New geopolitical role of central Asia within foreign policy interests of world powers

Abstract

As a result of the fall of the Soviet Union, the leading global and regional players have started their occupation of the geopolitical and geo-economical vacuum in Central Asia. This article is targeted to trace the competition growth with regard to establishment of control over the Central Asian region by global players, in particular, by Russia, seeking to return Central Asia, and China, striving to entangle the region into its orbit of influence. Within two post-Soviet decades, the world players still have not managed to develop a general cooperation scheme against each other in Central Asia. Although, at the beginning of the XXI century, Russia and China attempted to build up a scheme of the Russian-Chinese-Central Asian cooperation within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, however this scheme cannot be called effective due to the absence of common vision of long-term interests in Russia, China and Central Asian countries. As it seems, even at very short by historical standards period of time, after the fall of the Soviet Union we observe clear interests in the Central Asian’s policies of Russia and China.