Central Asia the Caucasus

CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition VolumeISSN 1404-609121 Issue 4 ( Print2020) ISSN 2002-3839 (Online) CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition

Journal of Social and Political Studies

Volume 21 Issue 4 2020

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1 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition

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E d i t o r s

Murad ESENOV Editor-in-Chief Tel./fax: (46) 70 232 16 55; E-mail: [email protected] Kalamkas represents the journal in Kazakhstan (Nur-Sultan) YESSIMOVA Tel./fax: (7 - 701) 7408600; E-mail: [email protected] Ainura represents the journal in Kyrgyzstan (Bishkek) ELEBAEVA Tel./fax: (996 - 312) 61 30 36; E-mail: [email protected] Saodat OLIMOVA represents the journal in Tajikistan (Dushanbe) Tel.: (992 372) 21 89 95; E-mail: [email protected] Farkhad represents the journal in Uzbekistan (Tashkent) TOLIPOV Tel.: (9987 - 1) 225 43 22; E-mail: [email protected] Kenan represents the journal in Azerbaijan (Baku) ALLAHVERDIEV Tel.: (+994 - 50) 325 10 50; E-mail: [email protected] David represents the journal in Armenia (Erevan) PETROSYAN Tel.: (374 - 10) 56 88 10; E-mail: [email protected] Vakhtang represents the journal in Georgia (Tbilisi) CHARAIA Тел.: +995 593 13 18 11; E-mail: [email protected] Vladimir MESAMED represents the journal in the Middle East (Jerusalem) Tel.: (972 - 2) 5882332; E-mail: [email protected] Sun ZHUANGZHI represents the journal in China (Beijing) Tel.: (86) 10-64039088; E-mail: [email protected] Irina EGOROVA represents the journal in the Russian Federation (Moscow) Tel.: (7 - 495) 3163146; E-mail: [email protected] Rustem represents the journal in Ukraine (Kiev) ZHANGUZHIN Tel.: (380 - 44) 524-79-13; E-mail: [email protected]

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E D I T O R I A L B O A R D

Vakhit AKAEV Chief Researcher, Ibragimov Integrated Research Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, D.Sc. (Philosophy), Professor, Member of the Academy of Sciences of the Chechen Republic, Honored Scientist of the Chechen Republic, Expert of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Russia) Mariam ARUNOVA Ph.D. (History), leading research associate, Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences (Russia) Svante E. CORNELL Professor, Research Director, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, Silk Road Studies Program, Johns Hopkins University-SAIS (U.S.A.) Jannatkhan Ph.D. (Political Science), Associate Professor, Department of International Relations EYVAZOV at Azerbaijan Tourism and Management University (Azerbaijan) William FIERMAN D.Sc. (Political Science), Professor of Indiana University (U.S.A.) Sergey GRETSKY Doctor, Chair of Central Asian Studies, Foreign Service Institute, U.S. Department of State (U.S.A.) Xing GUANGCHENG D.Sc. (Political Science), Professor, Deputy Director of the Institute for East European, Russian and Central Asian Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (China) Alexander President, Institute of Religion and Politics, Doctor of Philosophy, specialist in Islamic studies, leading expert of IGNATENKO the Institute of Social Systems, Moscow State University, member of the Council for Cooperation with Religious Associations under the Russian Federation President (Russia) Ashurboi IMOMOV Ph.D. (Law), Assistant Professor, Head of the Department of Constitutional Law, Tajik National University (Tajikistan) Stephen F. JONES Professor, Russian and Eurasian Studies, Mount Holyoke College (U.S.A.) Lena JONSON Doctor, senior researcher, Swedish Institute of International Affairs (Sweden) Klara KHAFIZOVA D.Sc. (History), Director, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Professor at the International Relations and Foreign Policy Department, Kainar University (Kazakhstan) Zaynidin D.Sc. (History), Professor, Head of the Chair of International Relations, the Kyrgyz-Russian University KURMANOV (Kyrgyzstan) Jacob M. LANDAU Professor of Political Science, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel) Alexei D.Sc. (History), Professor, Scholar-in-Residence, Ethnicity and Nation-Building Program Co-Chair, The Carnegie MALASHENKO Moscow Center (Russia) Abbas MALEKI Doctor, Director General, International Institute for Caspian Studies (Iran) Roger N. Research Associate, the Institute of Middle East, Central Asia and Caucasus Studies (MECACS), University of McDERMOTT St. Andrews, Scotland (Great Britain) Vitaly NAUMKIN D.Sc. (History), Professor, Director, Center for Strategic and International Studies of RF (Russia) Yerengaip OMAROV Professor, Rector of Kainar University, President of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Republic of Kazakhstan (Kazakhstan) Vladimer PAPAVA D.Sc. (Economy), Professor, Faculty of Economics and Business, Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, Member of the Georgian National Academy of Sciences (Georgia) Vladimir PARAMONOV Ph.D., Founder & Director of the Central Eurasia Analytical Group and Internet Project (Uzbekistan) Mirzokhid D.Sc. (History), Professor, Head of the Contemporary History and International Relations Department, RAKHIMOV Institute of History, Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan (Uzbekistan) S. Frederick STARR Professor, Chairman, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, The Johns Hopkins University (U.S.A.) James V. WERTSCH Professor, Director of the International and Regional Studies Program, Washington University in St. Louis (U.S.A.)

The materials that appear in the journal do not necessarily reflect the Editorial Board and the Editors’ opinion

EDITORIAL OFFICE: CA&C Press AB, Hubertusstigen 9. 97455 Luleå, SWEDEN WEB ADDRESS: http://www.ca-c.org © Central Asia and the Caucasus, English Edition, 2020 © CA&C Press AB, 2020

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CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Journal of Social and Political Studies

Volume 21 Issue 4 2020

IN THIS ISSUE:

REGIONAL POLICY

Assima Aubakir. NEW EU STRATEGY FOR CENTRAL ASIA: HISTORY, VISION, PROSPECTS...... 7

Ahmet Berdiyev, THE IMPORTANCE OF CENTRAL ASIA Nurettin Can. IN CHINA’S FOREIGN POLICY AND BEIJING’S SOFT POWER INSTRUMENTS...... 15

Ali Salgiriev, Vakha Gaziev, INFORMATION THREATS Magomed Soltamuradov, TO THE STABILITY OF POLITICAL SYSTEM Sultan Galbatsov. IN THE NORTHERN CAUCASUS...... 25

Botakoz Shakeyeva, Mukhtarbek Shaikemelev, TRIBALISM IN KAZAKHSTAN: Nurken Aitymbetov. TRADITION REBORN OR SOCIAL INSTRUMENT...... 33

Mirzokhid Rakhimov, STATE BORDER ISSUES Sadriddin Rakhimov. IN THE MODERN HISTORY OF UZBEKISTAN...... 42

Usmon Butaev. ISSUES OF CONTINUITY AND A NEW COURSE IN UZBEKISTAN’S POLITICAL PROCESS...... 52

COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Sergey Zhiltsov. COVID-19: NEW CHALLENGES FOR CENTRAL ASIA...... 60

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Feruz Bafoev. AFGHANISTAN DURING THE PANDEMIC ERA: DIFFICULTIES, ACHIEVEMENTS, PROSPECTS...... 71

REGIONAL ECONOMY

Marina Khramova, Sergey Ryazantsev, THE IMPACT OF REMITTANCES FROM ABROAD Abubakr Rakhmonov, ON SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT Osim Kasymov. IN TAJIKISTAN...... 79

Sergey Ryazantsev, LABOR FORCE RECRUITMENT TO THE OECD AND Abubakr Rakhmonov. MIDDLE EASTERN COUNTRIES IN THE REPUBLIC OF TAJIKISTAN: TRENDS, MECHANISMS, CONSEQUENCES...... 96

RELIGION IN SOCIETY

Dinara Aytzhanova, ISAF WITHDRAWAL AND AN UPSURGE OF Daniyar Aytzhanov. RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM IN AFGHANISTAN...... 112

Kalimash Begalinova, RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM IN KAZAKHSTAN: Madina Ashilova, THREATS OF SPREADING AND Alibek Begalinov. MEANS OF OPPOSITION...... 124

Aliya Nysanbayeva. SOCIAL ASPECTS OF YOUTH RELIGIOUS CULTURE AS A FACTOR OF SOCIAL STABILITY IN KAZAKHSTAN AND RUSSIA: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS...... 131

ETHNIC RELATIONS AND MIGRATION

Kargash Zhanpeisova, Gulnaz Kaliaskarova, BRAIN DRAIN FROM THE REPUBLIC OF Bagysh Gabdulina, KAZAKHSTAN AS ANALYZED Manshuk Mukasheva. BY POLITICAL SCIENTISTS...... 142

Contents of the Central Asia and the Caucasus Issues English Edition. Volume 21, 2020 ...... 153

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FOR YOUR INFORMATION

The Special Feature section in the next three issues will discuss:

 Eurasia: Politics Today

 Eurasia: Energy Policy and Energy Projects

 China’s Infrastructure Projects in the Black Sea-Caspian Region

Contributors please use the following guidelines: — all articles accepted are published in Russian and English, in the Russian-language and English-language versions of the journal, respectively. The articles must be submitted to the editorial staff in Russian or English. The editorial board has its team of translators whose services are paid by the authors; translations done by the authors independently or with the help of other translators will not be accepted; — begin articles with a brief abstract of 300-500 words and keywords; — articles should be no less than 3,000 and no more than 6,000 words, including footnotes; — footnotes should be placed at the bottom of each page; if there are references to Internet resources, please give the author’s name, the name of the document, the website address, and the date it was made available, for example, available 2007-04-19; — quotations, names of authors and other information from English-language sources should be duplicated in brackets in the original language, that is, in English; — the article should be divided into sections, including an introduction and conclusion; — the author should include the following personal information: first name, last name, academic degree, place of work, position, city, country.

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REGIONAL POLICY

NEW EU STRATEGY FOR CENTRAL ASIA: HISTORY, VISION, PROSPECTS

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37178/ca-c.20.4.01

Assima AUBAKIR Ph.D. student, Academy of Public Administration under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan (Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan)

ABSTRACT

oday, the Central Asian region is once 2019. The revision of the strategy is slated again becoming a point of attraction to allow the EU to strengthen its cooperation T for the interests of the international with the Central Asian countries, highlight community—in geopolitical, as well as in the most effective projects, and revise those trade and economic terms. The interests of aspects of interaction that did not bring the major world powers intersect here, and each desired results. has its own approach to establishing relations Currently, there is an intensification of with the regional countries. The European intra-regional cooperation in Central Asia; Union, which never considered this region a there are positive trends in the development geopolitical priority, has been implementing of dialog on important issues of the regional its own Central Asia Strategy since 2007. agenda. For this reason, the approaches In July 2017, the Council of the Euro- and tools of European diplomacy in the im- pean Union decided to completely revise the plementation of its policy in Central Asia are Strategy based on new realities, as well as expected to undergo significant adjustments the ambitions and priorities of the regional as the Strategy is updated. The subject of states in their relations with the EU. A new this article is precisely this transit period in strategy for relations between the European the relations between the European Union Union and Central Asia was adopted in June and Central Asia.

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KEYWORDS: European Union, Central Asia, new EU Strategy for Central Asia, cooperation, interaction, Partnership for Resilience, Partnership for Prosperity, European Green Deal.

Introduction

Throughout practically the entire human history, Central Asia served as a kind of bridge for the Eastern and Western civilizations, through which the most important strategic resources were redis- tributed between them. In the Middle Ages, these were silk, spices and porcelain, in recent times—oil, gas and other mineral resources. Moreover, Central Asia has always been the key to both trade and military routes. Britain’s fears that Russia’s advance into Central Asia in the 19th century was merely groundwork for its invasion of India, ‘the pearl of the British crown,’ led to the famous Great Game, which continued in the region for over a century. However, elements of the Great Game existed in Central Asia long before the 19th century: they manifested in the region’s historical and geopolitical multi-vector nature. Due to the various historical influences, a distinct, rigid, well-established historical and social structure has not developed in Cen- tral Asia. Meanwhile, since the time of Halford Mackinder, traditional geopolitical theories attempted to explain this phenomenon by linking the struggle for Central Asia with the struggle for world domination in general.1 The consequence of the Great Game of the 19th-early 20th centuries was the joining of the Cen- tral Asian states, first, to the Russian Empire, and then their inclusion in the Soviet Union. In fact, this development took the region out of the Western world’s zone of influence for more than seventy years. The collapse of the U.S.S.R. and the emergence of five new independent states in Central Asia presented global players with a new chance to gain a foothold in a mineral resource-rich region that occupied a strategic position in close proximity to Russia and China, a power on the rise. Neverthe- less, the interests of the United States and large European countries in Central Asia were initially focused for the most part on the economic issues—American and European companies began to surface in the region, focusing their activities on the extraction of energy resources.

The Transformation of Priorities of the EU Foreign Policy in the Central Asia Region

Everything was transformed in the early 2000s after the terrorist attacks in the United States and their invasion of Afghanistan. Central Asia had to play an essential role in the military actions as an important transport hub for the movement of weapons and cargo. At the same time, the European Union, as a single geopolitical actor, barely manifested itself in the region until the end of the 2000s. At the time of the collapse of the U.S.S.R., the EU was focused

1 See: A.A. Kazantsev, “‘Bolshaia igra’ v Tsentralnoy Azii: vchera, segodnia, zavtra,” available at [http://www.perspektivy.info/oykumena/azia/bolshaja_igra_v_centralnoj_azii_vchera_segodna_zavtra_2009-09-30.htm].

8 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 on internal reforms—it was establishing itself as an independent subject of international relations. Then the period of EU expansion started, as the Eastern European countries and the Baltic states began to join the union. Along with a significant number of domestic and foreign policy problems that required the focused attention of Brussels, this region was not considered as a top priority. Thus, Central Asia has been on the periphery of the European Union’s foreign policy interests for an extended period. EU cooperation with the regional states was conducted in the “background,” based on partnership and cooperation agreements signed in the mid-1990s. Due to geopolitical factors, the European Union did not, and still does not, claim the role of a key player in Central Asia. Nevertheless, it always attempted to maintain its presence here and to promote its interests, while adapting to the ongoing local changes. In May 2007, the European Union’s Strategy for Central Asia was adopted, which served as the EU’s key program document that regulated the main directions of interregional cooperation for 12 subsequent years.2 It is crucial to note that Germany, the largest EU economy, played the most significant role in the promotion and adoption of this document. It is under the leadership of the German Foreign Minister F.-V. Steinmeier, while Germany presided over the EU Council in 2007 that the Strategy was adopted. Having received a mandate from the European Council to develop the EU Strategy, the German Foreign Minister was the first European foreign minister to make a five-day tour of Central Asian countries, identifying the maintenance of these countries in a “peaceful, stable, prosperous” state as the main foreign policy priority in the region. At the same time, he also openly announced his intention to “diversify transport routes and energy producing countries.”3 This visit undoubtedly contributed to the reassessment of both the German positions in Central Asia and the affirmation of the -im portance of the European Union in its overall Strategy for Central Asia. At the same time, ten years of the implementation of the Strategy have demonstrated its insufficient reflection of modern reality and inability to effectively serve as a guideline for the interaction between the parties. In June 2017, the EU Foreign Affairs Council came up with a proposal to prepare a completely new strategic document that would reflect the modern vision of cooperation between the two regions, as well as factor in the current geopolitical realities, changing needs and new capabilities of the Cen- tral Asian countries.4 Although this process was an internal EU assessment of its Central Asia Strategy, it is crucial that this time many other stakeholders were actively involved—from the Central Asian states to research centers and civil society. The need to revise the European Union’s strategy is explained by the cardinally changed geopolitical context in the world.  First, Central Asia itself has changed. The regional states have become more self-sufficient and economically developed. Two countries—Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, were moved to the category of countries with average income level in accordance with the World Bank’s classification, which excluded them from bilateral EU assistance programs. The change of power in Uzbekistan has significantly intensified and improved regional cooperation, providing new opportunities both to Central Asian countries and non-regional players.

2 See: “The EU and Central Asia: Strategy for a New Partnership,” 31 May, 2007, available at [https://eeas.europa.eu/ sites/eeas/files/st_10113_2007_init_en.pdf], 9 April, 2020. 3 “Strategiia ES v otnoshenii gosudarstv CA na 2007-2013 gody mozhet byt priniata v iiune,” Kazakhstan Today, 28 March, 2007, available at [https://www.kt.kz/rus/politics/strategija_es_v_otnoshenii_gosudarstv_ca_na_2007_2013_godi_ mozhet_bitj_prinjata_v_ijune_1153411881.html], 9 April, 2020. 4 See: Council Conclusions on the EU Strategy for Central Asia, 19 June, 2017, available at [https://www.consilium. europa.eu/media/23991/st10387en17-conclusions-on-the-eu-strategy-for-central-asia.pdf], 9 April, 2020.

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 Secondly, Russia and China, Central Asia’s immediate neighbors, have become much more active in the region. The creation of the Eurasian Economic Union and the promotion of the Belt and Road Initiative is forcing the EU to search for new formats of interaction within the framework of these projects.  Thirdly, the situation in the European Union (the migration crisis, the difficult economic situation in a number of member states, Brexit) and along its borders (the conflict in Ukraine, the confrontation with Russia, strained relations with the new U.S. administration) requires the EU to reconsider its foreign policy priorities. At the same time, the relatively stable Central Asia is seen as a rather convenient partner for demonstrating the viability of the foreign policy course taken by Brussels diplomacy.

New European Union’s Strategy for Central Asia: Goals, Priorities, Prospects

On 15 May, 2019, after two years of work, the European Commission and the EU High Represen- tative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy presented to the EU Council a Joint Communication “European Union and Central Asia: New Opportunities for a Stronger Partnership,”5 which de facto became the new EU Strategy for Central Asia. This Joint Communication entered into force on 17 June, 2019, following the adoption of the relevant conclusions of the EU Council.6 The Joint Communication is a 16-page conceptual document that reflects the modern vision of interaction between the two regions, and accounts for the current geopolitical realities, changing needs and new capabilities of the Central Asian countries. In contrast with the 2007 Strategy, the European Union deliberately abandoned the formation of any specific thematic platforms in its new policy document. This is due to the desire to endow the new document with maximum flexibility, as well as to maintain its long-term relevance. At the same time, the 2019 EU Strategy (hereinafter referred to as the Strategy) is essentially a reissue, albeit much more detailed, of the previous document, in which the key ideas remain unchanged. They include interconnectedness and sustainable, comprehensive and rule-based initiatives. According to the developers of the Strategy, the mutual relations of the Central Asian countries, as well as the level of their cooperation with the European Union, especially in recent years, have reached a qualitatively new level. In this regard, the new EU programmed document aims to use the opportunities arising from this positive dynamic. As a priority goal in Central Asia, the European Union defines Partnership for Resilience, which envisages “the Central Asian states’ increasing ability to overcome various internal and external challenges, as well as to successfully carry out reforms.” The EU intends to cooperate with the regional countries in solving problems that affect their socio-economic development, as well as in promoting reforms. Promotion of democracy, human rights, the rule of law and gender equality are traditionally prioritized on this path. Security cooperation will also continue, including promotion of effective border management, migration, fight against illegal drug trafficking, counteraction of violent extremism and -ter

5 Joint Communication to the European Parliament and the Council “The EU and Central Asia: New Opportunities for a Stronger Partnership”, 15 May, 2019, available at [https://eeas.europa.eu/sites/eeas/files/joint_communication_-_the_eu_ and_central_asia_-_new_opportunities_for_a_stronger_partnership.pdf], 9 April, 2020. 6 See: Council Conclusions on the New EU Strategy on Central Asia, 17 June, 2019, available at [https://www.consilium. europa.eu/media/39778/st10221-en19.pdf], 9 April, 2020.

10 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 rorism, cyber security, disarmament and non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, hybrid threats, etc. The EU also intends to intensify cooperation in the environmental sphere, which comprises the efficient management of water resources, the introduction of green economy principles and renewable energy sources. The second goal of the EU is the Partnership for Prosperity, which refers to the modernization of the regional countries’ economies, the development of their sustainable interconnection with each other and the neighboring regions, as well as investment in the younger generation. It also entails the development of a competitive private sector, creation of a healthy investment environment, enhancement of mutual trade and trade with the EU countries by stimulating dialog between business circles, transport, energy and digital connectivity, relationships between people, interregional and intraregional cooperation in the field of education. Thus, most of the priority areas of the updated EU strategy have not undergone significant changes. When developing a strategy, the EU was not tasked with complete revision of its Central Asian policy, rather, it aimed to supplement it with the needed elements (means and instruments), while retaining the underlying concept of relations. At the same time, the European Union declares its intention to take into account the specifics and interests of each Central Asian state, primarily striving to further interaction with the countries that are willing and able to intensify their relations with Europe. A significant innovation in the Strategy is the EU’s emphasis on developing connectivity between Europe and Central Asia. The European partners declare that regional cooperation should enable the Central Asian countries to better manage their interdependence, eliminate vulnerabilities, solve common problems, realize the potential for economic growth and, as a result, strengthen their positions in the international arena, while preserving their independence and identity. On the other hand, the European Union is trying to improve its ties with the countries of East and South Asia through Central Asia, which fits into another Brussels strategy—the EU Strategy for Connectivity in Central Asia,7 published on the eve of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) summit in September 2018. It aimed to create sustainable transport routes, or, as some experts believe, was the EU’s response to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Adherence to market principles, guarantees of transparency and international standards should be the features that distinguish the EU from China in this case.

New EU Strategy for Central Asia: Implementation Mechanisms

The tool array delineated in the Strategy requires a separate note, and the key tools are the corresponding regional and bilateral programs financed within the 7-year EU budget cycles. For the current period (2014-2020), the EU-CA cooperation budget approximated 1.1 billion euros,8 which is over 62% in excess of the funds allocated in 2007-2013.

7 [https://eeas.europa.eu/sites/eeas/files/joint_communication_-_connecting_europe_and_asia_-_building_blocks_for_ an_eu_strategy_2018-09-19.pdf], 21 April, 2020. 8 See: “EU Builds a Strong and Modern Partnership with Central Asia (factsheet),” available at [https://eeas.europa.eu/ sites/eeas/files/factsheet_centralasia_2019.pdf], 9 April, 2020.

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Thus, the CA region is the third largest recipient of EU assistance after the countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (30.5 billion euros) and the European Partnership countries (15.4 billion euros), which also makes the EU one of the largest donors of international assistance for the CA region. About a third of the funds allocated for Central Asia are provided for the implementation of regional projects with the simultaneous participation of two or more Central Asian countries. The remaining two-thirds are split between bilateral projects with Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The strategy is being implemented through the respective regional and bilateral Development Cooperation Instrument (DCI) programs. To maximize the efficient and widespread use of limited financial resources, instead of providing grants for expensive projects (i.e., infrastructure development), the EU seeks to support relatively low-cost projects with significant practical benefits. In addition to the DCI grant mechanism, support is provided in the form of loans from the Eu- ropean Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the European Investment Bank, which have already invested about 11 billion euros in the region. The third option is the combination of grant aid and loan funds. The corresponding EU Invest- ment Facility for Central Asia (IFCA) is universally applicable and can be used to reduce the amount of capital that partner countries must raise to implement a project in Central Asia. Between 2010 and 2016, the CA countries received more than 1 billion euros in the same “combined” format, of which 143 million euros were grant aid (25 projects), and 970 million euros were loans.9 Simultaneously with the work on the new Strategy, the European side is developing a new instrument of cooperation, which will endow the European Commission with greater flexibility in planning its program activities, as well as restore the right to implement bilateral development programs in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. A formal presentation of this tool is anticipated after the adoption of the 7-year EU budget, and its application is expected to begin within the 2021-2027 EU program cycle. The EU also intends to mobilize all of its existing instruments (bilateral and regional grant programs for development, lending from the European Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, mixed mechanisms, as well as global programs) for the effective implementation of the Strategy. The strategy also provides for the creation of new cooperation formats at different levels. In addition to the current annual conferences of EU-CA foreign ministers and EU-CA high-level dialogs on politics and security, the number of mutual high-level visits is slated to increase and the informal ministerial meetings on the sidelines of international organizations will become more frequent. The European Union is also considering the possibility of establishing the EU-Central Asia Forum, an informal platform for closer interaction between civil societies, think tanks and business. This is supposed to allow the parties to further institutionalize the existing interaction and make cooperation in certain spheres permanent. In general, the Strategy reflects the proposals of the CA countries expressed during the EU-CA ministerial meeting in Brussels in November 2018. For instance, it includes the possibility of implementing trilateral projects in the EU-CA-Afghanistan format, holding working meetings between meetings of Ministerial Conferences and High-Level Dialogs, as well as the virtual institutionalization of EU-CA cooperation through the creation of a corresponding online portal.10

9 See: IFCA Investment Facility for Central Asia, 2016, Operational Report, available at [https://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/ regions/central-asia/investment-facility-central-asia-ifca_en], 9 April, 2020. 10 See: Joint Communiqué: European Union-Central Asia Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, Brussels, 23 November, 2018, available at [https://eeas.europa.eu/headquarters/headquarters-homepage/54354/joint-communiqu%C3%A9-european-union- %E2%80%93-central-asia-foreign-ministers-meeting-brussels-23-november_en], 9 April, 2020.

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Another important area of interaction within the framework of the Strategy may be the involvement of the Central Asian countries in the European Green Deal, launched in December 2019 at the EU initiative, according to which the European Union is committed to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. According to European functionaries, a balance will be achieved between the emission volumes and absorption of greenhouse gases by 2050 through fundamental transformations of economic systems and society via the development of a modern, resource-efficient and competitive economy. At the same time, Europe cannot cope with this task alone; close cooperation with international partners is required. In this regard, the EU recognizes the growth potential of the CA countries and states that it comprehends the significant challenges they are facing in their work to improve the resilience of their economies.11 By the end of 2020, the European Union expects to launch a new environmental project called Green Central Asia, which was initiated by Germany and announced in January of the same year.12 This initiative aims to establish greater access to information and promote academic collaboration between the participating countries over the next four years. According to the Head of European Diplomacy Josep Borrell, the fight against climate change is the highest priority for the EU’s partnership with the countries of Central Asia, since the region has been particularly hard hit by this problem. It is emphasized that over the past three decades, the average annual temperatures in the region have already increased by 0.5 degrees Celsius, and the functioning of entire ecosystems has been disrupted due to droughts and lack of water. The disappearance of the Aral Sea is considered a clear illustration of the negative consequences of climate change. In this case, the problem does not merely concern environment, it also represents a disaster for entire communities living on its former banks. He noted that the EU, unlike some other partners of the Central Asian countries, can offer a truly regional and cross-border approach to solving problems in Central Asia. Having accumulated rich experience in this area, the EU is ready to share it.13 The countries of the region, in turn, are interested in the efficient and rational use of shared water resources using the best available water-saving technologies, adaptation to climate change to minimize climate risks, the development of target and statistical indicators, monitoring and analysis tools needed to assess climate risks. Work in this sphere is currently being carried out by the European Union within the framework of the EU-CA Platform for Cooperation in the Field of Environment and Water Resources and its

11 See: Dialog ES-Tsentralnaia Azia po voprosam politiki v oblasti okhrany okruzhaiushchey sredy i izmeneniia klimata: v tsentre vnimaniia—ekonomika zamknutogo tsikla, available at [https://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/kazakhstan/74589/ node/74589_ru], 21 April, 2020. 12 See: “ES zapustit v Tsentralnoy Azii novyy krupnyy ekologicheskiy proekt—Borrel,” available at [https://www. swissinfo.ch/rus/ес-запустит-в-центральной-азии-новый-крупный-экологический-проект---боррель/45523610], 9 April, 2020. 13 See: “ES i Tsentralnaia Azia: novye vozmozhnosti dlia sovmestnoy raboty nad zelenym budushchim,” 27 January, 2020, available at [http://www.newscentralasia.net/2020/01/27/the-eu-and-central-asia-new-opportunities-to-work-together- for-a-green-future-ru/], 9 April, 2020.

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Working Group on Environment and Climate Change (WGECC), which are supported by the EU- funded project on cooperation in the sphere of water resources and the environment (WECOOP).14 In addition, in 2019, the European Union once again15 became one of the financing partners for the Central Asia Water and Energy Program (CAWEP, renamed in 2019), implemented by the World Bank through a multi-donor trust fund.

Conclusion

Despite all the positive aspects of the new Strategy, the effect of its implementation has yet to be assessed. Meanwhile, it is already clear that the listing of many priority areas in one document raises the question of whether the EU has sufficient resources to resolve them all completely. The practical applicability of this document will be determined more clearly only after the start of a new program cycle and an analysis of the programs that will be implemented in it. It should also be emphasized that, despite the EU’s initially declared desire to combine its actions in the region with the initiatives of other states and international organizations present there, the Strategy does not clearly define the parameters of such interaction. This fact forces us to assume that at this stage Brussels is still not ready for an open dialog with Moscow and Beijing, preferring to conduct its policy in Central Asia completely autonomously. Thus, in its new Strategy, the European Union, on the one hand, reaffirmed the importance of the comprehensive development of cooperation with the Central Asian states and the region as a whole, confirming its general intentions to promote its sustainable development and outlining the priority areas of interaction at the interregional level. The framework document will allow the Euro- pean Union to adapt its policies within the framework of more specific development programs and other initiatives. On the other hand, a clear distinction needs to be made between the policies and interests of the European Union itself and the policies and interests of its member states. The strategy sets the general tone of cooperation for the member countries and does not provide specific guidelines for promoting their interests in the region. Moreover, it is the economic interests of the EU countries that create a counterbalance to the Russian and Chinese presence in the CA region. At the same time, it is apparent that the European Union should consider and demonstrate its cooperation with Central Asia as a benchmark, applying the accumulated experience in other regions, and presenting the achieved results to the international community as proof of the effectiveness of European diplomacy. The Central Asian countries, in turn, have significant potential for the development of truly strategically important and mutually beneficial cooperation with the European Union in the context of the entire region’s interests, cooperation that would meet its new needs.

14 [http://kisi.kz/images/izdanie/forum.pdf], 21 April, 2020. 15 The EU allocated 1 million euros within the framework of this program in 2017.

14 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 THE IMPORTANCE OF CENTRAL ASIA IN CHINA’S FOREIGN POLICY AND BEIJING’S SOFT POWER INSTRUMENTS

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37178/ca-c.20.4.02

Ahmet BERDIYEV Ph.D. candidate, Assistant Lecturer, Political Science and International Relations Department, Nile University of Nigeria (Abuja, Nigeria)

Nurettin CAN Professor, Department of Economics, Nile University of Nigeria (Abuja, Nigeria); Research fellow, Department of Economics, Faculty of Business and International Relations, Vistula University (Warsaw, Poland)

ABSTRACT

hroughout history, Central Asia was cure and peaceful climate for its economic seen as a vital region by the great advance, to adjust its vast and growing ener- powers that struggled for the influence gy needs, and to curtail the domination of Tin this region in the past. After the breakdown other powerful actors. Thus, this article offers of the Soviet Union, new independent states an analysis of China’s soft power and its ap- have emerged in Central Asia. This article plication within the Central Asian region in provides an analysis of China’s implementa- pursuit of its foreign policy tasks. The paper tion of foreign policy towards Central Asian aims to solve the following problem: What is states through soft power. China recently im- China’s soft power and how does it use it in plemented the idea of soft power as a crucial the Central Asian states? To address the foreign policy instrument. The study focuses problem, we compare Chinese soft power to on the fact that soft diplomacy can be essen- the policy of other regional actors. The goal is tial in forming an attractive image of China in to study China’s foreign policy in Central Asia, the international arena. Furthermore, it ar- with the purpose of highlighting Chinese po- gues that China’s ambition to become more litical strategy in the region. The article begins authoritative in the region is associated with with the discussion of China’s foreign policy the activation of efforts in its soft power policy. chief aims and objectives to understand the Employment of soft power is entirely deter- meaning of good neighborhood diplomacy, mined by China’s national interests. It is in which forms the basis of China’s soft power China’s national interests to establish a se- diplomacy in Central Asia.

KEYWORDS: soft power, China, Central Asia, Russia.

15 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Introduction

Kenneth Waltz noticed that security is the top priority under conditions of anarchy and power is a means, rather than a goal. Power is generally characterized as the economic and military capacity of a state. Neoliberals place focus on institutions, expertise, and interdependency, which are examined systematically by neo-realists, and heed most attention to financial power to overcome the uncertainty generated by the anarchic structure of the global system. Thus, these theories state that the global system and real power are the reasons for the changing behaviors of the states and dominant soft power sources. These parameters provide an easy explanation of state behavior. For example, interstate treaties may stand as a guarantee or nuclear potential of a state may be considered a reason for a transformation in state behavior.1 In 1990s, Joseph Nye coined the concept of soft power, and this idea was spread widely in global politics. In his book Bound to Lead (1990), he describes two power models: that of coercive hard power and cooperative soft power. Hard power entails “enforcing a certain state to act in your interests.” He clarifies that “compulsion and incentive” are the basic principles of hard power. Mean- while, soft power has the potential to attain a goal through attractiveness rather than coercion and payment.2 According to Utpal Vyas, soft power implies that nation A can employ abstract instruments to engage nation B in cooperation without intimidation or compulsion. Whereas hard power means that nation A uses coercion to compel nation B to act by intimidation or force. Soft power differs from hard power in its origins and methods, and hard power relies more on military capability. The state may rely on a variety of means to force other nations to change their behavior, which constitutes economic and political pressure.3 Soft power can be identified by its “comparative, indefinite, and constrained” influence in -com parison with hard power. It is impossible to calculate the results produced by soft power or its “diver- sified sources” or employ it to fulfill a narrow and very specific purpose. In addition, it is essential to acknowledge that the aims of both soft and hard power may converge, since both pursue the same targets by influencing the behavior and action of certain individuals or nations.4 In contrast, Edward Carr considers power to be an aim, rather than the means in global politics and breaks down it into the following classifications: economic power, military power, and influence over opinions. He argues that states use soft power to exert control over other countries and guarantee their own security by altering others’ behavior. Even though the realist school of international relations centers on material resources like military and economic powers, non-material ideas like human psychology and public opinion are also very relevant. Therefore, widespread propaganda is a weapon nowadays, while public diplomacy efforts are a tool of international publicity. Additionally, the concept of “smart power,” as the combination of soft and hard power, further supports Carr’s ideas of control: in his understanding, non-material power sources are as essential as military and economic power.5

1 See: K.N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, Addison-Wesley, Reading, 1979. 2 See: J. Nye, Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power, Basic Books, New York, 1990. 3 See: U. Vyas, Soft Power in Japan-China Relations: State, Sub-State and Non-State Relations, Routledge, London, 2010. 4 See: Y. Fan, “Soft Power: Power of Attraction Or Confusion?” Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, No. 4 (2), 2008, pp. 147-158. 5 See: E.H. Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis 1919-1939: An Introduction to the Study of International Relations, Macmillan, London, 1946.

