the norm again; even the rise of Muslim political leadership in the United Kingdom has been the talk of the town recently, with Sadiq Khan holding onto the Mayorship of London since 2016. In Indonesia, vote bank politics are shaping up, with Islam as a shield; in Russia, the orthodox church plays a role in politics; and in the US, Christian nationalism is on the rise. 

Unfortunately, over centuries, humankind has been divided by religion. Instead, can religion unite people? Can a rejuvenated Bharat show the way for tolerance, diversity, and harmony to the world? 

In the last 30 years, India rebranded its main cities from colonial names to national names. Today, Bombay is Mumbai, Calcutta is Kolkata, Madras is Chennai, Bangalore is Bengaluru, Poona is Pune, and Banaras is Varanasi. If Modi succeeds in securing his third successive term on 4 June, will we see Bharat instead of India? Bharat will be Modi’s Ashoka moment. If that occurs, this will be one of the most significant brand changes in humanity’s history.

Xi and the ‘Chinese dream’

Like Modi, Xi crafted a narrative positioning himself as the chosen one, uniquely destined to lead China into a new era of greatness. Xi didn’t rely solely on revolutionary or economic credentials like Mao Zedong or Deng Xiaoping. Instead, he blended these legacies, portraying himself as the leader who could fulfil China’s historic rejuvenation mission.

Just as Ashoka, Napoleon, and Alexander the Great used the mantle of destiny to consolidate their power, Xi presented himself as the harbinger of a ‘Chinese dream’ – a vision of national renewal and global prominence. Through sweeping reforms, an assertive foreign policy, and strategic purges within his party, Xi solidified his position, projecting an image of stability and certainty.

These modern leaders harnessed historical narratives of messianic leadership in China and India, crafting personas destined to elevate their nations. Modi and Xi’s stories underscore a timeless political truth: when a leader casts themselves as a divinely favoured saviour, it becomes a formidable task for any opposition to mount a practical challenge without an equally compelling vision or figurehead. As a result, their nations stand at the forefront of Asia’s rise, shaping the region’s destiny in profound and lasting ways.

Enter Arvind Kejriwal

In China, the one-party rule under Xi ensures a controlled political landscape. However, in India’s vibrant democracy, winning a third successive term is an uphill battle for any leader. Modi’s stature and the BJP’s well-oiled political machinery present formidable challenges. Yet, amidst this daunting scenario, INDIA began to find momentum in the middle of the campaign. 

Emerging against all odds, this coalition started to resonate with voters, presenting a united front capable of challenging Modi’s dominance. Its late surge introduced an element of unpredictability, with many fearing an upset. The alliance’s ability to galvanise support and craft a compelling narrative in the final stages underscored the dynamic and resilient nature of Indian democracy, where even the most entrenched leaders can face significant challenges.

Not many would agree with me, but the Arvind Kejriwal fiasco and his subsequent jail term significantly disrupted INDIA’s momentum. Suddenly, amid a carefully orchestrated campaign, the focus shifted entirely to Kejriwal. This unplanned and unwarranted incident highlights how fragile political campaigns can be. 

In the high-stakes arena of political campaigning, unexpected events can swiftly derail even the most well-planned strategies. INDIA, which had begun to find its footing and generate genuine enthusiasm, was blindsided by the controversy surrounding Kejriwal. Instead of pushing forward with its collective message, it was forced into a defensive position, grappling with damage control and standing for Kejriwal.

Power struggle on the cards

If Kejriwal survives his legal battles and Modi secures another victory, the political arena is set for a dramatic power struggle. Kejriwal, driven by boundless ambition and armed with a reputation for grassroots activism, could challenge the leadership of Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi within the Opposition. His relentless focus on anti-corruption (but he is booked for corruption now) and governance reforms resonates strongly with urban middle-class and disenfranchised voters, positioning him as a compelling alternative to Modi. 

This rise would inevitably clash with the Gandhis, who have long been the faces of the Congress Party and national politics. As Kejriwal’s influence grows, a fierce battle for dominance within the Opposition is likely to unfold, with his soaring ambitions threatening to overshadow the traditional leadership of the Gandhis. This internal struggle could redefine the dynamics of Indian politics, with both sides vying for the mantle of a chief challenger to Modi’s BJP.

‘Messiah’ narrative

The ‘messiah’ narrative is not confined to Asia. Donald Trump’s rise to the presidency in 2017 was a masterclass in creating a narrative more significant than life itself. With his ‘Make America Great Again’ slogan, he cast himself as the saviour of a nation that, in his telling, had lost its way. This powerful, emotionally-charged message resonated deeply with many Americans who felt left behind by the political establishment.

