While much of the global conversation around China focuses on its rise through the Belt and Road Initiative and new security partnerships, Beijing’s expanding presence in Central Asia has been met with persistent local resistance—from grassroots protests to elite pushback. This webinar will explore how China’s power projection is not a one-way street, but a negotiated and contested process shaped by local actors, political frictions, and regional complexity. It will also discuss the ways that China’s rise in the region is reshaping Central Asia’s economic and security architecture and its relations with Russia, the United States, the European Union and Turkey.
Key questions include:
- What does China want in Central Asia?
- How and why has China’s rising role generated local pushback, and how has Beijing adapted its approaches in the context of this backlash?
- How are Central Asian governments managing to balance China’s growing role in the region with their relations with other major global actors? Is China’s growing security footprint in Central Asia a current or potential source of friction for Beijing’s relations with Russia?
- Is the recent attention paid to Central Asia by the Trump administration likely to bear actual fruit?