16 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 China’s Soft Power Components

In recent years, Beijing has invested considerable efforts in increasing its soft power around the globe to accomplish state goals. These efforts were initiated in 2005 after the former nation leader Hu Jintao set the goal of constructing “a harmonious society” and “a harmonious world.” The harmonious world of Hu Jintao would be defined by multilateral relationships, mutually beneficial cooperation, strong eagerness to construct an environment where civilizations harmoni- ously coexist within the changed political strategies, both in direct interaction and through the United Nations.6 Beijing’s ideas of soft power were further accommodated once Hu Jintao declared his intention to intensify soft power in 2007. This interest in soft power led to a rise in academic research of this phenomenon, including a number of classified works produced by state-affiliated think tanks. -Evi dently, China’s expertise in building coalitions and improving connections with other states is an indicator of China’s increasing impact and technological assistance. The latter supports the receiving countries’ infrastructure development and boosts their economic development.7 Nevertheless, for a number of reasons Beijing’s focus on soft power has intensified greatly in the early 2000s. First of all, China’s economic rise had endowed it with strong reliance on its own economic power in international trade. Next, China accepted that it is vital to promote its relations with the neighboring states. Finally, Beijing understood that employing hard power will not lead to the desired achievements. The capability of the state and its government are essential in employing all of the opportunities afforded by soft power. That is to say, merely possessing soft power is not sufficient to reach the aims and further your intentions, yet the nation’s wish to practice soft power in an integrated manner is critically important.8 Furthermore, culture and language are the instruments employed by China to promote its soft power in the near abroad. Beijing promotes Chinese culture through media outlets and language classes in other countries. In 2004, China launched a policy to establish Confucius Institutes across the world. Over 400 Confucius Institutes have been established in 120 countries, and their number is growing.9 Soon, Chinese leaders realized that in order to become a strong and authoritative nation in Asia, a country is obliged to make the most of both hard and soft power. It is clear that a combination of both allows states to be versatile in their affairs with other nations and maintain global conditions that are favorable to it.10 Employing different types of tools, especially soft power diplomacy, would allow Beijing to achieve its foreign policy goals: enhancing its trade connections with other states and strengthening its positions on the global markets.11

6 See: J. Hu, Build towards a Harmonious World of Lasting Peace and Common Prosperity, Speech delivered the High- Level Plenary Meeting of the United Nations 60th Session, New York, 15 September, 2005, available at [www.un.org/webcast/ summit2005/statements15/china050915eng.pdf], 14 January, 2020. 7 See: W.A. Callahan, “Identity and Security in China: The Negative Soft Power of China’s Dream,” Politics, Vol. 35, No. 3-4, 2015, pp. 216-229. 8 See: J. Gil, “The Promotion of Chinese Language Learning and China’s Soft Power,” Asian Social Science, No. 4 (10), 2008, pp. 116-122. 9 See: F. Hartig, “Cultural Diplomacy with Chinese Characteristics: The Case of Confucius Institutes in Australia,” Communication, Politics & Culture, No. 42 (2), 2012, pp. 256-276. 10 See: G. Chen, J. Chen, X.C.X. Deng, Y. Deng, J. Kurlantzick, Z. Pang, I. Wibowo, L. Zhang, Y. Zhang, S. Zhao, Z. Zhu, Soft Power: China’s Emerging Strategy in International Politics. Lexington Books, 2009, pp. 44-55. 11 See: A. Kuchins, “Chinese Soft Power and its Implication for the United States: Competition and Co-Operation in the Developing World: A Report of the CSIS Smart Power Initiative,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, Wa- shington, DC., 2009, available at [https://www.csis.org/analysis/chinese-soft-power-and-its-implications-united-states], 22 March, 2020.

17 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition

Rapid economic growth made China the second-largest economy in the world, forcing Beijing to extend the employment of its hard and soft power in Asia. Therefore, it is impossible to neglect the fact that besides soft power, China’s enormous economic potential plays a vital role in China’s foreign policy practices. To advance its soft power, Beijing needs increasingly greater financial ability to promote media, cultural and art establishments both within the country and abroad. China has the cards it can play out in development initiatives, state aid and financing all over the world. In the first decade of the 21st century, China achieved mutually beneficial economic integration with over 93 states around the globe.12 Education is yet another fundamental instrument in Beijing’s soft power arsenal. In 2015, about 300,000 foreign students were being educated in Chinese universities, where most of them were learning Chinese. Additionally, China Scholarship Council annually provides about 20,000 grants for foreign students. China has apparent interests in advancing its soft power and furthering its impact on other nations all over the world through promoting its attractive image. Furthermore, Beijing has promised to invest a considerable sum in economic projects that promote its soft power. The investments include $150 billion for projects like the Belt and Road Initiative, the Maritime Silk Road, and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. In addition, China also intends to invest $1,25 trillion worldwide by 2025. This impressive number of initiatives indicates China’s earnest intentions to create an attractive image and achieve the needed results through a positive reaction, gratitude and the desire to cooperate, rather than the traditional compulsion. China’s economic impact is the most reliable tool that promotes its soft power interests, since it can engage other nations by means of involvement in major trade and economic agreements, i.e., granting credits.13 The purpose of China’s Belt and Road Initiative development plan is to construct a trade network and partnership in six important economic hubs, including China, Mongolia, Russia, Pakistan, other countries of the Indian sub-continent, and Indochina. China may assist Asian countries through infrastructure investments in the amount of $26 trillion up to 2030. The BRI’s prime concern is infrastructure and funding. BRI project financing is expected to contribute over $1 trillion of subsidies to foreign infrastructure over the ten-year period starting in 2017.14 According to McKinsey, since 2013, China was one of the most significant commodity traders. China has grown to become the main trade actor both as a funder and as a market. The nation became the biggest global commodity exporter in 2009, and the most prominent commodity hub in 2013. Its share of worldwide commodity trade was 1.9% in 2000, rising to 11.4 % in 2017. An inquiry into 186 countries shows that China had become the biggest exporter for 33 states and the biggest importer for 65 countries. China has become the fifth exporter of services in the world, accounting for $227 billion in exports in 2017, threefold the amount in 2015.15 Furthermore, in 2017, China imported $468 billion in services, becoming the second-biggest service buyer on the planet. Yet, the worldwide level of services trade in China is not as considerable as its goods trade. Universally, however, there is a notable growth in services trade, trade in services

12 See: C. Wolf, X. Wang, E. Warner, China’s Foreign Aid and Government-Sponsored Investment Activities, National Defense Research Institute, 2013. 13 See: D. Shambaugh, “China’s Soft-Power Push,” Foreign Affairs, No. 94, 2015, pp. 99-107. 14 See: “The Belt and Road Initiative in Global Trade, Investment, and Finance Landscape,” in: OECD Business and Finance Outlook 2018, OECD Publishing, Paris, 2018, available at [https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/finance-and-investment/ oecd-business-and-finance-outlook-2018/the-belt-and-road-initiative-in-the-global-trade-investment-and-finance-landscape_ bus_fin_out-2018-6-en#page2]. 15 See: “China and the World: Inside the Dynamics of a Changing Relationship,” McKinsey Global Institute, 2019, available at [https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/featured%20insights/china/china%20and%20the%20world%20 inside%20the%20dynamics%20of%20a%20changing%20relationship/mgi-china-and-the-world-full-report-june-2019-vf. ashx], 20 April, 2020.

18 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 has grown more than 60% faster than goods trade since 2007. China is a significant “exporter” of students who study abroad (17% of foreign students in 2017), and tourists (150 million outbound trips were made in 2018). Currently, China is the most significant country of origin of foreign students (608,400). On the contrary, international tourists and students in China comprised merely 3% of the worldwide number of foreign students and 4% of foreign tourists in 2017. The flow of Chinese students abroad for educational purposes has greatly intensified, with 60% studying in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. In 2017, 50% of the Chinese tourists traveled to China’s inner main- land; an additional 29% had taken a trip to Asia. Emigrants from China comprise about 2.8% of the global total, and immigration to China—0.2% from the 1990s to 2017. Beijing heeds great attention to its foreign language media outlets in order to be better equipped to control China’s image for the foreign audience. This allows China to obtain a broad audience to shine a spotlight on both high-level summits between Chinese officials and their foreign colleagues, and Beijing’s under-reported international projects. The central government news agency, Xinhua, has 170 international offices and implements 200 programs as of 2020.16

China’s Foreign Policy towards Central Asia

Central Asia’s relevance is due to its position in the heart of the historical Silk Road, which makes the region a key component of the global market. For centuries, it has been the bridge that connects the East and the West, and today it still plays this critical role in the global economy. Secure communication and energy transportation make the region even more relevant today. In order to meet its industrial demands for energy, China sought new sources of energy supply. Immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union, five republics (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajiki- stan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) emerged in Central Asia. Encouraged by this historical event, Beijing immediately recognized newly independent Central Asian states and established bilateral relations with them. Another reason that drives China to develop economic ties with Central Asian nations is the chance to gain direct access to the resource-rich Caspian Sea. Therefore, China sought to diminish its energy dependence on the Middle Eastern states, which are allied with the U.S. At the same time, the military presence of the U.S., along the maritime trade ways made the Chinese energy transportation insecure because of its naval incapability to compete with the U.S. naval force. More- over, Central Asia is a region rich in natural resources; mainly, it is an oil and gas-rich region, which makes it attractive for Beijing to promote economic and political relationships with each of the Cen- tral Asian republics. Furthermore, besides China’s energy interests in Central Asia, other aspects connect Beijing to the region, i.e., Central Asia’s strategic position and status, and China’s national security. Thus, the corresponding Chinese interests can be specified as follows: National Security: China assists the Central Asian republics in dealing with internal security issues, including terrorism, separatism, extremism, and drug trafficking, so that these challenges would not threaten China itself. Beijing tries to prevent the Central Asian states from becoming peripheral bases for Uyghur separatists in Xinjiang, the western autonomous province of China. In order to preclude external help for Uyghur separatists, Beijing has established strong mutually beneficial relationships with the neighboring Central Asian states (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan) and

16 See: A. Eleanor, “China’s Big Bet on Soft Power,” 2018, available at [https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/chinas-big- bet-soft-power], 20 April, 2020.

19 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition effectively promotes counter-terrorist activities in the region. Thus, China needs stability in Xinjiang for stable economic development to support its foreign policy abroad.17 Strategic Position: Central Asia has a vital geopolitical position. The idea of the English geog- rapher Halford Mackinder, “Whoever rules the Heartland commands the World-Island; whoever rules the World-Island commands the World,” is alive today. Now, narrowing the concept of Heartland to Central Asia, we can say, “Whoever has the grip over Central Asia, has the control over Eurasia, and whoever has control over Eurasia gains control all over the world.” For this reason, this region has been a battleground for numerous empires for centuries. The possession of a massive amount of natural resources makes Central Asia a critical geopolitical arena for the great powers of today that seek to gain control over this region. Thus, China’s primary strategy is to secure its borders with Central Asian states. Beijing had ensured the security of Central Asia by resolving border issues with the regional states and establishing bilateral diplomatic relations. Moreover, China aims to preserve security in Central Asia to prevent the penetration of other global powers into the region.18 Regional Status: The aim of Beijing’s foreign policy in the region is to prevent it from becoming an interference in China’s domestic development and, particularly, its foreign policy interests. Beijing promotes a policy of harmonious coexistence in the international arena. In this context, Chi- na tries to maintain a prosperous and peaceful neighborhood on its periphery. Thus, China’s chief goal in Central Asia is to establish productive economic relations with the regional states and to cooperate with Russia to counter U.S. influence and interests in the region.19 Overall, good-neighborly diplomacy has become an essential element of China’s foreign policy after the Cold War. China has employed a friendly policy towards Central Asia, keeping secure and stable bordering states operating in good-neighborly and amicable relations. Thus, China promotes soft power policy in the Central Asian states through economic connections to keep its Western neighbors out of the U.S. sphere of influence and maintain regional stability in order to keep the volatility of Xinjiang province in check.20 China strongly needs energy resources to meet domestic demand. In the quest for alternative energy resources, Beijing rushed to turn its energy policy to the resource-rich Central Asia following the disintegration of the U.S.S.R. China is eager to access the Caspian Sea oilfields, thus, to diversify energy supply routes and reduce the dependency on oil imports from the Middle East, which is transported via sea routes controlled by the American military. Furthermore, due to the instability in the Middle East, Central Asia, with its rich hydrocarbon reserves, makes a strategically crucial region for Beijing. This huge regional stock of minerals provided Beijing with an alternative way to guarantee its energy needs. On the other hand, prior to the independence of Central Asian states from the Soviet Union, all the oil and gas pipelines from the region were directed westward to Europe through Russia. There- fore, after the collapse of the U.S.S.R., energy-rich states like Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan sought to diversify their energy export routes to break out from the economic dependence on Russia. In this case, China’s interest in purchasing energy from these countries was the essential point in establishing economic relations with them. That is why Beijing started to invest in the establishment of energy- related infrastructure in Central Asia. China showed itself as a reliant economic partner who does not

17 See: G. Bates, O. Matthew, China’s New Journey to the West: China’s Emergence in Central Asia and Implications for U.S. Interests, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, D.C., 2003. 18 See: H.J. Mackinder, “The Geographical Pivot of History (1904),” The Geographical Journal, Vol. 170, No. 4, 2004, pp. 298-321. 19 See: R.G. Sutter, Chinese Foreign Relations: Power and Policy since the Cold War, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2007, p. 310. 20 See: R. Dwivedi, “China’s Central Asia Policy in Recent Times,” China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly, Vol. 4, No. 4, 2006, pp. 141.

20 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 interfere with the domestic policies of Central Asian states. Hence, the regional leaders accepted this cooperation as a remedy for the diversification of their energy exports. The engagement of China, Russia and the U.S. in the region has led to claims that these actors are replaying the Great Game in this hydrocarbon-rich region. The Great Game was the military and diplomatic opposition between the Russian Empire and the British Empire in the 19th century.21 Furthermore, economic cooperation in the region gives China an opportunity to gradually promote its cultural diplomacy. As stated by Lai and Lu, culture is the primary instrument of Chinese soft power. Thus, in recent years, Beijing has been actively promoting cultural exchange programs, festivals, media, sport, and tourism abroad, particularly in Southeast Asia. This diplomacy aims to develop its soft power and project an image of peaceful expansion.22 However, China’s cultural diplomacy in Central Asia is not as successful as in Southeast Asia due to the significant cultural gaps between the Central Asian peoples and the Chinese. China’s cultural involvement in the region is limited to educational exchange programs and operation of the Confucius Institutes. The latter are the essence of China’s cultural diplomacy in Central Asia. Since 2004, these institutes have been established all over the world. It is a non-profit public educational organization under the Ministry of Education of China. It is operated to promote Chinese language and culture by supporting Chinese language teaching internationally.23 The Confucius Institute functions as a common ground for Beijing to communicate with other nations. The Institute’s programs promote the teaching of Chinese to foreigners, organization of language contests, cultural weeks, and festivals, but, most significantly, organization of student exchange programs with the assistance of Chinese universities. Although the worldwide establishment of these institutes started in 2004, the Institute’s Central Asian branches were founded just recently. The most recent branch was inaugurated in the city of Aktobe, the center of the oil-rich Aktobe region of Kazakhstan. Various cultural programs are available to workers and students. For instance, 35 students out of 38 from Regional State University were granted scholarships to study in China in the 2014/2015 academic year. However, not only students may receive an award for going to China, even the potential workers of CNPC (China National Petroleum Corporation) may have a chance to go to China under an exchange program if they complete the language courses in the Institutes. Ac- cording to the Ministry of Education of Kazakhstan, over 7,000 Kazakh students are studying in China.24 Thus, an assumption may be made that the majority of young individuals in Central Asia consider China an attractive place to get an education, which, on the other hand, indicates the partial achievement of Beijing’s public policy.25 Thus, according to Bart Dessein, the information mentioned above demonstrates that Confucius Institutes target mainly Central Asian youth, which indicates that Beijing actively engages in breeding new aristocracy in the regional states, one that would be familiar with and favorable towards China. This demonstrates China’s reliance on its cultural diplomacy that is used to gradually attain its interests in the region.26 Central Asia is a valuable source of natural resources for China, as well as a rising marketplace for Chinese goods. However, Beijing’s foreign policy in the Central Asian states is not only limited

21 See: E. Sancak, N. Can, “The Economic-Political Relations of Post-Soviet Russia in Eurasia Region,” International Journal of Business and Management Studies, Vol. 1, Issue 3, 2012, pp. 423-442. 22 See: H. Lai, Y. Lu, China’s Soft Power and International Relations, China Policy Institute, University of Nottingham, UK, 2012. 23 See: D. Gurbanmyradova, The Sources of China’s Soft Power in Central Asia: Cultural Diplomacy, Budapest, 2015. 24 See: Ibid., p. 26. 25 See: Ibidem. 26 See: B. Dessein, Interpreting China as a Regional and Global Power: Nationalism and Historical Consciousness in World Politics, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2014.

21 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition to economic activities. Political cooperation in the framework of SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Orga- nization) and China’s bilateral relations with the Central Asian republics are aimed at balancing the region that neighbors Xinjiang. Over a short period of time, the SCO has established itself as a powerful organization with prospects of authority in the Central Asian region.27 The Organization was founded in 2001 by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Its stated objective was to fight terrorism, separatism, and religious extremism. The SCO supported China and Russia to deter U.S. presence in the region. Currently, the Organization remains a political platform for Chinese-Central Asian relations, which is the result of China’s economic advance in the region. The regional states positively accept China’s economic and political activities because cooperation with Beijing allows them to pursue independent policies and provides space to maneuver between Russia and the West. Therefore, from the point of view of Central Asian countries, China is unques- tionably a more reliable and convenient partner than the West and Russia because of its precise adherence to the policy of non-interference in other countries’ domestic affairs.28 Beijing’s economic diplomacy outshines its other public diplomacy instruments in terms of scale and visibility. In 2000-2017, AidData revealed that official Chinese agencies and banks have invested $126 billion in ongoing and completed projects in the South and Central Asian region. Some $120 billion of that is invested in infrastructure financing. 85% of infrastructure expenditures is funneled to new construction projects, and precisely half of China’s economic diplomacy investments goes to two countries: Pakistan—an early signatory of the Belt and Road Initiative, and Kazakhstan.29 Economic and trade collaboration between China and the SCO member countries had steadily increased from $129.4 billion in 2003 to $217.6 billion in 2017, which constitutes considerable growth in contrast to $12 billion in 2001.30 Furthermore, the total value of Chinese exports to the region between 2015 and 2018 has shown substantial growth from $15.3 to $18.6 billion. As demonstrated by Table 1 in 2015-2018, Kazakh- stan is the leading regional importer from China. The export value of China to Kazakhstan has steadily grown from $8.4 billion to $11.3 billion. Turkmenistan benefits less from Chinese exports. The export value of China to this Central Asian state significantly decreased in 2016, from $815 million to $338 million. On the other hand, there is no noticeable change in volume of China’s exports to the other three Central Asian states (Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan). On the other hand, Table 2, which shows China’s imports from the region, is rather different. The value of Chinese imports from Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan is practically equal. In 2016, Chi- na’s imports from these two countries dropped from $7.8 to $5.5 billion and $5.8 to $4,8 billion, respectively. However, Chinese imports from Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan have grown to more than $8 billion in 2018. These are the leading regional exporting states, since China’s primary imports from these countries are oil and gas. Furthermore, the smallest amount of exports to China comes from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, where export volume is under $90 million. Besides, there is no noticeable rise in the value of Uzbeki- stan’s exports to China, which did not exceed $1.6 billion between 2015 and 2017. China’s total imports from the region grew remarkably from $13.7 to $16.7 billion.

27 See: L. Sagbansua, N. Can, “Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Turkic Republics and Turkey: Economic and Busi- ness Dimensions,” Canadian Social Science, Vol. 7, Issue 2, 2011, pp. 80-87. 28 See: A. Berkofsky, “China’s Strategic Involvement in Central Asia—Strategies, Results and Obstacles,” ISPI Analysis, No. 128, Milano. 29 See: S. Custer, T. Sethi, J. Solis, J. Lin, S. Ghose, A. Gupta, R. Knight, A. Baehr, Silk Road Diplomacy: Deconstruct- ing Beijing’s Toolkit to Influence South and Central Asia, AidData at William & Mary, Williamsburg, VA, 10 December, 2019, available at [https://www.aiddata.org/china-public-diplomacy/south-central-asia?ref=china.aiddata.org], 18 March, 2020. 30 See: Zhong Nan, Jing Shuiyu, “B&R Initiative Key to SCO Countries,” 2018, available at [http://usa.chinadaily.com. cn/a/201806/09/WS5b1b6d56a31001b82571f165.html], 16 February, 2020.

22 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020

Table 1

China’s Exports to the Central Asian States (2015-2018), $bn

2015 2016 2017 2018

Kazakhstan 8,441,240.88 8,292,320.85 11,564,442.93 11,326,580.89

Kyrgyzstan 4,282,122.82 5,605,425.56 5,336,808.03 5,546,955.22

Tajikistan 1,795,387.87 1,725,083.79 1,301,374.99 1,425,933.86

Turkmenistan 815,468.65 338,478.86 368,116.55 316,778.79

Uzbekistan 2,228,760.93 2,007,463.68 2,749,423.22 3,942,096.47

Total 15,334,220.22 15,961,309.06 18,570,742.49 18,616,248.76

S o u r c e: World International Trade Solution (2020).

Table 2

China’s Imports from the Central Asian States (2015-2018), $bn

2015 2016 2017 2018

Kazakhstan 5,848,946.92 4,805,078.58 6,378,690.61 8,529,553.75

Kyrgyzstan 58,570.89 71,234.90 87,055.36 54,359.46

Tajikistan 52,034.55 31,244.89 46,736.55 76,804.09

Turkmenistan 7,827,660.79 5,563,294.66 6,575,125.63 8,119,370.11

Uzbekistan 1,267,063.76 1,607,057.92 1,471,448.86 2,324,394.70

Total 13,787,213.16 10,470,853.03 13,087,608.14 16,780,087.42

S o u r c e: World International Trade Solution (2020).

According to Saviya Khasanova, China’s share in the foreign debt of Tajikistan is about 50%, which constitutes over $1.1 billion (as of October 2016). Exim Bank of China ranks first in the structure of the foreign debt of Kyrgyzstan, with a deficit of $1.57 billion, or 40% of the external debt (as of July 2017). In Kazakhstan, 10% of all the foreign debt, or $3.67 billion, falls on China. Since 2013, official Chinese aid to four countries in the region has amounted to over $5.5 billion. China Development Bank funds most of the projects. Kazakhstan’s national debt to China makes up only 3% of Kazakhstan’s GDP. Kyrgyzstan’s foreign debt to China, which constitutes 24% of its GDP, and Tajikistan’s debt—16% of its GDP, jeopardizes the sovereignty of these nations.31 Samantha Custer indicated that Beijing’s public diplomacy in 2000-2019 demonstrated the following indicators: China’s financial diplomacy in the region reached $54.56 billion, 722 government visits were conducted, 37 Confucius Institutes and classes were established, 125 military visits were held and 5,085 scholarships were provided.32

31 See: S. Khasanova, “Kitai i Tsentralnaia Azia (Infografika),” 20 September, 2017, available at [https://caa-network. org/archives/10334], 19 April, 2020. 32 See: S. Custer, T. Sethi, J. Solis, J. Lin, S. Ghose, A. Gupta, R. Knight, A. Baehr, op. cit.

23 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Conclusion

Economic relations are the primary foreign policy goal for Beijing, which makes Central Asia a strategically essential region as an energy transportation hub that connects Asia and Europe. Fur- thermore, Beijing’s ambitions in the field are associated with security issues in regard to the Xinjiang province and, of course, Beijing’s growing energy demands. China actively contributes to the infrastructure, primarily energy projects, and enhances bilateral relations and trade traffic among the -re gional states. Thus, by conducting good-neighborly policy and economic initiatives, China attempts to recapture political influence over the region from Moscow. However, while that goal has not yet been achieved, Beijing chooses to cooperate with the Kremlin within an anti-U.S. and anti-Western alliance in order to block Western influence in Central Asia. However, China’s influence in the region falls behind that of Russia.33 Beijing’s soft power is firmly based on the promotion of Chinese culture, yet it faces challenges that limit the ability of its quiet diplomacy. The cultural ambassadors of Beijing—Confucius Institutes—are few in numbers, which is not conducive to promoting China’s interests in the region. Young people consider job perspectives in China to be better than in their home countries, yet the local experts are still dubious about Beijing’s initiatives in Central Asia. China’s economic influence and soft power have been admirable, considering the short time that it took China to reinforce its relations with Central Asia. The primary feature of China’s policy in the region is entangling it in debt obligations, and the subsequent construction of transport infrastructure that connects Central Asia to China and becomes the latter’s corridors to the Caucasus, the Middle East, and South Asia. With regard to Beijing’s loan policy, one may speak of a gradual Sinicization of the region.

33 See: N. Megits, “The Impact of Russia-China Trade Relationship on the US Economy,” Journal of Eastern European and Central Asian Research, Vol. 3, No. 2, 2016.

24 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 INFORMATION THREATS TO THE STABILITY OF POLITICAL SYSTEM IN THE NORTHERN CAUCASUS

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37178/ca-c.20.4.03

Ali SALGIRIEV Ph.D. (Political Science), Lead Researcher, Kh. Ibragimov Complex Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Lead Researcher, Academy of Sciences of the Chechen Republic (Grozny, Russian Federation)

Vakha GAZIEV Ph.D. (Political Science), Head of the Department of History and Culture of the Peoples of Chechnia, Chechen State University (Grozny, Russian Federation)

Magomed SOLTAMURADOV Ph.D. (Philos.), Head of the Department of National History, Chechen State University (Grozny, Russian Federation)

Sultan GALBATSOV Senior Lecturer, Civil Law and Process Department, Chechen State University (Grozny, Russian Federation)

ABSTRACT

n the Northern Caucasus, political eli- litical and administrative elite and to relay tes traditionally play a key role in mana- the interests of society. I ging political processes, prevent and re- New threats to the normal functioning solve conflicts, counter sociocultural threats, of state authorities are currently emerging, terrorism, and political extremism. The stabil- indicating the inefficiency of Russia’s policy ity of the political system depends on the aimed at preventing information security degree of political elites’ responsibility and threats. In recent years, active social strata their ability to negotiate with the federal po- (mainly young people) have been mobilized

The reported study was funded by RFBR, project number 20-311-70005.

25 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition with the aim of overthrowing legitimate au- structure, the population of the Northern thorities and objectionable politicians, Caucasus is highly sensitive to territorial is- changing regimes, etc., using modern net- sues, as well as issues of religion, culture, work technologies, disinformation and fake ethnic relations, etc. In many respects, infor- news. mation technologies determine the position Due to its historical and socio-cultural and power of high-status actors, primarily characteristics, as well as poly-confessional political elites, within the political system.

KEYWORDS: Russia, Northern Caucasus, political elites, information security, information threats, political process, political system, political administration, extremism, conflicts.

Introduction

In recent years, there has been a rise in the interest of domestic and foreign scientists in studying political elites and understanding the nature of information and sociocultural threats at the global and regional levels. The number of dissertations, monographs, articles on the problems of political provision of information security at the state and subnational levels in the context of the activities of regional actors is increasing. Such works include the research conducted by O.V. Gaman-Golutvina, V.A. Tishkov, G.G. Matishov, M.A. Astvatsaturova, V.V. Stepanov, O.V. Kryshtanovskaia, A.V. Ma- linova, O.Yu. Vozzhennikov, V.A. Avksentiev, V.M. Yurchenko, S.A. Makarov, A.S. Tarasova, I.G. Chaika et al.1 The works of A.V. Ponedelkov, A.M. Starostin, V.P. Tarantsov, L.L. Khoperskaya, T.M. Poliakov, et al. are devoted to researching the political elite dimension of information security problems in the South of Russia.2 Problems that exist in the North Caucasian and Southern Federal

1 See: O.V. Gaman-Golutvina, L.M. Grigoriev, A.V. Duka, G.I. Zelenko, A.A. Zotkin, A.P. Kochetkov, V.G. Lediaev, V.P. Mokhov, D.G. Zaytsev, S.N. Pshizova, E.S. Semenova, V.A. Smirnov, R.F. Turovskiy, Politicheskiy klass v sovremennom obshchestve, Ser. Biblioteka Rossiyskoy Assotsiatsii Politicheskoy Nauki, ed. by V. Tishkov, Moscow, 2012; Severny Kavkaz v natsionalnoy strategii Rossii, N.N. Miklukho-Maklay Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, RAS, Moscow, 2008; D.A. Amanzholova, M.A. Astvatsaturova, V.O. Bobrovnikov, O.V. Volobuyev, A.B. Dzadziev, L.B. Zasedateleva, V.S. Kuleshov, A.M. Nechuiatov, A.A. Nikishenkov, M.V. Savva, V.V. Stepanov, V.A. Tishkov, L.L. Khoperskaia, A.A. Iar- lykapov, Rossiyskiy Kavkaz. Kniga dlia politicov, ed. by V.A. Tishkov, Moscow, 2007; V.K. Malkova, V.A. Tishkov, Et- nichnost i tolerantnost v sredstvakh massovoy informatsii, Moscow, 2002; O.V. Kryshtanovskaia, Anatomiia rossiyskoy elity, 2nd Edition, Moscow, 2005; Idem, “Sovremennye kontseptsii politicheskoy elity i rossiyskaia praktika,” Mir Rossii. Sotsiologiia. Etnologiia, Vol. 13, No. 4, 2004, pp. 3-39; O.Yu. Malinova, Aktualnoe proshloe: simvolicheskaia politika vlastvuiushchey elity i dilemmy rossiyskoy identichnost, Ser. Rossia. V poiskakh sebia, Politicheskaia entsiklopedia, Moscow, 2015; V.M. Yurchenko, I.V. Yurchenko, “Teoriia regionalnoy bezopasnosti v sovremennom sotsiopoliticheskom znanii,” in: Aktualnye problemy sotsiogumanitarnogo znaniia: Sbornik nauchnykh trudov, Stavropol, 2008; V.M. Yurchenko, “Strategia rossiyskogo razvitiia: nekotorye razmyshleniia v kanun dnia Rossii,” in: Rossia: vchera, segodnia, zavtra. Materialy I Vse- rossiyskoy nauchno-prakticheskoy konferentsii, Krasnodar, 2018, pp. 178-183; A.S. Tarasov, “Informatsionnaia bezopasnost organov munitsipalnogo upravleniia v sisteme obespecheniia sotsialno-politicheskoy bezopasnosti Rossiyskoy Federatsii,” in: Integratsiia nauki i praktiki kak uslovie tekhnologicheskogo proryva, Kazan, 2017, pp. 177-183; I.G. Chaika, Politicheskie tekhnologii obespecheniia informatsionnoy bezopasnosti regiona (na primere Krasnodarskogo kraya), Ph.D. (Political Sci- ence) Thesis, the Kuban State University, Krasnodar, 2010, p. 210. 2 See: L.L. Khoperskaia, Faktory sotsialno-politicheskoy stabilnosti i strategia bezopasnosti na Severnom Kavkaze, Rostov-on-Don, 2000; V. Ignatov, “Regionalnye aspekty ukrepleniya rossiyskoy gosudarstvennosti,” Vlast, No. 6. 2013, p. 3; D.V. Krotov, Politicheskaia bezopasnost Rossii: problemy obespecheniia v Yuzhnom federalnom okruge, Ph.D. (Political

26 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020

Districts of Russia in the sphere of ethnopolitical and socio-cultural processes, analysis of information aspects of security are examined by domestic scientists (V.A. Avksentiev, V.N. Lopatin, M.A. Astvat- saturova, Ya.S. Artamonova, M.V. Savva, G.D. Gritsenko, A.Yu. Borisov, A.S. Borodin, B.V. Ver- benko, N.I. Buslenko, D.P. Kaftanchikov, G.A. Atamanov, N.V. Nesterova, V.P. Shemiakin et al.3). As new threats (especially information threats) emerge, they need to be analyzed at the subnational level with regard to regional features. Due to the multiethnic structure and elements of archaization that have strengthened in recent decades, traditional practices and attitudes are still influential in the Northern Caucasus. Ethnopolitical elites, ethnocracies are the main actors in the political processes, and play a significant role in ensuring security, preventing terrorism and extremism and resolving conflicts. The problems of the activities of political elites in ensuring security in the Northern Caucasus are analyzed fragmentarily (retrospectively, in socio-cultural relations, in terms of radicalization of Islam), outside the context of the political elite’s activities aimed to ensure information security and counter various threats in the North Caucasian context. The authors of the project followed neo-institutional, structural-functional and systemic approaches. Based on the neo-institutional approach, the subjectivity of political elites that ensure regional information security in the Northern Caucasus is analyzed with regard to its ethno-confessional and multicultural structure. In solving the problems that are posed in the study, it will be important to use a systemic approach that allows to examine the object of research as an integral system, taking into account its structure, functions and goals. The general theory of action (T. Parsons), developed in accordance with the structural-functional approach, is also applied. Analysis of literary sources, research papers, publications on this topic confirms its relevance, novelty and fundamental nature. Access to new information about the role, resource base and the extent to what regional elites ensure information security will allow to successfully predict the development of the political pro-

Science) Thesis, Rostov-on-Don, 2002; O.M. Tsvetkov, “Aktualnye problemy obespecheniia politicheskoy bezopasnosti v Severo-Kavkazskom regione,” in: Kavkaz: problemy kulturno-tsivilizatsionnogo razvitiia, Rostov-on-Don, 2000, pp. 17-34; T.M. Polyakova, E.V. Polyakov, “Politicheskie elity: voprosy identichnosti,” in: Lichnostnaia identichnost: vyzovy sovre- mennosti. Materialy Vserossiyskoy psikhologicheskoy nauchno-prakticheskoy konferentsii (s inostrannym uchastiem), Maykop, 2014, pp. 68-70. 3 See: D.A. Andrianov, Politicheskaia komponenta informatsionnoy bezopasnosti rossiyskogo obshchestva, Ph.D. (Po- litical Science) Thesis, Moscow, 2002; Ya.S. Artamonova, Informatsionnaia bezopasnost i sotsialny konflikt v sovremennoy Rossii, Ph.D. (Sociology) Thesis, Volgograd, 2006; Idem, Informatsionnaia bezopasnost rossiyskogo obshchestva: teo- reticheskie osnovaniia i praktika politicheskogo obespecheniia, D.Sc. (Political Science) Thesis, Moscow State Regional University, Moscow, 2014; G.A. Atamanov, Informatsionnaia bezopasnost v sovremennom rossiyskom obshchestve: sotsialno-filosofskiy aspekt, Ph.D. (Philos.) Thesis, Volgograd, 2006; N.I. Buslenko, Politiko-pravovye osnovy obespecheniia informatsionnoy bezopasnosti Rossiyskoy Federatsii v usloviiakh demokraticheskikh reform, D.Sc. (Political Science) Thesis, Rostov-on-Don, 2003; B.V. Verbenko, Informatsionnaia bezopasnost Rossii v kontekste sovremennogo politicheskogo protsessa: sushchnost, problemy obespecheniia, Moscow, 2004.; V.A. Avksentiev, G.D. Gritsenko, A.V. Dmitriev, Regional- naia konfliktologiia: ekspertnoe mnenie, Moscow, 2007; V.A. Avksentiev, B.V. Aksiumov, G.D. Gritsenko et al, Yug Rossii v zerkale konfliktologicheskoy ekspertizy, Rostov-on-Don, 2011; M.A. Astvatsaturova, Diaspory v Rossiyskoy Federatsii, formirovanie i upravlenie (na materialakh Severo-Kavkazskogo regiona), D.Sc. (Political Science) Thesis, Moscow, 2003; M.V. Savva, Novye diaspory Krasnodarskogo kraia: prava, interesy, dinamika integratsii i vospriiatie mestnym soobshchest- vom, Krasnodar, 2006; A. Salgiriev, “Religious Political Extremism and Terrorism in the North Caucasus: Politological Anal- ysis,” in: The European Proceedings of Social & Behavioural Sciences, Vol. 58, pp. 1112-1116; A.R. Salgiriev, A.D. Osmaev, M.M. Betilmerzaeva, M.-J.H. Shamsuev, M.D. Soltamuradov, “Structuring Political Elites,” The European Proceedings of Social & Behavioural Sciences, Vol. 58, pp. 2605-2610; A.D. Osmaev, A.R. Salgiriev, A.Sh. Aliev, M.D. Soltamuradov, V.Z. Gaziev, “Chechen Republic in the Beginning of ‘Anti-Terror Operation’,” The European Proceedings of Social & Behavioural Sci- ences, Vol. 58, pp. 2589-2595; A. Salgiriev, M. Betilmerzaeva, M.-J.H. Shamsuev, A. Osmaev, “Political Myths in the Sym- bolic Space of Russian Elites: Federal and Regional Aspects (A North Caucasian Case Study),” Central Asia and the Caucasus, Vol. 19, Issue 2, 2018, pp. 49-56.

27 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition cess, assess its impact on electoral behavior, measure institutional trust, carry out effective work to prevent extremism, as well as the escalation of old and the emergence of new conflicts, which seems to be relevant in the era of globalization and social transformations.

