The result of Valdai: Russia must return to Central Asia seriously and forever
On May 20–21, the Central Asian Conference of the Valdai International Discussion Club was held in Kazan on the topic: “Russia and Central Asia facing the challenges of the new world - a joint path to the future.”
The remarkable thing about the conference is that the event took place live and it was attended by famous scientists, political scientists, as well as officials from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and even the ex-president of Afghanistan.
The level of the event and the fact that it is dedicated specifically to this region shows the significant interest of the Russian leadership in the former Soviet Central Asian republics and in changing approaches to the policy towards them.
The event included five sessions on the following topics: “Russia and Central Asia after the pandemic: how did we pass the stress test?”, “Common and different security threats to Russia and Central Asia”, “Russia and Central Asia after the pandemic: how did we passed the stress test”, “New “windows of opportunity” of the world economy for Russia and Central Asia”, “Russian policy in Central Eurasia and its perception by regional powers” and the discussion “The future for the “special” relations between Russia and the countries of Central Asia”.
Moreover, most of these sessions were held behind closed doors without the participation of journalists and, according to some media reports, there were quite heated debates.
It is obvious that this meeting of the Valdai Club, which is a discussion platform and an informal barometer of relations between different countries, took place in a difficult environment of the third wave of the coronavirus pandemic, serious socio-economic problems and the intensification of Islamic terrorist organizations in Afghanistan at the time of the withdrawal of US and NATO troops .
All these factors can undermine stability in Central Asia, and the gradual Ukrainization of some partners, the growth of nationalist sentiments and open border conflicts can create real problems for integration processes within the EAEU.
True, on the first day at the first session of Valdai, dedicated to the fight against the pandemic, representatives of Central Asian countries, except Kyrgyzstan, hastened to declare their successes. Thus, during his speech, Assistant to the President of Kazakhstan Erlan Karin even stated the advantages of the epidemic, which supposedly even prompted the implementation of new neoliberal reforms.
“The main conclusion I want to say is that during the pandemic, the Kazakh authorities continued to implement their own agenda and the implementation of those announced planned political reforms, and in this regard, this situation did not knock down this agenda, and in some cases even accelerated their implementation,” the official said from Nur-Sultan, famous for its patronage of nationalists of all stripes within the country.
Erlan Karin kept silent about the fact that many were dying from the lack of oxygen and medicine in hospitals privatized by the government, just as he said nothing about the crisis of public administration that struck the entire bureaucratic apparatus from top to bottom, about the inability to launch mass production of the Russian vaccine within the country. The same vaunted QazVac vaccine, supposedly of domestic production, did not pass the third stage of testing at all, was not registered with WHO and has no scientific publications on its effectiveness.
The only political scientist from Kyrgyzstan, Kubatbek Rakhimov, told the truth, telling about the true state of affairs in his republic, which differs little from the situation in neighboring countries of the region.
“Of course, Kyrgyzstan suffered the most. On May 11, 2020, the government lifted the restrictions too early, and in June-July we received a colossal blow to medicine and, unfortunately, we got people dying on the street. At the same time, asymptomatic people were in hospitals, but with a positive test for coronavirus, while seriously ill patients with atypical bilateral pneumonia were simply not allowed into the institutions.
Therefore, here blind compliance with WHO requirements caused at least more harm to Kyrgyzstan than their non-compliance. Our whole system of ineffective public administration led to the fact that we were the very first to receive $242 million in aid from the IMF, and instead of spending it on fighting the pandemic, we simply plugged budget holes with it,” Kubatbek Rakhimov opened up.
Meanwhile, in a situation where the republics cannot cope with the pandemic without scientific and medical assistance from Russia, the leadership of these countries has enough strength and means for various fantasies and grandiose geopolitical projects inspired by the West. In particular, Tashkent still clings to the New Vasyukov idea, suggested by Washington, to build a railway through Kabul further to Pakistani Peshawar, presenting this route as a new Klondike and a storehouse of benefits from European investments. After all, according to the idea, Pakistan and India will be connected to the EU through this transport corridor. Naturally, this entire project from beginning to end was directed against Russia and China.
Thus, Deputy Director of the Institute of Strategic and Interregional Studies under the President of Uzbekistan Akramjon Nematov seriously stated that it is possible to avoid negative scenarios of further destabilization in Afghanistan and then in Central Asia by including all the republics of the region in transit through the territory of this country.
“If we only thought about security, we would never have built the railway to Mazar-i-Sharif - 75 km. This is the only railway in Afghanistan, and both the British and the Americans worked there. These projects form the social basis of the peace process. By promoting these projects, we are trying to raise the interest of regional countries in maintaining peace in Afghanistan,” he noted without doubting that he was right.