Trump’s unconventional, often irrational approach allowed him to dominate the news cycle and overshadow his opponent, Hillary Clinton. While Clinton campaigned on experience and policy, Trump ran circles around her with his relentless energy and brash rhetoric. His ability to tap into the fears and hopes of voters, combined with a relentless focus on his narrative of national rejuvenation, ultimately won him the day. Despite his unpredictability and contentious style, Trump’s message struck a chord, propelling him to a victory that defied conventional political logic. 

Trump vs. Biden in 2024 will be a great watch. The US needs a strongman at the negotiation table with Xi, Modi, and Putin. If the former President runs, he will inevitably invoke ‘Make America Great Again’ with more vigour than in 2016. The US is not Reagan’s US anymore. It’s easier to talk about the inner core desires of Americans for pride. The pride they grew up with is slowly vanishing by the day.

Politics makes strange bedfellows. It’s not for the faint-hearted. It’s a blood sport. It’s all about the art of possibility. It’s about capturing power and, most importantly, sustaining power. The below from ‘The Panchatantra’ sums up the world: ‘All things in the world live off one another, using many different strategies to do so, some peaceful, others not so peaceful. Think.’

Rulers live off their lands,

Physicians off the sick,

Merchants live off the consumers, 

They learned from fools;

Thieves live off the unwary,

Almsmen off householders;

Harlots off pleasure seekers,

And workers of the whole world.

Snares of many sorts are carefully set;

Day and night, they lie in wait, watchful,

Surviving by sheer strength – fish eating fish. 

Fish eating fish — for survival. Once in power, you would not want to leave. Politics is a microcosm of human life. ‘Messiahs’ are not immortal and there is a downside. The sustainability of the narrative depends on not only the leader’s code of conduct but also his followers and the machinery. 

In the midst of this, Asia is rising. There is hope for the world.

Source: The Morning

The post Asian roar appeared first on Ankara Haftalik.

Brussel, Frankfurt (16/11 – 23)

A levying of embargoes and export bans, the imposition of sanctions, erection of fearsome “license” (= restriction) protocol: there’s nothing new about this back-and-forth in world trade, in the eternal jousting for advantage among markets and nations. The clever Chinese imagined they had the world tea market all locked up until an earnest Scottish botanist carrying the telling name of “Robert Fortune” snuck into the Middle Kingdom to observe their agriculture, steal tea plants, and pick up tricks of tea processing. The Chinese global tea monopoly was busted wide open.

The fortunate Mr. Fortune was actually in the employ of the insidious British East India Company; today tea is happily cultivated on every continent except Antarctica.

The Government of India is currently banning the export of onions. Read it and weep.

The USA did not approve of Japanese expansion throughout Southeast Asia in the late 1930s, and embargoed oil and rubber, among other critical items. This more or less forced Japan to go to war against the west. Thus Pearl Harbor and the ensuing four years of tragedy in the Pacific.

Readers should all be familiar with the European/American sanctions on the Russian Federation, attempting to cripple their economy for having started a “Special Military Operation” to halt the oppression and killing of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine. Guess who engineered that mess, a conflict now looking lost and forlorn for the noble democracies.

It’s China’s turn. American politicians, many in the pocket of super-affluent Chinese banks and state-controlled industries, have to be portrayed as “fighting China” so they go through the motions, by imposing chip technology export restrictions on what just happens to be their largest banker, supplier of consumer goods and trading partner.

China now responds, in what is essentially a Punch’n’Judy show, by erecting complex “export license” restrictions on gallium and germanium, rare earths technically classified as “minor metals”, not commonly encountered in nature, or refined as the by-product of other processes.

Note that these materials are used in the production of microchips critical to military applications, so it is not surprising that their export would be curtailed.

The Americans are attempting to impede the development of “advanced microprocessor technology”, a sweeping term covering a very large area of consumer, industrial and official applications, by the PRC.

According to the Critical Raw Materials Alliance (CRMA), an industry organ, China is the source of 80% of the world’s gallium and 60% of its germanium. You can be certain that miners around the globe and digging through their tailings to extract any of this trace material.

The export bans are doomed to fail, just as the manifold sanctions on Russian oil and gas have been handily circumvented by buyers and refiners everywhere.

China, like Russia, is acting carefully and prudently in these reprisals and counter-reprisals, assuming that the USA and its Euro-vassal are skidding downhill, with a soon-to-be-worthless currency, but are still dangerous. In short, the Americans are assumed to be insane.

Pause for a moment and imagine what would happen if the People’s Republic of China, producer of ~90% of the antibiotics sold in the United States of America, decided that they’d prefer to keep their medications at home, just in case, or perhaps market them somewhere else. Or that they would demand payment in Renminbi, on par with the wobbly dollar. No antibiotics? No problem.