Entities of the Political Process, their Roles and Functions

In order to analyze the political processes in the Northern Caucasus, it is important to examine the main actors who determine the political vector and to identify the operational factors: models, algorithms, etc. These actors include ethnopolitical elites, since they affect the effectiveness of -po litical governance. The place of regional elites in the political processes in the Northern Caucasus is traditionally strong due to sociocultural and psychological attitudes, and elements of archaization. A high degree of conflict potential, the emergence of new points of ethnopolitical tension, confrontation within elite groups and clans force the federal center to heed continuous attention to the region, monitoring it closely. The federal political and administrative elite is forced to consider the regional specifics, the contradictory nature of the principles of elite formation and incorporation, and to put up with the protectionist policy of personnel selection and positioning. Today there is an increase in the elements of glocalization and tribalism in the political system, which significantly inhibits the modernization process and the normal functioning of social institutions. The reason for this is the unfinished process of elite formation in the Northern Caucasus. Against the background of military conflicts, clashes and the beginning of the “parade of sovereign- ties,” extremely marginal social groups came to power, using the “national card” to achieve their own tactical goals and personal enrichment. This process also influenced the reality of modern elites. The very nature of the elite formation in the region is contradictory, built according to the guild principle and functions within a patron-client model. This latent nature of power formation increases the level of conflict potential in the political process and complicates access to political institutions for ordinary citizens. Personnel policy should be based on the candidates’ professional level and competen- cies, rather than on personal loyalty, nepotism, clan affiliation, etc. The monocentricity and person- alization of power in the region and the active striving of ethnocracies for absolute power and autonomy in decision preparation and making lead to perpetual vertical conflicts and contradictions between the federal center and the region. The complexity of political governance at the regional level is the problem of polyjuridism, or legal pluralism, the existence of society in two or more legal systems, in this case, customary, secular, and religious law. Legal pluralism is an extremely negative phenomenon. These three legal norms often come into conflict with each other, especially in economic relations and business. A source of law that is most beneficial in a particular setting is used in conflict situations. The primacy of secular law, its supremacy in resolving disputes should be indisputable in a society that strives for modernization. The functioning of polyjuridism in the political system of the Northern Caucasus testifies to the archaization of the society’s legal consciousness, contradictory approaches and the absence of an institutional framework, ultimately impairing the socio-political life. The process of formation of new technologies and practices of political myth construction and the functions they perform in the Northern Caucasus is yet another issue. Elites generate conspir- acy theories, search for external and internal enemies, which leads to a simplified, irrational expla-

28 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 nation of the ongoing socio-political processes. New myths and myth cultivating technologies are emerging in the region under conditions of the country’s growing isolation. In order to manipulate the public consciousness, political elites often use myths as an explanation of socio-political processes that occur in society, referring to the uniqueness of national history, ancestors’ heroism and cultural identity. Similar political myths were constructed during mass rallies and demonstrations in the early 1990s. Having underestimated the destructive potential of political outsiders and marginalized people, the Kremlin is still forced to manage these depressed constituents in a manual mode. Under these conditions, the Office of the Plenipotentiary Representative of the President of Russia in the Federal District play mainly a symbolic and formal monitoring role, indicating the beginning of decentralization of the political system, its fragility and low stability in the face of threats and risks. Another destructive element that generates conflicts in the stable political system of the North- ern Caucasus is the mechanism of incorporation into ethnopolitical elites, methods and channels of power formation, and security threats. The conducted research shows the complexity, homogeneity and archaism of political elites. These characteristics of power and the methods of its formation tes- tify to an unhealthy political system, its inaccessible nature and bias in making administrative decisions. Shadow politics and traditionalism establish the conditions for the accumulation of conflict potential and make it difficult to assess the real level of regional development. The federal and national elites clearly tend to interact in the regional political process: they separate spheres of influence based on compromise and exchange resources. The decisions made by the federal elites are supported by the ethnopolitical elites and the pressure groups, chiefly through information resources and traditional relay channels, which ultimately stabilize electoral behavior. Regional elites receive broad autonomy in decision-making in exchange for the support from the federal center. Of course, political bargaining and mutual concessions help preserve Moscow’s power, intensify centralization, leading to internal degradation of the elites, their segregation from society and, ultimately, political turbulence and conflicts. Experts understand that any existing agreements are temporary, as new leaders come with their own entourage, and the conditions may change. The natural alternation of regional elites does not lead to the democratization of society or the development of horizontal and vertical mobility channels. Certain illegitimate attitudes are merely replaced by others, differing only in the details. Today, regional leaders retain very strong positions in the federal institutions of power, they are building up economic and information resources of activity and positioning. An insignificant disagreement in the status of the regional elites leads to pro- tracted confrontation and destabilization. Political behavior and models of elite functioning in the Northern Caucasus are determined primarily by its clan characteristics. It is distinguished by the guild nature in the preparation and adoption of tactical decisions, regardless of social processes, with regard mostly to group interests and aspirations.4 This stratum seeks a broader monopolization of power, expansion of control over financial and economic groups and the media. Incorporation into the elites proceeds with regard to personal, rather than professional qualities. This manner of administrative interactions leads to the accumulation of a significant destructive potential, which can lead to the emergence of new local conflicts and a decrease in civil and information activity.5

4 See: M.N. Afanasiev, Klientalizm i rossiyskaia gosudarstvennost, 2nd Edition, Moscow, Voronezh, 1996. 5 See: V.V. Chernous, “Sovremennye geopoliticheskie faktory konfliktogennosti na Yuge Rossii,” in:Faktory konfliktogennosti na Severnom Kavkaze, Rostov-on-Don, 2005, pp. 238-245; P.L. Karabushchenko, “Problema effektivnosti vlasti sovremennoy rossiyskoy politiko-administrativnoy elity,” Kaspiyskiy region: politika, ekonomika, kultura, No. 1 (38), 2014, pp. 170-183; A.A. Vartumian, Regionalny politicheskiy protsess: dinamika, osobennosti, problemy, Russian State Social University, Moscow, 2004.

29 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Information Resources and Conflict-Generating Factors in the Functioning of the Political Elite

New points of ethnopolitical tension have begun to emerge, caused by territorial disputes in recent years in Russia’s Northern Caucasus. One of the most notable conflicts was the 2018 unrest caused by the signing of an agreement on the establishment of the administrative boundary between the Chechen Republic and the Republic of Ingushetia. In Ingushetia, the signing of this agreement severely aggravated the internal political situation, thousands of people came out to protest and demand that the signed agreements be canceled. Attempts by the head of Ingushetia to meet with the protesters failed, only heating up the situation. The situation was further exacerbated by the decision of the local Constitutional Court to annul the agreement. The established boundaries concerned only mountainous and wooded areas and did not affect the settlements in either republic, the agreement was signed by the heads of the constituen- cies and approved by the parliaments, nevertheless, the opposition forces perceived it as national betrayal, denunciation of a part of the original territory and historical injustice. The scope of this work does not include the task of analyzing the historical, cultural and ethnic characteristics of these territories, but only considers the centrifugal and centripetal forces that determined the vectors of this conflict, the search for information factors and incentives that determined the development of collisions and their transformation into a simmering state. Most of the rallies were not sanctioned by local authorities, and took place after Friday prayers. Thousands of ethnic Ingush took to the streets, demanding a referendum, cancelation of the agreements, and the resignation of the head of Ingushetia. These rallies were organized by the local public organizations and counter-elites; initiative groups were created to undermine the already fragile political situation. For example, the demonstrators were holding images of a map of the area that was transferred to Chechnia highlighted in red and the territory of the Ossetia’s Prigorodny District also indicated. It should be noted that the above-mentioned political maps were different in content, as the disputed border sections were of different scales. The situation was complicated by various bloggers who, without an understanding of the essence of the problem, expressed contradictory judgments and provided amateur assessments of the events. The protests were mostly peaceful, and casualties and mass clashes were avoided. The orga- nizers and activists were arrested and charged. These events are caused by the permanent struggle between regional elites within Ingushetia. A monocentric personification of power prevails in the Caucasus, provoking conflict behavior, enhancing tribality and patron-client ties in political governance. Clan conflicts over power and property remain latent and veiled under the guise of high-brow slogans that target the masses. The different attitudes of the population of the two republics to this issue indicate different approaches to administrative interactions. One of the key functions of the ruling elite is its regulatory function, the ability to make important political decisions, place certain issues on the agenda or eliminate them. The elites are not simply agents of conflicts; in fact, they determine which conflict will be at the center of the political process or what will be the most acute irritant, depending on the current strategy and political goals. The elite group endowed with certain powers is usually called a veto group. It is capable of mobilizing the society and fulfilling a corresponding role. As can be seen in the political process in Daghestan and especially Ingushetia, low level of institutional trust and weak authority lead to a change of elites. Political turbulence, open calls by

30 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 protesters for the resignation of the government and the head of the region, general tension and the inability of the administrative elite to prevent the conflict behavior of society can lead to the spreading and escalation of opposition between society and the government. This threat arose during the protests aimed to return the Prigorodny District to Ingushetia. It should be noted that the Northern Caucasus is highly segmented, multicultural, archaic, and exists in a state of permanent disputes and clashes. A high degree of clan, family, teip and community affiliation leads to an unfair distribution of material wealth and resources. There is a high demand for justice in the region today, especially among the youth. Low confidence in the judicial system, corruption, inability to articulate the interests of the people, an opportu- nistic approach to the selection and placement of personnel, unemployment, poorly developed civil society institutions and independent media lead to manifestations of terrorism and extremism. Salafi and Wahhabi groups are active online,6 and today the region remains a high-risk zone.7 Various banned terrorist organizations call for subversive actions, a violent overthrow of the current government, etc. They offer an alternative interpretation of religious texts and national history and romanticize the “fight against the infidels.” The authorities’ success in struggling all this depends on the following: people must trust the authorities, transparent channels of vertical and horizontal mobility must be created, and there must be a fair judicial system. Today, it is becoming increasingly more obvious that information resources have begun to play a dominant role in the consolidation of social groups, and are instrumental in overthrowing political regimes and governments. The Arab Spring and more recently, Belarus, are cases where people were mobilized through Telegram channels, and the opposition coordinated the protesters, provided instructions, etc. The attempts of the Belarusian leadership to restrict the Internet, to detain large numbers of people does not lead to the expected result. The Russian political leadership understands that a similar scenario could be repeated in Russia, since the countries have very similar value systems, mentality, and language.

Conclusion

Unfortunately, the very model and approaches to the formation of the political elite are still powerful conflict-generating factors in political governance. The model is built on the tribal principle, important decisions are made covertly, in a manual control mode and without public discussion, which indicates a lack of thoughtfulness; only short-term and tactical plans prevail. The federal center cannot build a clear and balanced regional policy or develop uniform criteria. The process of institutionalization of regional elites is characterized by the merger of the state apparatus, business structures and economically active entities. The elites are currently being empow- ered at the expense of power structures, groups of influence, and there is a gradual ousting of federal actors from political life. Decentralization of regional elites and weakening of control leads to a monarchical and panegy- ric model of functioning, which, in turn, causes the intensification of a repressive domestic policy

6 See: T.N. Litvinova, “Novy povorot ideologii ‘dzhikhada’ na Severnom Kavkaze: informatsionnoe protivodeystvie ugrozam,” Sotsiologicheskaia nauka i sotsialnaia praktika, No. 4 (08), 2014, pp. 124-141. 7 See: E.V. Zhirukhina, “Informatsionnye strategii radikalnogo islamistskogo podpolia na Severnom Kavkaze (na primere organizatsii ‘Imarat Kavkaz’),” Politiia: Analiz. Khronika. Prognoz (Zhurnal politicheskoy filosofii i sotsiologii politiki), No. 1 (72), 2014, pp. 47-60.

31 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition towards the civil society institutions and journalists, who can influence the regional political process only through information resources. It is important to take targeted measures in the region to develop democratic approaches that will allow to prevent the conflict behavior of entities of political governance, to move away from the practice of using the ethno-mobilization potential for the redistribution of economic resources and attempts to reduce information activity. The struggle of elites for power is often hidden behind the interests of autochthonous peoples and historical justice. It is essential to understand that the engagement of modern information technologies and networks pre-determine new clashes and social tension, which is especially dangerous in the context of the North Caucasian realities. The peripheral nature of the modernization strata, ethnocentrism, archaization, the gradual shrinking of the democratic sphere of civil institutions leads to an increase in the patron-client model of reproduction of regional elites and ethnocracies in the public sector. The decentralization of the power system in the region led to the strengthening of the elites, and as a consequence—to the subsequent decrease in institutional trust, as well as to glocalization. In the context of social transformation, restrictions and the emergence of new hotbeds of ethnopolitical tension and conflicts, information technologies are now being used as a very effective resource to achieve political goals. The authorities’ reaction to any external information stimuli is rapid and not always adequate. Realizing the degree of influence of information resources on the electoral behavior of society, the authorities began to pay increasingly more attention to these public safety threats.

32 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 TRIBALISM IN KAZAKHSTAN: TRADITION REBORN OR SOCIAL INSTRUMENT

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37178/ca-c.20.4.04

Botakoz SHAKEYEVA Ph.D. student, Institute of Philosophy, Political Science and Religious Studies, Science Committee, Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan (Almaty, Kazakhstan)

Mukhtarbek SHAIKEMELEV D.Sc. (Philos.), Head, Department of Political Science, Institute of Philosophy, Political Science and Religious Studies, Science Committee, Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan (Almaty, Kazakhstan)

Nurken AITYMBETOV Ph.D., Senior Researcher, Institute of Philosophy, Political Science and Religious Studies, Science Committee, Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan (Almaty, Kazakhstan)

ABSTRACT

he authors have chosen tribalism and An analysis of certain approaches to the its role in contemporary Kazakhstan studies of the country’s ethnic and social as an object of their studies. Despite structure is conducted and comparative ana- Tthe official political course aimed at compre- lysis of the evolution of clan-and-tribal rela- hensive modernization of the state and soci- tions based on the methods of political sci- ety, tribalism has not yet been marginalized. ence is proposed with the aim to identify its The opposite is true: it is on the rise, and specifics in Kazakhstan’s past and present. thus remains one of the urgent subjects of The authors have presented the results social discussions. The authors have out- of in-depth field polls carried out in several lined the forms in which clan relationships auls (villages) in 2020 to substantiate their manifest themselves in the political and so- hypothesis of the forms which clan relation- cial spheres of Kazakhstan. ships have assumed in Kazakhstan.

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KEYWORDS: Kazakhstan, tribal (clan) ties, tribe, zhuz, clan, tribalism, patron-client relationships, nomadism.

Introduction

Having acquired independence, Kazakhstan, like all other post-Soviet states, should have acquired a new nation and a new state. Indeed, independence demanded a consolidated polyethnic society and civilian identity. However, an opposite trend is currently unfolding in the republic’s social, political and cultural life: the society is gradually differentiating, while tribalism has received a new lease of life. This makes it much harder to arrive at a common national identity, as the memory of the past, of the nomadic way of life and tribalism is being revived.1 It comes to life as an active and widespread revival of traditions such as funeral repast (ases) dedicated to prominent batyrs (heroes) and public figures of the past to which clan nobility is invariably invited,2 the large and growing number of internet sites with clan and family genealogies (shezhire),3 identification of belonging to a clan by DNA,4 etc. Today, the question of the extent to which clan ties and their outcrops (tribalism) have struck root in the new system of social and political relations has stirred up great scholarly, social and political interest. The subject of clan relations that have been gradually emerging throughout the entire period of newly acquired independence has already attracted the attention of mainly foreign (West- ern) researchers. The community of Western scholars of Kazakhstan and Central Asia is actively discussing the importance, place and role of clan relationships in Kazakhstan. Edward Schatz (Can- ada) has written, in particular: “The more that Central Asian states continue the trends of the late 1990s and early years after 2000, the less likely it is that clan will disappear as a political phenomenon.”5 He is convinced that clan relationships were very much alive, albeit latently, in the Soviet Union. In addition, he has concluded that clan relationships are present in the corridors of power and recom- mends to skillfully integrate them in politics instead of sweeping them under the carpet.6 This opinion is not unanimously supported in Kazakhstan: those who disagree believe that clan- tribal connections in the political and social spheres have lost their consequence long ago. Aidos Sarym, one of those who disagree has written: “In Kazakhstan the fact of belonging to a clan does not bring privileges or bonuses and does not guarantee access to national riches.”7 Daniar Ashimbaev, the well-known author of Kazakhstan encyclopedia Kto est kto v Kazakhstane (Who is Who in Kazakh- stan) that contains over 8,500 biographies of members of the Kazakhstan elite over the last 100 years, is of the same opinion: “Today, however, this role belongs to personal relationships, rather than to the fact of belonging to a certain clan.”8

1 See: C. Ferret, “The Ambiguities of the Kazakhs’ Nomadic Heritage”, Nomadic Peoples, No. 20, 2016, pp. 176-199. 2 See: M. Nurzhankyzy, “Selo Akzhigit otprazdnovalo svoy iubiley”, Mangystau media, 29 October, 2019, available at [https://mangystaumedia.kz/kk/zhanalyktar/95421], 20 July 2020 (in Kazakh). 3 See [https://www.elim.kz/]. 4 See [https://treegene.kz/uslugi/ychromosome-heritage/]. 5 E. Schatz, “Modern Clan Politics: The Power of ‘Blood’ in Kazakhstan and Beyond,” University of Washington Press, Seattle, 2005, p. 168. 6 See: Ibid., pp. 171-173. 7 T. Kisileva, “Tri retsepta protiv kazakhskogo tribalizma—Aidos Sarym,” 365info.kz, 15 May 2018, available at [https://365info.kz/2018/05/kazahi-ne-delyatsya-a-sostoyat-iz-rodov-ajdos-sarym-tri-retsepta-protiv-trajbalizma], 11 August, 2020. 8 D.R. Ashimbaev, “Na vlastnom olimpe,” 30 October, 2009, available at [https://kazbio.info/?S=101], 27 August, 2020.

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This means that the expert community is divided on the issue of the importance of clan relationships in contemporary Kazakhstan society. It seems that the problem emerges due to the absence of an objective scientific assessment of the means of restoration and integration of traditional clan- tribal relations models in social realities. A concise analysis of the evolution stages in clan relations in Kazakhstan is needed to find an answer to the question of how and for what purposes is the system of clan-and-tribal relations being revived? This is very important: this system contradicts the focus on modernization and the proclaimed aim of joining the group of 30 most developed states of the world.9 It is equally significant to understand how clan relationships were revived/eliminated and how they are used today. The answers have not been found so far. Our article is yet another attempt at identifying the role and place of clan relations in contemporary Kazakhstan society: whether clan relationships are an unofficial model of social relationships accepted by the majority or a rudiment that does not have a place in the contemporary social order and, therefore, is used as an instrument in certain situations?

Scholarly Approaches to the Studies of Clan Relationships Among the Kazakhs

Concepts clans and zhuzes are very similar; they belong to the same system in which zhuzes occupy the highest level in the hierarchy, followed by big clan-tribes at the lower level and sub-clans at the lowest. All Kazakhs belong to one of three zhuzes: Senior, Middle or Junior; each of them comprises several big tribal unions which, in turn, consist of numerous clans and, correspondingly, sub-clans. An understanding of why our society is still clinging to this social structure requires an explanation of why it has survived through the centuries. In the absence of authentic written sources related to the origins of zhuzes and clans, we will analyze several approaches to the subject. According to the most popular, zhuzes and clans were created to divide the territory of the Ka- zakh steppe. Sanjar Asfendiarov, who studies the history of the Kazakh nomads, wrote that zhuzes were the result of the specific economic, cultural and historical features associated with the natural division of the territory of Kazakhstan into three zones: Semirechie, Western and Central regions.10 In her article on tribalism in contemporary Kazakhstan Saulesh Esenova, likewise, arrives at a conclusion that tribes appeared because of territorial distribution of pastures.11 Each tribe (clan) had a territory occupied by its members; all nomads were fully aware of the geographical distribution of all neighboring clans. It follows that the zhuz division was suggested by natural and climatic conditions and landscapes (mountains, rivers and pastures). Historian Sultan Akimbekov offers a different hypothesis. He explains the division into zhuzes by the Marxist theory of formations, according to which the Kazakh territories were the foundation of material production. He proposes a new approach: the zhuz and the clan (tribal) system were based

9 See: “Poslanie Prezidenta Respubliki Kazakhstan-Lidera natsii Nursultana Nazarbayeva narodu Kazakhstana ‘Strate- gia Kazakhstan-2050’: novy politicheskiy kurs sostoiavshegosia gosudarstba,” 14 December, 2014, available at [https://www. akorda.kz/ru/events/astana_kazakhstan/participation_in_events/poslanie-prezidenta-respubliki-kazahstan-lidera-nacii-nursultana-nazarbaeva-narodu-kazahstana-strategiya-kazahstan-2050-novyi-politicheskii-], 2 September, 2020. 10 See: S.D. Asfendiarov, Istoria Kazakhstana (s drevneyshikh vremen), Kazakhstanskoe kraevoe izd-vo, Alma-Ata, 1935, p. 262. 11 See: S. Esenova, “‘Tribalism’ and Identity in Contemporary Circumstances: The Case of Kazakhstan,” Central Asian Survey, Vol. 17, No. 3, 1998, pp. 443-462.

35 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition on politics; the Kazakh zhuzes did not appear due to economic necessity, but had taken shape in the struggle against aggressive Jungar tribes. Confronted with this threat, the Mogols (the Senior Zhuz), Kazakhs (the Middle Zhuz) and Nogais (the Junior Zhuz), whose language, economic habits and culture were fairly similar, joined ranks.12 Today, there is no balance between the clan and, especially, zhuz affiliation. Having analyzed the zhuz structure of the ruling Kazakh political elite of the early 2000s, Nurlan Amrekulov has registered the domination of the Senior Zhuz.13 It seems that affiliation with any of the zhuzes and clans is not particularly important in contemporary Kazakhstan. There is also another approach to the problem which associates the clan-tribal stratification with the way of life and culture of nomadic society. Severe conditions of the steppe, the need to change camps and pastures every season had taught nomads that survival, successful cattle breeding and, hence, wealth required experience (that was passed from one generation to another) and cohesion (in the form of a family, clan and tribe hierarchy).14 Fathers bequeathed to their sons not only cattle but also a certain type of sociality: everyday survival experience, oral culture and traditions as the cornerstone of their lifestyle. This made blood and genealogical ties highly important or even sacral. Kazakh ethnicity is rooted in nomadic culture that knew no writing; it was strongly affected by their way of life and gradually transformed Kazakhs into a very distinct ethnic group. Today, however, this lifestyle does not fit into the patterns of market economy and globalization. To survive in the severe conditions of the steppe Kazakhs have relied on the experience of the older generation. Today, it is no longer required. Ties between generations and inside clans, the skills and experience of the elders are gradually losing their consequence and value. Sometimes, however, they crop up in various circumstances: people may be hired only because they belong to a certain clan. Kazakhstan historian Alimkhan Nurekeev has written that all top positions are occupied by relatives of the boss despite their highly questionable professional qualities; they are reliably protected by the “iron-strong clan-zhuz relationships and the origin from the same locality.”15 On the whole, tribalism, corruption and nepotism are condemned by Kazakhstan society ... and remain a more or less common phenomenon.16 In the early years of independence, the persistent problems of the republic’s agriculture pushed huge numbers of villagers to cities to make them a melee of members of different zhuzes and clans. This destroyed the old system of territorial division into zhuzes and clans and, according to historical logic, should have lowered the value of ties between generations. Today, however, clan and tribal ties are apparent in all spheres of life. Kazakhstan political scientist Rustem Kadyrzhanov has pointed out that “as long as the Kazakhs as a nation survive, tribalism will not disappear.”17 The question is: how do clan-tribal relationships survive and by what means?

12 See: S.M. Akimbekov, Istoria stepey: fenomen gosudarstva Genghizhana v istorii Evrazii, 3rd edition, Tsentr Azii, Almaty, 2018, p. 912. 13 See: N. Amrekulov, “Zhuzes and Kazakhstan’s Social and Political Development,” Central Asia and the Caucasus, No. 3, 2000, pp. 100-115. 14 See: M.S. Shaikemelev, Kazakhskaia identichnost, Institute of Philosophy, Political Science and Religious Studies, Science Committee, Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Almaty, 2013, p. 65. 15 A. Nurekeev, “Natsionalizm ne imeet korney v mentalitete u kazakhov ili pochemu v Kazakhstane grazhdaninom byt opasno,” DAT, 11 November, 2015, available at [https://datnews.info/natsionalizm-ne-imeet-korney-v-mentalitete-kazahov- ili-pochemu-v-kazahstane-grazhdaninom-byit-opasno-prodolzhenie-nachalo-v-za-22-29-oktyabrya-2015-g/], 26 July, 2020. 16 See: K. Zhukeshev, “Tribalizm—glavny printsip pravitelstva pri podbore kadrov,” Zhas Alash, 2 August, 2019, available at [https://zhasalash.kz/article/3309-rushyldyq-%E2%80%93-biliktinh-kadr-irikteudegi-basty-ustanymy], 26 July, 2020 (in Kazakh). 17 A. Ermekov, “Rustem Kadyrzhanov: Poka sushchestvuiut kazakhi, budet sushchestvovat tribalism. Glavnoe—chtoby liudi k etomu otnosilis razumno,” MK.RU, 17 January, 2012, available at [https://mk-kz.kz/articles/2012/01/17/661262- rustem-kadyirzhanov-poka-suschestvuyut-kazahi-budet-suschestvovat-traybalizm-glavnoe-chtobyi-lyudi-k-etomu-otnosilis- razumno.html], 27 July, 2020.

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The manifestation of this phenomenon in social and political life is negatively assessed by many. It seems that Kazakhs are still using the clan relationship model to achieve the best results offered by the new market relations; their ancestors did the same in the extreme conditions of the Ka- zakh steppe. Today, having left behind several cardinal social, political and economic transformations, they are confronted by a new market ideology that resolutely rejects the patrimonial formulas of traditional consciousness. Today, Kazakhstan is in a transitional stage: Soviet values are no longer important, while new values have not yet struck root in human minds—it is a state in which traditionalism, suppressed at Soviet times, may be revived,18 albeit in a non-classical form. It will be rather a latent activation of clan-tribal ties in the interests of individuals and groups. Nurbulat Masanov, a well-known expert in nomadism and related phenomena, uses the term “quasi-tribalism” for the situations in which people exploit their belonging to a clan for their personal purposes. In this way they establish partnerships of different types based not so much on economic interests, but on an awareness of one’s moral and ethical duty supported by “sacral” archetypes. Masanov regards these relationships as a resource for the minimization of various risks and acquiring additional competitive advantages.19 To identify the extent to which clan relationships are present in contemporary Kazakhstan society, we have formulated the following questions: How has the role of clan relationships changed? Are they still important? How often do people use their belonging to any clan? We have hypothesized that clan-tribal relations are losing their traditional value and are used to establish and maintain loyal relationships, to promote individual interests and achieve political and economic aims at different levels of social and political hierarchy.

Clan Relationships Among the Kazakhs at Different Historical Periods

In the past, clan-tribal ties were the key feature of Kazakh ethnicity. Clan ties were an absolute priority in the social, political, cultural and economic processes unfolding in the traditional Kazakh society, and served as distribution channels for knowledge, information, resources and property. Social position, authority, reputation and even one’s place at the table were determined by clan af- filiations.20 Clan elders (bais) and their closest circle—judges (biis) and military commanders (batyrs)— headed traditional Kazakh auls and their populations. In Soviet times, it was commonly believed that bais had exploited and cheated other members of their clans.21 In later works, however, they are shown as kind and selfless protectors of the poor whom they offered employment and housing.22 Kazakhstan political scientist Zhamsylyk Sabitov has written the following to explain the structure and functions of the clan: “At that time clan and sub-clan played the role of corporations

18 See: V.Iu. Dunaev, V.D. Kurganskaia, “Politiko-ideologicheskiy kontekst formirovania kazakhstanskoy identichnosti,” in: Formirovanie kazakhstanskoy identichnosti v kontekste zadach modernizatsii obshchestvennogo soznania, Book 2, IFPR KN MON RK, Almaty, 2019, pp. 257-303. 19 See: N.E. Masanov et al., Nauchnoe znanie i mifotvorchestvo v sovremennoy istoriografii Kazakhstana, Dayk-Press, Almaty, 2007, p. 296. 20 See: N.A. Aristov, “Zametki ob etnicheskom sostave tiurkskikh plemen i narodnostey i svedenia ob ikh chislennosti,” Zhivaia starina, Vol. 6, Issue III-IV, 1896, pp. 277-456. 21 See: T.B. Baymukanov, Izmenenie i razvitie sotsialnoy struktury selskogo naselenia (po materialam Kazakhskoy SSR), Alma-Ata, 1979, p. 171. 22 See: S. Cameron, The Hungry Steppe. Famine, Violence, and the Making of Soviet Kazakhstan, Cornell University Press, 2018, pp. 60-69.

37 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition or at least privately held corporations of our days.”23 Each of its members had certain assets in the form of pastures and cattle. The head of the clan, the elder (aksakal) was traditionally respected by practically all members of the clan, distributed pasture plots, decided when seasonal roaming should begin, resolved contradictions and helped the needy. On the whole, clans were tightly knitted: if somebody had problems, others were ready to help with their “assets”; on the other hand, if a member violated traditions and rules he may have been deprived of his “assets” and even driven out of his aul. From the 19th century onwards, clan relationships have been gradually losing their importance: Kazakh lands were actively incorporated into the Russian Empire; Russian laws were adjusted to the relationships with the nomads living on the margins of the empire. The clan system lost some of its competences, while clan relationships lost some of their importance in the social, political and economic spheres.24 The power of the khans was completely liquidated (in 1822, in the Middle Zhuz and two years later, in the Junior Zhuz) and replaced with the power of sultans: there were sultans who ruled districts, uezds and villages. As a rule, they were selected from among the nobility—aksuyek (“white bone”); in the course of time this principle lost all of its importance: any influential and rich person without an impressive list of noble ancestors to his name could become a sultan.25 Ac- cording to certain sources, 16 out of 43 sultans in the Western Siberian District did not belong to nobility.26 By the end of 1860, the posts of sultan-ruler and sultan were liquidated, which means that the power held by the Kazakhs shrank to the local level. Special stamps replaced the clan symbols, which 27 disappeared from official documents. By the early 20th century, therefore, clan-tribal relations and the associated administrative model and symbols lost their legitimacy. Imperialist ideology was gradually and persistently replacing the system of clan relationships. The clan leader lost much of his former powers: he was no longer responsible for land-related problems, distribution of pastures and settlement of major conflicts within his clan and between clans. In the early 20th century, several revolutions that followed one another destroyed the political system of the Russian Empire and finally brought Bolsheviks to power. They did not hesitate to impose a sedentary mode of life on the nomads, causing hunger and numerous deaths among them.28 The structure of Kazakh auls was destroyed along with the foundations of the social order of the Kazakhs as the cornerstone of the nomadic way of life. The new power outlawed the system of clan relationships and shezhire as backward and archaic and evidence of bourgeois nationalism, and proclaimed the bais system to be a vestige of the past.29 The Kazakhs, however, preserved information about the seven generations of their ancestors— Zheti ata—and bequeathed it to younger generations. The past clan unity and mutual assistance among clan members developed into different forms of social ties. In their altered form, they became patron-client relationships based not only on the clan system, but also on various social categories, such as the same place of origins within the republic, studying, working or living at the same place,

23 Zh.M. Sabitov, “Tribalizm umer vmeste s kochevym obshchestvom,” Vlast, 15 December, 2015, available at [https:// vlast.kz/avtory/14808-trajbalizm-umer-vmeste-kocevym-obsestvom.html], 28 July, 2020. 24 See: A. Bukeykhanov, Kirghizy. Formy natsionalnogo dvizhenia v sovremennykh gosudarstvakh, ed. by A.I. Koste- lianskiy, St. Petersburg, 1910, p. 599. 25 See: Islam, Society and States across the Qazaq Steppe (18th-Early 20th Centuries), ed. by N. Pianciola, P. Sartori, Austrian Academy of Sciences Press, 2013, p. 352. 26 See: Central State Archive of the Republic of Kazakhstan, rec. gr. 374, inv. 1, f. 914, sheets 26-29. 27 See: G.S. Sultangalieva, “Kazakhskie chinovniki Rossiyakoy imperii XIX v.: Osobennosti vospriatia vlasti,” Cahiers du Monde russe, Vol. 56, No. 4, 2015, pp. 651-679. 28 See: S. Cameron, op. cit., pp. 60-69. 29 See: Istoria Kazakhstana. Dokumenty i materialy (1917-2012), TOO “Shanyrak Media,” Astana, 2017, p. 320.

38 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 etc. and were very popular in Soviet times.30 They survived, in latent forms, in independent post- Soviet Kazakhstan. Independence and the political, demographic, social and cultural changes allowed more open discussions of the problems of genealogy (shezhire) and clan relations. People invariably tried to find out the clan affiliation of a candidate, an official appointed to a top post, members of work or university collectives, a party leader, an official, a future relative or even an acquaintance. Students and young employees do not hesitate to ask their professors or bosses31 about their clans, which is a purely personal question.32 In big cities an interest in clan ties is apparent; it speaks volumes about the situation in the countryside, where the traditions of clan relationships have been preserved to an even greater extent.

Field Studies in the Villages of Almaty Region

In order to verify the above, we carried out field sociological studies in the Kazakh auls of the Almaty Region. We wanted to study local attitudes to, assessments of and opinions about the current role of clan relationships. Our studies were based on the qualitative methods used in sociology and social anthropology: in-depth interviews and participant observation that allowed us to acquire information on the causes of transformation of traditional relations in contemporary Kazakhstan society. Planned as a field project and scheduled for the spring of 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic it (or part of it) was realized online through the popular messengers WhatsApp and Skype in the following villages of the Almaty Region: Kasymbek, Koktobe, Yintymak and Masak (today Kaztaia Ultarakova). They were selected as highly typical of Kazakhstan, where ethnic Kazakh population was not diluted by other ethnic groups or, at least where Kazakhs are dominant among other ethnicities. Sampling was conducted in the villages with populations of up to 5,000 situated at a distance of 100-150 km from the regional center. They are typical Kazakh villages in which traditional relations have been preserved to the highest degree; in most of them one or several clans live in compact groups in one village, that is, they resemble to the greatest extent the traditional Kazakh ethno-social structure of the past. A city or a town that attracts people of different clans and zhuzes from all parts of the country is a different matter. However, we selected the villages that were fairly close to Almaty, one of the country’s mega- lopolises to trace down social ties and assess their consistency. We carried out 5 to 7 in-depth interviews with people of different ages (to find out what different generations thought about tribalism) in each of the villages, selected by random sampling from among the local ethnic Kazakhs: 25% were people of the elder generation (60+); 35%, middle-aged (45+) and 40%, the younger generation (18+). In this way we have discovered an interesting fact: the elder generation was very much troubled by the fact that the youth demonstrated practically no interest in clan relationships, they pushed aside shezhire (genealogy) and were convinced that historical memory is no longer relevant today.

30 See: J.P. Willerton Jr., “Patronage Networks and Coalition Building in the Brezhnev Era,” Soviet Studies, Vol. 39, No. 2, 1987, pp. 175-204. 31 See: Zh. Bolatov, “Zvezdy proslavliaut grubyi primer traibalizma,” 10 October, 2019, available at [https://abai.kz/ post/98919], 28 July, 2020 (in Kazakh). 32 See: K. Bek, “Kazakhi na grani ischeznovenia...” Zhas Alash, 4 June, 2020, available at [https://zhasalash.kz/ article/9986-qazaq-qurdymgha-bet-aldy], 5 August, 2020 (in Kazakh).

