While Russia is still a significant actor in the area, its influence will gradually decline as a result of its activities in Ukraine and the associated political, economic, and diplomatic repercussions.
Source: The Financial Express
China is the nation most suited to fill the ensuing void. The recently finished China-Central Asia Summit offers further proof of Beijing’s intentions to use this leverage or influence in the area. It employs both the typical strategies used by superpowers in this process and its own distinctive methods that it believes may help it overcome opposition to its dominance.
The Chinese conceptualization of these later strategies in terms of development, security, and culture or history binds them together. In actuality, the Global Development Initiative (GDI), the Global Security Initiative (GSI), and the Global Civilization Initiative (GCI) are three separate programmes that are built around these three pillars. These things add up to an expansion of China’s previous Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
China seems to have increased its visibility and vocalisation of its security interests in Central Asia under the GSI. Beijing offered one hint when Chinese President Xi Jinping said his nation was prepared to support Kazakh sovereignty and territorial integrity in September when visiting Kazakhstan on his way to the SCO Summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.
This served as a clear warning to the Central Asian Republics that they shouldn’t expect a decline in Russian hegemonic influence over them, as well as a direct challenge to the Russians who had just invaded Ukraine and undermined its sovereignty and territorial independence.
Source: Narendra Modi
It is clear that symbolic and practical activities are both part of China’s participation in the area. India, in comparison, falls short on both counts. Prime Minister Narendra Modi only made four more trips to the area after his initial frenzied bilateral visits to all the capitals of the Central Asian Republics in July 2015. Each trip was for SCO multilateral activities.
Despite the fact that the inaugural India-Central Asia summit was only conducted virtually in January 2022, New Delhi has yet to replicate its success in 2018 by hosting all of the ASEAN heads of government as the summit’s principal guests. India has only ever hosted one main visitor from the area, the president of Kazakhstan in 2009.
There is no denying that during the past nine years, Modi has revitalised and given Indian diplomacy a stronger sense of purpose and direction. He and his ministers have maintained an exhausting pace of travel across the world in support of Indian foreign policy, along with succeeding Presidents and Vice-Presidents. But India still has a long way to go in this area to catch up to China, if not only to maintain its historical ties and relevance.
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