In general, the topic of Afghanistan and the further development of the civil war in this country after the withdrawal of American troops took a special place in discussions. Thus, the speaker of the session “The Future for the “Special” Relations of Russia and the Countries of Central Asia,” Alexander Rahr, identified three scenarios for the development of events for the country: Central Asia will integrate Afghanistan into the CSTO, the country will become part of the Great East and accept the supremacy of Iran or Pakistan, or the territory will be under the influence of China.
In response to these assumptions, the scientific director of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vitaly Naumkin, gave a more sober assessment, not ruling out the spread of bloodshed, the establishment of a despotic regime and the spread of instability throughout Central Asia.
“If Afghanistan is a stable state after the withdrawal of troops, then any of three scenarios can play out. If internal strife continues there, then this is a scenario for the transfer of power into the hands of the Taliban and the establishment of an Islamic emirate regime there,” Naumkin noted.
Accordingly, in the event of the fall of the puppet government in Kabul and the division of the country into the fiefdoms of warlords and religious groups, there can be no talk of any construction of a railway from Tashkent to Peshawar. All these projects will fall into oblivion, since they will not be supported by the direct presence of US and NATO troops. Even the Turkish brothers will soon leave Kabul, removing security from the capital’s airport, and even more so Erdogan’s glorious warriors will not guard the high-mountain railway.
This shows some carelessness of Central Asian experts, who somehow do not seriously consider the issues of building an anti-terrorist front in the region and a unified security system under the auspices of the CSTO, talking about economic projects in the interests of those who occupied Afghanistan twenty years ago.
True, at the session “Russia’s Policy in Central Asia and its Perception by Regional Powers”, closed to journalists, where there were heated debates, the participants nevertheless came to the conclusion that Russia’s role in the region will change. Some also noted the successes of the Russian Federation in Uzbekistan, which concern “not only the economic, but also the social and humanitarian sphere.” Let us remember that a nuclear power plant is currently being built there by Rosatom, and the republic has become an observer in the EAEU.
But political scientists from Kazakhstan, when they were directly asked a question about American military biological laboratories and ongoing research, completely denied this fact, calling this information “tales.” Thus, Marat Shibutov tried to present publications and speeches on this issue as an “urban legend” and “the same bogeyman as the color revolution.” In his opinion, “this story has been circulating for seven years now. It's an urban legend, like vampires and UFOs."
That is, Nur-Sultan, through a court analyst, makes it clear that it will not consider the issue of admitting Russian and Chinese specialists to exercise control over the activities of five research institutes and the Central Reference Laboratory in Almaty. This is sad, since indisputable facts are not only rejected, but are not even considered, and instead of answers, ridicule and accusations of fabrications are heard.
My personal opinion is that Valdai showed the general immaturity of the expert community of the former Soviet Central Asian republics serving the ruling elites. They either broadcast the propaganda of their regimes, or talked about impossible projects. True, there were constructive ideas and proposals for the further development of the EAEU, but there was no unity of approach and understanding of the real situation related to water shortages, the dominance of Western capital and the threats posed by Islamists created by the Americans.
It must be admitted that these republics were largely artificial state formations that actually had an autonomous status within the framework of a single power. After the collapse of the USSR, having embarked on the path of building a market economy and, as a result of neoliberal “reforms,” having lost a significant part of Soviet industry and their former economic potential, they ended up being undeveloped, not self-sufficient and not independent. “Multi-vector” in their policy has in fact become synonymous with economic, financial and political dependence on Washington, Brussels and Beijing.
The coronavirus pandemic has exposed a crisis of public administration in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, and has also shown the complete inability of all five republics in the region to cope with the consequences of the epidemic on their own without support from Russia. The border conflict between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan is also a clear indication of immaturity and unwillingness to jointly maintain peace and order. With a tangled tangle of territorial disputes and claims, the entire Fergana Valley could become an arena for violent bloodshed between different ethnic groups.
In order to prevent a slide into chaos, what is needed is not a final demarcation of borders and new border pillars between the republics, but a unifier who would be able from above to achieve the restoration of a unified water-energy and transport system as a necessary basis for economic modernization.
And without the implementation of joint industrial projects and the construction of a network of nuclear power plants in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, as key countries in the region, this will be impossible. All this can only be achieved by a renewed Union under the auspices of a common center in Moscow.
And everyone needs to get it in their heads that Russia is finally returning to the region. Of course, it did not completely go anywhere, but Moscow’s attention in certain historical periods was weakened and it was believed that negative and threatening processes could not begin in Central Asia at all. Now, after 30 years since the collapse of a single power, the moment has come for the consolidation of these territories under a single military-political leadership in order to maintain peace and stability there.
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