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“Our ancestors cherished clan ties; we cherish them to a lesser extent, while our children even less so. They dismiss them as unimportant, they have other values.” (Kazakh woman, 51, village of Kaztaia Ultarakova) Some of the respondents were aware of the histories of their families; some had genealogical books (shezhire); others found the subject boring, outdated or even dangerous as one that leads to tribalism, disunity and conflicts among Kazakhs. Following an analysis of the information obtained from the respondents, it became relatively clear that clan relationships were mostly connected with culture and traditions such as exogamy, respect for ancestors and knowledge of history. “Clan is the memory of the past, of your origins; you should know your seven grandads and should not marry a girl from the same clan.” (Kazakh man, 65, Kasymbek) We obtained very similar results during the field studies of social ties in villages across Kazakh- stan33 carried out in 2013-2014 on an order of the Institute of World Economics and Politics under the Foundation of the First President of the Republic of Kazakhstan. On the other hand, we have detected the role of economic factors in preserving clan ties in the form of patron-client relationships. This was pretty obvious: employers were more lenient to their employees who belonged to the same clan and tried to attract the young and talented from their clans in the first place. “He is a talented boy from a good family, it turned out that he belongs to my clan. I can hire him without a trace of doubt.” (Kazakh man, 33, village of Kaztaia Ultarakova) It is much easier to establish mutually advantageous relations between members of the same clan: “Yes, we help when we can. We are from the same clan, after all. If he needs help, an agricultural machine for example, I will be ready to help.” (Kazakh man, 58, village of Yintymak) In the course of field studies, we often heard from our respondents that clan ties were important, but not enough to promote one’s own aims or establish friendly relations of mutual trust. Social factors such as belonging to groups of classmates, colleagues or neighbors were just as important. “Today, any contacts are precious, be it among relatives or members of the same clan or among classmates or colleagues. The main thing is to find common ground—this will change everything.” (Kazakh man, 47, village of Kasymbek) “It turned out that he had served in the army together with my elder brother. I was a small boy at that time and did not remember him. We found common ground at once.” (Kazakh man, 64, village of Yintymak) From this it follows that clan relationships as well as all other personal ties (informal relations between classmates, fellow students, colleagues, neighbors, etc.) can be used to promote one’s interests. Once connections (social ties) are found, a favorable social status or loyal attitude is just a matter of time. This means that clan-tribal relations remain one of the factors on par with others. Having analyzed clan policies in Kazakhstan on the basis of her 2007 studies, Barbara Junisbai, associate professor at Pitzer College (U.S.), has concluded that clans do not consist of people of the same clan.34 Kazakhstan political scientist Daniar Ashimbaev, one of the best experts in the problems of clan affiliation of members of the Kazakh elite, said in one of the interviews that in politics clans

33 See: B.R. Shakeyeva, “Kazakhskoe selo na sovremennom etape: evoliutsia sotsialnykh sviazey,” Sotsialny portret sovremennogo kazakhstanskogo obshchestva, Collection of articles, Astana-Almaty, 2015, pp. 151-176. 34 See: B. Junisbai, “A Tale of Two Kazakhstans: Sources of Political Cleavage and Conflict in the Post-Soviet Period,” Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 62, No. 2, 2010, pp. 235-269.

40 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 unite people from different clans.35 This confirms our hypothesis that today clan relationships are gradually losing their social and cultural value and their traditional meanings to become one the types of informal relationships to be used for different purposes up to and including the promotion of one’s interests.

Conclusion

The contemporary global development trends—social, cultural and market modernization among them—are highly visible in Kazakhstan, even if not all groups of its population have accepted them as a factor that improves the quality of life. They stir up opposition and activate traditionalism in the form of revived clan relationships, among others. A review of the changes in the social clan-tribal relationship model and the way it has changed when the Kazakh steppe became part of the Russian Empire, of the Soviet Union and then an independent state was conducted. Several approaches to the studies of clan relationships were analyzed to better understand the specifics of clan and zhuz formation. These three approaches can be implemented, since they reveal different aspects of the emergence of the clan tie phenomenon, its models associated with blood kinship, the territory and the way of life, politics at the republican and regional levels, etc. Today, these models and their studies are not in demand in the official political discourse and are highly important at the local level of everyday life. They do not fit the market and liberal development models, yet are fairly efficiently used in the traditional Kazakh practices to attract additional resources to families (households), reliable contacts and relationships that help them survive and develop. The logic of the genesis, development and gradual fading-out of the importance of clan contacts in the context of Kazakhstan modernization, leads to believe that the functional and symbolic importance of the clan-tribal structure should be pushed aside and condemned to oblivion in contemporary society. In real life, however, tribalism demonstrates its importance and viability, therefore, its contemporary forms in Kazakhstan should be clearly identified. The answers we received from village residents and an analysis of media publications revealed that clan ties are realized mainly as quasi- tribalism. Our field studies have confirmed that people in Kazakhstan use clan and tribal relations in the same way as other social ties: formal and informal groups of colleagues, those who served in the army together, came from the same locality, studied at the same time in the same university, live in the same house, etc. Clan ties per se are cultural and historical heritage that should be protected as the nation’s historical memory. Kazakhstani researchers should move further in their studies of the Kazakh ethnicity by analyzing in detail the social ties where the traditional relationships within the Kazakh ethno-social structure play either ethno-differentiating or ethno-integrating roles. Individual cases with a considerable amount of empirical data may present a special interest for theoretical generalizations on a much greater scale. This data may clarify the place and role of clan relationships among social ties and in the political space of intra- and inter-ethnic relations.

35 See: D.R. Ashimbaev, op. cit.

41 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition STATE BORDER ISSUES IN THE MODERN HISTORY OF UZBEKISTAN

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37178/ca-c.20.4.05

Mirzokhid RAKHIMOV D.Sc. (Hist.), Professor, Head of Modern History and International Relations Department, Institute of History, Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan (Tashkent, Uzbekistan)

Sadriddin RAKHIMOV Ph.D., Lead Researcher, Institute of History, Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan (Tashkent, Uzbekistan)

ABSTRACT

he formation and disintegration of the lics obtained political independence, the U.S.S.R. was one of the vital histori- process of defining state borders between T cal events of the 20th century. The the new sovereign countries began. Central Asian republics were established by This process turned out to be difficult the Soviet government in the 1920s and for Uzbekistan, among others, but the re- 1930s as a result of the national and territo- public was mostly able to mutually resolve rial state delimitation, and the borders be- interstate borders issues based on “uti pos- tween them were provisional. As the repub- sidetis.”

KEYWORDS: Central Asian republics, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Central Asia, borders, delimitation, demarcation.

Introduction

The formation and collapse of the Soviet Union was one of the most important historical events of the 20th century, which caused profound geopolitical changes both in the former U.S.S.R., and on a global scale. The collapse of the U.S.S.R. revealed a complex of major problems, including those related to the determination of the borders between the former Soviet republics. For instance, the Central Asian republics (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) were established by the Soviet government in the 1920s-1930s as a result of national territorial state delimitation; the boundaries between them were provisional and did not account for important historical

42 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 and cultural features. As the republics obtained political independence, the processes of creating a new state structure, the formation of a political system and interstate relations began, entailing the determination of state borders between countries. However, it turned out to be a difficult task to start the practical implementation of this issue, one of the main reasons being the complex and contradictory history of the establishment of the Soviet republics and their formal borders in the early years of the Soviet Union and in subsequent years.

On the Issue of Borders in Central Asia in the 20th Century

The history of the national and territorial state delimitation of Central Asia and the establishment of the Soviet republics has deep roots. Back in 1913, V.I. Lenin considered a possible division of Russia according to the ethnic composition of its population1 and put forward the slogan of “the right of nations to self-determination” in March 1919. In 1920-1924, the Uzbek S.S.R., the Turkmen S.S.R., the Tajik A.S.S.R. (within the Uzbek S.S.R.), the Kara-Kirghiz (Kirghiz) Autonomous Area (within the R.S.F.S.R.), and the Kara-Kalpak Autonomous Area (within the Kazakh A.S.S.R.) were established instead of what were previously the Turkestan, Bukhara and Khorezm Soviet republics. The highly controversial establishment of the Soviet Central Asian republics was the subject of numerous works in the Soviet2 and post-Soviet3 times, as well as foreign studies.4 There are several

1 V.I. Lenin, “Kriticheskie zametki po natsionalnomu voprosu,” Prosveshchenie (St. Petersburg), Nos. 10, 11 and 12, 1913. 2 See: A.S. Agzamkhodzhaev, Obrazovanie i razvitie Uzbekskoy S.S.R., Tashkent, 1971; E. Voskoboynikov, A. Zevelev, Turkkomissiia VTSIKa i SNK R.S.F.S.R. i Turkbiuro TSK R.K.P.(B.) v borbe za ukreplenie sovetskoy vlasti v Turkestane, Tashkent, 1951; A.A. Gordienko, Sozdanie sovetskoy natsionalnoy gosudarstvennosti v Sredney Azii, Moscow,1959; A.I. Zevelev, Iz istorii grazhdanskoy voyny v Uzbekistane, Tashkent, 1959; Kh. Inoiatov, Borba protiv vnutrenney kontrrevoliutsii i vneshney interven- tsii v Turkestane, Tashkent, 1976; R. Masov, Istoria istoricheskoy nauki i istoriografia sotsialisticheskogo stroitelstva v Tadzhiki- stane, Dushanbe, 1988; Kh.T. Tursunov, Obrazovanie Uzbekskoy Sovetskoy Sotsialisticheskoy Respubliki, Tashkent, 1957. 3 See: Turkestan v nachale XX veka: k istorii istokov natsionalnoy nezavisimosti, ed. by D. Alimova, Tashkent, 2000; O. Ata-Mirzayev, V.L. Gentshke, R.Kh. Murtazayeva, Uzbekistan mnogonatsionalny: istoriko-demograficheskiy aspekt, Tash- kent, 1998; R. Masov, Istoria topornogo razdeleniia, Dushanbe. 1991; Idem, Tadzhiki: istoria s grifom “Sovershenno sekret- no,” Dushanbe, 1995; M. Rakhimov, G. Urazaeva, “Central Asia Nations and Border Issues,” Conflict Studies Research Center, Central Asia Series. UK. 05/10. March 2005, available at [http://www.da.mod.uk/csrc]; I. Bobokulov, “Central Asia: Is There an Alternative to Regional Integration?” Central Asian Survey, Vol. 25, Issue 1-2, 2006, pp. 75-91; Idem, “Border Legalization under International Law as a Regional Security Factor in Central Asia,” Central Asia and the Caucasus, Vol. 12, Issue 2, 2011, pp. 25-34; T. Dadabaev, “Securing Central Asian Frontiers: Institutionalisation of Borders and Inter-state Rela- tions,” Strategic Analysis, No. 36 (4). July 2012, pp. 554-568; R. Tashtemkhanova, Zh. Medeubayeva, A. Serikbayeva, M. Igim- bayeva, “Territorial and Border Issues in Central Asia: Analysis of the Reasons, Current State and Perspectives,” Anthropolo- gist, No. 22 (3), 2015, pp. 518-525. 4 See: Post-Soviet Central Asia, ed. by T. Atabaki, J. O’Kane, London, New York, 1998; A.L. Edgar, “Identities, Com- munities, and Nations in Central Asia: A Historical Respective,” available at [http://socrates.berkeley.edu/`iseees/]; New States, New Politics: Building the Post-Soviet Nation, ed. by I. Bremer, R. Talas, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1997; G. Ginsburg, “Recent History of the Territorial Question in Central Asia,” Central Asia Monitor, No. 3/21, 1992; N. Lubin, “Islam and Ethnic Identity in Central Asia: A View from Below,” in: Muslim Eurasia: Conflicting Legacies, ed. by Y. Roi, Frank Cass, London, 1995; Central Asia in Historical Perspective, ed. by B. Manz, Westview Press, Boulder, 1994; M. Olcott, “Ethnic Violence in Central Asia: Perception and Misperception,” in: Central Asia: Conflict, Resolution and Chang- es, ed. by R. Sagdeyev, E. Eisenhower, Center for Post-Soviet Studies, Chevi Chase, 1995; J. Schoeberlein-Engel, “The Prospects for Uzbek National Identity,” Central Asia Monitor, No. 2, 1996, pp. 13-21; N. Polat, Boundary Issues in Central Asia, Transnational Publishers, New York, 2002; A. Khalid, Making Uzbekistan: Nation, Empire, and Revolution in the Early USSR, Cornell University Press, 2015.

43 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition aspects that this article will focus on. The Central Territorial Commission for the national delimitation of Central Asia was created under the Central Asian Bureau of the Central Committee of the R.C.P. (B.). Verbatim records of meetings of the Central Territorial Commission allow to assess the complexity and variety of issues dealt with by the facilitators of the national and territorial division. To resolve the emerging controversial issues, the so-called technical commissions were formed under the Central Asian Bureau, in order to promptly manage the complicated and controversial issues related to the allocation of certain Central Asian territories to the new national republics. In consideration of territorial issues, technical commissions had to rely on the following principles in their decision-making process: 1. Ethnic majority in the considered area; 2. Territorial integrity of the new state formations, so as to avoid heterogeneity. Numerous documents generated by technical commissions during the existence of the U.S.S.R. were classified and inaccessible to researchers. However, the study of these archival materials demonstrates that the two above-mentioned basic principles were rarely followed; in fact, they were violated by specific instructions from the higher (central) decision-making bodies to satisfy political ambitions. At the same time, one cannot ignore the political struggle in the newly established Soviet Central Asian republics. As a result of the Bolshevik delimitation, a significant number of people of a particular na- tionality found themselves outside the bounds of their titular state. For instance, approximately 82% of all Uzbeks who lived at that time in the former U.S.S.R., remained in Uzbekistan, 75.2% of all Tajiks were part of Tadzhikistan,5 and the situation was similar in other Central Asian republics. State security agencies played a decisive role in the process of national territorial delimitation and demarcation of borders between the Soviet republics, as evidenced by the complaints to the Moscow CEC filed by representatives of the Central Asian republics.6 In 1924, the national territorial demarcation was still ongoing. In 1926, the Kirghiz Autonomous Area was transformed into the Kirghiz Autonomous So- viet Socialist Republic; in May 1929, the Tajik Autonomous S.S.R. was transformed into the Tajik S.S.R. In 1936, according to the new Constitution of the U.S.S.R., the Kazakh A.S.S.R. and the Kirghiz A.S.S.R. were transformed into independent Soviet Socialist Republics and joined the U.S.S.R. directly. According to the initial division of 1924, the Kara-Kalpak Autonomous Area was part of the Kazakh A.S.S.R., which itself was part of the R.S.F.S.R. Subsequently, in 1930, the Kara-Kalpak Autonomous Area joined the Russian Federation directly; in 1932, it was transformed into an Autono- mous Republic and has been a part of Uzbekistan since 1936. During the subsequent decades, the practice of transferring land between the Soviet Central Asian republics continued. In general, the national territorial state delimitation was a very complex process, which had a negative consequence for almost every Central Asian republic, especially in matters of territorial boundary determination. The situation was somewhat eased by the fact that the borders between Soviet and autonomous republics within the U.S.S.R. existed to streamline the administrative-territorial division and did not require any serious equipment and strengthening, and their protection was reduced to formal control by republican and local authorities, as well as territorial divisions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

The Border Factor in Post-Soviet Central Asia

Following the collapse of the U.S.S.R., the nominal borders of the former Soviet Central Asian republics became the most important attribute of state sovereignty. The establishment of new state-

5 See: Revolutsionny Vostok (Moscow), No. 6, 1936, pp. 116-125. 6 See: M. Rahimov, G. Urazaeva, op. cit., pp. 9-10.

44 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 hood required the newly independent states to formalize the territorial framework of their sovereignty and establish the conditions that ensure a sufficient level of security for their countries. In modern international relations, this process is defined by the concept ofuti possidetis, which postulates the invariability of borders in the process of power succession and assumes that existing problems and controversial issues should be subsequently resolved through peaceful interstate coordination mechanisms.7 However, as international experience demonstrates, the uti possidetis principle is not applicable to all territorial or border issues.8 In actuality, the process of setting up the borders between the post-Soviet Central Asian republics began only in the late 1990s, although national border services were established back in 1993- 1994.9 The new security challenges, in particular, the Talibanэs access to the southern borders of the CIS in 1997, an abrupt spurt in the activities of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and its 1999- 2000 forays into Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, as well as the activation of religious extremist organizations and drug trafficking from Afghanistan through the region, became a serious stimulus in the border delimitation10 and demarcation11 process in the newly independent states of Central Asia. Not all the issues associated with the legal documentation of the state border were resolved on the external borders of the former U.S.S.R. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan inherited disputed areas along its external borders from the Soviet Union, in particular, on the border with China. Prior to the collapse of the U.S.S.R., there were 25 disputed areas along the Chinese border, and most of them fell on the territory of the Central Asian countries. In the Soviet era, certain negotiations on this issue were conducted, but the problems of the disputed areas remained.12 In 1992, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan began negotiations with China on the legal definition of the state border line. The Central Asian states are adjacent to Xinjiang Uyghur Autono- mous Region of the PRC, which borders the Republic of Kazakhstan (about 1,700 km), the Kyrgyz Republic (about 1,000 km) and the Republic of Tajikistan (about 500 km) in the north and northwest. Border delimitation treaties were signed as a result of the negotiations held between China and the Central Asian republics. In 1994, Kazakhstan and China signed an Agreement on the Delimitation of the Kazakh-Chinese State Border, but at that time, two of its sections—the Sarychilda River and the Chagan-Obo Pass areas—were still unfinalized. The disputed territories were divided by an additional agreement in 1998, according to which, out of a total area of 944 sq. km, 537 sq. km were allocated to Kazakhstan, and 407 sq. km—to China. In May 1999, Kazakhstan, Russia and China signed an Agreement on the Delimitation of the Border Junction Point of Three States, and in Decem- ber 1999, Kazakhstan and China signed a Border Treaty, which formalized the Kazakh-Chinese boundaries along their entire span.13

7 For more details, see: M. Shaw, “The Heritage of States: The Principle of Uti Possidetis Juris Today,” The British Year Book of International Law, Vol. 67, Issue 1, 1997, pp. 75-154; S. Lalonde, Determining Boundaries in a Conflicted World: The Role of Uti Possidetis, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2002, p. 360; M. Shaw, International Law, Cambridge Univer- sity Press, 2010, pp. 525-530. I. Bobokulov, “Border Legalization under International Law as a Regional Security Factor in Central Asia.” 8 See: M. Shaw, International Law, p. 528. 9 See: S. Golunov, “Faktor granits kak problema bezopasnosti postsovetskikh stran Sredney Azii,” in: Rossia-Sredniaia Azia: problemy migratsii i bezopasnosti, Barnaul, 2002, p. 33. 10 Border delimitation (from Lat. Delimitatio—establishing borders) is the definition of the line of the state border on cartographic and other documents. 11 Border demarcation (from Lat. Demarcatio—demarcation) is the determination of the line of the state border directly on the ground with its designation with special and border signs. 12 See: Zheng Kong Fu, Geopolitika Kazakhstana, Almaty, 1999, 400 pp.; M. Laumulin, Kazakhstan v sovremennykh mezhdunarodnykh otnosheniakh: bezopasnost, geopolitika, politologia, Kazakhstan Institute of Strategic Studies, Almaty, 1999, 480 pp. 13 See: Tsentralnaia Azia v mezhdunarodnykh otnosheniiakh: sobytiia i dokumenty, A textbook, ed. by A. Bogaturov, Aspekt-Press, Moscow, 2011, pp. 258-259.

45 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition

Kyrgyzstan and China also signed two agreements on the Kyrgyz-Chinese border in July 1997 and August 1999. According to these agreements, Kyrgyzstan transferred to China an area of 35,000 hectares and 90,000 hectares, respectively. The signing of the 1999 agreement provoked an exacerbation of political struggle in Kyrgyzstan. The country’s government assured the opponents of the agreement that, in accordance with this document, about 70% of the disputed territories initially claimed by China would remain with Kyrgyzstan. Ultimately, the 1999 Kyrgyz-Chinese agreement was ratified by the Kyrgyz parliament in 2002, and the demarcation of the border between the two countries was completed in 2003. China and Tajikistan have a common state border that spans about 500 km, and the issue of border delimitation acquired particular relevance in the early 1990s. The border between modern Tajikistan and China runs along the mountainous Pamir area, the Sarykul ridge. The Pamir mountains are a huge mountain elevation, which is the center of several South and Central Asian ridges, including the Hindu Kush and Karakorum ranges, and the Kunlun and Tien Shan mountains. The larger part of this mountain range is located within Tajikistan, but some of its fragments are positioned in Af- ghanistan, Pakistan, China, and Kyrgyzstan.14 After a series of inter-MFA consultations in Beijing in November 1997, a protocol was signed that secured the results of border negotiations between the joint delegation of the governments of Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, on the one hand, and the PRC delegation, on the other. In August 1999 and May 2002, China and Tajikistan signed agreements establishing a border that spanned approximately 500 km. In August 1999, the Agreement on the Tajik-Chinese State Border was signed. It preserved Tajikistan’s full jurisdiction over the disputed part of the Karzak Pass area, but conceded approximately 200 sq. km in another location, near the Markansu River, to China. The agreement on the Tajik-Chinese state border was concluded in the city of Dalian on 13 August, 1999; the legal ratification of the Agreement was subsequently carried out by each party, and the parties exchanged Agreement credentials on 4 July, 2000 in the capital of Tajikistan, the city of Dushanbe. In May 2002, Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon signed a number of agreements with the PRC, including an additional Agreement on the Demarcation of the Border and the Settlement of Territorial Disputes, according to which Tajikistan agreed to transfer 1,000 sq. km of disputed territories in GBAR to China in exchange for the withdrawal of territorial claims for 28,000 sq. km of Tajik territory.15 The 2002 agreement settled the issue of the largest plot of land with an area of over 20,000 sq. km south of the Uz-Bel pass in the Pamir mountains. In 2003, the Agreement was ratified.16 However, the transfer of the above lands to China has caused controversy in Tajikistan and other countries. In July 2000, in the city of Dushanbe, the presidents of Tajikistan, China, and Kyrgyzstan officially signed an agreement on the border junction point between the three states. Moreover, it should be noted that multilateral negotiations were also conducted between Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and China regarding international legal documentation of state borders. Thus, in order to develop a common position on solving border issues, primarily the problems of the former Soviet-Chinese border, the leaders of the above-mentioned post-Soviet states and China formed a consultative mechanism in the 4 + 1 format (later named the Shanghai Five) in April 1996. With the accession of the Republic of Uzbekistan as a founding state in June 2001, this mechanism, aimed at solving specific border-related tasks, was transformed into a full-fledged international structure—the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, whose main goal is to ensure regional security and stability.

14 See: A.V. Postnikov, Skhvatka na “Kryshe mira”: Politiki, razvedchiki, geografy v borbe za Pamir v XIX veke, Moscow, 2005, pp. 43-44. 15 See: Jing Li, Sotrudnichestvo Respubliki Tadzhikistan i Kitayskoy Narodnoy Respubliki v ramkakh SHOS (1996- 2012 gg.), Abstract of the Ph.D. (Hist.) Thesis, Dushanbe, 2013, p. 17. 16 See: Tsentralnaia Azia v mezhdunarodnykh otnosheniiakh: sobytiia i dokumenty, A textbook.

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The delimitation of the world’s longest land border—one between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Kazakhstan at 7,591 km—was formalized by the Treaty on the Kazakh-Russian State Border in January 2005.17 The Central Asian states also border Afghanistan (Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan) and Iran (Turkmenistan), the interstate borders with which were formalized in international legal documents back in the 20th century.

Issues of Uzbekistan’s Interstate Borders

Since gaining independence, the Republic of Uzbekistan did not have clear, legally formalized and internationally recognized borders with the neighboring republics of Central Asia. In order to preserve regional stability and good-neighborliness, as well as strengthen its sovereignty, the republic and other CIS countries recognized the administrative (inter-republican) borders inherited from the U.S.S.R. as state borders, respecting each other’s territorial integrity and the inviolability of existing borders. Uzbekistan borders Kazakhstan in the north and northeast, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in the east and southeast, Turkmenistan in the west, and Afghanistan in the south. The total length of its state borders exceeds 7,000 kilometers.18 For Uzbekistan, just as for the other newly independent countries in the region, the process of international legal documentation (delimitation and demarcation) of interstate borders with Central Asian states has been and still remains a strategically important task aimed at defining and establishing the spatial limits of state sovereignty, as well as strengthening national security. This issue was also formalized in the country’s main legal documents. Thus, Chapter IV of the Constitution of the Republic of Uzbekistan notes that its foreign policy is based on the principles of the states’ sovereign equality, the non-use of force or the threat of force, the inviolability of borders, the peaceful settlement of disputes, non-interference in the internal affairs of other states and other generally recognized principles and norms of international law.19 Art 78 of the Constitution of the Republic of Uzbekistan states that the legislative regulation of the issues of the country’s border alteration belongs to the joint jurisdiction of the Legislative Chamber and the Senate of the Oliy Majlis of the Republic of Uzbekistan. In addition, the Concept of Foreign Policy of the Republic of Uzbekistan adopted in 2012 states that effective measures to combat cross-border threats and establishment of close, mutually beneficial and constructive cooperation with all neighboring Central Asian countries is the main priority in Uzbekistan’s foreign policy. According to this document, Uzbekistan stands for the resolution of all poignant political, economic and environmental problems on the basis of mutual consideration of interests, constructive dialog and norms of international law. In addition, in matters of interstate borders, an essential foundation is formed by various international legal documents adopted within the framework of international institutions and bilateral treaties, along with national documents. The practical stage of interstate establishment of borders between the republics of Central Asia began in 2000. A government Commission of the Republic of Uzbekistan on the delimitation of the state border with the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Turkmenistan and the Republic of Tajikistan was formed. It comprised representatives of central and local executive bodies, special-

17 See: “Interview of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan N. Nazarbayev Given to Kazakhstan and Khabar TV Channels,” available in Russian at [https://www.akorda.kz/ru/speeches/internal_political_affairs/in_interviews/intervyu-prezidenta-respubliki-kazakhstan-n-nazarbaeva-telekanalam-kazakhstan-i-khabar_1342861821], 26 July, 2020. 18 See: I. Ne’matov, “Uskorenie zavershenia pravovogo oformlenia gosudarstvennoy granitsy so stranami Tsentralnoy Azii—vazhny prioritet vneshney politiki Uzbekistana,” available at [http://uza.uz/ru/society/uskorenie-zaversheniya-pravovogo-oformleniya-gosudarstvennoy-15-08-2018], 14 June, 2020. 19 See: The Constitution of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Tashkent, 2014. Art 17.

47 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition ists and experts of various fields. A legally formalized border is a guarantee of compliance with the two basic principles of international law: border inviolability and territorial integrity of the state. Uzbekistan’s border policy is based on the principles and norms of international law, national legisla- tion and global practice. In practical terms, the republic is attempting to develop military and technical relations in matters that include reinforcement of borders with countries and international organizations, i.e., Russia, the United States, China, the EU, Germany, the CIS, the SCO, NATO and others. However, these relationships are often intricate and associated with a number of factors, including the geopolitical discord among the leading actors.

Delimitation of Uzbekistan’s Borders with Neighboring Countries Uzbekistan-Afghanistan

The Central Asian republics of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan inherited the demarcation of their border with Afghanistan. The boundaries between them were thus legally formalized, mainly as the result of Soviet-Afghan negotiations. The state border between Uzbekistan and Af- ghanistan spans 143 km.20 The border runs along the Amu Darya River and has been sufficiently protected since Soviet times. However, since the late 1990s, when the Taliban activity intensified in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan began to further strengthen the Uzbek-Afghan border in order to protect itself from possible attempts by international terrorists, extremists and other criminal elements to penetrate the country, to counter the illegal movement of drugs and other items of contraband, illegal border crossing by refugees, etc. The Afghan factor is an important aspect of Uzbekistan’s regional policy and international military and technical cooperation. For example, in April 2015, an agreement was reached between Uzbekistan and the United States to provide patrol boats to the republic for the needs of the Uzbek coast guard on the Amu Darya River.

Uzbekistan-Kazakhstan

The administrative border between the Uzbek S.S.R. and the Kazakh S.S.R. spanned over 2,300 kilometers, and generally presented no particular relief complexity. However, over 200 kilometers of this border, mainly within the Tashkent and Jizzakh regions of Uzbekistan and the Saryagash and Makhtaaral districts of the South Kazakhstan region, traversed a densely populated area. At the same time, the most problematic sections of the border were the very territories where it has been altered by the local authorities by mutual agreement (erection of infrastructure facilities and hydraulic structures, exchanges of land plots for agricultural needs, expansion of cemeteries, etc.) or by virtue of certain geographic processes, i.e., changes in topography and river channels. Decisions on these areas were not sanctioned or protected by the highest Soviet legislative bodies in the prescribed manner. There was another type of problems—shared facilities that cross the state border (railways, highways, etc.).21

20 See: I. Ne’matov, op. cit. 21 See: A.M. Auanasova, A.M. Suleymenov, “Iz istorii delimitatsii gosudarstvennykh granits Respubliki Kazakhstan,” available at [http://www.eurasialaw.ru/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=652:2010-06-03-09-21- 06&catid=99:2010-06-02-08-56-30&Itemid=124/], 20 November, 2015.

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The delimitation of the state border between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan was conducted in two stages. 96% of the total length of the border was demarcated during the first stage. The corresponding agreement was signed by the presidents of the two states on 16 November, 2001 in Astana. However, the remaining 4% remained undefined. As a result of subsequent contacts in 2002, interstate negotiations were completed on the state border line on the remaining unresolved sections: in the area of the Bagys and Turkestanets settlements, the Arnasai dam, etc. In September 2002, in Astana, the presidents of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan signed the Agreement on Certain Sections of the Kazakh-Uzbek Border. However, the 2002 delimitation agreement did not regulate the fate of all border settlements, but only resolved the issue of ownership of certain disputed lands. At the beginning of 2003, the governments of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, by mutual agreement, made additional clarifications regarding the state border. As a result, a plot of land around the Bagys and Turkestanets villages, located to the northeast of Tashkent, was transferred to Uzbekistan, while the above-mentioned village of Bagys, chiefly inhabited by Kazakh citizens, and the isthmus between the Chardara reservoir and Lake Arnasai were transferred to Kazakhstan, as a result of which the Kazakh enclave obtained a direct transport connection with the rest of the Kazakhstan territory. In 2003, the process of border demarcation between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan began, gaining importance due to the absence of border markup, which led to frequent border incidents. The latter were mainly related to the violation of border crossing rules by residents of border regions. In May 2004, two symbolic border posts were solemnly established 17 kilometers from Tashkent between the customs and border checkpoints Gishtkuprik (Republic of Uzbekistan) and Zhibek-Zholy (Repub- lic of Kazakhstan): one with the emblem of Uzbekistan, the other with the emblem of Kazakhstan. Currently, demarcation is being conducted along the entire span of the Uzbek-Kazakh border. In so doing, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan announced the absence of any mutual territorial claims.

Uzbekistan-Kyrgyzstan

On 26 February, 2001, a Kyrgyz-Uzbek Memorandum was adopted between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan on the settlement of the legal basis for joint state border delimitation. The total span of the state border between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan is over 1,400 km. However, it should be noted that the Uzbek-Kyrgyz border is one of the most complex in the entire post-Soviet space. The main portion of the state border between these countries traverses densely populated areas of the Ferghana Valley, which is divided between Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, and is characterized by the presence of a number of enclaves, including the Tajik enclave Vorukh in Kyrgyzstan and the Uzbek enclaves of Sokh, Shakhimardan and Chonkara in Kyrgyzstan. There are practically no enclaves in the world, however, this problem persists in the Fergana Valley to this day. To resolve enclave-related issues, Uzbekistan proposed a parity exchange of territories to Kyrgyzstan in order to directly link the enclaves with the main territory, but this proposal was not accepted by Kyrgyzstan. As a result of the work carried out jointly with the Kyrgyz side on the delimitation of the state border, especially with regard to the existence of numerous problems and issues requiring clarification, by 2014, 1,058 kilometers of borders were delimited on the Uzbek-Kyrgyz border, which comprised over 70% of the entire length of the border between the two countries. However, over 300 km of borders or about 50 sections remained non-demarcated.22 The issues of borders between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan and between other Central Asian republics are the subject of both discussion and speculation in various media. Problems and discord

22 See: “Tashkent i Bishkek obsuzhdaiut voprosy po delimitatsii i demarkatsii gosgranitsy mezhdu stranami,” 12uz.com; “V Uzbekistane sostoialas vstrecha rabochikh grupp po voprosam delimitatsii i demarkatsii kyrgyzsko-uzbekskoy gosgranitsy,” available at [http://kabar.kg/politics/full/70494], 20 November, 2015.

49 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition on the borders and in the border areas related to water and land use cannot be ruled out, however, there are fascinating examples of cross-border cooperation, which can be the subject of research into the local specifics of joint water use and coexistence. Well-known Kyrgyz specialist Salamat Ala- manov is right in saying that “the only constructive way to resolve controversial border issues is negotiations on the basis of mutual respect, on the principles of parity consultations and mutual concessions.”23 Since September 2016, there has been progress in relations between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan on the fast track to the speediest completion of the legal state border documentation. It was a crucial issue in the negotiations during the September 2017 visit of the President of the Republic of Uzbeki- stan to the Kyrgyz Republic. As a result, the President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev and the President of Kyrgyzstan Almazbek Atambayev signed the Treaty on the State Border between Uz- bekistan and Kyrgyzstan, which delimitated approximately 85% of the border.24

Uzbekistan-Tajikistan

In 2000, government commissions were established to delimitate and demarcate the state border between the Republic of Uzbekistan and the Republic of Tajikistan. The Uzbek-Tajik state border spans about 1,300 km. There is a Tajik enclave of Sarvaksoy in Uzbekistan. The problem of delimiting borders was associated with relief complexity, as well as, importantly, with the geopolitical situation, security challenges and perturbations of interstate political relations. After a number of terrorist attacks from the neighboring states, mines were temporarily planted in certain remote high-mountainous sections of the Uzbek-Tajik border by Uzbekistan in 2001 and 2002 in order to protect the country against illegal armed formations (primarily the IMU). In 2000-2002, the Uzbek and Tajik government commissions defined most of the interstate border. At a meeting of the Tajik-Uzbek intergovernmental commission on delimitation and demarcation in 2002, 84% of the state border line between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan was established and sealed by an Agreement between the two states, which was subsequently ratified by the parliaments of both countries. However, since 2001, due to the uncertainty regarding the actual exact interstate border line, various problems periodically arose at the border—frequent violations of the border crossing rules, arrests of shepherds or residents who found themselves illegally on the neighboring side, conflicts with border guards, all of which was not conducive to the settlement of border issues between the two countries.25 Subsequently, the relationship between the countries remained complicated. As a result, no joint intergovernmental meetings on border issues were held in 2009-2011. Only in February 2012, the government delegation of Uzbekistan arrived in Dushanbe to participate in a meeting of the intergovernmental commission on the delimitation and demarcation of the Tajik-Uzbek border. These issues were also on the agenda of the meeting between the President of Tajikistan Emomali Rakhmon and First Deputy Prime Minister of Uzbekistan R. Azimov. During the meeting between the presidents of Tajikistan Emomali Rakhmon and Uzbekistan Islam Karimov in October 2014, a border delimitation agreement was signed, with the parties reach- ing an agreement on 86%, or about 1,100 km of the Tajik-Uzbek border.

23 [http://catoday.org/centrasia/12707-salamat-alamanov-prigranichnye-voprosy-mozhno-reshit-tolko-na-samom- vysokom-urovne-prinyav-politicheskoe-reshenie.htm], 25 November, 2015. 24 See: S. Latypov, “Ratifitsirovan dogovor ob uzbeksko-kyrgyzskoy gosudarstvennoy granitse,” available at https://[ www.norma.uz/novoe_v_zakonodatelstve/ratificirovan_dogovor_ob_uzbeksko-kyrgyzskoy_ gosudarstvennoy_granice], 12 June, 2020. 25 See, for instance: “Kak reshit prigranichnye konflikty?” Asia-Plus, 10 November, 2015.

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The basis for the further development of bilateral relations was laid by the state visit of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev to the Republic of Tajikistan on 9 March, 2018. During the talks, topical issues of strengthening bilateral political, trade and economic, investment, financial, transport, hydroelectric power, tourist, cultural, humanitarian and interregional cooperation, as well as simplification of reciprocal travel. Following the visit, a Joint State- ment on Strengthening Friendship and Good Neighborliness, an Agreement on Certain Sections of the Uzbek-Tajik State Border, an Agreement on Mutual Trips of Citizens, etc. were signed.