That’s how crazy it’s getting.  

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For ten years now, the authorities of Tajikistan have been engaged in forced assimilation of the ethnic Pamiri people, giving away the heartlands to China for debts,” Orzu M. shared with RFI – Radio France Internationale is a French news and current affairs public radio station that broadcasts worldwide.

RFI met with Orzu in Paris, sharing the fact that more and more Pamiris are leaving their native homes in Gorno-Badakhshan Mountainous Autonomous (GBAO) Region of Tajikistan; they are driven into exile by the persecution of the authorities, who are displacing indigenous peoples.

The Tajik government continues its repression against the Pamir minority group as part of Dushanbe’s efforts to quell the opposition to the ruling government in Tajikistan. The repressive actions included forced extradition, arbitrary arrest and harsh verdict to alleged Pamiri activists.

RFI: How did it come about that you, a defender of the rights of the Pamiri peoples, ended up in Paris?

Orzu M: I am a Pamiri, and for at least the past ten years, the authorities of Tajikistan have been engaged in the forced assimilation of our people. The Pamiri peoples are a national minority. We have our own language, different from Tajik, with several dialects (Pamiri languages belong to the Iranian linguistic group – RFI). Our religion is also different; Pamiris are Ismailis, which is a branch of Shiite Islam, whereas Tajiks, the titular nation, are Sunni. We practice a more secular form of Islam; women and men can be in the same prayer house. We don’t have mosques; we have Jamaats, where men and women gather, and everyone prays together. Pamiri women often do not wear a headscarf and dress in a more European style.

We have our own culture and traditions. Tajikistan is a multi-ethnic country with Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Russians, and many other people living here, but we have our own autonomous region, Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO). And, of course, we are a mountainous people, which also creates distinct characteristics in our culture and traditions. There are approximately 200,000 Pamiris in total, but a significant portion of them is already in exile.

RFI: Why is there such strong emigration?

Orzu M: Emigration is indeed significant; villages are becoming empty, entire families are leaving, closing their homes, and fleeing to wherever they can, to Europe, to America. This situation has been ongoing for the past 10 years.

Ninety-three percent of our territory is covered by mountains. We are primarily engaged in livestock farming rather than agriculture, but most of the population is affected by unemployment, which is a significant problem. We have neither factories nor plants. The Aga Khan Foundation (Aga Khan Development Network, a network of private non-denominational development agencies founded by the spiritual leader of the Ismailis – RFI) is involved in the development of Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast. Aga Khan IV built a university, a hospital, and is involved in cultural and educational programs. In Soviet times, every second person in our region had a higher education. The thing is, we are in a remote high-mountain region, and we have very harsh winter conditions, as well as overall challenging living conditions. The only way to make progress was to study, get an education, and then develop the region.

It turned out that in the last 10 years, we have been leaving Pamir; we are being displaced. The Tajikistan authorities want us to integrate and lose our identity, including our language.

Furthermore, our territories are essentially being handed over to China as a result of Tajikistan’s national debt. For example, the Murghab region, where Pamiri Kyrgyz people live, is rich in natural resources, such as gold, silver, and precious gemstones. It’s a mountainous area, and there are even precious stones. China understands that this is a very rich territory.

RFI: You say that the problems started 10 years ago. What happened at that time?

Orzu M: In 2012, the head of the State Committee for National Security (KNB) in Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO) was assassinated. He was simply eliminated, and the local people were accused. It was an intra-government dispute related to the criminal business, smuggling, and drug trafficking.

Pamir is a strategic location where the path to China goes, with the border with Afghanistan and the only place that did not submit to the authorities and resisted. The people were free, acted in their own way, and cherished this freedom. In other words, it was autonomy in the true sense. The government felt that they could enrich themselves in the region, and the president’s inner circle chose the events of 2012 as a pretext. That’s when we had a “special operation,” they removed informal leaders who were defending the people.

And this periodically continues to this day, in 2014, in 2018, in 2022. There were several attempts to pacify the people. It didn’t work. There were protests, and even attempts to communicate with the president and the establishment of commissions. In other words, it was such an oasis of democracy in Tajikistan, the only region that truly knew its rights and demanded their respect. And when it so happened that they did manage to suppress us, many people, in order not to submit, leave.      

RFI: How to explain the fact that Tajiks, who themselves are victims of persecution, oppress another minority?

Orzu M: I wouldn’t say that Tajiks oppress the people. Tajiks suffer even more than we do, and they have always suffered. We are the only region that openly and boldly talks about this. Tajiks tend to be more submissive; they are more adaptable. The temperament of the mountain peoples does not allow them to submit. But Tajiks have also always suffered from this regime, and there were events in Rasht, in the Sughd region, in Vahdat.

