New guest workers are coming to the cotton and rice fields of southern Tajikistan, and they are already sowing seeds of discontent.
Locals are outraged at the prospect of Chinese farmers arriving to work Tajik land, following Dushanbe's decision this week to lease out 2,000 hectares of land to the Uyghur Autonomous Region in western China.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has continued to refer to its neighboring countries – the former Soviet republics and, at times, other Eastern European countries formerly under Soviet influences – as the “near abroad.” The term, a literal translation of the Russian blizhnee zarubezh’ye, implies a special relationship with Russia, though the kind of special has varied by speci
Central Asia has been famous for its bazaars for centuries, but in recent years they have undergone radical changes. Cheap Chinese goods have been flooding into Central Asia, as Beijing’s trade surges with its neighbors to the West.
Abduljali Karimov runs a fruit stand in Hushyori, a village 45 kilometers north of Dushanbe, on the main road to Tajikistan’s second largest city, Khujand. In April, a new neighbor moved in next door: a tollbooth. Since then, he says prices in his mountainous hamlet have been on the rise.
As they ponder ways to develop Mongolia’s abundant natural resources, political leaders in Ulaanbaatar are opting for more expensive infrastructure options in order to bolster the country’s sovereignty.
Kyrgyzstan is paying a severe economic price for its political instability. The Central Asian country is suffering from a de facto trade embargo, as neighboring states, including China, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, are keeping their respective borders closed.