Uzbekistan-Turkmenistan

The Uzbek-Turkmen state border spans over 1,800 km, and the entire north-western section of the border (over 87 km) runs along the Amu Darya River. Several issues required clarification in the process of discussing border delimitation, which began in 2000, including the joint use of the Amu Darya water resources, the operation of the Karshi Main Canal in Turkmenistan (the canal transports water from the Amu Darya to the Kashkadarya region), the use of the Tuyamuyun reservoir and the operation of hydroelectric power plants located on the junction of the borders between Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, etc. Moreover, in 2000-2003, political relations between the republics remained rather complicated, which also hindered the resolution of border issues. Only in early 2004, the process of delimiting the border between Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan intensified, and during the meeting of the heads of Turkmenistan (S. Niyazov) and Uzbekistan (I. Karimov) in Bukhara in November 2004, intergovernmental agreements were signed on reciprocal travel arrangements, on the simplified procedure for citizens living in border areas, and the crossing of the Turkmen-Uzbek border by persons serving economic facilities located in the border regions. Along with resolving the issues of legal documentation of the interstate border, both Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan began to seek alternative ways of developing national transport networks to avoid transit through their neighbors’ territory. Thus, in Uzbekistan, the construction of the new Navoi- Uchkuduk-Sultanuizdag-Nukus and Tashguzar-Boysun-Kumkurgan railways was completed, which allowed the Republic of Kara-Kalpakstan, Khorezm and Surkhandarya regions to bypass Turkmeni- stan, gaining direct railway communication with the rest of the regions of the Republic of Uzbekistan, which made it possible to significantly accelerate the time required for the transportation of goods and passengers. By building the Ashghabad-Karakum-Dashoguz railway, Turkmenistan also by- passed Uzbekistan’s territory. In 2007, when the new President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov assumed office, relations between Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan significantly expanded to include the resolution of interstate border issues. At the Ashghabad summit held in 2007, the heads of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan signed an intergovernmental agreement on state border checkpoints. The agreements stipulate the coordination of actions of law enforcement, border and customs services. Repeated meetings of the joint Uzbek-Turkmen intergovernmental commission were held to examine the issues of delimiting certain sections of the state border line between Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, and the process of demarcation of the state border between the republics is currently underway.

Conclusion

The complex history of the establishment of the national Soviet republics in the first half of the 20th century left the newly independent republics of Central Asia with numerous problems, including that of interstate borders. With the acquisition of sovereignty, the legal documentation of the state

51 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition borders of Uzbekistan acquired great importance and became an important foreign policy vector, but the process itself was and remains quite complicated. Despite this fact, Uzbekistan managed to completely solve the problem of delimitation of borders with Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, while the delimitation of Uzbekistan’s borders with Tajiki- stan and Kyrgyzstan and a mutually beneficial solution of enclave-related issues still require completion. The final stage of the international legal documentation of the state border is its demarcation, the signing of the relevant treaties on interstate borders and their ratification. The newly independent republics of Central Asia need to complete this process, yet the discussion process requires greater prudence, emotional restraint and practical resolution of the interstate border delimitation issues. This process should be based, first and foremost, on a bilateral compromise, with regard to the international experience in resolving interstate border issues. It would be advisable for Central Asian and other countries to expand academic and expert cooperation in exam- ining border issues in Central Asia and to conduct comparative analysis with other countries.

ISSUES OF CONTINUITY AND A NEW COURSE IN UZBEKISTAN’S POLITICAL PROCESS

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37178/ca-c.20.4.06

Usmon BUTAEV Ph.D. (Political Science), Doctoral candidate, National University of Uzbekistan (Tashkent, Uzbekistan)

ABSTRACT

his article analyzes the problem of state. President Mirziyoyev encountered this continuity and the new course in the challenge in an entirely different situation: the T policy of the second president of Uz- transition period is nearing completion and bekistan, Shavkat Mirziyoyev. It demonstra- the new course is being determined. tes that the new course is certainly not a The complexity and somewhat contra- problem-free political process. Continuity and dictory nature of the formation and imple- the new course entail dialectical issues, i.e., mentation of the new course is associated what should be adopted from the previous with a number of internal and external cir- regime, what should be rejected, and what cumstances. Ultimately, the content and new proposals can be made. President Kari- success of the new course will depend on mov had faced this question during the transi- the transformation of the type of the state tion from the Soviet regime to an independent itself and the mentality of the people.

KEYWORDS: Uzbekistan, reforms, continuity, new course.

52 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 Introduction

In any state where a peaceful (non-revolutionary) transition in the highest state authority occurs and reforms begin, the new leadership faces a standard task: to resolve the problem of continuity and develop a new political course. This task is also relevant for the new leadership of Uzbekistan, where the new President Shavkat Mirziyoyev was elected in December 2016. The first President Islam Karimov had ruled the country from 1991 until his death in September 2016, i.e. for almost 25 years. This period can be conditionally called a transition period. It was a difficult time that entailed the formation of a new independent state with all its attri- butes. Karimov faced an unprecedented task of implementing a nation-building project. Over time, this process turned out to be much more complicated and contradictory than it might have initially seemed, since the main task was broken down into various subtasks, which, in turn, gave rise to new subtasks. Continuity and the new course are of a dialectical nature: what should be adopted from the previous regime, what should be left in the past, and what new proposals can be made? When Kari- mov was faced with this question, it was in a transition setting, along the path from the Soviet regime to independence. Mirziyoyev is dealing with this issue in a completely new setting: it is the end of transition period and a new course needs to be determined.

Development of the Political Process in the Transition Period

The political process is known to be a form of functioning of the society’s political system. It has its own subject, object, purpose, tasks and resources. The content, nature and efficiency of the political process significantly depend on the existing political regime. And the political regime is defined as a set of political relations characteristic of a certain type of state, the means and methods used by the authorities, the established relations of state power and society, the dominant forms of ideology, social and class relationships and the state of political culture.1 Political regimes may be authoritarian, democratic, totalitarian, etc. and, in turn, are subdivided into liberal, dictatorial, tough, absolutist, sultanist (as defined by Juan Linz), etc. In order to analyze and understand the essence of the topic under consideration, it is important to understand the nature of the political process and the political regime in the country. After the collapse of the U.S.S.R., the political process in Uzbekistan, just as in other post-So- viet countries, continued to function in an inertial mode for a certain period of time, i.e., it repeated and even relied on Soviet principles and functional features. In this context, the problem of continuity and the new course at the beginning of the era of independence demanded what may be called a revolutionary outlook. The situation was paradoxical in that, on the one hand, the collapse of the U.S.S.R. marked the liberation from the totalitarian regime of the Communist Party and the transition to a completely new political system, but on the other, the leadership of the independent state of Uzbekistan and its leader Islam Karimov essentially possessed nothing but the Soviet experience in ruling a country. As a product of the Soviet system, Karimov actually turned out to be somewhat burdened by the Soviet legacy, getting rid of which required both an enormous political will and moral and intellectual efforts.

1 See: Politologia. Entsiklopedicheskiy slovar, Publishers, Moscow, 1993, p. 296.

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Thus began the transition period. The new political process (the new course) was launched while the Soviet model was still stable, and it can be referred to as the “Soviet syndrome.” The So- viet syndrome, in fact, became a factor of negative continuity, not due to the deliberate preservation of its elements in the new regime, but as a relic that should have withered away over time. Naturally, it was initially necessary for the leadership of the new independent state to modify the authority model, since the previous one was based on the obsolete (or rejected) communist ideology. There are many definitions of power that have been developed by political scientists in different countries, and there is no need to reiterate them. For the purposes of this analysis, political power is defined as the capacity or aggregate of will that acts, forms, controls, maintains and reproduces a special social contract in the given space and time. In other words, all the actions by the subject of power are associated with the determination of the social contract.2 This conceptualization allows to reveal the specifics of the process of erasing the old and creating the new conducted by the First President of Uzbekistan. By the time the country gained independence, it had accumulated a number of complex problems in many spheres. The President was one of the first former Soviet leaders to declare the independence of his country. Uzbekistan became a sovereign state on 31 August, 1991. This decision immediately elevated him in public opinion and actually turned into the founding father of the new state. At the same time, he inherited an authoritarian method of government and, despite the declaration of democratic values and reforms, turned into one of the toughest authoritarian rulers in the post-Soviet space, up to and including the emergence of a personality cult around his figure. All of the above was reflected in Karimov’s domestic and foreign policies. Karimov’s domestic policy can be characterized as follows: post-totalitarian authoritarianism (Soviet syndrome) and the national model of reforms (the new course). The Soviet syndrome manifested itself in the excessively ideologized public life, the constancy of labor mobilization methods and elements of the administrative economy, the domination of the state and the absenteeism of civil society, the intimidating oversight of the security agencies, etc. As independent Uzbekistan still moved forward due to inertia, the revival of national consciousness and nation-state building began. In turn, it was not entirely devoid of problems or consistent. During the entire period of Karimov’s rule, which is usually called the transition period, institutions of the old system were dismantled and new ones were created, new social relations were formed, and the country has adopted to the existing world order. At the same time, one important factor in the new course was its appeal to the historical, pre- Soviet past. In this sense, continuity manifested itself not only in the Soviet syndrome, but also in the desire to impart the country’s great past to the present. Therefore, in fact, the restoration of the past in a broad sense, the continuity of the historical past became part of the new course. Re-Islamization of the Uzbek society, which began immediately with independence and has been consistently gaining momentum and expanding in scale up to the present day, became an important and integral element of the new life in this context. This process is accompanied by complex discourse on the interpretation of Islam and holy books, the essence, role and place of religion in the life of society, as well as the relationship between the state and religion.3 Oddly enough, Karimov’s relatively successful policy on religion was most criticized by international human rights organizations for alleged massive oppression of the believers’ rights, which was certainly a distortion of the real state of affairs in this sphere.

2 See: F. Tolipov, “Detecting Power in Power Projection: The Case of Uzbekistan,” Sociological Problems (Sofia), No. 2, 2019. 3 See: B. Babadzhanov, F. Tolipov, “Islamizatsia sotsialnogo i politicheskogo prostranstv Uzbekistana: soderzhanie, formy, perspektivy,” in: Tsentralnaia Azia na fone globalnykh ugroz, Bishkek, 2016, pp. 71-133.

54 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020

The religious situation and politics were complicated by the emergence of the threat of religious extremism and terrorism, which Uzbekistan experienced repeatedly during this period. Due to the complexity of the transition period and the emerging challenges and threats, the issue of maintaining social stability was constantly articulated and referred to like a mantra by the President and ideo- logues at different levels. The complexities and difficulties of the transition period also increased because of the permanent geopolitical context that served as the background for the pursuit of the new course. The international situation and geopolitical tensions in the Central Asian region could not but influence domestic politics. There was a need for an ideology of independence, which would free Uzbekistan from the need to survey the geopolitical situation. That is, the ideology of independence was, so to speak, a dual-purpose one: the messages to the world community and the domestic message. Meanwhile, Uzbekistan’s person centered political system was based on Karimov’s personality cult. Such a system was a priori doomed to authoritarianism and by its very nature could not transform into a democracy or acquire even its most basic elements. It is characterized by a large gap between what is referred to as de jure and de facto situations. De jure, that is, at the level of laws, decrees, official statements, formal and demonstrative events, etc., a democratic environment was created. De facto, that is, at a practical level, there were significant obstacles to the implementation of democratic ideas, laws and projects. As a result, the successfully launched new course did not significantly depart from the continuity of the old regime and ended with crisis events: economic stagnation, the decline of the education system, ubiquitous corruption, human rights violations and brain drain. American political scientist Gregory Gleason made an interesting conclusion about the reforms conducted in Uzbekistan and other countries in the region: “All the political life was saturated with the ‘spirit of reform.’ The words ‘reform’ and ‘transition period’ became clichés used to excuse the ‘temporary difficulties’ the country is faced with after gaining independence. However, to the citizens of Central Asia, reform has become a permanent condition of governance and more of an explanation for why things do not work than for why they do.”4 Karimov’s foreign policy was also rather controversial in terms of continuity and the new course. On the one hand, foreign policy continued to be based on the Realpolitik principles (an element of continuity: a relic of the Cold War and Soviet syndrome), and on the other, the idea of regional integration of the Central Asian countries (new course) was proclaimed. In fact, the very possibility of an independent foreign policy implemented by an independent state implied a new course that significantly differed from Soviet foreign policy. It is interesting to note that the Russian Federation, as the successor to the U.S.S.R., one might say, continued the Soviet (great power) foreign policy, which was confrontational towards the United States and the West in general. Con- versely, Uzbekistan has established normal cooperation and even strategic partnership with them. Within the framework of the new course, President Karimov proclaimed the slogan “Turkestan is our common home,” and Uzbekistan played a key role in regional affairs during the 1990s, confirming the assessments and forecasts of international experts.5 Uzbekistan has established strategic partnership relations with a number of global and regional powers—the U.S., Russia, China, Japan, India, Turkey and South Korea. In his report, Karimov stated that geopolitical uncertainty had formed in the Central Asian region. It meant that “the geostrategic interests of the major world powers and neighboring countries

4 G. Gleason, “Reform Strategies in Central Asia: Early Starters, Late Starters, and Non-Starters,” in: In the Tracks of Tamerlane. Central Asia’s Path to the 21-st Century, ed. by D. Burghart and T. Sabonis-Helf, National Defense University, Washington, D.C., 2004, p. 43. 5 S.F. Starr, “Making Eurasia Stable, Foreign Affairs, Jan./Feb. 1996.

55 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition are concentrated here and sometimes collide. Threats of international terrorism, extremism, drug aggression and other transnational threats to regional security remain poignant.”6 The well-known Andijan events in May 2005 may have become a turning point in the regional policy implemented by Tashkent: there was a transition to bilateral relations detrimental to regional integration; Uzbekistan went into self-isolation. Self-isolation has led to the deterioration of the general regional political climate and increased tension in relations with neighboring countries. This state was preserved for almost 10 years until the death of Islam Karimov in September 2016 and the end of the so-called transition period.

Transition of Power and the New Course

Numerous international experts predicted the destabilization of the socio-political situation in Uzbekistan in connection with the transition of power. However, this did not happen; the transfer of power was calm and peaceful and Shavkat Mirziyoyev was elected as the new president in December 2016. Like any other president, he needs to solve the problem of continuity and the new course. Al- most three and a half years of the new president’s rule demonstrate that this problem is just as difficult and complex for him as for his predecessor.  First of all, he no longer needs to appeal to distant history, since this has already been done before him.  Secondly, he cannot preserve the Soviet tradition of government (as it was done by Kari- mov) either, since he would otherwise be held responsible for the conservation of the long- gone Soviet system, whose relevance can no longer be justified. For Mirziyoyev, continuity means only one thing: preserving the authoritarian governing style in order to ensure effective reforms. The new course implies the dialectic of “the negation of the negation,” i.e. a gradual modification of Karimov’s system (which itself was a minor modification of the Soviet system) towards greater liberalization. This hybrid and eclectic nature of the President’s policy, on the one hand, reflects the contradictory nature of complex reforms, which both preserves the stable elements of the preceding system (primarily the “old guard”), and entails an invisible resistance to reforms. On the other hand, this hybrid and eclectic nature is associated with a low level of social readiness to operate in a democratic environment, which leads to a lack of critical perception of the essence of the reforms being carried out. As far as Mirziyoyev’s internal policy is concerned, first and foremost it is important to note that the current reforms are far more dynamic and large-scale compared to the previous period. Since the very beginning, Mirziyoyev announced the concept of dialog with the people; in fact, 2017 was declared the Year of Dialog with the People. He openly admitted the existence of corruption in the country and initiated the adoption of the Law on the Fight against Corruption. In the beginning of 2017, the Strategy of Actions for the Further Development of the Republic of Uzbekistan for 2017- 2021 was adopted. This document became a systemic program statement of the main reform vectors for the five-year period; it includes such spheres as improving the system of state and social construction; ensuring the rule of law and further reforming the judicial and legal system; development and

6 Report of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov at a Joint Meeting of the Legislative Chamber and the Senate of the Oliy Majlis, 28 January, 2005.

56 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 liberalization of the economy; development of the social sphere; ensuring security, interethnic harmony and religious tolerance, as well as the implementation of a balanced, mutually beneficial and constructive foreign policy. Each of these spheres contains a detailed presentation of all its key areas. The new course has led to the creation of a new educational model, entailing the reorganization of the system of lyceums, all secondary, higher and postgraduate education. Branches of foreign universities are opened every year. The quota for admission of applicants to the country’s universities has been significantly increased. One of the first fundamental decisions was the introduction of free convertibility of the national currency, the Som, which immediately led to the disappearance of the black-market rate and the stimulation of business and entrepreneurship. Noticeable progress has been achieved in the sphere of human rights protection: several political prisoners were released; child labor was abolished; Uzbekistan joined the Habeas Corpus system. The development of civil society in Uzbekistan is particularly dynamic. In May 2018, the President signed a Decree on Supporting Civil Society Institutions. Currently, the development of a new NGO Code of Uzbekistan is being completed. These are just the general outlines of the most significant advances in internal reforms. Mirziyoyev’s foreign policy comprises similar major advances that can be summarized as follows. Since assuming power, the incumbent President announced that the Central Asian region would be a priority, and since then regional dynamics have indeed been gaining momentum. The practice of the so-called Consultative Meetings of the Presidents of the regional states was introduced. The first Con- sultative Meeting was held in Astana in March 2018, the second—on November 29 in Tashkent, and the third was slated to occur in Bishkek in 2020 but was postponed to 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The format of Presidents’ Consultative Meetings may create a new foundation for closer rapprochement and integration of the regional countries after a long period of stalling in regional cooperation. However, many observers assess this format as an alternative to the integration model, which allegedly had no success in the past. Much will obviously depend on the political will of the regional states regarding the promotion of further cooperation, as well as geopolitical trends. The activation of the Afghan vector is among Tashkent’s most noticeable foreign policy steps that draw the attention of numerous observers today. Mirziyoyev proposed a new perspective on Afghanistan, which entails viewing this country as a source of new opportunities for cooperation, rather than threats. In March 2019, the Tashkent Declaration was adopted at a major international conference on Afghanistan in Tashkent. According to Uzbekistan’s position, the Afghan problem should be resolved at three levels—domestic, regional and global. In the meantime, it is important to note that despite such a positive and committed contribution of Uzbekistan to the reconciliation of the parties in Afghanistan, the conflict there is still ongoing. In 2019-2020, a new trend related to the prospect of the country’s possible entry into the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) emerged in Uzbekistan’s foreign policy course. In May 2020, the Senate of Uzbekistan approved the decision on the country’s accession to the EAEU as an observer. Along with the issues of joining (or not joining) the EAEU, a new geopolitical round is unfolding in Central Asia, in connection with the announcement of a new Central Asian strategy by the United States, as well as the intensification of the diplomatic process within the framework of the C5+1 format (5 Central Asian states and the U.S.). There is both tangible and invisible rivalry between the two models—the EAEU and C5+1. The Russian media and think tanks react to every regular C5+1 meeting as if Washington is drawing the Central Asian countries over to its side. Con- versely, appeals for integration within the EAEU, especially in the context of Uzbekistan’s accession to this Union, are perceived by the West as an attempt by Moscow to restore a semblance of the U.S.S.R.

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According to many, there is also a third key player in the Central Asian geopolitical field, namely, the PRC. Since the collapse of the U.S.S.R. and up until today, China has been consistently and ever more aggressively participating in the regional geopolitical game. Beijing has demonstrated its heightened ambitions most vividly by launching the global Belt and Road initiative, the Central Asian (continental) part of which is called the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB). So, the EAEU—C5+1—SREB triangle is the most noticeable geopolitical configuration in the region. It is, in fact, much more complicated due to the influence that various middle-rank states and international organizations have on the situation in Central Asia. Under these conditions, Uzbekistan is once again solving the problem of continuity and a new course. This task is important in relation to the vision of the country’s future development and the correct determination of the course and pace of the reforms. Ultimately, the content and success of the new course will depend on the transformation of the type of the state and the people’s mentality. The question of the nature of the state, power and political regime was not incidentally raised in the beginning of the article. Obviously, the original goal of nation-building must now be reformulated as state development. The relationship between the state and its citizens must acquire a new content and expression. People’s so-called political mentality and political culture must receive a new meaning. American anthropologist Morgan Liu, among many other researchers studying Central Asian, drew attention to the importance of mentality and culture (rather than merely laws and institutions) as factors in a country’s successful democratization. He emphasized the paternalism and recognition of hierarchy deeply rooted in public opinion and upbringing. According to him, Uzbeks believe that ordinary people are unable to fully understand governance issues, express consistent logical judgments about them, or demand change.7 As the Uzbek political scientist Kamoliddin Rabbimov correctly noted, “in Uzbekistan, authoritarianism has been convincing people for over a quarter of a century that if the country is free and democratic, it will face social chaos, the growth of religious extremism and terrorism, separatism, violent localism, the collapse of the state, etc. ...Prolonged and harsh authoritarianism has created its own belief system, and until an alternative system is created, the state and society will by default remain in a pro-authoritarian state, while reforms will only have a technical and short-term effect.”8

Conclusion

The new course is a political process that is not devoid of problems. The complexity and somewhat contradictory nature of the formation and implementation of the new course is associated with a number of internal and external circumstances. Karimov maintained a distance from the EurAsEC and did not consider joining the integrative structures of the post-Soviet space, while Mirziyoyev headed for rapprochement with the EAEU. At the end of his rule, Karimov adopted the principle of bilateralism and practically isolated himself from regional affairs, while Mirziyoyev returned to the concept of multilateralism and intensified the -re gional process. Karimov looked at Afghanistan through the prism of security and threats, while Mirziyoyev is more inclined to involve Afghanistan in trade, infrastructure and other forms of cooperation. Karimov’s regime was rigidly authoritarian, while Mirziyoyev’s course can be called mildly

7 M.Y. Liu, “Post-Soviet Paternalism and Personhood. Why Culture Matters to Democratization in Central Asia,” in: Democracy in Central Asia, ed. by B.N. Schlyter, Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul, 2005, p. 232. 8 K. Rabbimov, “Novyi Uzbekistan i tiazhelaia gravitatsiia avtoritarizma,” 10 August, 2018, available at [https:// centre1.com/uzbekistan/kamoliddin-rabbimov-novyj-uzbekistan-i-tyazhelaya-gravitatsiya-avtoritarizma/].

58 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 authoritarian and slightly more liberal. Karimov’s system was overly ideologized, while the current system seems more technocratic. The state apparatus and bureaucracy were impenetrable and removed from the people under Karimov, but under Mirziyoyev, they are becoming increasingly more transparent. At the same time, the foreign policy of both Presidents is characterized by elements of balancing between major world powers. The internal politics of both presidents are characterized by the weakness of democratic reforms and strong control of the media and society by the state. Therefore, the new course should not merely entail a modification of the previous one, even if significant, rather, it should be a fundamental alteration, otherwise, relapses of the old course will manifest themselves at various stages of the implementation of domestic and foreign policy. This does not by any means imply that there should be no policy continuity. Continuity is not a direct continuation or preservation of the properties and content of the previous policy, but its dialectical and fundamental reworking.

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COVID-19 PANDEMIC

COVID-19: NEW CHALLENGES FOR CENTRAL ASIA

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37178/ca-c.20.4.07

Sergey ZHILTSOV D.Sc. (Political Science), Head of the Department of Political Science and Political Philosophy, Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation; Professor, People’s Friendship University of Russia; Research Fellow, S.Yu. Witte Moscow University (Moscow, Russian Federation)

ABSTRACT

n 2020, Central Asian countries faced itive results. These measures have reduced new challenges that are bound to have the incidence of sickness and mortality in all I a huge impact on the development of countries. At the same time, they encoun- the region. The coronavirus (COVID-19) tered a decline in key macroeconomic indi- epidemic has posed the region’s countries cators. Inflation rate, tumbling GDP and ris- with the need to find mechanisms for adapting unemployment were observed in all ing the economy and social sphere to the Central Asian states. new reality. Despite the difficulties, regional The pandemic has negatively impacted states were able to respond quickly enough bilateral and multilateral relations of the to the pandemic and tried to minimize the Central Asian countries. The level of trade economic and social consequences. Appli- and economic relations was lowered, the cation of quarantine measures and various volume of transported goods decreased. restrictions, i.e., border closures and the ter- The countries of Central Asia were forced to mination of transport links have yielded pos- structure their foreign policy in a new way,

60 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 which factors in the complicated economic improvement of the situation do not allow us situation in each of the states. Specifically, to expect changes in the region in 2021. The one of the new trends is the active use of Central Asian states may face a further drop multilateral and bilateral mechanisms of in- in production volumes, increased unemploy- teraction with nonregional states. ment, decreased domestic demand, and in- Despite the steps taken, the countries flation. of the region managed to stabilize the eco- Economic problems in each of the nomic situation for a short time. By the fall of Central Asian countries will negatively affect 2020, the epidemiological situation remai- the geopolitical situation and serve as an ob- ned problematic in the countries of Central stacle for multilateral interaction of the Cen- Asia. This forced them to develop new mea- tral Asian states. Finally, there is still no sures to support specific sectors of the econo- clear understanding of the impact of the my and preserve social and economic stabi- coronavirus on the economies of Central lity. The countries did not rule out the intro- Asia. There are also no calculations that duction of new restrictions and the develop- would show how effective the measures ment of additional economic support measu- taken in the fight against COVID-19 were, res for the essential sectors of the economy. and most importantly, it is unclear what re- The slowdown in economic growth in sources may be required if the epidemic 2020 and the lack of prerequisites for the continues.

KEYWORDS: COVID-19, Central Asia, economy, oil, inflation.

Introduction

2020 has become one of the most difficult years for the Central Asian countries. The socio- political and economic difficulties caused by COVID-19 are comparable to those of the 1990s, when they had to face the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union’s economic system. The coronavirus pandemic took place against the backdrop of problems in the global economy and falling oil prices. These factors had a strong impact on the economies of Central Asian countries, influencing their internal political development and adjusting foreign policy priorities.1

First Steps in the Fight against COVID-19

Faced with the coronavirus pandemic, Central Asian countries have responded to the threats in different ways. Among the measures that have been taken are border closures, the introduction of a state of emergency, a sharp restriction on people’s movements within each of the countries. Kazakh- stan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan immediately began to impose severe restrictions and develop anti- crisis measures. These countries canceled the celebration of the Muslim holiday Navruz on 21 March. At the same time, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan declared an emergency situation, and in some regions, a state of emergency. The toughest measures were introduced in Uzbekistan. Strict quarantines were

1 See: S.S. Zhiltsov, “Koronavirus udaril po stranam postsovetskogo prostranstva,” Problemy postsovetskogo prostranstva, Vol. 7, No. 1, 2020, pp. 8-17, available at [https://doi.org/10.24975/2313-8920-2020-7-1-8-17].

61 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition implemented throughout the country, halting the work of public transportation and closing all trade establishments with the exception of grocery stores. Certain Central Asian countries, which were already at the first stage of the pandemic, developed anti-crisis measures that allowed to reduce economic losses and contributed to their adaptation to the new domestic and foreign economic conditions. Thus, in Kazakhstan, an anti-crisis package of measures was developed to support the economy. On 16 March, 2020, the President of Kazakhstan signed a decree On Additional Measures to Stabilize the Economy.2 According to the document, “the government has the right to limit tariffs and prices for food and other goods.” Support provided to the economy was estimated at $10 billion. Slightly less than half of Kazakhstan’s budget was formed at the expense of oil industry revenues. Meanwhile, oil price was set at $57 per barrel in Kazakhstan’s 2020 budget.3 Accordingly, even with oil priced at $35-40 per barrel, the country’s budget could receive several billion dollars less. The price of $20-25 per barrel dealt a severe blow to the budget of Kazakhstan. Just in the first two months of 2020, under coronavirus conditions, led to losses of about $1 billion to the Kazakhstani budget.4 Generally, some of the Central Asian countries promptly responded to the emerging challenges. The preventive nature of the authorities’ actions was typical of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyz- stan. For instance, tough measures began to be introduced in Uzbekistan on 15 March, and starting on 1 April, a strict self-isolation regime was introduced due to the deteriorating epidemiological situation. A $1-billion Anti-Crisis Fund has been established in Uzbekistan in order to overcome the consequences of the pandemic.5 A special commission was formed as early as in February 2020, headed by the Prime Minister, which was entrusted with the task of countering the coronavirus pandemic. This was due to the fact that an effective demand for textiles and agricultural products was expected to decline in Uzbekistan in the early 2020 due to the drop in the price of energy resources, potential decrease in receipts from gas exports, and the devaluation of the national currency. In addition, in April, President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed a decree on attracting loans from international financial institutions in the amount of $3.1 billion. Uzbekistan planned to obtain funds from the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the Islamic Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.6 Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan were implementing a strategy that was provided by the World Health Organization (WHO) and was followed by other states. Accordingly, they did not wait for a massive increase in the incidence and introduced restrictions quickly. 7 However, several months later the epidemiological situation in the countries remained rather difficult despite the measures taken. Unlike other Central Asian countries, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were in no hurry to admit the presence of coronavirus, although they also introduced restrictions. For example, Tajikistan halted flights with 35 countries at the end of February. Turkmenistan has banned foreign citizens from visiting the country starting on 20 March. At the same time, Tajikistan admitted the presence of

2 See: Decree of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan On Additional Measures to Stabilize the Economy of 16 March, 2020, available in Russian at [https://www.akorda.kz/ru/legal_acts/decrees/o-dalneishih-merah-po-stabilizacii- ekonomiki], 16 March, 2020. 3 [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/KAZPZPIOILBEGUSD], 14 March, 2020. 4 See: A. Nikonorov, “Milliard dollarov—poteri Kazakhstana ot padeniia sprosa na neft i med,” 16 March, 2020, available at [https://365info.kz/2020/03/milliard-dollarov-poteri-kazahstana-ot-padeniya-sprosa-na-neft-i-med], 16 March, 2020. 5 See: “Uzbekistan poluchit $3 mlrd ot mezhdunarodnykh donorov na borbu s COVID-19,” 24 April, 2020, available at [https://fergana.media/news/117460/], 16 May, 2020. 6 [https://www.gazeta.uz/ru/2020/04/24/financing/], 2 August, 2020. 7 See: “Issledovanie togo, kak v EAES boriutsia s rasprostraneniem COVID-19,” 18 April, 2020, available at [https:// www.sonar2050.org/publications/mery-virusnogo-sderjivaniya/], 14 June, 2020.

62 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 coronavirus only on 30 April, prior to the arrival of the WHO delegation, and Turkmenistan did not officially recognize the presence of a pandemic at all. However, regardless of the actions taken, COVID-19 affected the economies of all Central Asian countries. They experienced a devaluation of the national currency. For many countries, this was associated with the falling prices of natural resources.8 The countries of Central Asia began to reduce exports: by April 2020, Tajikistan reduced exports by $40 million.9 In addition, the regional states intended to revise their 2020 budgets, increasing their deficit part, and to establish various funds. In general, at the end of the year, the countries expected inflation to rise, possibly in excess of 10%, and the GDP could go into negative territory. Different countries’ approaches to combating COVID-19 were greatly impacted by the economic factor. The most economically developed (Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan) had a margin of safety, which allowed them to establish targeted funds and provide support to their population. In addition, they could count on loans from international financial institutions. For other countries, such as Tajikistan, the introduction of severe restrictions could turn into a collapse of the economy. “The declaration of the quarantine meant a freeze on all government construction and infrastructure projects, mostly related to Chinese investments.”10 Unemployment became a major problem for all Central Asian countries. The restrictions im- posed in certain sectors of the economy led to the closure of many enterprises. First of all, this affected tourism, restaurant business and airlines. Tourism, which has been decimated by transport restrictions and lockdowns, required financial support through insurance bailouts, tax incentives, and other business support schemes to keep the sector afloat.11 The growing unemployment not only increased pressure on Central Asian economies, but also exacerbated the political situation. The return of citizens of Central Asian states from Russia, where they worked and transferred funds to their homeland, led to an increase in unemployment and a worsening of the socio-economic situation. Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan were more dependent on remittances from their citizens than other countries in the region. For example, Tajikistan faced serious economic problems caused by the CO- VID-19 pandemic. Up to 70% of its population lived off the remittances of labor migrants, mainly from Russia.12 In the first quarter of 2020, remittances from Russia to Tajikistan decreased by 22.3%, to Kyrgyzstan—by 20.7%, to Uzbekistan—by 7.2%.13 Thus, transfers to Tajikistan amounted to $359 million, while in January—February 2020, $462 million was sent.14 A sharp decline in remittances could put countries on the brink of a financial crisis. COVID-19 has had a negative impact on the transport sector. Because of the pandemic, Central Asian states were forced to limit cooperation and reduce transport communications. For example, Kazakhstan decided to partially close the border with Kyrgyzstan. This had a negative impact on the

8 See: Kh. Khamidov, “V chem osnovnaia prichina devalvatsii suma?” 16 April, 2020, available at [https://kun.uz/ ru/05917422], 17 June, 2020. 9 See: “V usloviakh pandemii Tadzhikistan sokratil eksport i uvelichil import tovarov,” 16 April, 2020, available at [https://tj.sputniknews.ru/country/20200416/1031078099/tajikistan-sokratil-eksport-uvelichil-import-tovarov.html], 22 July, 2020. 10 See: E. Ionova, “Tsentralnaia Azia v usloviiakh pandemii,” Rossia i novye gosudarstva Evrazii, No. 2, 2020, pp. 81-93. 11 See: C.-Y. Park, J. Villafuerte, A. Abiad, B. Narayanan, E. Banzon, J. Samson, A. Aftab, M.C. Tayag, “An Updated Assessment of the Economic Impact of COVID-19,” Asian Development Bank, May 2020, available at [https://www.adb.org/publications/updated-assessment-economic-impact-covid-19], 13 May, 2020. 12 See: “Do 70% naselenia Tadzhikistana zhivut za schet perevodov trudovykh migrantov,” 14 October, 2019, available at [https://rus.ozodi.org/a/30214025.html], 4 May, 2020. 13 See: A. Shustov, “Antikrizisnye kredity: kto nuzhdaetsia bolshe,” 13 August, 2020, available at [https://www. ritmeurasia.org/news--2020-08-13--antikrizisnye-kredity-kto-nuzhdaetsja-bolshe-50390], 14 August, 2020. 14 See: “Tadzhikskie trudovye migranty na chetvert sokratili denezhnye perevody iz RF,” 17 June, 2020, available at [https://tj.sputniknews.ru/migration/20200617/1031424029/Tadzhikskie-trudovye-migranty-snizili-denezhnye-perevody- russia.html], 3 August, 2020.

63 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition country’s economy and the position of the Kyrgyz population, which was employed in small and medium-sized businesses.15 Kazakhstan’s ports suffered significant losses. Thus, in March, the volume of production indicators in the Aktau port decreased by 7.5% compared to March 2019.16 Transportation-related issues were discussed on 10 April at the extraordinary Turkic Council summit Cooperation and Solidarity in the Fight against the COVID-19 Pandemic. The summit was initiated by the President of Azerbai- jan and was attended by the presidents of Kyrgyzstan, Turkey, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. State leaders discussed measures to combat the pandemic, as well as issues related to the intensification of multilateral cooperation. Particular attention was paid to overcoming the negative consequences of the coronavirus for national economies.17 Unlike developed countries, the Central Asian states did not have significant financial resources and economic potential that would allow them to get through the difficult period associated with the coronavirus and the oil price war with minimal losses. In addition, a significant part of the population in each country did not have financial savings and lived from paycheck to paycheck. Under these conditions, the states were forced to allocate additional budget funds to support the population in order to maintain socio-political stability, which negatively affected the economy.

Preliminary Results

Several months after the beginning of the pandemic, various research centers began to sum- marize the first results of its impact on various countries. In April 2020, the Caspian Political Center prepared a report on COVID-19 and the Greater Caspian Region.18 The report stated: “Nine countries of the Greater Caspian Region (the authors include in it the countries of Central Asia and the South- ern Caucasus, as well as Afghanistan.—S.Zh.) also face severe challenges from the global spread of the coronavirus. These challenges are longer term as well as immediate. They affect individuals as well as institutions. They are domestic as well as international. And actions that individuals, governments, businesses, academic institutions, and other entities take now may also shape dynamics within these nine countries and the region even after COVID-19 is brought under control.”19 The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has released a report on the impact of the pandemic. The stability of the Central Asian economies was given a below-average assessment.20 The author of the document drew attention to the fact that domestic measures implemented in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic were carried out against the backdrop of falling commodity prices, dwindling tourism and decreasing money transfers. In particular, the share of money transfers of the total population income in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan exceeded 25%.21

15 See: E. Ionova, op. cit. 16 See: A. Kutubayeva, “Morskie porty Kazakhstana terpiat ubytki v sviazi s pandemiey,” 10 April, 2020, available at [https://liter.kz/morskie-porty-kazahstana-terpyat-ubyt/], 19 July, 2020. 17 See: “Strany Tiurkskogo soveta podderzhat transkaspiyskie torgovye koridory v usloviiakh pandemii,” 14 April, 2020 [http://casp-geo.ru/strany-tyurkskogo-soveta-podderzhat-transkaspijskie-torgovye-koridory-v-usloviyah-pandemii/], 5 June, 2020. 18 See: R. Cekuta, E. Nifti, R. Hoagland, A. Mustard, “COVID-19 and the Greater Caspian Region,” Caspian Policy Center, 3 April, 2020, available at [https://www.caspianpolicy.org/covid-19-and-the-greater-caspian-region/], 28 May, 2020. 19 Ibidem. 20 See: A. Williams, “EBRD Monitor Assesses Resilience of Emerging Economies to Covid-19,” 1 April, 2020, available at [https://www.ebrd.com/news/2020/ebrd-monitor-assesses-resilience-of-emerging-economies-to-covid19.html], 23 May, 2020. 21 See: Ibidem.