The authorities have broken the people and subdued them. All the terrible facts – rape, murder – were attributed to the lawlessness of ISIS terrorists. For the Tajik authorities, anyone who opposes them is labeled a terrorist.

RFI: Is Russia’s influence a factor in this?

Orzu M: We, the Pamiris, are a small community, and we all know each other. When the special operation in GBAO began, we realized that the only possibility was to shout, speak, and write. We have always won against the authorities with the information war. But now, the Tajik government has very strong support from Russia.

So-called “special operations,” similar to what Russia conducts in Ukraine, are carried out in our Pamir. It’s all part of the same Soviet playbook that Putin is spreading among authoritarian regimes. Emomali Rahmon, in order to pass power to his son, is creating all the conditions for the destruction of a free society, so that there are no people who can shout, speak, and obstruct his actions.

RFI: How has the war that Russia is conducting in Ukraine affected the situation?

Orzu M: It has made the situation even worse because the regime realized that if Ukraine wins, it will set an example for other nations, and everyone would strive for freedom. As a result, it has tightened its grip. For example, in GBAO, there are hardly any NGOs left; everything is closed.

A significant portion of civil society representatives are in prison. We have around 1,000 political prisoners who had an influence on the youth and held some authority. They were either imprisoned, disappeared without a trace, or emigrated.

RFI: Am I correct in understanding that fleeing to Russia is not possible?

Orzu M: There is no refuge for us in Russia. Many, even those with Russian citizenship, have been extradited to Tajikistan, where they are subjected to torture in prisons.

Russian citizenship is zero; it’s a fiction. There have been cases where people with Russian citizenship had it simply revoked, even though they grew up and lived their whole lives in Russia. The war in Ukraine has frightened our president, and he is afraid that this whole kingdom could disappear. Everything now depends on the outcome of the war, on Ukraine’s victory.

RFI: How does the proximity to Afghanistan affect the situation?

Orzu M: Afghanistan is a trump card for the Tajik authorities in order to promote the issue of terrorism, extremism, the influence of Islamists, and the movement of the Taliban to our borders in Europe. Although, in my opinion, such a threat does not currently exist. Badakhshan was divided by the Russian Empire along the Kokcha River, and now its southern part is in Afghanistan, while the northern part is in Tajikistan. Families were divided, and I still have relatives in Afghanistan. It’s just an opportunity to blackmail and use strong words in Europe, claiming that we are protecting the European Union from Taliban incursions and Islamists.

RFI: But is Islamism a problem in Tajikistan itself?

Orzu M: It’s a problem in Central Asia as a whole. In countries with dictatorial regimes, the youth turn to conservative Islam, Salafism, and mosques engage in propagandistic activities. This was never the case before; there used to be a secular state. Now, the youth don’t see a future and are searching for answers or simply escaping from this reality.

Poverty is rampant, and many become labor migrants, leaving their children with grandparents. Women, daughters-in-law, are oppressed within their husband’s families. This is the standard situation throughout Central Asia. The authorities have abandoned the people to their fate, leading to poverty, unemployment, and making the population vulnerable to the ideas propagated by mosques. Islamic madrasas are established not only in Tajikistan but also in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan has always been secular, but now the sentiments are changing.

RFI: Does Iran influence the situation?

Orzu M: The relationship with Iran is variable. Sometimes they are friendly and exchange visits, and sometimes the love disappears. Russia usually dictates who to be friends with and who not to. But right now, the closest friendship is with China. All road construction and projects are Chinese.

The small republic is deeply indebted to China, and China is already dictating its terms. The Chinese government doesn’t like that Pamir, its closest neighbors, values freedom and that people there are well-educated. They see this as a threat. Every time after meetings between representatives of the Tajik government and China, the pressure on the GBAO intensifies. The way we understand it is that China is an accomplice in this process. This is a union of dictatorships.

RFI: Do you see any way out?

Orzu M: Right now, the only way out is the victory of Ukraine. Then, this entire dictatorial pyramid will collapse.

*Orzu M. prefers not to give its full name, fearing persecution from the authorities.

Source: RFI

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Source: Bizmedia

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Berlin (25/7 – 16.67)

The table is set for the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast to remain a geopolitical hotspot.

Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO), eastern Tajikistan, is the home to the Pamir Mountains, also called “the roof of the world”, whose sharp mountain ranges and deep valleys resemble a lunar landscape. A far-flung frontier, situated in a troubled neighborhood, next to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, GBAO is a geopolitical treasure tethered to exterior interests: the authoritarian central Tajik government in Dushanbe, Chinese economic and military interests, and Russia, which historically frames the Pamirs as a part of its geopolitical backyard. The region’s inhabitants, the Pamiris, however, are seldom counseled.

