With Central Asia rising, John Lee’s visit was well timed

AI Summary

Central Asia, comprising Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan, is pivotal in China's Belt and Road Initiative, described as an 'inadvertent empire' by analysts. John Lee’s recent visit highlights this region's growing geopolitical importance.

In their 2022 book Sinostan, Raffaello Pantucci and Alexandros Petersen saw Central Asia as China’s “inadvertent empire”. If that is true – and the five-country region embracing Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan (informally called the C5) certainly sits at the heart of China’s Belt and Road Initiative – then Beijing could not have chosen a less noticed corner of the world atlas. Unnoticed, perhaps, by almost everyone except Halford Mackinder, who in 1904 described...