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In April, the Caspian Policy Center published the report Caspian Security at the Crossroads: In the Cross Hairs? Its author Michael S. Repass noted that “In some of the Caspian nations, acute and widespread viral illness will present a serious threat to domestic and regional security if not properly treated, managed, and resourced.”22 Thus, the countries of Central Asia faced serious difficulties that could not be solved within several months after the start of the pandemic. The ongoing crisis created the preconditions for the subsequent revision of the GDP forecast towards its further decline.

The Chinese Factor in Central Asia

In Central Asia, “the introduction of quarantines around the world and a reduction in production in China, its main trading partner, led to a decrease in income from the export of natural resources, total trade turnover, a decrease in money transfers from labor migrants, a loss of income for a significant number of people employed in the informal sector and small and medium business in the service sector.”23 China’s exports to all Central Asian countries except Turkmenistan dropped significantly in the first six months of 2020. Exports to Kyrgyzstan decreased most significantly, by- al most one-half, to Tajikistan—by over 30% and to Kazakhstan—by about 25%.24 According to preliminary estimates, Uzbekistan could lose up to $1 billion in trade with China in 2020.25 Over the past decade, all Central Asian countries have found themselves in debt dependence on China. The most critical situation among the countries of the region is in Kyrgyzstan26 and Tajikistan. As of the end of 2019, out of $3.8 billion of external debt, Kyrgyzstan owed China $1.7 billion.27 Kazakhstan’s debt to China reached $12.3 billion, Tajikistan’s debt—$1.2 billion.28 China is attempting to take advantage of the economic difficulties that the Central Asian countries are facing. For instance, during the pandemic, Chinese investors starkly raised the issue of providing additional resource access and profit distribution preferences under subsoil use contracts in exchange for revising external debt payments. The share of China in the production of Kazakhstani oil is 22%. This situation was “the result of a rash borrowing policy, the transfer of dirty industries and infrastructure projects, which further tied Kazakhstan to China.”29

Power Factor

The pandemic and the oil price war negatively affected the Central Asia states, which are highly dependent on the extraction and export of hydrocarbon resources. As you know, on 6 March, 2020,

22 M.S. Repass, “Caspian Security at the Crossroads: In the Cross Hairs?” Caspian Policy Center, 31 April, 2020. 23 “Ekonomika i COVID-19 v Tsentralnoy Azii,” 5 August, 2020, available at [https://stanradar.com/news/full/40716- ekonomika-i-covid-19-v-tsentralnoj-azii.html], 7 August, 2020. 24 See: N. Imanbekova, S. Khasanova, “Ekonomika i COVID-19 v Tsentralnoy Azii,” 2 August, 2020, available at [https://caa-network.org/archives/19734], 8 August, 2020. 25 See: V. Panfilova, “Koronavirus zakryl stadiony i dazhe mecheti v Tsentralnoy Azii,”Nezavisimaia gazeta, 5 March, 2020. 26 See: A. Iskanderova, “Na kreditnoy igle: dolg Kyrgyzstana pered Kitaem b’et rekordy,” 16 January, 2020, available at [https://central-asia.institute/na-kreditnoj-igle-dolg-kyrgyzstana-pered-kitaem-bet-rekordy/], 14 April, 2020. 27 See: Ibidem. 28 See: V. Panfilova, “Kitay podsadil Tsentralnuiu Aziu na ‘finansovuiu iglu’,” 8 June, 2018, available at [https:// vestikavkaza.ru/analytics/Kitay-podsadil-TSentralnuyu-Aziyu-na-finansovuyu-iglu.html], 17 June, 2020. 29 U. Babagulov, “Vsled za Kazakhstanom kitayskiy drakon proglotit i Kyrgyzstan?” 15 April, 2020, available at [https://ehokg.org/vsled-za-kazahstanom-kitajskij-drakon-proglotit-i-kyrgyzstan/], 29 June, 2020.

65 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition the member states of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and Russia failed to agree on the extension of the deal to reduce oil production. The failure of Russia’s negotiations with the OPEC countries led to the beginning of a difficult game for each of the parties. This, in turn, led to a drop in global oil prices from $50 to $32.6 per barrel on 9 March, 2020.30 The United States played its energy game. The fall in oil prices was seen as a tool that would ultimately allow the United States to squeeze Russia in the global oil market. This was supposed to be achieved, among other things, through plans to increase its own shale oil production. How- ever, as noted by the President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia Alexis Rod- zianko, “the collapse of the OPEC+ deal could negatively affect the production of shale oil in the United States.”31 It is unlikely that all market participants expected such a significant drop, which coincided in time with the coronavirus pandemic. Goldman Sachs believed that, as in the case of SARS in 2003, this “will entail a drop in global oil demand by 260,000 barrels per day in 2020 due to a decrease in the demand for aviation fuel.”32 However, the decrease in demand turned out to be much greater. As a result, the coronavirus pandemic has led to a decrease in economic activity in a number of countries, including China, where the Central Asian countries exported hydrocarbon resources. In January-February 2020, the main macroeconomic indicators in China declined by 13-25%, industrial production decreased by 13.5%, while retail sales fell by 20.5%.33 In January 2020, it was estimated that fighting the effects of the coronavirus epidemic could cost China up to 1% of its GDP.34 In general, as noted by the deputy director of the E.M. Primakov Institute of World Economy and Interna- tional Relations (IMEMO) Alexander Lomanov, “it is indisputable that the epidemic will slow down economic development.”35 Troubles in the Chinese economy have led to a decreased demand for hydrocarbon resources. In February, the demand for natural gas in China fell by 17%.36 The latter was one of the key consum- ers of gas produced in Central Asian countries. Prior to the economic crisis and pandemic, annual supplies from the region amounted to about 50 billion cubic meters of gas. As early as in the first months of 2020, a decrease in gas supplies from Central Asian countries to China was recorded. Gas purchases in Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan have dropped significantly due to the economic slowdown caused by the coronavirus. In March, Reuters reported that PetroChina had suspended natural gas imports, citing force majeure.37 This was subsequently confirmed by the Minister of Energy of Kazakhstan, Nurlan Nogayev, who said that the country had cut gas exports to China by 20-25%.38 In the months that followed, China slightly increased its purchases of hydrocarbon resources from Central Asian countries. On 30 July, the Xinhua news agency

30 See: “Krizis po-tsentralnoaziatski: Kitay i Rossia, neft,” 10 March, 2020, available at [https://caa-network.org/ archives/19346], 12 March, 2020. 31 A. Bashkatova, “Neftianye tseny vernulis na 17 let nazad,” Nezavisimaia gazeta, 19 March, 2020, pp. 1, 4. 32 V. Mishina, P. Pavlovskiy, “Kitayskiy koronavirus ishchut v rossiyskikh aeroportakh,” Kommersant, 23 January, 2020, pp. 5. 33 See: T. Edovina, “Khuzhe poka ne bylo,” Kommersant, 17 March, 2020, p. 1. 34 See: A. Komrakov, “Virus mirovogo krizisa dobralsia do Rossii,” Nezavisimaia gazeta, 31 January, 2020, pp. 1, 4. 35 V. Skosyrev, “V Kitae zapretili igrat v futbol na stadionakh,” Nezavisimaia gazeta, 31 January, 2020, p. 6. 36 See: J. Cocklin, “LNG Recap: China to Offer Tariff Exemptions; Global Gas Outlook Dims Further,” 18 February, 2020, available at [https://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/121073-lng-recap-china-to-offer-tariff-exemptions-global-gas- outlook-dims-further], 18 March, 2020. 37 See: Ch. Aizhu, J. Jaganathan, “PetroChina Suspends Some Gas Contracts as Coronavirus Hits Demand: Sources,” 5 March, 2020, available at [https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-petrochina-gas-exclusive/exclusive-chinas-top-gas-importer- petrochina-declares-force-majeure-on-imports-sources-idUKKBN20S10W], 6 March, 2020. 38 See: T. Vaal, “Pochti na chetvert sokratil Kazakhstan eksport gaza v Kitay,” 11 March, 2020, available at [https:// vlast.kz/novosti/37629-pocti-na-cetvert-sokratil-kazahstan-eksport-gaza-v-kitaj.html], 12 March, 2020.

66 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 reported that “the import of blue fuel from these three countries in the first half of 2020 amounted to 19 billion cubic meters, or 17% less than in the same period of the preceding year.”39

Discouraging Forecasts

The processes in Central Asia are taking place against the backdrop of unprecedented changes in the global economy. According to IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, “2020 will be the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.” 40 “The World Bank, in its Global Economic Prospects, in June cut its forecast to –5.2% and called the crisis one of the deepest recessions in over 150 years, next to recessions after World War I, in the 1930s, and after World War II.”41 The forecasts prepared in 2019 anticipated GDP growth in all Central Asian countries between 3.4% and 6%, in May 2020 the forecasts were revised downward. It was expected that in Kazakhstan, GDP will decline by 2.5% by the end of 2020, in Kyrgyzstan—by 4% and in Tajikistan—by 2%. Meanwhile, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan were slated for 1.8% growth.42 The Asian Development Bank predicted a significant slowdown in GDP growth in 2020 and a weak recovery in 2021.43 However, this forecast, made in April 2020, did not take many factors into account. The situation remained difficult, as the results of Central Asia’s development by the fall demonstrated. As Lilia Aleksanyan noted in the article, “more recent projections of other international financial institutions take an even bleaker view of the expected economic downturn.”44

External Assistance to the Region

In order to make up for the missing income, the Central Asian countries have expanded the practice of attracting external loans. They were supposed to compensate for the reduction in money transfers and the loss of government revenues, although they simultaneously increased the budget deficit. Kyrgyzstan became the first country that received $120 million from the IMF for the fight against coronavirus.45 Such measures allow to solve tactical problems, but further increase dependence on Western countries and the debt burden. Uzbekistan expected to rely on funds from international institutions that were ready to provide long-term loans. Thus, the Director of the Department of State Internal and External Debt of the

39 Niva Yau Tsz Yan, “Kitay v Tsentralnoy Azii: neiasnye granitsy, nervnye sosedi,” 5 August, 2020, available at [https://russian.eurasianet.org/китай-в-центральной-азии-неясные-границы-нервничающие-соседи], 6 August, 2020. 40 “MVF predvidit khudshiy ekonomicheskiy spad so vremen Velikoy depressii,” 9 April, 2020, available at [https:// tass.ru/ekonomika/8201609], 23 July, 2020. 41 J. Villafuerte, “The Pandemic’s Economic Impact Will Be Deep, But Proactive Policies Will Help,” 4 August, 2020, available at [https://blogs.adb.org/blog/pandemic-s-economic-impact-will-be-deep-proactive-policies-will-help], 9 August, 2020. 42 See: “COVID-19 Crisis Response in Central Asia,” 4 June, 2020, available at [https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/view/ ?ref=129_129634-ujyjsqu30i&title=COVID-19-crisis-response-in-central-asia], 24 July, 2020. 43 See: L. Aleksanyan, “It’s Time for Central Asia to Do Whatever It Takes to Minimize the Pandemic’s Economic Impact,” 24 April, 2020, available at [https://blogs.adb.org/time-for-central-asia-to-do-whatever-it-takes-to-minimize-pandemic-s-economic-impact], 28 April, 2020. 44 Ibidem. 45 See: “Eurasianet (SShA): obzor antikrizisnykh mer v Tsentralnoy Azii i na Kavkaze,” 30 March, 2020, available at [https://finance.rambler.ru/markets/43930122-eurasianet-ssha-obzor-antikrizisnyh-mer-v-tsentralnoy-azii-i-na-kavkaze/], 23 June, 2020.

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Ministry of Finance of Uzbekistan Jasur Karshibaev noted that “the Asian Development Bank has allocated a loan of $500 million for 15 years, and the World Bank—in the amount of $200 million with a term of 30 years.” 46 In April, Uzbekistan hoped to borrow at least $1.6 billion to combat the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic.47 In the same period, the World Bank announced its readiness to provide the country with $14 billion, which were to be funneled to the implementation of crisis programs.48 However, at the end of July, the Ministry of Finance of Uzbekistan announced that the total amount of loans allocated by international organizations and funds to fight the pandemic amounted to only $1.075 billion,49 although the country was counting on more significant support. Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan received aid in August 2020. For instance, on 3 August, the Eurasian Fund for Stabilization and Development (EFSD)50 provided Tajikistan with a loan in the amount of $50 million (for 20 years at 1% per annum).51 Subsequently, on 7 August, the EFSD provided a loan to Kyrgyzstan in the amount of $100 million (for 20 years at 1% per annum) to overcome the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic. The loan made it possible to replenish part of the shortfall in the country’s budget revenues, the reduction of which threatened to destabilize the socio-political situation.52 As noted in the EFSD, “the spread of COVID-19, the sharp decline in external demand and quarantine restrictions have a large-scale negative impact on the economies, budgets and sol- vency of the member countries of the Eurasian Fund for Stabilization and Development.”53 Given the current situation, the IMF approved the allocation of $189.5 million to Tajikistan to fight the pandemic.54 These measures allowed Tajikistan to count on mitigating the consequences of the coronavirus. Part of the funds allocated to the regional countries was provided by foreign foundations. Thus, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S.) provided Uzbekistan with $2 million for equipment for testing coronavirus at checkpoints on the border with neighboring countries. Then the Unit- ed States Agency for International Development allocated an additional $3 million to Uzbekistan to implement measures aimed at combating COVID-19.55 Since the beginning of the pandemic, the countries of Central Asia preferred to solve the emerging problems independently, at the national level. The ideas of regional interaction, the

46 A. Ismailova, “Spetsialisty Minfina rasskazali, kak rabotaet Antikrizisnyi fond i na kakikh usloviiakh Uzbekistanu vydeliaiutsia kredity,” 28 July, 2020, available at [https://podrobno.uz/cat/economic/spetsialisty-minfina-rasskazali-kak- rabotaet-antikrizisnyy-fond-i-na-kakikh-usloviyakh-uzbekistanu-v/], 3 August, 2020. 47 See: “Uzbekistan zaymet minimum $1,6 mlrd dlia borby s posledstviiami koronavirusa,” 23 April, 2020, available at [https://www.gazeta.uz/ru/2020/04/23/anti-crisis-fund/], 15 July, 2020. 48 See: “Vsemirnyi bank zaiavil o gotovnosti vydelit Uzbekistanu 14 mlrd doll.,” 7 April, 2020, available at [https://upl. uz/economy/15218-news.html], 23 April, 2020. 49 See: “Uzbekistan poluchil $1,075 mlrd v vide kreditov na borbu s pandemiey,” 30 July, 2020, available at [https:// forbes.uz/massmedia/summa_vyidelennyih_mejdunarodnyimi_organizatsiyami_i_fondami_na_borbu_s_pandemiey_ sostavila_1075_mlrd/], 3 August, 2020. 50 The Eurasian Fund for Stabilization and Development (EFSD)—previously the Anti-Crisis Fund of the Eurasian Economic Community—was established in 2009 by Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan to overcome the negative crisis consequences. 51 See: “O predostavlenii finansovogo kredita Respublike Tadzhikistan i grantov iz Evraziyskogo fonda stabilizatsii i razvitia,” 3 August, 2020, available at [https://efsd.eabr.org/press-center/news/o-predostavlenii-finansovogo-kredita-respublike- tadzhikistan-i-grantov-iz-evraziyskogo-fonda-stabili/], 6 August, 2020. 52 See: A. Shustov, op. cit. 53 Ibidem. 54 See: “MVF odobril vydelenie Tadzhikistanu $189,5 mln na protivodeystvie koronavirusu,” Ritm Evrazii, 7 May, 2020, available at [https://www.ritmeurasia.org/news--2020-05-07--mvf-odobril-vydelenie-tadzhikistanu-189-5-mln-na- protivodejstvie-koronavirusu-48899], 16 July, 2020. 55 See: “SShA vydelili Uzbekistanu dopolnitelnye sredstva na borbu s COVID-19,” 22 May, 2020, available at [https:// ria.ru/20200522/1571820835.html], 23 July, 2020.

68 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 search for new forms of cooperation was not discussed by state leaders, although “since the beginning of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the states of the region have held a large number of bilateral consultations and participated in online meetings of various macro-regional platforms (CIS, Turkic Union). However, they have never organized a meeting within the framework of the Central Asian five to discuss joint actions to counter the epidemic and overcome its consequences.”56 At the same time, non-regional states, primarily China, have been very active. Beijing has initiated a new format of relations with the Central Asian countries, which allows to speak of alterations in China’s foreign policy in Central Asia. For instance, on July 16, 2020, the first ministerial meeting Central Asia + China (C + C5) was held. This gave reason to believe that China was seeking “interaction in Central Asia on a broad agenda, including political issues.”57 In general, the situation with COVID-19 has opened up new economic and, accordingly, geopolitical opportunities in the region for China. It is no coincidence that the Joint Statement of the Central Asia + China Foreign Ministers Meeting in the format of a videoconference noted that “the Parties find it expedient to increase the volume of foreign trade, improve its structure and deepen investment, financial and credit cooperation.” In fact, after China, Japan also conducted a similar meeting. On 11 August, 2020, a meeting of foreign ministers was held in the Central Asia + Japan format. During the meeting, the Parties “paid special attention to the issues of effective interaction in the fight against coronavirus, overcoming its negative consequences for the regional economy and enhancing foreign economic activity.”58

New Waves of COVID-19

Despite the significant funds allocated by the states to combat COVID-19 and assistance from international financial institutions, Central Asia has not been able to turn the tide. For example, by the fall of 2020, Kazakhstan spent almost $13 billion on the fight against the pandemic. However, the question of the effectiveness of the funds spent remained open.59 The same applied to other countries in the region that have been unable to defeat the coronavirus. Thus, according to preliminary estimates, by mid-2020, the economy of Uzbekistan suffered losses of approximately $400 million.60 As a result, by September 2020, the situation in Central Asia remained tense.61 At the same time, the Turkmen authorities still did not recognize the existence of the epidemic, despite the fact that “it took on an alarming scale with many dead and sick.”62

56 Yu. Sarukhanian, “C5 + ...: formula vozvrashcheniia Tsentralnoy Azii na kartu mira,” 29 July, 2020, available at [https://caa-network.org/archives/20255], 2 August, 2020. 57 “Eshche odin +C5? (o mekhanizme reguliarnykh vstrech ministrov inostrannykh del ‘Kitay + Tsentralnaia Azia’),” 23 July, 2020, available at [https://caa-network.org/archives/20237], 29 July, 2020. 58 “Vzaimodeystvie Tsentralnoy Azii s Iaponiey v ramkakh borby s pandemiey,” 11 August, 2020, available at [https:// www.gov.kz/memleket/entities/mfa/press/news/details/vzaimodeystvie-centralnoy-azii-s-yaponiey-v-ramkah-borby-s- pandemiey?lang=ru], 12 August, 2020. 59 See: A. Sultan, “Kazakhstan: naskolko effektivno byli potracheny milliardy doll. na borbu s COVID-19?” 13 August, 2020, available at [https://cabar.asia/ru/kazahstan-naskolko-effektivno-byli-potracheny-milliardy-dollarov-na-borbu-s- covid-19/], 14 August, 2020. 60 See: “Karantinnye mery nanesli ushcherb ekonomike Uzbekistana primerno v 4,4 trln sumov,” 12 August, 2020, available at [https://uzreport.news/economy/karantinnie-meri-nanesli-usherb-ekonomiki-uzbekistana-primerno-v-4-4-trln- sumov], 12 August, 2020. 61 See: G. Dudina, A. Konstantinov, K. Karabekov, “COVID po oseni schitaiut,” Kommersant, 10 August, 2020, available at [https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/4449312], 12 August, 2020. 62 “Tiazhelaia epidemia v Turkmenistane,” 8 August, 2020, available at [https://platon.asia/central/tyazhelaya- epidemiya-v-turkmenistane], 10 August, 2020.

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The coronavirus has already affected companies engaged in tourism, hospitality, cafes and restaurants. The second “echelon” includes shopping and entertainment centers, which were not effectively assisted even by loan restructuring. Other sectors of the economy will also suffer both directly and indirectly due to low consumer demand which will not be able to recover in the short-term. These include the service sector, banking sector, construction and real estate. Overcrowded hospitals, shortages of medication and qualified personnel have become a reality in almost all countries.63 In fact, states had to “reopen a second front in the fight against the growing pressure of the coronavirus after the weakening of quarantine measures.”64

What Awaits Central Asia?

Despite the measures taken, the countries of Central Asia have not been able to avoid an increase in COVID-19 cases. On 15 May, almost all shops and businesses have opened in Uzbekistan and restrictions on travel by personal transport have been lifted. However, in June the situation wors- ened again. The number of COVID-19 cases and the number of deaths increased. As a result, the Special Republican Commission on Combating COVID-19 decided to revert to strict restrictive measures.65 A difficult situation, associated with a sharp increase in the number of cases of COVID-19, developed in Kyrgyzstan. This forced the authorities to re-introduce severe restrictions, which had a negative impact on the economy. As the Kyrgyz economist Nurgul Akimova noted, “the reduction in financial flows makes it impossible to finance trade. Options for supporting the Kyrgyz economy are limited, given the scarce financial resources to fight the pandemic domestically while servicing -ex ternal debt.”66 In her discussion of Central Asian countries’ economies, she noted that “there is a collapse of domestic and external demand, there is a record capital outflow, higher costs of external borrowing, a collapse of commodities, and currency depreciation.”67 In July, Kazakhstan developed an Action Plan for the worsening socio-economic scenario.68 However, it is very likely that it will not be able to turn the tide in the economy. For Central Asia, the coronavirus will have a long-term impact that the countries cannot overcome in the short term. According to the authors of the World Bank Report Navigating the Crisis, “the COVID-19 shock to Kazakhstan’s economy is the largest in almost two decades and is already having a significant negative effect on growth. The collapse in oil prices in 2009 and 2015 shrank aggregate demand and rocked the stability of the financial sector.”69

63 See: “Ob oshibkakh pravitelstva, kotorye priveli k vspyshke koronavirusa v Kyrgyzstane,” 30 July, 2020, available at [https://24.kg/obschestvo/161120_oboshibkah_pravitelstva_kotoryie_priveli_kvspyishke_koronavirusa_vkyirgyizstane/], 10 August, 2020. 64 T. Askarov, “Ekonomiku podnimet rabotaiushchiy,” Delovoy Kazakhstan, 17 July, 2020, pp. 1, 2. 65 See: O. Stolpovskiy, “COVID-19 v Uzbekistane. Khronika sobytiy v usloviiakh pandemii,” 12 August, 2020, available at [https://www.ritmeurasia.org/news--2020-08-12--covid-19-v-uzbekistane.-hronika-sobytij-v-usloviah-pandemii- 50378], 13 August, 2020. 66 Ye. Pogrebnyak, “V Kyrgyzstane razrastaetsia epidemia koronavirusa,” 30 June, 2020, available at [https://www. ritmeurasia.org/news--2020-06-30--v-kyrgyzstane-razrastaetsja-epidemija-koronavirusa-49711], 23 July, 2020. 67 Ibidem. 68 See: A. Tuleubekova, “Plan deystviy na sluchay ukhudshenia sotsialno-ekonomicheskoy situatsii priniat v Ka- zakhstane,” 29 July, 2020, available at [https://dknews.kz/inner-news.php?id_cat=11%20&&%20id=114085], 3 August, 2020. 69 “Navigating the Crisis,” Summer 2020, World Bank Group, p. 4, available at [http://documents1.worldbank.org/ curated/en/155811595364689964/pdf/Kazakhstan-Economic-Update-Navigating-the-Crisis.pdf], 3 August, 2020.

70 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 Conclusion

The coronavirus will have long-term consequences for Central Asian countries. First and foremost, we should expect a further decline of GDP. In addition, countries will be forced to spend significant resources on social benefits and maintaining political stability. Large population groups in the regional states do not possess savings that would allow them to buy medicines and food for a long time. Moreover, a significant increase in unemployment is likely in all countries. If the problems persist, the countries of the region will have to focus more on national interests aimed at protecting their economies. In this case, integration projects will not receive an impetus for development. In the long term, the negative effects of the devaluation of national currencies will fully manifest themselves through a decrease in the volume of domestic investments and an almost complete cessa- tion of foreign investment influx. This will create a powerful obstacle to the resumption of economic growth.70 In addition, it will push the regional elites to seek ways to resolve internal political and economic problems. First of all, it will occur at the expense of internal reserves, which will intensify the internal political struggle for the remaining economic resources. The underdevelopment of political systems, the dominance of authoritarian tendencies, and the lack of experience in changing power will be the propelling factors. Some Central Asian countries will continue to seek external assistance, which will be provided in exchange for further concessions.

70 See: Ye. Pogrebnyak, “EAES: ispytanie koronavirusom i ekonomicheskim krizisom,” 18 March, 2020, available at [https://www.ritmeurasia.org/news--2020-03-17--eaes-ispytanie-koronavirusom-i-ekonomicheskim-krizisom-47997], 18 March, 2020.

AFGHANISTAN DURING THE PANDEMIC ERA: DIFFICULTIES, ACHIEVEMENTS, PROSPECTS

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37178/ca-c.20.4.08

Feruz BAFOEV Ph.D. (Political Science), Associate Professor, Head of the Social Sciences Department, Bukhara Institute of Engineering and Technology (Bukhara, Uzbekistan)

ABSTRACT

he article analyzes the specific fea- in other neighboring countries, the essence of tures of counteracting the pandemic the “five-phase” strategy declared by Presi- T in Afghanistan, which differ from those dent Ashraf Ghani and the stages of its im- 71 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition plementation. It presents the overall picture Afghan society, the negotiations between of the local antivirus management tactics the authorities and the opposition, observa- and the implementation of relevant large- tion of human rights, continued efforts of the scale organizational and legal measures by Afghan Ombudsperson and other civil insti- the Afghan authorities in the context of tutions during the quarantine period, and countering terrorism and extremism, armed prevention of authoritarian tendencies. The attacks by militants on government agen- mandatory and required transformation of cies, hospitals and doctors, and deportation external borrowing and donor assistance is of Afghan citizens from Iran. The effective- revealed in the context of competition of the ness of the infrastructure developed in the U.S., China, India, the EU, Pakistan, Iran in country for countering COVID-19, the suc- the economic and political field. Finally, spe- cessful interaction of the central authorities cific recommendations are made to step up and provincial leaderships, the operation of the efforts of the state and the global com- counter-unemployment systems, and the munity in the spheres of industry, agricul- general minimization of pandemic conse- ture, trade, construction, transport, commu- quences are revealed. The article substanti- nications, education, culture, health care, ates the need for further democratization of utilities, environment, and anti-corruption.

KEYWORDS: Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, the U.S., Donald Trump’s administration, the negotiations between the authorities and the opposition, entities of Afghani regulation, Taliban, deportation, returnees, corruption, inclusive government, COVID-19, anti-epidemiological infrastructure, cross-sectoral committees.

Introduction

The pandemic in Afghanistan has a strong negative impact on neighboring states, the whole of Central Asia and literally the entire system of international relations on the Eurasian continent. Under certain circumstances, this country may once again become a hotbed of instability, provoke and generate threats of terrorism and extremism, which is correctly emphasized in a number of recent authoritative studies.1 Studying the Afghan pandemic as a whole is important, necessary and expedient. However, the last serious works on this issue are, unfortunately, (1) designed for the most part for a Western, “donor” audience, (2) based on clearly contradictory, often media-based statistics, (3) without solid reliance on adequate Afghan sources (official and unofficial), (4) with unrealistic social guidelines, etc.

1 See: A.A. Gromyko, “Posledstviia pandemii dlia mezhdunarodnykh otnosheniy,” SShA i Kanada: ekonomika, politika, kultura, Vol. 5, No. 5, 2020, pp. 71—76; Ye.P. Ionova, “Tsentralnaia Azia v epokhu pandemii,” Rossia i novye gosudarstva Evrazii, No. 2 (47), 2020, pp. 81—93; A.M. Akhunov, “Pandemia COVID-19 kak vyzov dlia postsovetskikh stran Tsentralnoy Azii,” Mezhdunarodnaia analitika, Vol. 11, No. 1, 2020, pp. 114—128; I.M. Fedorovskaya, “Respubliki Zakav- kazia v usloviiakh pandemii COVID-19,” Rossia i novye gosudarstva Evrazii, No. 2 (47), 2020, pp. 117—128 ff. A number of publications on this topic are available in the journal Central Asia and the Caucasus.

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Under these conditions, scientists, experts and specialists certainly need to (1) conduct integral, objective, systemic studies of modern Afghan reality, (2) use thoughtful analytics to counter the fake media reality, (3) provide short, medium and long-term forecasts, (4) issue recommendations to central and local authorities, etc.

Prevention of Coronavirus during a Political Crisis

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani recently said in a discussion of the main obstacle to the fight against coronavirus in his country: “Our greatest vulnerability is that we have an open border with Iran, where the flow of refugees returning from Iran is a challenge for Afghanistan and the region.”2 Indeed, one of the main reasons for the high level of coronavirus infection in Afghanistan was that Tehran began rapidly deporting Afghan citizens due to the pandemic, sending them through the province of Herat,3 transmitting the relatively very high rates of COVID-19 infection in Iran to the neighboring states. The first death from coronavirus (a 40-year-old patient in Balkh province) was officially- an nounced on 23 March, 2020; on 9 September, 2020, the Afghan authorities have already announced 1,420 deaths, with 38,250 people currently infected.4 In addition, according to a senior Afghan government official, “the number of infected people is more than what we announce. We currently -an nounce the number of positive test results, but many people with mild symptoms are not coming to health centers.”5 Many experts predict that up to 110,000 deaths from COVID-19 should be expected in Afghanistan by the end of this year. In July-August 2020, “23 percent of workers lost their jobs, and 37 percent of firms reported laying off at least one employee; 88 percent experienced a slump in sales, leading to job losses, employers sending workers on unpaid leave or reducing work hours.”6 In addition, 38% of the companies see border closures as the “most significant driver of disruption in immediate access to resources, raw materials and sales.”7 Apparently, the state of affairs in the economy has become, without exaggeration, deplorable. During (and after) the peak of the pandemic in Afghanistan, there were cases of price gouging for essential food items, medical supplies, equipment, and services. COVID-19 testing was overpriced, there were a shortage of test kits, and, most tragically, cases of doctors’ deaths from coronavirus. And, finally, even President Ashraf Ghani was forced to admit that cases of corruption were reported during the distribution of budgetary allocations and humanitarian aid for the prevention of COVID-19.

2 “SAARC Leaders Discuss Coordinated Efforts to Tackle COVID-19,” 17 March, 2020, Bakhtar News Agency, available at [bakhtarnews.com.af]. 3 See: “Pandemic Crisis: Tough Challenge for People of Afghanistan amid COVID-19,” 6 July, 2020, Kaama Press News Agency, available at [khaama.com]. 4 See: “COVID-19: 24 New Cases Reported from 209 Tested Samples,” 9 September, 2020, Afghan Voice Agency, available at [avapress.com]. 5 “More People Infected with COVID-19 than Official Figures: Health Ministry,” 10 June, 2020, Bakhtar News Agen- cy, available at [bakhtarnews.com.af]. 6 “Average Businesses in Afghanistan to Remain Operative 2 More Months: COVID-19 Impact,” 1 September, 2020, Kaama Press News Agency, available at [khaama.com]. 7 Ibidem.

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Problems were also observed in the social sphere. There was an exclusion of women from the overall working-age population due to the need to support children. Seasonal flooding in April-May 2020 (due to torrential rains and melting of winter snow mountain cover)8 and flooding in August 20209 led to significant casualties and the funneling of humanitarian efforts of the state and the -in ternational community to other areas. Afghan health care, which suffers primarily from a lack of COVID laboratories and a shift in the center of gravity from traditional diseases (such as polio) to coronavirus, has not been working at full capacity due to the frequent armed attacks by militants on hospitals and doctors.10 Difficulties are expected to be exacerbated, especially in health care services and provision of food, moving the country towards a real humanitarian disaster11). Finally, only a few students had and have access to computers and are capable of receiving an education online, which has negatively impacted the Afghan education system. Counteracting the virus has been made more difficult by the failure of President Ashraf Ghani and the former chief executive Abdullah Abdullah to form an “inclusive government” that can ensure the health of citizens, and the subsequent U.S. “penalty” decision to reduce aid to the country by $1 billion. Although agreements were reached on 17 May, 2020 on the formation of such a government and the establishment of the Supreme Council for National Reconciliation, the extended absence of results of the negotiations between the authorities and the opposition significantly weakened the authorities’ efforts in the sphere of response to the pandemic.

Five Phases of Counteracting COVID-19 as a Specific Feature of Afghan Management

Back in March 2020, President Ashraf Ghani identified the five phases of counteracting COVID-19 that were in line with international experience—awareness, diffusion, adversity, relief and recovery— as the specific features of management in this sphere. At the same time, June 2020 was expected to become the pandemic adversity.12 Meetings chaired by the president and first and second vice presidents, meetings of the government in offline and virtual formats, and of the Afghan National Security Council have been and are being held. Ashraf Ghani addressed the nation about the pandemic twice—on 18 and 21 April, 2020. The role of provincial governors in the anti-epidemiological work has been reinforced, the central government has been providing funds to the regions to promptly solve the arising problems; there is a certain amount of accountability in this matter. Local authorities are involved in the estab-

8 See: “Afghanistan—Torrential Rains and Flash Floods Threatens Millions,” 20 April, 2020, The Middle East North Africa Financial Network, available at [https://menafn.com]; “Flood Leaves 3 Dead in Afghanistan, 30 May, 2020,” The Middle East North Africa Financial Network, available at [https://menafn.com]. 9 See: “President Ghani Sets Out ‘Clear Plan’ to Advance U.N. Values in Afghanistan,” 23 September, 2020, News of U.N., available at [news.un.org]; “Afghanistan Flooding: Dozens Dead, Hundreds of Homes Destroyed,” 26 August, 2020, Al Jazeera Channel [aljazeera.com]; “Flash Floods Kill More Than 70 in Afghanistan,” 26 August, 2020, Reuters International News Organization, available at [reuters.com]. 10 See: “Polio Vaccination Campaigns Restart in Afghanistan and Pakistan after COVID-19 Hiatus,” 11 August, 2020, News of U.N., available at [news.un.org]; “Afghanistan: U.N. Condemns Attacks on Healthcare amid COVID-19 Pandemic,” 21 June, 2020, News of U.N., available at [news.un.org]. 11 See: “SIGAR: Afganistan dvizhetsia k gumanitarnoy katastrofe na fone pandemii,” 31 July, 2020, Ozodi Radio, available at [rus.ozodi.org]. See the reference to: 30 July, 2020 Quarterly Report to Congress, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction [sigar.mil]. 12 See: “President Ashraf Ghani’s Keynote Address at the 4th Senior Officials Meeting,” 28 July, 2020, President of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, available at [president.gov.af].

