UK parliament tells government to beef up ties with Central Asia

The UK parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee has urged the government to boost ties with Central Asia, describing it as a geopolitical necessity.

It urged the government to pursue “a considerably bolder and more ambitious” engagement with the region, in a report published on 10 November.

The Committee said deeper ties with the five Central Asian nations will be mutually beneficial, and should come in response to “the manoeuvring of Russia, China and others”.

The report criticised the government’s neglect of Central Asia, noting that in February the Foreign Affairs Committee launched the first inquiry into the UK’s engagement in Central Asia since 1999.

The five countries are often “overlooked” and “underappreciated” by UK policy makers. They are often described in such stereotypical terms as “China and Russia’s backyard”, “post-Soviet states” and the “New Great Game”.

The report said the UK government’s policy towards Central Asia had also been driven by “immediate geopolitical preoccupations”, which had left the region’s countries “unsure of the UK’s long-term commitment”.

“For too long UK engagement has been characterised by reactiveness and short-termism,” it said.

It continued that while the “young” countries’ issues with human rights and democracy should not be forgotten, it should also be remembered that their governments operate under constant pressure from their larger neighbours, Russia and China.

The report also criticised the UK government for effectively supporting the regional kleptocracies by allowing them to use the UK’s financial system to rob their own people and launder illicit money.

“Solving this problem will require the political will and resources to take legal action against those involved, as well as capacity building for officials in Central Asia to tackle the issue at source,” it said.

The Committee’s report called for “a clear, values-led approach to engagement in Central Asia; one that does not attempt to supplant or out-compete China or Russia, but that provides different options to Central Asian leadership.”

The UK government policy toward Central Asia needed to be grounded in existing political realities, it said.

It said the UK must take advantage of the Central Asian governments’ “multi-vector foreign policy”, i.e. desire to diversify trade, investment, and diplomacy away from Russia as a consequence of the latter’s aggression against Ukraine.

It also noted that Moscow needed Central Asian cooperation “like never before”, with the region being a key transport route for sanctioned goods and one of Russia’s few remaining security partners.

The report further noted that there were efforts by other countries, including China, the US, the EU, Turkey, Iran and the Emirates to deepen engagement with the Central Asian capitals.

Speaking about China’s policies in the region, the report noted that although it was a key economic player, it “struggles” to gain popularity at a grass-roots level.

It added that “we have not seen evidence of Chinese interference in the internal affairs of Central Asian states”.

The report said that US influence in the region had diminished since its withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The report recommended that the UK government support regional integration between the five Central Asian nations “as a counterweight to Chinese and Russian influence”.

Also, it said the UK should work toward reducing the region’s economic dependence on Russia “in the medium- to long-term”.

It recommended cooperation in education and expansion of the Migrant Workers’ Scheme for Central Asians.

The report noted that in its efforts to expand ties with Central Asia, the UK government should bear in mind that the countries’ political elites’ main goals were to remain in power, “with implications for illicit finance, human rights, internal and external security, and regional cooperation”.

It also warned that the Central Asian governments fully understood that there was international competition for their cooperation.

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