In August 2021, desperation arrived in Ruzvat, a river community high up in the Pamir Mountains, in Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO), in eastern Tajikistan. The Panj River embodies the floating border between Tajikistan and northeastern Afghanistan, and the Taliban movement’s seizure of political power shook the ground on both sides of the river.

Since the independence of Tajikistan, the Pamirs in GBAO have remained a stronghold for various movements, and above all, an identity, that challenge the hegemonic Tajik nationalism bred by authoritarian Tajikistan President Emomali Rahmon.

The Taliban’s successful power grab had swept through an Afghanistan militarily weakened by the abrupt American withdrawal after a 20-year presence in the country. The geopolitical map of Central Asia was, yet again, redrawn.

“The border closed, and along with that our livelihood was cut off,” Gulshan, a market vendor in Ruzvat, told me.

In GBAO, people have learned to decipher the geopolitical gales sweeping over the Pamir Mountains. The Panj River embodied the frontier during the Soviet-Afghan War and was a stronghold for the Afghan Northern Alliance, which militarily opposed the first Taliban government in Kabul in the later 1990s. Since the independence of Tajikistan, in the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Pamirs have remained a stronghold for various movements – and above all, an identity – that challenge the hegemonic Tajik nationalism bred by authoritarian President Emomali Rahmon in faraway Dushanbe, Tajikistan’s capital.

People have also learned how to stave off hunger. The sound of the river is ever-present from the threshold to Gulshan’s one-story-house. The view is hypnotic. A pallid winter sun looms just above the sharp mountain tops. On the Afghan riverbank, washed rugs dry in the sun next to tiny lots plowed by cows. It is an unforgiving environment adorned by the Taliban movement’s white flag.

“We often wave to the Taliban soldiers who patrol the river,” Gulshan told me. “They swing their Kalashnikovs over their shoulders and smile and wave back. They ride the jeeps that used to belong to the U.N. – the Taliban have just painted over the logo.”

Nowadays, waving is the only contact they have with their Afghan neighbors. Since the Taliban takeover, the border between the two countries remains closed, as well as the international market in Darvoz, next to a bridge border crossing. The source of income for river communities like Ruzvat is gone and has been replaced with nothing.

“We used to have our regular stand at the market in Darvoz, and we relied on trading and selling goods to Afghans,” Gulshan explained while walking up the slope to the Pamir Highway, a near-mythical stretch of cracked but paved road built by Soviet engineers in the 1930s upon historical trading routes entwined with the ancient Silk Road.

Along with her neighbor, friend, and colleague Nasreen, they now wave to passers-by in desperate hope that they will hit the brakes to purchase seasonal Bukhara pears, daily fresh tomatoes, or newly reaped onions displayed in buckets, upon cardboard boxes, or dangling from tree branches.

Their survival – like that of most residents of the border communities along the Panj River since the Afghan border closed – depends entirely on personal ingenuity.

In late November 2021, things got even worse in the Pamirs. A 29-year-old civilian, Gulbiddin Ziyobekov, was killed by Tajik police in Tavdem, a village south of Khorog (GBAO’s capital and largest city, with a population of around 30,000). The killing, described by witnesses as an assassination, sparked uprisings directed at the central government and Rahmon.

The following year, 2022, has been described as one of the worst years for human rights in Tajikistan since the end of the civil war in 1997, especially in GBAO. In May 2022, over a thousand Pamiris took to the streets of Khorog and Rushan, a strategic town along Pamir Highway, demanding justice for the killing of Ziyobekov and a governmental response to inflated commodity prices.

Dushanbe responded – with live ammunition, tear gas, mass arrests, torture, killings, and a four-month-long internet shutdown.

Local accounts estimate that more than 40 people lost their lives because of the uprisings in Khorog and Rushan; among them influential local leader Mamadboqir Mamadboqirov, who was slain in the streets of Khorog, having been on the central government’s hitlist ever since the mid-1990s. “Colonel Boqir,” as he was known, was a military commander for the Tajik Pamiri military forces and an outspoken critic of Rahmon. Hundreds of people have been arrested and tortured; private businesses have been nationalized and properties and financial capital seized by authorities.

In a symbolic gesture of total colonization, the Pamiri Ismaili flag was removed from a hilltop near Khorog.

With Mamadboqirov’s killing, there are few, if any, local Pamiri leaders left. Over the last three decades, the social structure of GBAO has been uprooted. The central Tajik government’s latest crackdown occurred while the rest of the global community has been focused on combatting inflation and addressing security issues in the wake of the Ukraine war. Rahmon and his peers have displayed their utter willingness and determination to erase whatever local autonomy GBAO had been granted after the civil war.