74 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 lishment of local quarantine zones and structures for district-level emergencies, control over markets and prevention of price gouging for basic necessities, and in providing regions with cold storages. The governors were asked to provide “a clear and realistic estimation of the number of people in need in their provinces to ensure delivering assistance to people in a transparent manner.”13 Today, the infrastructure for countering the pandemic in Afghanistan also includes specialized structures, such as the Medical Council, Ministry of Public Health, and primary health care structures are emphasized. The country allocates funds to the families of medical personnel who died in the line of duty in the fight against coronavirus, and has begun to provide a number of other benefits. The efforts of the office of the Afghan Ombudsperson to protect human rights in the extraordinary conditions of a pandemic are a notable part of this process. The activities of the Ministry of public Health are focused on the following: (1) organization of medical teams for passenger screening at the national airports and border entry points; (2) creation of special quarantine areas in Kabul and in the provinces to control COVID-19; (3) awareness campaigns; (4) the creation of cross-sectoral and emergency committees.14 During the quarantine, which began on 29 March, 2020, the functioning of sports grounds, wed- ding halls, shrines, public meetings places was halted; public transport has been stopped and most flights have been grounded. Major roads leading to cities have been closed off, and movement within city boundaries has also been restricted. The Ministry of Hajj and Religious Affairs has urged all people to pray at home and not hold mourning/religious ceremonies at mosques. A rather remarkable feature of the Afghan segment of the pandemic is the fact that members of the Taliban have joined the campaigns to notify the population about the coronavirus in a number of provinces. The positive developments on this issue have intensified even further after the meeting of U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo with the Taliban leaders on 12 September, 2020. In order to avoid the spread of coronavirus, approximately 10,000 prisoners were released from prisons by decree of President Ashraf Ghani, in particular people over 55 years old.15 The State Committee for Public Awareness to Prevent Coronavirus has been established and is functioning in Afghanistan in order “to improve coordination of information and the production of audiovisual and information graphics to raise public awareness of COVID-19..., collect and share information about the coronavirus outbreak on a daily basis, provide text, audio and video messages based on communication practices to the public, broadcast and distribute them through the media and social networks.”16 Daily and user-accessible reports on the numbers of sick and recovered patients are published. Health centers and new hospitals are being built, even temporarily deserted museum palaces are used for quarantine and treatment, customs duties have been temporarily lifted for the import of arti- ficial lung ventilation devices and ambulances. Several COVID-19 testing laboratories have been opened, and new ones are being commissioned.

13 “President Ghani Holds Virtual Meeting with Provincial Governors of Northern Zone,” 1 April, 2020, President of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, available at [president.gov.af]. 14 See: “MoPH Held an Emergency Meeting with International Health Partners to Fight Against the Spread and Control of COVID-19,” 12 February, 2020, Ministry of Public Health of Afghanistan, available at [moph.gov.af]. 15 See: “Khronika pandemii: Afganistan amnistiruet 10 000 zakliuchennykh iz-za koronavirusa,” 26 March, 2020, Deutsche Welle Radio Station, available at [dw.com]. 16 “Combating COVID-19 Govt.’s Top Priority: Omar,” 17 March, 2020, Bakhtar News Agency, available at [bakhtarnews.com.af].

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The Afghan authorities seem to be well aware of the imperative need to foster remote learning in schools and higher educational institutions, as evidenced, for example, by President Ashraf Ghani’s appeal to President Narendra Modi to provide Indian satellite services for this purpose.17 Tax incentives have been introduced for medical companies, and measures such as disinfecting the streets of large settlements and large premises, mask wearing and social distancing are also being implemented. A number of international financial institutions have announced that the debt of the Islamic State of Afghanistan (ISA) has been written off. Overall, the number of COVID-19-positive cases is declining. Kabul is not particularly pessimistic today, as it declares the formation of collective immunity18 to the disease. The task has been set to effectively overcome the possible next, second wave of coronavirus. The position of official Washington on the current situation in the ISA is indicative. It was -re cently declared by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who stated that “the United States is a proponent of a sovereign, unified and representative Afghanistan that is at peace with itself and its neighbors.”19 As early as in March 2020, the United States announced the allocation of $15 million in assistance in the fight against the spread of coronavirus in the country.20 The Joint Statement on the U.S.- Afghanistan-Uzbekistan Trilateral Meeting dated 27 May, 2020, expressed its intention to promote women’s equality and economic empowerment so that women could act as a driving force in responding to the impact of COVID-19 and recovering from the pandemic.21 Commenting on the strategy and tactics of U.S. assistance in responding to the pandemic in Afghanistan, Ambassador Ross Wilson, Charge D’Affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, stated: “We must all work quickly to prevent the further spread of COVID-19; attend to the sick; put people back to work; and protect vulnerable women and children, who can become victims of rising domestic violence in these kinds of situations.”22 By the end of August 2020, U.S. assistance to Afghanistan in this particular sphere already amounted to $39.4 million, including over $19.1 million in humanitarian aid to support the detection and treatment of coronavirus, other medical support, the allocation of over $5.7 million for Afghan returnees, $500,000 for the prevention and control of the pandemic in correctional facilities, $14 million for support of the Afghan government’s national efforts to combat COVID-19.23 Assistance is also provided through international financial institutions, the World Bank in particular. The World Bank has allocated $90 million “for continued health and education services during the pandemic; to enable citizen-led Community Development Councils to meet sanitation and infrastructure needs; to support the health sector in maintaining emergency services and strengthening disease surveillance, testing, and treatment.”24

17 See: “SAARC Leaders Discuss Coordinated Efforts to Tackle COVID-19,” 17 March, 2020. 18 See: “President Ashraf Ghani’s Keynote Address at the 4th Senior Officials Meeting,” 28 July, 2020. 19 “Secretary Michael R. Pompeo at Intra-Afghan Negotiations Opening Ceremony,” 12 September, 2020, U.S. Depart- ment of State, available at [state.gov]. 20 See: “On the Political Impasse in Afghanistan. Press Statement. Michael R. Pompeo, Secretary of State,” 23 March, 2020, U.S. Department of State, available at [www.state.gov]. 21 See: “Joint Statement on the U.S.-Afghanistan-Uzbekistan Trilateral Meeting,” 27 May, 2020, U.S. Department of State, available at [www.state.gov]. 22 “U.S. Provides More Than $36.7 Million for COVID-19 Response in Afghanistan,” 23 July, 2020, U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan, available at [af.usembassy.gov]. 23 See: “The United States Continues to Lead the Global Response to COVID-19,” 22 August, 2020, U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan, available at [af.usembassy.gov]. 24 “The United States Provides More Than $36.7 Million for COVID-19 Response, and $90 Million in Expedited World Bank Contributions to Continue its Enduring Partnership with Afghanistan,” 23 July, 2020, United States Agency for International Development, USAID, available at [usaid.gov].

76 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 The Post-Pandemic State and Social Building Recovery Program

According to some estimates, Afghan health care may need more than $100 million to combat coronavirus infection.25 The country’s authorities believe that “the increase in COVID-19 in winters can become a deadly wave, catching flu in the winters and rising air pollution can increase the risk of the virus.” Under these conditions, it is assumed that people with diabetes, high blood pressure, and the elders should be vaccinated against the flu to reduce the risk of contracting the coronavirus.26 Measures are also being taken to restore large-scale polio vaccination. Of course, health care problems cannot be solved without solving other state and social construction problem that have emerged. Which problems are these and how can they be solved? Afghanistan’s relatively beneficial characteristic is that it is not a part of the global economic system, and its economy is not as vulnerable as its neighbors’ economies. That is why we believe that it is important and feasible to adopt the following operational and preventive measures.  First of all, special attention should be paid to state support and maintenance of sustain- ability of such rapidly developing sectors of the Afghan economy as transport, textile and consumer goods industry, as well as a number of others. The commitment, motivation and capability of Afghan industrialists to invest within the country should be stimulated, and existing legal obstacles to their activities should be removed.  Secondly, a more transparent and adequate road map is required to attract grants and con- cessional long-term financing for countermeasures to the negative consequences of the pandemic, to effectively use external borrowings, to prolong investment liabilities, etc. Attention should also be heeded to obtaining reliable information on the state of affairs in the Afghan economy and improving the activities of statistical organizations.  Thirdly, it is important to postpone irrelevant projects and expenses for subsequent periods, to pay attention to the main sources of government revenues, to provide tax incentives for air travel and tourism, to promote Afghan exports, and a number of other areas, while preserving the support of ecology and environmental protection.  In the fourth place, it is expedient to implement targeted programs for the comprehensive socio-economic development of the most backward Afghan provinces, prevent the over- pricing of basic necessities, eliminate congestion in medical institutions, ensure the protection and safety of children, orphans, displaced persons and refugees and provide targeted cash payments to the elderly. It is also important for schools to take effective health protection measures after the resumption of lessons in educational institutions, to attract high school graduates living in underdeveloped and unsafe regions of the country to private universities, etc.  Fifth, it is necessary to facilitate purchases of essential foodstuffs, safeguard Afghanistan’s food supply and food security, consolidate the current successes of the agricultural sector; provide temporary coverage of utility bills and other urgent expenses, and the provision of loans to the energy industry.

25 See: “Minzdrav IRA: dlia borby s koronavirusom v Afganistane mozhet potrebovatsia 100 mln. dollarov,” 29 March, 2020, Афганистан.Ру, available at [afghanistan.ru]. 26 See: “Coronavirus Takes 2 Lives in 24 Hours,” 9 September, 2020, Kaama Press News Agency, available at [khaama. com].

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 Sixth, it seems expedient to ensure the full implementation of significant social expenditures, integrated with: (1) the long-term preservation of certain sanitary and hygienic standards and restrictions (especially during mass events, upon entering the country, etc.), (2) reduction of poverty, (3) creation of additional employment opportunities, (4) transformation of the funeral business, among others. (At the end of March 2020, the Afghan authorities developed a plan aimed at creating 40,000 jobs. This plan is currently being implemented, and may certainly improve the socio-economic situation.)

Conclusion

The Afghan authorities make decisions on the most important issues of countering the pandemic in the context of interaction with the United States, China, India, and the European Union. They attempt to find a middle ground that is beneficial for Afghanistan and lies between the competing viewpoints of Washington, Beijing, Delhi, and Brussels. In addition, the state and society are forced to closely examine the internal political processes in Iran and Pakistan, as well as the confrontation between Beijing and Delhi, Delhi and Islamabad, the U.S. sanctions against the Iranian regime, and their influence on Afghan life. A relatively trouble-free course of the pandemic in Afghanistan, political stability, interaction between government and society, the success of the negotiations between the authorities and the opposition, construction of an integrated, independent, democratic state, a peaceful life without exploding bombs, ensuring sustainable economic growth and ending the 40- year war are all in the interests of the international community today so that this country does not pose a threat to the entire world.

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REGIONAL ECONOMY

THE IMPACT OF REMITTANCES FROM ABROAD ON SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN TAJIKISTAN

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37178/ca-c.20.4.09

Marina KHRAMOVA Ph.D. (Phys.-Math.), Deputy Director, Institute for Demographic Research—Branch of the Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology, Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow, Russian Federation)

Sergey RYAZANTSEV D.Sc. (Econ.), Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Professor, Director of the Institute for Demographic Research—Branch of the Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology, Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow, Russian Federation)

Abubakr RAKHMONOV Junior Research Fellow, Institute for Demographic Research—Branch of the Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology, Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow, Russian Federation)

The article was prepared as part of a project supported by the Council on Grants of the President of the Russian Fe- deration for State Support of Leading Scientific Schools in the Russian Federation (Grant No. NSh-2631.2020.6).

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Osim KASYMOV Junior Research Fellow, Institute for Demographic Research— Branch of the Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology, Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow, Russian Federation)

ABSTRACT

he relevance of this article is due to countries. It has been established that mi- the importance of labor migration and grant remittances have a positive impact on T remittances from migrant workers for GDP growth, helping to open small busi- the economy of Tajikistan. The purpose of nesses, develop entrepreneurship, create the article is to determine the impact of re- new jobs in the private sector, and boost mittances on living standards in Tajikistan at construction. both the national and local levels. It is known Remittances stimulate additional con- that labor migration has become a signifi- sumption: migrant workers’ households cant socio-economic phenomenon for the have more opportunities to meet their basic country and society, involving a large part of needs for food, consumer goods and dura- Tajikistan’s population. Using statistical and bles, education, etc. The negative impact of sociological research methods, the authors remittances is that they actually help to meet show the key trends and the scale of labor only current needs, while the creation of emigration from Tajikistan in 1990-2020, as new, high-technology jobs is slow and insuf- well as the socio-demographic structure of ficient, lagging behind population growth. migrant worker flows from Tajikistan to the The country thus becomes hostage to exter- Russian Federation and other countries, nal market conditions: the demand for for- with identification of a new trend towards a eign labor and crisis phenomena in the re- reorientation of migration flows to OECD ceiving countries.

KEYWORDS: labor migration, GDP, migrant workers, Tajikistan, remittances, households.

Introduction

Remittances from migrant workers are a powerful resource for socio-economic development in some countries of the world, playing a significant role in the formation of gross domestic product (GDP). According to the World Bank, officially recorded annual remittance flows to low- and middle- income countries reached a record high of $526.1 billion in 2018, an increase of 8.6% from 2017.1 Remittances to Central Asian countries (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uz- bekistan) totaled $8.3 billion in 2018. The most remittance-dependent countries in Central Asia are

1 See: World Bank data on migrant remittance inflows. Annual Remittances Data (updated as of Oct. 2019), available at [http://pubdocs.worldbank.org/en/988911571664813952/Remittance-Inflows-October-2019.xlsx].

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Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Tajikistan is among the world’s top countries in terms of remittances as a share of GDP. In 2008, the contribution of migrant remittances to the country’s economy reached a maximum of $4.8 billion, or 49% of GDP. In 2018, remittances totaled $2.8 billion, or about 29% of GDP.2 At least 90% of that amount came from Russia. There is a similar situation in Kyrgyzstan (in 2018, remittances accounted for 29.6% of GDP). There have been quite a few studies on how remittances have contributed to the development of the Tajik society at the macro level, but relatively little is known about their impact at the meso level (on the regional economy and the development of production) and the micro level (on the position and income of households, the people’s welfare, the development of entrepreneurship, private business, etc.). The purpose of this article is to determine how remittances influence living standards in Tajikistan at both the national and local levels.

Research Methods and Information Sources

Two methods were used in this study.  First, we employed the statistical-mathematical method, including correlation-regression analysis of data on labor migration, socio-economic parameters, and remittances. This approach has made it possible to determine the extent to which migrants’ remittances affect the macroeconomic situation in their home countries.  And second, we used the sociological method to analyze the results of public opinion surveys and expert interviews (secondary analysis of sociological data). The article is based on statistical data on the scale and structure of labor migration from Tajikistan and the amount of remittances for a number of years provided by the World Bank, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation (Bank of Russia), the Federal State Statistics Service of the Russian Federation (Rosstat), the Main Directorate for Migration of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) of Russia, the Agency on Statistics under the President of the Republic of Tajikistan, and the Interstate Statistical Committee of the CIS. At present, the World Bank has information on the amount of migrant remittances and their share of GDP in most countries of the world up to 2018, and the Bank of Russia provides data until the first quarter of 2019. Data on the scale and structure of labor migration from Tajikistan and on the purposes of entering the Russian Federation are available until the end of 2019 (year-on-year or month-on-month) and are posted on the official website of the Main Directorate for Migration of the MIA of Russia. Unfortunately, data on the number of migrant workers who have left Tajikistan to work in Russia and other countries provided by the Tajik side are far from complete and can only be used for comparison and correlation with data provided by the statistical services of other countries.

The Trends and Scale of Labor Migration from Tajikistan

From the beginning of the 2000s to 2020, labor migration was the largest emigration flow from Tajikistan, which had a significant influence on various aspects of the socio-economic development

2 See: World Bank data. Bilateral Remittance Matrix 2017, available at [http://pubdocs.worldbank.org/ en/705611533661084197/bilateralremittancematrix2017-Apr2018.xlsx].

81 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition of the country, its regions, and individual households. Some data on the number of migrant workers from Tajikistan are presented in Table 1.

Table 1

Labor Migration from Tajikistan in 2017

Number of Migrant Workers Share of Migrant Workers, Country of Destination from Tajikistan, persons % of total

Russia 53,467 91.4 Germany 1,651 2.8 Turkey 1,616 2.7 United States 652 1.1 Poland 264 0.5 Korea 219 0.4 Kazakhstan 201 0.3 Japan 142 0.2 Other countries 279 0.5 S o u r c e s: OECD data, available at [https://stats.oecd.org/]; Rosstat data, available at [https://www.gks.ru/]; data from the Statistics Committee of the Ministry of National Economy of the Republic of Kazakhstan, available at [https://stat.gov.kz/].

Figure 1 shows the number of migrant workers from Tajikistan who entered Russia from 1997 to 2017, according to Rosstat. When analyzing the data presented in Figure 1, one should take into account the categories of migrants included in Russian statistics. In 2011, for example, there was a change in the methodology for estimating the number of migrants. Prior to 2011, the statistics showed the number of migrants who had stayed in the territory of the respective regions of Russia for a year or more, while since 2011 the period of stay has been nine months or more. This is why starting from 2011 we see a significant increase in the number of migrants from Tajikistan. In order to understand the actual scale of migration from Tajikistan to Russia, one should also turn to data on labor migration from Tajikistan provided by the Main Directorate for Migration of the MIA of Russia. In 2019 alone, there were 2,754,915 recorded facts of registration of migrants from Tajikistan, including 1,585,146 first registrations, with 1,179,423 persons registered for employment purposes.3 In fact, this can be taken as the lower estimate of the number of migrant workers from Ta- jikistan in Russia. Let us also note that Tajikistan accounts for 21.5% of the total number of migrants from all countries of the world who have entered Russia for the purpose of work. According to Said- asror Saidov, head of the Migration Department of the Ministry of Labor of Tajikistan, the number of Tajik migrants living in Russia in 2019 for employment purposes could be around 1.3 million people.4 On the other hand, according to the Agency on Statistics under the President of the Republic of Ta- jikistan, migration loss in 2017-2018 was 6.6 thousand people.5

3 See: Data from the Main Directorate for Migration of the MIA of Russia for January-December 2019, available at [https://mvd.ru/upload/site1/document_news/temp/__1579685901_8322/SAYT_2_RD_19kv4_na_otpravku.xlsx]. 4 See: “Mintruda Tadzhikistana usomnilos v rossiiskoi statistike migrantov,” Sputnik Tajikistan, 25 July, 2019, available at [https://tj.sputniknews.ru/migration/20190725/1029490147/mintruda-tajikistan-statistika-migranty.html]. 5 See: Migration of Population 2000-2018. Database on Socio-Demographic Sector, Agency on Statistics under the President of the Republic of Tajikistan, available in Russian at [https://www.stat.tj/en/database-socio-demographic-sector].

CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 2017

63,467 2016 Figure 1

52,676 2015

47,638 2014

54,658 2013

51,011 2012

41,674 2011

35,087 2010

18,188 2009

27,028 2008

20,717 2007 persons

17,309 2006

6,523 2005

4,717 in 1997-2017, 2004

3,339 2003

5,346 2002 Number of Migrants Entering Russia from Tajikistan

5,967 2001

6,742 2000

11,043 1999

12,116 1998

18,396

Data from the Federal State Statistics Service of Russian Federation, available at [https://www.gks.ru/]. 1997 23,053 0

70,000 60,000 50,000 40,000 30,000 20,000 10,000 S o u r c e:

83 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Figure 2 2019 102,048

2018 86,891 persons in 2016-2019, 2017 81,157 Number of Citizens Tajikistan Registered at Their Place Residence in Russia 2016 69,744 Data from the MIA of Russia, available at [https://мвд.рф/]. 0

80,000 60,000 40,000 20,000 S o u r c e: 120,000 100,000

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Figure 2 also shows data on the number of Tajik citizens registered at their place of residence in Russia. There is an obvious trend towards a steady increase from 2016 to 2019. In terms of this indicator, Tajikistan is second only to Uzbekistan. In the past few years, Tajik citizens have actively acquired Russian citizenship: in 2019 alone, 44,707 citizens of Tajikistan became Russian citizens. Table 2 presents data on the number of Tajik citizens registered at their place of residence in different regions of Russia. The top five regions include the Samara, Sverdlovsk, Novosibirsk, Moscow, and Kaluga regions, while the cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg are in 8th and 12th places, respectively. This does not mean, however, that these two cities are not attractive destinations for migrants from Tajikistan. Rather, this reflects the deficiencies of the Russian registration system. Registration of migrants is in large part a vestige of the previous Soviet system of control over the movement of people in the country and currently does not reflect the actual location of migrants or their number in Russia.6

Table 2

Number of Citizens of Tajikistan Registered at Their Place of Residence in Different Regions of the Russian Federation in 2016-2019,persons

2016 2017 2018 2019 TOTAL for All Regions 69,744 81,157 86,891 102,048

Voronezh Oblast 1,840 2,120 2,241 2,296

Kaluga Oblast 3,083 3,681 2,970 4,411

Moscow 1,379 1,653 1,986 2,878

Moscow Oblast 2,813 3,606 4,729 5,325

Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast 2,195 2,230 2,262 2,524

Republic of Bashkortostan 1,440 1,639 1,430 1,563

Republic of Tatarstan 1,287 1,840 1,967 2,477

Nizhny Novgorod Oblast 1,617 1,701 1,295 1,503

Perm Krai 1,586 1,253 1,054 1,167

Samara Oblast 2,314 4,155 4,903 7,065

Sverdlovsk Oblast 4,622 5,292 6,112 6,892

Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug - Yugra 2,669 3,030 3,454 4,169

Chelyabinsk Oblast 2,529 2,275 2,159 2,833

Altai Krai 2,314 2,769 3,107 2,771

Krasnoyarsk Krai 3,562 3,696 3,479 3,305

Irkutsk Oblast 1,976 2,356 2,495 2,696

Kemerovo Oblast 2,157 2,615 1,964 2,167

Novosibirsk Oblast 3,556 4,582 5,038 5,361

Other regions 26,805 30,664 34,246 40,645 S o u r c e: Data from the MIA of Russia, available at [https://мвд.рф/].

6 See: S.V. Ryazantsev, “Sovremennaia migratsionnaia politika Rossii: problemy i podkhody k sovershenstvovaniiu,” Sotsiologicheskiye issledovaniya, Vol. 45, No. 9, 2019, pp. 117-126, available at [DOI: 10.31857/S013216250006666-5].

85 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Amounts and Dynamics of Remittances to Tajikistan

Tajikistan is among the world’s leading countries in terms of migrant remittances as a share of gross domestic product. For example, at the beginning of the global crisis, in 2008, migrant remittances accounted for 49% of Tajikistan’s GDP. Naturally, in this situation Tajikistan is heavily dependent on external conditions, on the demand for migrant labor in the global labor market, the stability of national currencies against the dollar in the destination countries for Tajik migrants, and the foreign policy situation. Figure 3 presents data on changes in migrant remittances as a share of Ta- jikistan’s GDP in 2002-2018.

Figure 3

Remittances as a Share of GDP in Tajikistan in 2002-2018, %

49 50 45 44 42 40 42 36 37 36 35 31 30 29 29 27 20 20

9 12 10 6

0 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

S o u r c e: World Bank data, available at [https://databank.worldbank.org/source/ world-development-indicators].

Considering that the Russian Federation and recently also the Republic of Kazakhstan are the main emigration destinations for Tajik citizens, the bulk of remittances comes from these two countries. In 2010-2018, for example, about 81% of all remittances were received from Russia and Ka- zakhstan. Increasing labor emigration to OECD countries brought their share of total migrant remittances to Tajikistan in that period to 6.4%. Other countries, mainly those of the Persian Gulf, accounted for about 12.8% of total remittances to Tajikistan (see Fig. 4). The share of remittances from Tajik migrants living in OECD countries has varied in different years. In 2010-2012, for example, it was around 7%, with a subsequent decline to 5.6% in 2017 (see Fig. 5 on p. 88). This may indicate a decline in labor emigration to OECD countries in the last few years. According to data cited by Jamshed Nurmahmadzoda, Chairman of the National Bank of Ta- jikistan, remittances to Tajikistan in 2019 totaled $2,731 million, an increase of $163 million (or 7%) from 2018.7 Despite a slight reduction in the dependence of Tajikistan’s economy on migrant remit-

7 See: J. Nurmahmadzoda, “Za 2019 god trudovye migranty pereveli v Tadzhikistan bolee 2.7 mlrd doll.,” 5 February, 2020, available at [https://novosti.tj/migraciya/za-2019-god-trudovye-migranty-pereveli-v-tadzhikistan-bolee-2-7-mln.html].

86 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020

Figure 4

Geography of Remittances to Tajikistan in 2010-2018, %

12.80 6.40

80.79

OECD Russia and Kazakhstan Other countries

S o u r c e: World Bank data, available at [https://databank.worldbank.org/source/ world-development-indicators]. tance inflows, Russia remains the largest source of remittances to Tajikistan in both absolute and relative terms. According to the World Bank, remittances from Russia to Tajikistan reached a maximum of $3.2 billion in 2013 (see Fig. 6 on p. 88). From 2014, they began to decline owing both to the economic crisis and the devaluation of the Russian ruble. After 2016, remittances from Russia began to increase once again. The total amount of remittances sent home in 2010-2017 by Tajik migrants working in Rus- sia was $16.3 billion. In the structure of remittances from non-residents in Russia, Tajikistan accounts for about 15%: in 2018, for example, they amounted, according to the Bank of Russia, to $1.51 billion, while the figure for all other countries in the world was $10.77 billion.8 Among the countries of Central Asia, Tajikistan is the second-largest recipient of remittances from Russia after Uzbekistan, which receives about 30% of all remittances from non-residents in Russia, while Kyrgyzstan is in third place. From OECD countries, Tajik migrants sent home about $1.4 billion in 2010-2017. Among these countries, the largest amounts of money were transferred by Tajiks from Western and Eastern Euro- pean countries: $693 million (about 49%). The reasons for the decline in remittances from OECD countries and Russia in crisis years were different. The main reason for Russia was a significant -de

8 See: Data from the Central Bank of Russia, 18 April, 2020, available at [http://cbr.ru/statistics/macro_itm/tg/].

87 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition preciation of the Russian ruble, while the reduction in remittances from OECD countries was largely due to a decrease in labor emigration from Tajikistan to OECD countries in that period. As we see from Figure 6, remittances from Kazakhstan have also had an effect on Tajikistan’s economy.

Figure 5

Remittances from OECD Countries as a Share of Total Remittances to Tajikistan in 2010-2017, %

8.00

7.50 7.17 6.98 7.00 6.91 6.50 6.34 6.41 6.00 5.71 5.59 5.50 5.62

5.00 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017

S o u r c e: World Bank data, available at [https://databank.worldbank.org/source/ world-development-indicators].

Figure 6

Dynamics of Remittances to Tajikistan from Russia, Kazakhstan, and OECD Countries in 2010-2017, $m

3,500 3,197 2,972 3,000

2,500 2,159 2,000 1,766 1,725 1,687 1,419 1,500 1,336

1,000

500 256 237 236 141 188 231 215 143 129 119 105 141 125 36 48 58 0 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017

Kazakhstan Russia OECD countries

S o u r c e: World Bank data, available at [https://databank.worldbank.org].

88 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020

From the perspective of individual countries, the top OECD countries from which Tajik migrant workers sent remittances back home were Germany ($539 million), Israel ($443 million), United States ($199 million), Latvia ($61 million), and Canada ($32 million) (see Table 3).

Table 3

Remittances to Tajikistan from OECD Countries in 2010-2017

Share of Total Remittances Country Total Remittances, $m from OECD Countries, %

Germany 539 40.3

Israel 443 33.1

United States 199 14.9

Latvia 61 4.5

Canada 32 2.4

Other countries 65 4.8

S o u r c e: World Bank data, available at [https://databank.worldbank.org/source/world-development- indicators].

The role of remittances from Tajik migrants in Tajikistan’s socio-economic development, both at the national level and at the level of individual households, is very great. They have a direct positive impact on GDP growth: migrant workers’ relatives have an opportunity to open their own small businesses, develop entrepreneurship, and create new jobs in the private sector (cafes, shops, bakeries, etc.). Migrant remittances have stimulated growth in the construction sector: many Tajik families with relatives working in other countries have invested their money in housing repair and construction (purchasing flats or building new homes). Remittances stimulate additional consumption: migrant workers’ households have been spending more on food, consumer goods and durables, education, and other basic needs. The flow of migrant remittances from abroad also spurs the development of social initiatives at the local level. In most mahallas (neighborhood communities) in Tajikistan, funds have been collected, at the initiative of local residents, for the repair and construction of public places, buildings, water and gas supply systems, various structures, roads, etc.9

The Impact of Remittances on Living Standards in Tajikistan

Table 4 presents data that give an idea of the impact of remittances on living standards as they help to increase total income per capita, earned income, and the country’s GDP while reducing the poverty rate.

9 See: S.V. Ryazantsev, “Labour Migration from Central Asia to Russia in the Context of the Economic Crisis,” 31 August, 2016, available at [https://eng.globalaffairs.ru/articles/labour-migration-from-central-asia-to-russia-in-the-context- of-the-economic-crisis/].

89 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition 7.3 27.4 3.84 2018 2.183 409.78 409.78 290.20 463,552 68,844.0 Table 4 7.1

29.5 7.31 2017 2.237 374.12 272.55 459,971 61,093.6 6.9 30.3 5.97 2016 1.867 351.14 252.40 450,000 54,491.0

6.0 31.3 5.78 2015 2.259 297.61 244.48 251,600 48,408.7

6.7 32.0 6.07 2014 3.384 231.7 323.64 626,000 45,606.6 7.4 34.3 5.03 2013 3.698 293.58 202.79 415,000 40,525.5

7.5 37.4 5.79 2012 3.222 174.9 for Tajikistan in 2010-2018 258.81 410,000 , available at [http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/tajikist an_rus2013.pdf]; 36,163.1 Selected Socio-Economic Indicators 7.4 42.0 2011 2.722 12.42 225.62 154.27 333,200 30,071.1 6.4 6.5 39.6 77.5 2010 2.021 190.8 313,900 24,707.1

% Agency on Statistics under the President of the Republic Tajikistan, available at [https://www.stat.tj/ru]; Agency on Statistics under the President Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, available at [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TJKPCPIPCHPT]; National Human Development Report: Tajikistan %

Year

$bn million somoni Interstate Statistical Committee of the CIS, available at [http://cisstat.com/]. at available CIS, the of Committee Statistical Interstate Remittance inflows, Average total income per capita, somoni per month Poverty rate, Inflation rate, Average earned income, somoni per month Number of emigrant workers, persons GDP, GDP growth, [https://databank.worldbank.org]; at S o u r c e s: available Bank, World

90 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020

To quantify the impact of remittances on selected socio-economic indicators for Tajikistan, we calculated the correlation coefficients between them, as presented in Table 5.

Table 5

Correlation Matrix of Selected Socio-Economic Indicators for Tajikistan in 2010-2018

$bn % %

somoni Rate, Rate, Poverty Poverty persons Inflation Inflation Average Average Workers, Workers, Emigrant Emigrant Number of Number of Per Capita, Per Capita, Remittance Remittance Inflows, Total Income Total Income

Remittance inflows,$bn 1

Average total income per –0.187 1 capita, somoni

Poverty rate, % 0.255 –0.943 1

Inflation rate,% –0.013 –0.484 0.658 1

Number of Emigrant Workers, 0.356 0.543 –0.438 –0.266 1 persons

S o u r c e: Calculated using data from Table 4.

What conclusions can we draw from our analysis of the values presented in this table?  First, there is obviously a close inverse relationship between per capita income and the poverty rate: income growth leads to a reduction in the percentage of poor people.  Second, there is a fairly close direct relationship between the poverty rate and the inflation rate; in this case, they obviously influence each other, because, on the one hand, inflation drives up prices in the domestic market, which leads to an increase in the poverty rate, and on the other hand, a large share of poor people leads to lower consumption, which makes it possible to adjust inflation.  Third, labor emigration reduces, albeit insignificantly, both the inflation rate and the poverty rate (weak inverse relationship), and this is easily explained, because tension in the national labor market is actually reduced as a result of labor emigration to Russia and other countries, while migrant remittances account for a significant share of total household income.  And fourth, there is a weak direct relationship between remittances and the poverty rate. This might seem to be an illogical result, but in this case the relationship may be mediated. On the one hand, remittances help to reduce the poverty rate, but on the other, they are mainly used by households for personal consumption, while the problem of economic development in Tajikistan at the national level remains unresolved: the job creation rate is much lower than the population growth rate as there are virtually no new large-scale production facilities, so that labor emigration is practically the only opportunity to ease tensions in the labor market. This leads us to an important conclusion about the mixed role of remittances: on the positive side, they reduce short-term risks to the development of the national economy, and on the negative side, they serve to perpetuate structural imbalances over the long term.

91 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition

Remittances have not translated into significant investment in local production, but have mainly been used to develop small business and entrepreneurship. For example, some migrants or their relatives, as mentioned above, have opened small businesses. Many Tajik migrant workers have invested their earnings in renovating their homes, building new ones, or purchasing flats.10 Many migrant workers returning from Russia to Tajikistan already have a good knowledge of Russian, understand Russian culture, are acquainted with traditional Russian cuisine, try to speak Russian at home, and send their children to schools with Russian as a language of instruction. Ac- cording to sociological surveys, migrant workers’ children attending schools where Russian is the language of study or schools that have Russian classes make up almost 50% of all students. Some of these schoolchildren plan to continue their education at universities or colleges, but most of them note that they intend to go to work in Russia as soon as they leave school. Migrant workers’ children are often influenced by their parents who have returned from Russia. Girls in such families frequently refuse to marry right after leaving school and ask permission to continue their education, although early marriages are traditional in many Tajik families. This shows that the significant scale of labor emigration of both men and women leads to major transformations in the institution of family and marriage in Tajikistan. Upon their return home, migrant women open small sewing workshops, mini bakeries, pastry shops, and mini dairy farms, engage in handicrafts, etc. Here are some life stories of Tajik women who have earned a small capital and gained experience in Russia and have opened their own business upon their return to Tajikistan. Take Shoira, a resident of eastern Tajikistan, who used the money saved during her work in Russia to open a fast food kiosk in her home village, borrowing the idea from the Russian outlet she frequented when living and working in Yekaterinburg. According to Shoira, although the village is small, she is never short of customers because the locals love her sha- warma and hot dogs. Another migrant, Ruhshona, who trained as a seamstress at a Russian college, has opened a small tailoring shop that makes national and European clothing, as well as traditional embroidery. She has her own clientele and orders for a month ahead. Tajik women are taught since childhood to make dough, traditional flatbreads, pelmeni and mantu (steamed dumplings), which is why in Russia they engage in these activities in cafes and restaurants while learning to make confec- tionery. The opening of cafes, confectioneries, and tailoring shops is traditional for Tajikistan and allows women with migration experience to earn relatively good money by Tajik standards.11 These examples show the positive experience of Tajik migrant workers who have returned home.

Labor Migration and Remittances to Tajikistan during Crises and the COVID-19 Pandemic

Tajik migrants working in Russia face the same difficulties as the local population in times of economic crisis and during the current COVID-19 pandemic. But the impact of different kinds of crisis on migrant workers can be more significant and prolonged than on Russian citizens.

10 See: S.V. Ryazantsev, “Labour Migration from Central Asia to Russia in the Context of the Economic Crisis.” 11 See: “Kak vernuvshiyesia is RF v Tadzhikistan migranty uchat russki i otkryvaiut biznes,” Sputnik Tajikistan, 17 May, 2018, available at [https://tj.sputniknews.ru/migration/20180517/1025593669/vernuvshiesya-rossiya-tajikistan-migranty- uchat-russkiy-otkryvayut-biznes.html].

