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Uzbekistan

Geopolitics

With Putin Shut Out, Xi Makes His Play For Central Asia — And Europe

Five former Soviet states have arrived for a key summit in China, and the absence of Vladimir Putin signals Central Asia's desire to distance itself from Moscow — and China's rising global dominance.

-Analysis-

PARIS — They are called the five "Stans"... Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan. They used to be part of the Soviet Union and are today at the center of a strategic zone between Russia and China.

The leaders of the Central Asian countries arrived Thursday in Xi'an, in central China to meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping. And there was undeniably someone missing from the picture: Vladimir Putin.

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The Russian leader's absence is highly significant: the "Stans" are getting closer to Beijing in order to put more distance between themselves and Moscow.

We are not talking about a change of direction or a rift, but rather a rebalancing, a new regional order in which the Chinese ascendancy is now an undeniable reality. But an unofficial representative of Beijing admitted it Wednesday in private: this summit between the Central Asian countries and China, without Russia, must not have pleased Putin.

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New US Military Bases In Central Asia? Guess Who Isn't Happy

TASHKENT - Fundamental changes are afoot in the relations between the United States and Uzbekistan -- and Russia isn't happy.

Until recently, the central Asian country was on the U.S.’s black list of human rights offenders to whom it was forbidden to provide any sort of military technology. But with a special decree, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently took Uzbekistan off that list, and also sent a high-powered delegationof representatives from the White House, Pentagon and State Department to meet with Uzbek President Islam Karimov.

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