In GBAO, there is simply too much to gain in the eyes of exterior forces: the Pamir Mountains are a geopolitical asset not only for the central Tajik government in Dushanbe, but to Chinese economic and military interests. The region is an integral part of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative. And Russia considers the Pamirs a corner of its geopolitical backyard.

Much is at stake in the Pamir Mountains, and GBAO has been a geopolitical treasure tethered to exterior interests ever since the British and Russian empires drew swords on the roof of the world in the 19th century. GBAO covers nearly half of modern-day Tajikistan, and yet its population is merely 250,000 of the country’s 9.5 million inhabitants. Sharp mountain ranges cover large portions of the territory, and only a fraction – 3 percent – is arable land, but the earth contains many profitable natural resources, such as gold, uranium, and water.

GBAO remains, despite its riches, plagued by poverty and the lack of a basic social infrastructure. A century ago, when the region was integrated into the Soviet Union, the Pamirs welcomed an influx of engineers and settlers. The construction of the Pamir Highway paved the way for a modernization of eastern Tajikistan and gave the Pamirs access to neighboring Kyrgyzstan in the north, Uzbekistan in the west, and Afghanistan in the south.

“People used to have a reason to stop along the road – now, there’s only traffic coming from China or Kyrgyzstan, heading straight for Dushanbe,” Nasreen lamented. “Dust is all that lingers.”

Many of the answers to Tajikistan’s current political riddles can be traced back to the civil war between 1992 and 1997, a bloody conflict that some estimates say cost more than 100,000 lives and displaced more than 1 million people. The fall of the Soviet Union opened Pandora’s box, and various interests entered the battlefield in a quest for political power. Emomali Rahmon was one of them, and eventually ended up as the leader of the winning side of the war; one that had cast off its Communist mantle and replaced it with staunch nationalism and rampant nepotism.

On the losing side stood a cluster of opposition groups under the umbrella of the United Tajik Opposition (UTO), led by the Islamic Renaissance Party, which had significant support in the Pamirs. The local government in GBAO even attempted to break free from the rest of Tajikistan and create an independent state. In the years after the 1997 peace treaty formally ended the war — and despite provisions in the peace agreement mandating space in the government for the opposition — Dushanbe routinely cracked down not only on the Islamist opposition but on local authorities in GBAO as well.

The highest price, though, has been paid by the local population, among them vendors like Gulshan and Nasreen. Desperation and despair are widespread, In 2021 more than 1.6 million Tajiks, most of them men, emigrated to Russia for work in what has become a routine flow of migrant workers. In Tajikistan countless families are dependent on remittances from abroad. In 2022, the Russian invasion of Ukraine sparked concerns that the migrant economy would crater along with the Russian economy. But instead, rates of migration to Russia continued to increase following their 2020 pandemic slump, including from Tajikistan. The war, however, generated new risks for Tajik migrants, in particular that they would be recruited or coerced into joining Russian forces on the frontlines. 

“Many who make the journey to Russia are never heard from again,” said Gulshan.

The Tajik government’s latest crackdown is part of a pattern, where Dushanbe continues to target opposition forces and local authorities by aggressive means, often under the guise of “combating terrorism.” Eastward, in Xinjiang, Chinese authorities have increased their military presence along the Tajik border, raising concerns among some in Moscow about a decreasing strategic Russian foothold on the “roof of the world.”

The latest wave of repression did not lead to broad domestic blowback in Tajikistan, but the Tajik government runs the risk of triggering a backlash with each crackdown. Dushanbe might continue to justify repression under the banner of “counterterrorism,” but that could also pop the balloon of enforced authoritarian stability.

The table is thus set for GBAO to remain a geopolitical hotspot, wedged as it is between China’s repressive regime in Xinjiang, the central Tajik government in Dushanbe and its patrons in Russia, and the troubled situation in Afghanistan. And through it all, the people of GBAO will continue to seek out a life among the peaks and valleys of the Pamir Mountains, watching as the Panj River flows by.

“We either wait for a better future, or build one ourselves,” Adis concludes. “Pamiris have always been isolated and dependent on themselves; these past years don’t change that.”

Source

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The foreign ministers of China and Central Asian countries have agreed to maintain “close communication and coordination” following the fourth China-Central Asia Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, held in the Chinese city of Xi’an.

“They (foreign ministers) believe that the China-Central Asia mechanism plays an important role in consolidating political mutual trust, deepening exchanges and cooperation, and promoting people-to-people bonds, and has made positive contributions to maintaining peace and stability in the region,” said a joint communique published Thursday by the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

The statement said the foreign ministers coordinated preparations for the upcoming China-Central Asia Summit, while Central Asian nations spoke “highly” of China’s work in organizing the event and agreed to maintain “close communication and coordination to ensure the success of the summit and achieve fruitful results.”

