Today, the countries of Central Asia are developing equal relations with all subjects of international relations on the basis of national interests. At the same time, the region, which has taken advantage of the formation of a new world order, will try to play a more important role in the modern system of international relations. Central Asia strives to become a new driver of the growing multipolarity of the modern world order, writes Valdai Club expert Rustam Khaydarov.
The Central Asia region, due to its geographical location, has always been involved in geopolitical and geo-economic processes in Eurasia. With the beginning of Russia’s Special Military Operation and the collapse of the unipolar world, the importance of Central Asia for world politics and economics has increased many-fold.
Now in Eurasia and, in particular, in Central Eurasia, new geopolitical and geo-economic processes, directly related to the formation of a multipolar world, are emerging.
In Central Asia today, three poles of world politics and economics come into contact. These poles are centred on Russia, China and the United States. The collective West and its leader, the US, initiated or at least supports the policy of confrontation with Russia and China, which ultimately provoked today’s multi-level political, economic and financial crisis around the globe.
The year 2022 changed the geopolitical landscape of the world, dismantled the unipolar world, devalued the foundations of international law, and drove relations between the collective West and the collective Non-West towards a new Cold War. The military conflict in Eastern Europe has turned into a proxy war of the collective West against the Russian Federation. Moreover, the degree of confrontation in Eastern Europe is rising.
The collective West today is persistently trying to involve Central Asia in the process of confrontation between the West and Russia. It is demanding that the countries of the region make a choice between the opposing sides. The United States has already begun to speak with the countries of Central Asia in the language of threats and ultimatums. American emissaries visited the countries of our region in April 2023 with a whole package of warnings and threats. At the same time, representatives of the US State Department were accompanied by US financial intelligence officers and the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Therefore, today Central Asian media are discussing the economic and political sanctions, which the collective West intends to impose against the countries of our region if we do not break all ties with Russia.
At present, we see that the ruling elites of the collective West are not going to acknowledge the loss of their dominant position in the world economy or in world politics. Therefore, they will try to destabilise other regions of the world. Now the collective West holds the South Caucasus and Central Asia at gunpoint. Our region and our allies, Russia and China, must be prepared for various military-political scenarios.
I would like to note that the United States and the European Union have not yet changed their biased, stereotypical attitude towards the countries of Central Eurasia and have interpreted our region as a “jungle of the modern world.” Meanwhile, the global East and South are already tired of the Western interpretation of world history and the American-centric assessment of modern processes.
For the United States and its allies, our region is only important, in our opinion, as a springboard for confrontation with Russia and China, as they firmly follow the precepts of their ideological and geopolitical guidelines. In their writings, the architects of US foreign policy, such as Brzezinski, have always considered the post-Soviet space as a source of enrichment for the West, as American lebensraum, as a goal for the cultural expansion of the West. For example, according to Brzezinski’s conclusions, the United States cannot feel safe until it establishes full control over the central part of Eurasia, that is, over Central Asia.
Therefore, in 2022 the United States provoked global disorder in the modern world. This is also due to the fact that, according to Henry Kissinger, the United States believes in its exclusivity. In his book On China, he writes that American exceptionalism is missionary in nature. It is believed that the United States is motivated by the duty to spread its values to all parts of the planet. As modern history shows, the dissemination of these values occurs in a violent way. Unlike the United States, Russia and Central Asia talk about the unity and friendship of the peoples of Eurasia, about respect for the original cultures of the peoples of Eurasia, about collective responsibility for the fate of our continent, and about the right of sovereign states to their own, national way of life. The countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America are in solidarity with Russia and Central Asia on this issue, since they do not want a repetition of the fate of Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and Syria. The Muslim countries and Orthodox Christians of Eurasia will never agree to a gender-neutral interpretation of the scriptures and will never accept the American gender-neutral interpretation of the image of God as a new value in American society.