It noted that all parties supported further improving the “China-Central Asia” mechanism and adoption of “effective measures” to boost cooperation in different fields including trade, investment, and financing.

“All parties pointed out that connectivity is the priority direction of cooperation between China and Central Asian countries, and will fully implement the ‘Initiative on Deepening China-Central Asia Connectivity Cooperation’ to create a three-dimensional integration of roads, railways, aviation, ports, etc.”

The statement added that all six countries agreed to expand cooperation in fields including agriculture, energy, e-commerce, green and digital economy, and advanced technology, while also cooperating further in “combating terrorism, separatism, extremism, illegal drug trafficking, transnational organized crime and cybercrime, and jointly maintain security and stability in the region.”

The meeting was attended by Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang and his counterparts Bakhtiyor Saidov of Uzbekistan, Murat Nurtleu of Kazakhstan, Jeenbek Kulubaev of Kyrgyzstan, and Sirodjiddin Muhriddin of Tajikistan, as well as Turkmenistan’s Deputy Foreign Minister Vepa Hajiyev.

Qin said in a later briefing that the heads of state of these nations would meet in a summit next month in Xi’an.

Source: AA

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China’s state-run foreign-language news channel, CGTN, has reported that China and five Central Asian nations have vowed to further enhance their trade and investment cooperation. Commerce ministers from the six countries reportedly met on via video link on April 18 to discuss the plans, in order that announcements concerning them could be made at the upcoming China-Central Asia Summit due to be held next month.

China and Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan agreed to establish the mechanism of the China + Central Asia Summit last year. The commerce ministers of the five Central Asian countries agreed to sign a series of cooperation agreements during the coming event.

China, Central Asian regional trade hit US$70 billion in 2022

Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao said China and the five Central Asian countries have achieved fruitful results in their cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative. According to him, China’s trade volume with Central Asia over the first two months of this year has grown by 22% year-on-year, showing strong momentum in development with improved infrastructure. Cross-border e-commerce between China and Central Asia for example reportedly increased by 95% in 2022, while nearly 300 Central Asian enterprises joined China’s e-commerce platforms.

Wang said that products imported from the Central Asian countries are becoming popular among Chinese consumers. He said China will hold live-streaming sales events in May to further promote Central Asian goods.

China’s trade with Central Asia’s nations last year was valued at US$70.2 billion, a historical high. China’s imports of agricultural, energy and mineral products from the Central Asian five rose more than 50%, while the export of Chinese mechanical and electronic products to the Central Asian countries has risen 42%.

Serik Zhumangarin, Kazakhstan’s Minister of Trade and Integration said that Central Asia is now one of the most rapidly developing regions in the world with a strategic geographical location and huge economic potential. “Central Asia was the first region to implement the Belt and Road Initiative. And thanks to our joint efforts, cooperation has been restored to the pre-pandemic level and we’ve already witnessed a substantial increase in trade,” the Kazakh minister was cited as saying.

The first China-Central Asia Summit is due to take place in Xi’an with China hosting. Dates are still being confirmed but it has been pencilled in for May. Xi’an is considered the starting point of the ancient Silk Road and has many artifacts from that time.

Source: Silk Road Briefing

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Central Asia is becoming more authoritarian before our very eyes: after the power grab completed during the pandemic, the region’s elites are now introducing a series of measures designed to entrench their power for decades to come. Russia’s support may prove decisive in further strengthening this power.

In Kazakhstan, the regime led by Kassym-Jomart Tokayev used last month’s parliamentary elections — in which no opposition parties and very few independent candidates were allowed to stand — to replenish its deputies in the legislature. While many new members of parliament were elected, they’re unlikely to bring significant changes to Kazakhstani politics. The presidential party — recently renamed Amanat to minimize its many connections with former president Nursultan Nazarbayev — elected two-thirds of its members, confirming that Kazakhstan’s politics remain very much a regime monopoly.   

The rejuvenation of parliamentary cadres completed the power consolidation strategy carried out by Tokayev and his associates through the constitutional referendum of June 2022, which reset presidential terms, and the presidential vote held in November 2022, which formalized the extension of the presidential mandate to the end of the 2020s.

Very similar dynamics are currently at play in neighboring Uzbekistan, where President Shavkat Mirziyoyev is approaching his term limit under the country’s constitution. Here, Mirziyoyev is now focused on extending his political power beyond the terms limits imposed by the constitution. Regime continuity is likely to be ensured through a referendum later this month, which will rewrite the constitution and allow Mirziyoyev to remain in power well beyond 2030.

Typically, though, Turkmenistan leads the way in updating Central Asia’s authoritarian playbook. In March 2022, the regime undertook a very delicate power transfer, which formalized the succession of Serdar Berdymukhamedov, the son of long-term leader Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, to the presidency. Due to Serdar’s relatively young age (he was 41 at the time of his election), the establishment of a dynastic presidency in Turkmenistan will likely see the Berdimuhamedov family controlling Turkmen politics well into the 2040s.

It is through a well-tested combination of propaganda, media repression, and the imprisonment of critics that the elites in all three countries will capitalize on the authoritarian regeneration achieved over the past year. 

To my mind, however, there is another option available to these regimes if they are to strengthen their hold on power in the next decade and beyond. This option, as it stands, is situated within Eurasia’s shifting geopolitics.

An increasingly isolated Russian Federation, in fact, is bound to represent an invaluable source of support for Central Asia’s non-democratic leaders. Eurasia’s networks of authoritarian solidarity normally pivot on the Kremlin, as demonstrated by the rapid intervention of CSTO forces in Kazakhstan last year, when a contingent almost entirely formed of Russian military personnel shifted the balance on the ground in favor of Tokayev and his supporters. It was precisely the CSTO intervention that set the process of authoritarian regeneration recently completed in Kazakhstan into motion.

Crucially, the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, created opportunities for these solidarity networks to be developed further: it’s reasonable to expect the Kremlin will reward Central Asia for not denouncing its invasion of Ukraine with a series of policies designed to preserve non-democratic rule in Astana, Ashgabat, and Tashkent. While Mongolia is reportedly pursuing a policy of equidistance in the Ukrainian conflict with a view to shield its democracy from external pressures, the Central Asian states’ ambiguous stance on the invasion may in turn strengthen the region’s authoritarian regimes.

Two recent events indicate that Russia could yet regain much of the relevance it appears to have lost in Central Asia in recent years by extending its authoritarian solidarity to the region’s leaders.

In his recent meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin pledged to prevent the outbreak of so-called “color revolutions” in Central Asia. Meanwhile, there is evidence of talks to expand trilateral energy cooperation between Russia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan, with Russian reserves being used to compensate for the gas shortages caused by Astana and Tashkent’s disastrous energy policies. 

There are therefore new opportunities for Russia to capitalize on the authoritarian consolidation completed in the region over the past year, which could allow Moscow to stage a remarkable comeback in Central Asia. Traditionally, the preservation of domestic power has constituted a key foreign policy objective for the Central Asian states, and Russia’s ability to act as a guarantor of the region’s renewed authoritarian stability may once again make the Kremlin fundamental to each regime’s survival mechanism.

Source: The Moscow Times

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President Volodymyr Zelensky, during a telephone conversation with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, discussed Beijing’s involvement in Ukraine’s peace initiatives and stressed the need to support our country’s sovereignty.

According to the correspondent of “European Truth”, he said this at a press conference in Kyiv.

“We had an important conversation. As for the future meeting, we didn’t talk about it. As for the important things that we talked about, they first of all concerned security. It is very important for us to involve as much as possible in our format, our peace formula. countries that could then put pressure on the Russian Federation in order to restore peace, restore our territorial integrity,” Zelensky said.

“We spoke about territorial integrity, sovereignty, all these issues and heard respect for all these principles,” the president added.

The phone call between Zelensky and the Chinese leader on April 26 was the first since the start of a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.

After the talks, it became known that China would send its representative on a visit to Ukraine and other countries for consultations on the settlement of the war.

Recall that NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, in the context of a telephone conversation between the leaders of Ukraine and China, recalled that official Beijing could not condemn the Russian invasion .

Source: Euro Integration

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Deputy FM of Turkmenistan Vepa Hajiyev took part in the China-Central Asia Foreign Ministers meeting, trend reports citing the Turkmen Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The meeting, which took place on April 27 in the Chinese city of Xi’an, was attended by the heads of the foreign ministries of Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and China, priority issues of cooperation were discussed, topical areas of further partnership were outlined.

The participants of the event noted the important role of cooperation in the Central Asia – China format in the context of intensifying joint efforts aimed at strengthening the constructive partnership of the participating countries of the format on a wide range of issues.

Vepa Hajiyev noted that the Turkmen side expresses confidence that it is the proximity and coincidence of approaches to fundamental issues of the regional and global agenda, based on the vast experience of interaction and good-neighborliness, that provides a unique opportunity to develop modern tools for further establishing cooperation between the countries of Central Asia and China.

Following the meeting, an Information Communique on the fourth meeting of foreign Ministers of the Central Asia – China format and the Minutes of the meeting were signed.

Source: MENA FN

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