92 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020

The global financial crisis of 2008 affected the economies of many countries, including the economy of Tajikistan. At that time, a great many migrant workers lost their jobs as a result of enter- prise closures or personnel cuts. We can identify the following negative effects of the global financial crisis on the economy of the Republic of Tajikistan: mass return migration; reduced remittances; reduced foreign investment in strategic projects; increased external public debt; and slower export growth. Mass return migration was one of the main negative effects of the global crisis on the economy of Tajikistan. At that time, the country’s economy was largely dependent on migrant remittances (as mentioned above, they accounted for 49% of GDP). As a result of the crisis, remittances for the first quarter of 2009 alone were down 33% year-on-year.12 The recovery of remittance flows was relatively slow and took about a year (seasonally adjusted). The drop in global oil prices and the anti-Russian sanctions caused by the 2014 events in Ukraine and the accession of Crimea to Russia triggered a collapse of the ruble exchange rate at the end of 2014. With the weakening of the ruble and the slowdown in production, some of the migrant workers from Tajikistan left Russia, either returning home or moving to third countries in search of higher earnings. In that period, the Bank of Russia recorded another decline in migrant remittances. The main reason in this case was precisely the depreciation of the Russian ruble: in ruble terms, the amounts were roughly the same, while in dollar terms they fell by up to 40%. According to the West- ern Union payment system, the total amount of money transfers to CIS countries in November 2014 was down 35% from October of the same year and 50% from August. Such a significant drop in remittances was a blow to the economy of Tajikistan, where migrant remittances play a very big role.13 The COVID-19 pandemic has also had a significant effect on the scale of labor migration from Tajikistan to Russia and remittance flows. Traditionally, labor migration processes accelerated in spring, when migrants from Central Asian countries, including Tajik migrant workers, came to Rus- sia in search of work after the slack winter period. As a result of the imposition of the self-isolation regime in Russia at the end of March 2020, the Russian labor market contracted, and many migrant workers lost their jobs or had to take an unpaid leave. Some migrants tried to exit Russia and return to their countries of origin, but far from all of them were able to do so, because Russia had closed its air borders. Many potential migrant workers were unable to enter Russia for the same reason. It is difficult to predict the consequences of this situation for Tajikistan and other countries whose economy is heavily dependent on migrant remittances, but this impact will clearly be something of a shock and will last for a long time, because the lifting of quarantine restrictions will probably take months. Let us look at the chronology of events after the imposition of the self-isolation regime in Rus- sia. Initially, President Vladimir Putin announced a week’s holiday starting from 28 March.14 This regime was subsequently extended until 30 April.15 In that period, many Tajik migrants lost their jobs because of the closure of a significant number of building sites, their traditional place of work. To stabilize the situation, the MIA of Russia took a decision to extend, as of 19 March, migrant workers’ visas and work permits until 15 June, 2020. But monthly payments for labor patents remained unchanged. Most migrant workers from Tajikistan who were left without jobs simply did not have

12 See: J.B. Chiniyev, “Vliyanie mirovogo finansovogo krizisa na ekonomiku Respubliki Tadzhikistan,”Vestnik RUDN, Economics Series, No. 1, 2010. 13 See: “Trudovye migranty nachali massovo pokidat Rossiiu iz-za oslableniia rublia,” Novosti ekonomiki i finansov SPb, Rossii i mira, 19 December, 2014, available at [https://www.dp.ru/a/2014/12/19/migranti_edut_domoj/]. 14 See: “Vladimir Putin ob’yavil nedeliu s 30 marta to 5 aprelia nerabochei,” Interfax, 25 March, 2020, available at [https://www.interfax.ru/russia/700883]. 15 See: A. Dzhamankulova, “Prezident podpisal ukaz o prodlenii karantina do 30 aprelia,” 14 April, 2020, available at [https://kloop.kg/blog/2020/04/14/prezident-podpisal-ukaz-o-prodlenii-karantina-do-30-aprelya/].

93 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition enough money to pay for these patents and were faced with a choice between obtaining a patent, paying rent or purchasing basic foodstuffs. Aware of the plight of Tajik citizens, Imomuddin Sattorov, Ambassador of Tajikistan to Russia, as well as the government of Uzbekistan and Vadim Kozhenov, President of the Federation of Mi- grants in Russia, requested the Russian government to grant a “patent holiday” to migrant workers for the period of the quarantine. As of 11 April, 2020, there was still no official answer from Mos- cow.16 An additional problem was that a number of migrant workers were stranded in Russian airports in a futile attempt to fly away home. There were cases where Tajik citizens were obliged to stay at airports for more than two weeks. For example, on the night of 31 March, an estimated 300 migrants, including about 200 citizens of Tajikistan, were ejected from Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport.17 Tajik businessmen and other migrant workers came to the aid of their compatriots, purchasing food, water, and hygiene supplies and delivering them to airports. A number of migrants from Tajikistan were held in deportation centers. According to their staff, it was difficult to say how long this situation would last, since everything depended on the lifting of quarantine restrictions.18 Clearly, given the pandemic and significant loss of earnings, migrant workers are unable to send remittances to their home countries. In April 2020, many money transfer systems already recorded a significant drop in remittances to all countries, including Tajikistan. For example, according to the KaronaPay system, money transfers in March 2020 were down 30% year-on-year, with analysts ex- pecting a further drop of 50% in April. Money transfers through the Unistream system fell in March by up to 35%.19 Migrant workers from Tajikistan are a high-risk group for COVID-19 as they usually live in more crowded conditions than the local population. Some migrants have been able to change their line of work, finding jobs in delivery services, pharmacies, and food stores, but during the pandemic employers are more inclined to hire Russian citizens. From this perspective, the risk of income loss is also higher for migrant workers. As noted above, remittances from Russia are a significant or even the only source of income for many families in Tajikistan. This makes it clear that the COVID-19 pandemic will cause serious damage to Tajikistan’s national economy, both through the system of remittances and through the lack of opportunities for potential migrant workers to find employment in other countries. The share of low-income families in Tajikistan increased significantly in the post-pandemic period.20 Prices for food and essential goods have been growing rapidly. In Dushanbe, for example, the price of a kilogram of potatoes rose from 3.80 somoni (about 27.51 rubles) at the beginning of March to 6-7 somoni (43-50 rubles) in mid-April; a kilogram of onions was priced at 3.5-4 somoni (25-29 rubles), a sack of flour cost 235 somoni (1,702 rubles), etc.21 While pushing up prices, the crisis phenomena

16 See: Kh. Khurramov, “Samoizoliatsiia v tolpe: tadzhikskie migranty v Rossii zhaluiutsya na slozhnosti v period karantina,” 11 April, 2020, available at [https://rus.ozodi.org/a/30547366.html]. 17 See: “Stranded Central Asian Migrants Kicked Out of Moscow Airport,” Current Time, 1 April, 2020, available at [https://en.currenttime.tv/a/stranded-central-asian-migrants-kicked-out-of-moscow-airport-as-coronavirus-clampdown- begins/30524091.html]. 18 See: “Migranty zastriali v deportatsionnykh tsentrakh iz-za koronavirusa,” Nastoyashchee Vremia, 25 March, 2020, available at [https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1610480819115470&id=953100708186821&__tn__=-R]. 19 See: “Ob’yom denezhnykh perevodov iz Rossii upal na tret iz-za koronavirusa,” Ferghana—Mezhdunarodnoye agentstvo novostei,, 7 April, 2020, available at [https://fergana.ru/news/116834/]. 20 See: “Epidemiia koronavirusa v Rossii obrekla tysiachi tadzhikskikh semei na nishchetu,” Migrantnews.info, 14 April, 2020, available at [https://migrantnews.info/ru/post/7425]. 21 See: A. Zarifi, “Tseny na stolichnykh rynkakh prodolzhaiut rasti,” 14 April, 2020, available at [https://rus.ozodi. org/a/30552472.html].

94 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 in Tajikistan’s economy will lead to higher unemployment, especially in rural areas, because many potential migrants will be unable to go abroad in search of work for an indefinite time to come.

Conclusion

Despite Western economic sanctions against Russia, the depreciation of the ruble, and tough migration policy, Russia remains an attractive destination for Tajik migrant workers. Its advantages include the lack of a language barrier, visa-free entry, a common mentality, and the prospect of citizenship. Russia is the largest “donor” of Tajik migrant remittances, which account for a significant part of Tajikistan’s gross domestic product. In 2010-2017 alone, Tajik migrant workers sent home from Russia a total of $16.3 billion. In recent years, there has also been an increase in labor migration flows from Tajikistan to Kazakhstan and some OECD countries. Remittances from Tajik migrants play a significant role in the socio-economic development of the whole country, as well as individual households, allowing them to meet their basic needs for food and consumer durables and to invest in housing construction and repair and in the education of their children. Such is the positive impact of migrant remittances on the country’s economy. The downside of remittances, however, is the lack of a long-term development strategy as they only enable people to meet their current needs, while the creation of new, high-technology jobs is slow and insufficient, lagging behind population growth. The country thus becomes hostage to external market conditions: the demand for foreign labor and crisis phenomena in the destination countries. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has once again demonstrated the vulnerability of Tajik migrant workers in critical situations. Loss of jobs and partial or total loss of earnings have not only made it impossible for many migrants to send remittances back home, but have also put them in a situation where they often have no money to buy food or essential goods. The way out of these problems will largely depend on the lifting of restrictive measures and the demand for migrant workers in production across Russia. But it is already clear that this period will be quite long and will require decisions agreed between the two countries, Russia and Tajikistan.

95 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition LABOR FORCE RECRUITMENT TO THE OECD AND MIDDLE EASTERN COUNTRIES IN THE REPUBLIC OF TAJIKISTAN: TRENDS, MECHANISMS, CONSEQUENCES

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37178/ca-c.20.4.10

Abubakr RAKHMONOV Ph.D. candidate, People’s Friendship University of Russia (RUDN), Junior Research Assistant, Institute for Demographic Research— Branch of the Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology, Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow, Russian Federation)

ABSTRACT

he article examines the trends in labor tages are the absence of a language barrier, migration from Tajikistan. Although the absence of the need to obtain a visa and T Russia and Kazakhstan remain the work permit, a common mentality, and the main labor migration destinations for Tajiks, prospects for obtaining citizenship. Howev- emigration from Tajikistan to OECD coun- er, the rigidity of migration policy and the tries is becoming increasingly more notice- drop in wages in Russia are potential nega- able. New Tajik communities are actively tive factors that will contribute to the reversal forming in the OECD countries, potentially of some of the labor migrant flows from Ta- becoming networks of attraction for new mi- jikistan in favor of the OECD countries. Also, grants in the near future. The forms of labor the active participation of intermediaries in migrant recruitment in Tajikistan, including migrant employment, as well as the OECD digital technologies, are examined. Despite countries’ active policy that aims to attract Tajikistan’s attempts to regulate labor migra- labor migrants will lead to Russia’s loss of a tion more actively on the basis of bilateral significant part of Tajikistan’s migration po- agreements with OECD countries, Russia tential. The possibility of reorientation of a still remains attractive for Tajik labor mi- part of labor emigrants to OECD countries is grants. So far, Russia’s competitive advan- becoming feasible due to the widespread

Study conducted under a grant provided by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (Grant No. 19-310-90079\19).

96 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 study of the English language in Tajikistan language, the active development of private and the cutbacks in teaching the Russian and state labor force recruiting systems.

KEYWORDS: labor migration, regular and organized migration, Central Asia, Tajikistan, OECD countries, labor resource recruiting, emigration, Russia, international agreements.

Introduction

Labor migration from Central Asian countries is currently acquiring new geographic and socio- demographic dimensions. In recent years, there has been a reorientation of migration flows to new directions and regions. These changes are associated with several economic and geopolitical circumstances. On the one hand, the drop in the ruble exchange rate and the decline in ruble-denominated wages and the tightening of migration policies in Russia and Kazakhstan, are forcing some migrant workers to look for new migration destinations. On the other hand, both public and private recruiters are becoming increasingly more active in the labor migration process. Of course, this makes the process of labor migration from Central Asia more regulated and organized. Market demands and countries’ actions also shape the impulses for the development of this regulated and organized form of labor migration. For instance, in recent years, the Republic of Tajikistan has signed a number of memoran- dums and agreements on labor migration with new partners—Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, the Republic of Korea. Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Japan are also showing interest in the labor resources of Central Asia, and specifically Tajikistan. The labor markets of certain Eastern European OECD countries (i.e., Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary) are also experiencing an increasing demand for labor resources. And the labor markets of some OECD countries (i.e., the U.S., Canada, Germany, Australia) were discovered by Tajik citizens themselves via the diasporas and social networks that have formed in recent years. As a result, the trend of reorienting labor migrant flows to new directions is gradually gaining momentum. Given the volume of labor resources and the importance of Tajikistan in the Eur- asian migration subsystem, the reorientation of migrant worker flows to new destinations may be fraught with significant losses for the Russian and Kazakhstani labor markets in the near future.

Scope and Purpose of Research

This study aims to identify the role of recruiting agencies and interstate agreements in the reorientation of migrant workflows from Tajikistan to new regions. The main sources of information on emigration and labor emigration from Tajikistan are national statistics based on the collection and processing of data on migration cards that are filled out by Tajik citizens upon exiting the country. In addition, the migration statistics data from the Migration Outlook compilation, which is published annually by the OECD, were used. This compilation presents data on the number of Tajik citizens in certain OECD countries, where they have formed a prominent migrant group. A sociological survey was also conducted among twenty-two experts, including representatives of government authorities, scientists, employees of embassies and consulates of Tajikistan, representatives of recruiting agencies in OECD countries. The survey was conducted on the basis of an interview guide, which comprised several blocks of questions, including the reasons and motives for emigration, the specifics of em-

97 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition ployment abroad, the problems of adaptation and migration plans of labor migrants in the OECD countries, as well as their ties with the homeland and families in Tajikistan. Also, data from surveys conducted by international organizations (World Bank, IOM, ILO, ESCAP) and scientific works on labor migration from Central Asia were utilized.

Concept of Labor Force Recruitment and its Place in Labor Migration

Recruiting is the process of finding and attracting potential workforce to fill vacant positions in an organization. Let us examine certain scholars’ opinions on the subject. According to Lloyd Byars and Leslie Rue, “Recruitment involves seeking and attracting a pool of people from which qualified candidates for job vacancies can be chosen.”1 William Glueck states that recruiting refers to the types of activities that an organization uses to attract candidates with the appropriate characteristics to help the organization achieve its goal.2 Jean Phillips and Stanley Galli distinguish internal and external recruiting in their Human Resource Management.3 Internal staff recruiting may pose a lower risk, since the organization is already familiar with the employee’s skills and capabilities. Internal recruitment is more cost-effective and faster, so it is easier to fill a job position with less risk to the business.4 Internal recruiting is not accompanied by relocation of labor resources. External recruiting of human resources is a more difficult path for a company. The decision of a company or region to attract external labor resources is based on a combination of financial and organizational factors. For instance, recruiting agencies may be the most appropriate hiring method if a business or company needs to recruit a large number of low-skilled personnel in a relatively short time. As a rule, recruiting agencies have a large number of potential candidates in their databases, they can carry out background checks, and tests of employees’ skills and qualifications. At present, external labor resource recruitment transcends not only company boundaries, but also state borders. Tajikistan has significant labor resources and is thus actively involved in the international exchange of labor resources, primarily within the post-Soviet space. And now the geographical boundaries of recruitment are expanding to the second circle of countries outside the former U.S.S.R. It is important to note that the countries that are new destinations of labor migration for Tajikistan’s citizens initially build their labor resource engagement schemes on the recruiting system and the organized labor migration model. According to the IOM, labor migration is: “Movement of persons from one State to another, or within their own country of residence, for the purpose of employment.”5 According to the international convention On the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (adopted on 18 December, 1990, entered into force on 1 July, 2003): “A migrant worker is a person who will be engaged in, is engaged in or has been engaged in a remunerated activity in a

1 L.L. Byars, L.W. Rue, Human Resource Management, Irwin, Boston. Homewood, 1991, p. 144. 2 See: W.F. Glueck, Business Policy and Strategic Management, McGraw-Hill, 1984, p. 324. 3 See: J.M. Phillips, S.M. Gully, Human Resource Management, Cengage Learning, 2013, pp. 152-153. 4 See: J.A. Breaugh, Recruiting and Attracting Talent, SHRM Foundation, 2009, pp. 1-2, available at [https://www. shrm.org/hr-today/trends-and-forecasting/special-reports-and-expert-views/Documents/Recruiting-Attracting-Talent.pdf]. 5 Key Migration Terms [https://www.iom.int/key-migration-terms#Migration].

98 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 state of which he or she is not a citizen.”6 Migrant workers are also sometimes referred to in documents as “foreign workers” or “(temporary) contractual workers.”7 Three forms of labor migration can be distinguished in terms of participation of various actors in the formation of migrant worker flows and the organization of their relocation and adaptation in the labor markets of the host countries:  first of all, it includes organized labor migration, which is carried out with the support of state bodies through the mechanisms of interstate agreements, special programs, organized recruitment of labor, etc. Organized forms of labor migration, as a rule, incur higher costs for the state in the short term, but are justified in the long term, since people move in an organized manner to prearranged places and integrate faster into the host society. An organized form of labor migration was widely used within the U.S.S.R. For example, in the 1950s and 1960s, significant labor resources (over 1.5 million people) were organized to develop virgin and fallow lands in northern Kazakhstan and southern Siberia. Also, highly qualified and skilled personnel from the R.S.F.S.R. were actively engaged in industrial enterprises and in the social sphere in the republics of Central Asia and Kazakhstan;8  secondly, it entails partially organized labor migration, when market mechanisms act as a driving force, and the actual labor recruiting is carried out by employers, enterprises, companies, private employment agencies (PEAs) and individual intermediaries. In this case, the state may also fulfill a regulatory role, for example, many states provide licensing of labor recruitment intermediaries. It is often very difficult for states to monitor the activities of individuals who recruit through social media in violation of the rights of migrant workers. IOM defines PEA as “Any natural or legal person, independent of the public authorities, which provides one or more of the following labor market services: (a) services for matching offers of and applications for employment, without the private employment agency becoming a party to the employment relationships which may arise therefrom; (b) services consisting of employing workers with a view to making them available to a third party, who may be a natural or legal person (referred to below as a “user enter- prise”) which assigns their tasks and supervises the execution of these tasks; (c) other services relating to job seeking, determined by the competent authority after consulting the most representative employers and workers organizations, such as the provision of information, that do not set out to match specific offers of and applications for employment”;9  thirdly, independent (unorganized or spontaneous) labor migration, which is carried out by the migrants themselves; as a rule, they are guided by social networks, information and support from relatives, acquaintances, fellow countrymen and diasporas. In this case, numerous difficulties also arise with the adaptation of migrant workers to the labor markets of the host countries due to their ignorance of laws and procedures, language and specifics of labor relations.

6 Art 2.1. 7 Glossary on Migration, International Migration Law, IOM, 2019, pp. 134-135, available at [https://publications.iom. int/system/files/pdf/iml_34_glossary.pdf]. 8 See: E.L. Plisetsky, “Sovremennye migratsionnye protsessy v Rossii,” Geografiya, No. 37, 2003, pp. 4-11, available at [https://geo.1sept.ru/article.php?ID=200303705]. 9 IOM Report on the Assessment of the Employment Structure of Private Employment Agencies, 2016, available at [https://publications.iom.int/system/files/assessment_of_recruitment_framework_of_peas_english.pdf].

99 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition OECD Countries as the New Vector for Labor Migration from Tajikistan

Traditionally, the main labor migration destinations for citizens of Tajikistan in recent years have been the Russian Federation and the Republic of Kazakhstan. There is no need for citizens of Tajikistan to obtain visas to these countries, since there is an agreement on a visa-free regime between Tajikistan and the CIS countries. It is fairly easy for citizens of Tajikistan to obtain a work patent in Russia and Kazakhstan. However, the introduction of economic sanctions by Western countries against Russia, the depreciation of the ruble against the dollar, the rise in the price of patent-related procedures and the complication of registration in Russia, as well as increased activity in attracting citizens of Tajikistan by representatives of certain countries led to the beginning of gradual reorientation of labor migrant flows from Tajikistan to new directions. As a result, such new migration destinations as the OECD countries and the Persian Gulf have opened up for Tajiks. This fact is recognized at the official level; moreover, there have been repeated suggestions to diversify the flows of labor migrants to new destinations. Minister of Labor, Migration, and Public Employment of the Republic of Tajikistan Sumangul Taghoyzoda had stated that “Migra- tion from Tajikistan to the countries of the Middle East, for example, to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain, is becoming more significant.”10 In recent years, the government of Tajikistan has been systematically attempting to reorient migration flows from Russia to other countries, primarily to the rich Persian Gulf states.11 Despite their religious affinity, the Persian Gulf countries have not yet been attracting labor migrants from Tajikistan. It is obvious that the Tajik mentality was formed under different socio-cultural conditions. Currently, Tajiks are not willing to work as servants for wealthy Arab families in the Gulf countries. Tajik scientist R. Ulmasov notes that “the reason for the lack of progress in the search for new destinations for migrants is inadequate qualifications and the language barrier. Qatar, Saudi Arabia and all other countries are in need of highly qualified migrants, and we ourselves do not have enough such personnel.”12 Meanwhile, labor migration from Tajikistan to OECD countries13 is undergoing a rather active development. These countries can rightfully be considered a new destination for Tajik emigration (see Fig. 1).14 Tajik citizens must obtain a visa and work permit in most OECD countries. As a rule, it is difficult for Tajik citizens to do it independently, therefore, these are the spheres of emigration and employment where various intermediaries, both state-affiliated and private, are active. In addition, intermediaries provide assistance with paperwork, return of delayed or unpaid wages, and housing in OECD countries. Studies demonstrate that labor emigration from Tajikistan to OECD countries located in Eastern and Central Europe (Austria, Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic), Western Europe (Germany, Swe-

10 “Rabota v pustyne: chego zhdat migrantam iz RT v bogatykh arabskikh stranakh,” SPUTNIK Tajikistan, 21 July, 2017, available at [https://tj.sputniknews.ru/analytics/20170721/1022884718/migranty-persidskiy-zaliv-usloviya-truda- tadzhikistan.html]. 11 See: Kh. Khurramov, “Pereorientatsia migrantov: Katar vmesto Rossii?,” Radio Ozodi, Tajkistan, 28 September, 2020, available at [https://rus.ozodi.org/a/30188795.html]. 12 Quoted from: Ibidem. 13 The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is an intergovernmental economic organization with 36 member countries, including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, U.K., and the U.S. 14 See: S.V. Ryazantsev, Sh.Yu. Akramov, A.Kh. Rakhmonov, “Emigratsia iz Tadzhikistana v strany OESR: tendentsii, posledstvia, perspektivy,” Nauchnoe obozrenie. Ekonomika i pravo, Series 1, 2018, No. 3-4, pp. 22-34.

100 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 den, France, Netherlands), Southern Europe (Italy and Spain), the U.S. and Canada, as well as Asian countries (Turkey, Korea, Japan) is becoming increasingly more significant.

Figure 1

Emigration of Tajikistan Citizens to OECD Countries in 2016, number of people

1,600 1,495 1,400

1,200

1,000

800 593 600

400 214 166 200 123 120 36 34 30 16 16 13 10 8 7 5 5 5 3 2 1 1 1 0 U.S. Italy Spain Korea Japan France Poland Mexico Austria Finland Canada Norway Estonia Sweden Belgium Hungary Denmark Germany Switzerland Netherlands Luxembourg New Zealand Czech Republic

S o u r c e: OECD data [https://stats.oecd.org].

In percentage terms, Tajik migrants relocated mainly to the following OECD countries: Western and Eastern Europe—51%, the U.S.—30%, Canada—8%, Japan—7%, Korea—4%. Tajiks relocate much less often to the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, and Mexico due to the flight distance, limited emigration options, a shortage of jobs, and high requirements for emigrants in the labor markets of these countries (see Fig. 2). It should be noted that certain OECD countries, presented in statistics as new migration destination for Tajiks, are, in fact, transit states, since Tajik citizens use them as transit corridors for subsequent relocation to more developed countries. For example, the Eastern Europe countries are becoming a springboard for the relocation of Tajiks to Western European and Scandinavian countries; Mexico—for moving to the U.S. and Canada. There are also known cases of deliberate passport destruction by Tajiks when moving to Germany, followed by an appeal to the authorities under the guise of refugees from Afghanistan to obtain the appropriate status and benefits in Germany. These schemes often work because Tajiks and Afghans speak the Farsi (Dari) language, and employees of the Ger- man migration service do not possess sufficient socio-cultural knowledge. Migrants from Tajikistan enter the United States through three main channels. First, there is the green card lottery, which is becoming an increasingly popular legal way to enter the U.S. In 2013, 24,500 citizens of Tajikistan participated in the lottery, and 531 people received the right to enter the United States; in 2015, 34,700 people participated, and 337 people received the right to enter. The number of “green cards” for citizens of Tajikistan in 2018 increased 11-fold compared to 2001 and

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Figure 2

Migration Geography of Citizens of Tajikistan to OECD Countries in 2005-2016, %

0.4 3.7 7.1

Eastern and Western 7.7 European countries U.S.

Japan

50.9 Republic of Korea

Canada 30.1 Other OECD countries

S o u r c e: OECD data [https://stats.oecd.org]. reached 1,200 (see Fig. 3). There are agencies in Tajikistan that assist Tajik citizens in the preparation of documents for the ‘green card’ lottery. The second channel of migration to the United States for Tajiks is through obtaining nonim- migrant visas (tourist, business, educational). Once in the United States, the citizens of Tajikistan attempt to legalize themselves. In order to enter the United States, citizens of Tajikistan were issued 1,400 visas in 2014, and 1,700 visas in 2015. After Donald Trump assumed power, the U.S. migration policy has become stricter, affecting migrants from Tajikistan, among others. For instance, the Visa Interview Waiver program, which made it possible for tourists and businessmen to obtain a repeated visa without an interview at the embassy was discontinued.15 Naturally, the number of American visas issued to citizens of Tajikistan has decreased. On 31 March, 2017, the USA Television website published information that the United States had changed its visa policy towards Tajikistan. The author of the article wrote that citizens of Ta- jikistan who on private and business trips to the United States can stay in the country for 180 days without a visa. The U.S. Ambassador to Dushanbe reacted to this information: “The U.S. visa policy in Tajikistan has remained the same. News is circulating about major changes in this policy towards Tajikistan. That is not true.”16

15 See: A. Barinova, “Kak izmenilis pravila poluchenia vizy v SShA,” National Geographic, Russia, 31 January, 2017, available at [https://nat-geo.ru/travel/kak-izmenilis-pravila-polucheniya-vizy-v-ssha/]. 16 “‘Eto nepravda’. Posolstvo SShA schitaet novost ob otmene viz dlia tadzhikov ‘feykom’,” Radio Ozodi, Tajikistan, 2 April, 2017, available at [https://rus.ozodi.org/a/28402548.html].

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Figure 3

Number of “Green Cards” Granted to Citizens of Tajikistan to Enter the U.S. in 2001-2018

1,400

1,209 1,200 1,171

1,000

800

600 531 528 414 400 330 337 257 270 200 168 178 126 107 86 105 83 84 42 0 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

S o u r c e: Data by State Licensed Immigration Service U.S. Green Card Service GmbH. Statistics of Green Card Lottery Winners, available at [https://www.green-card. com/winner-statistics/?year=2018].

On 15 October, 2019, new rules for obtaining green cards within the United States came into force. The purpose of the introduction of the new “public charge rules” was to prevent the issuance of “green cards” to people receiving or planning to receive assistance from the state.17 In fact, it has become much more difficult for those migrants who were already inside the United States to obtain a residence permit (“green card”). The third channel is immigration visas. Despite the complicated procedures for issuing immi- grant visas to the United States, their number for citizens of Tajikistan over the past decade has increased by 2,724, which is almost 5 times more than in 2007 (see Table 1). The fourth channel is comprised by refugees. In recent years, this flow has increased dramati- cally. On the one hand, it is induced by the socio-political situation in the country, including the lack of political freedoms and the predicament of certain socio-demographic groups. On the other hand, social media is spreading information that it is easier to move to the United States through this channel than through other forms of migration. As a result, in 2018, the number of refugees from Tajiki- stan in the United States reached an all-time high of 731 (see Fig. 4).

17 See: “Novye pravila v SShA: kto ne smozhet poluchit gran-kartu?” Deutsche Welle, available at [https://www. dw.com/ru/%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B2%D1%8B%D0%B5-%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%BB %D0%B0-%D0%B2-%D1%81%D1%88%D0%B0-%D0%BA%D1%82%D0%BE-%D0%BD%D0%B5-%D1%81%D0%BC %D0%BE%D0%B6%D0%B5%D1%82-%D0%BF%D0%BE%D0%BB%D1%83%D1%87%D0%B8%D1%82%D1%8C- %D0%B3%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BD-%D0%BA%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%82%D1%83/a-50080960].

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Table 1

Immigration Visas to the U.S. Obtained by Citizens of Tajikistan in 2000-2017 Year Total Close Close Labor Labor Family Family Special Special Military Military Migrants Migrants Migrants migrants in the U.S. Relatives of Relatives of Those Living Those Living Diversity visa Diversity visa Returning and Returning and

2000 78 11 3 1 0 93

2001 25 11 0 0 0 36

2002 62 23 4 1 0 90

2003 33 23 7 0 0 63

2004 57 27 0 0 0 78

2005 28 30 7 1 0 66

2006 27 37 3 6 0 73

2007 32 28 4 10 1 75

2008 66 27 5 2 0 100

2009 73 28 6 1 0 108

2010 110 29 18 14 1 172

2011 169 33 8 21 0 231

2012 141 33 15 4 0 193

2013 200 32 25 19 0 276

2014 239 31 25 23 2 320

2015 333 43 20 36 3 435

2016 231 38 23 12 1 305

2017 413 61 26 5 4 509

Total 2,317 545 199 156 12 3,223

S o u r c e: U.S. State Department [https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/ visa-statistics.html].

Natives of Tajikistan in the United States are engaged in business, work in the service sector, trade, culture and science. Migrants from Tajikistan help their newly arrived compatriots to adapt to the U.S. and assist them in the search for housing and employment. One of the authors observed the replacement of Russian waiters in New York’s Brighton Beach restaurants by immigrants from Cen- tral Asian countries, Tajiks among them. Many people from Tajikistan find work in the “Russian- speaking economy” within the United States. In addition, there are rather numerous communities of Bukharian (“Tajik-speaking”) Jews in New York and the state of Iowa.18

18 See: S.V. Ryazantsev, Sh.Yu. Akramov, A.Kh. Rakhmonov, op. cit.

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Figure 4

Number of Refugees from Tajikistan to the U.S. in 1992-2018

800 731 700 687

600 571

500 475 417 400

300 293 246 198 200 161 123129137 125 113113103 105120 90 83 100 59 27 38 0 0 0 11 0 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

S o u r c e: Data provided by U.N. HCR [https://www.unhcr.org/].

Figure 5

Number of Immigration Visas to Canada Granted to Citizens of Tajikistan in 1981-2016

600

500 480

400 345

300 255 195 200

100

0 1991-2000 2001-2005 2006-2010 2011-2016

S o u r c e: Data of Canada’s National Statistical Agency, available at [https://www12. statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/dp-pd/hlt-fst/imm/Table.cfm?Lang= E&T=21&Geo=01].

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Migrants from Tajikistan move to Canada mostly on the basis of immigration applications. The process is based on a score system that factors in the applicants’ age, knowledge, education, work experience and knowledge of languages. Canada issued a total of about 1,300 immigration visas to citizens of Tajikistan between 1991 and 2016 (see Fig. 5). There are currently about 5,000 citizens of Tajikistan living in Canada. Tajik communities can be divided into four categories: Persian-speaking and Russian-speaking Tajiks who arrived from Tajikistan; Tajiks from Afghanistan; Tajiks, including Bukharian Jews from Uzbekistan; Tajiks, including Bukharian Jews and Ashkenazi Jews who arrived from Israel and Russia.19 There are approximately 400,000 Bukharian Jews outside the CIS, in Israel, the U.S. and Canada.20 About 500 ethnic Tajik families from Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Russia, Israel live in the Canadian province of Quebec. They mainly reside in Montreal (over 250 families), Quebec City, Sherbrooke and Granby (30 families). Also, over 500 Tajik families live in the Toronto area. About 250 families of Tajik Bukharian Jews reside in Forest Hill in Toronto. Another 200 Tajik families live in Calgary and Vancouver. Thus, new Tajik communities are gradually being formed in some OECD countries. They are becoming quite visible in the socio-economic and socio-cultural spheres. Gradually, these communities are becoming “points of attraction” for new Tajik migrants from Tajikistan and the former U.S.S.R.

Methods of Labor Force Recruitment for Work Abroad Used in Tajikistan

In accordance with Art 17 of the Law of the Republic of Tajikistan No.1353 On Licensing Certain Types of Activities (dated 23 July, 2016), private employment agencies (PEAs) that are engaged in the employment of Tajik citizens abroad and employ foreign citizens in Tajikistan are required to obtain a license from the Ministry of Labor, Migration, and Public Employment of the Republic of Tajikistan. In addition to a license, PEAs are required to have a certificate of state registration, a certificate of tax registration, all constituent documents and an agreement with the foreign company seeking employees. In 2013, in Tajikistan, the State Agency for Social Protection, Employment and Migration issued licenses to 103 PEAs to engage foreign labor and send Tajik labor migrants abroad.21 According to the Ministry of Labor of the Republic of Tajikistan, at that time, there were only 15 PEAs operating in the country that sent Tajik migrants to work abroad. In the first half of 2013, these PEAs employed more than 11,600 citizens of the Republic of Tajikistan, including 2,500 abroad.22 In 2017, in the structure of the Migration Service of the Republic of Tajikistan, there were 4 centers for counseling labor migrants. Fifteen thousand people asked for help, however, only 85 of them were employed in Russia.23 In that period, 13 PEAs that worked to export labor resources were registered in the country. In the first quarter of 2017, these PEAs helped 349 Tajik citizens to get jobs abroad.

19 See: S.V. Ryazantsev, Sh.Yu. Akramov, A.Kh. Rakhmonov, op. cit. 20 Ibidem. 21 See: N. Azimurod, “Chastnyye agentstva zaniatosti trudoustroili v Tadzhikistane svyshe 11,6 tysiachi grazhdan,” 1 August, 2013, available at [https://tajikta.tj/ru/news/chastnye-agentstva-zanyatosti-trudoustroili-v-tadzhikistane-svyshe-11- 6-tys-grazhdan]. 22 Ibidem. 23 See: The U.N. International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families. Regular Reports of Member States to be submitted in 2017, available in Russian at [http://docstore.ohchr.org/

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According to the Tax Committee of the Republic of Tajikistan in 2017, 38 organizations that are engaged in employment within the country, as well as abroad, were registered in Tajikistan. In the first half of 2017, they paid 704,000 somoni in taxes, which is the equivalent of $80,000.24 There are currently three channels (methods) of recruiting labor force for work abroad in the Republic of Tajikistan. The first isonline recruiting. Some agencies offer jobs to Tajik migrants online, since their offices are located in the host countries. Many employment agencies distribute information via Tele- gram, WhatsApp, or Viber.25 The paperwork for employment is completed online. Most of the vacancies offered by these companies are for low-skilled workers. They do not require a good command of English or the language of the host country. Basic knowledge is required, but in its absence, agencies assist in resolving these issues. Certain construction companies that employ migrants in the EU countries do not deal with the paperwork, therefore, in addition to work experience, they also require the candidate to have a Schengen visa. The second is recruiting via third countries. Certain OECD recruiting agencies do not have an official representative in Tajikistan and offer jobs to Tajik citizens through offices in neighboring countries. For example, citizens of Tajikistan can apply for employment through the Polish consulate in Tashkent. The decision is made within two weeks.26 The third method is direct recruiting within Tajikistan. In 2020, according to the website Muho- jir (“migrant” in Tajik), there are 159 state and non-state agencies in the country that provide jobs for Tajik migrants inside the country and abroad. Of the 159 employment agencies, 146 are state-owned and only 13 are private (see Table 2).

Table 2

Number of Recruiting Agencies in the Republic of Tajikistan (as of 20 October, 2020)

State PEAs Private PEAs Total

Dushanbe 8 1 9

Sughd region 37 8 45

Khatlon region 53 — 53

Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous 20 4 24 Region

Regions of republican 28 — 28 subordination

TOTAL 146 13 159

S o u r c e: Migrant info under the Ministry of Labor and Employment of the Republic of Tajikistan [http://muhojir.info/].

SelfServices/FilesHandler.ashx?enc=6QkG1d%2FPPRiCAqhKb7yhssckrWs7qDUm%2F9OXnsrZtdsTOuwqhgejXE4fFO cU75VXMUG5gr TUl4CoBBC0vFqqrXFjeQeFEwOGks6fWO19Z91CzmHUefDmuIX3mvGwfVML]. 24 See: “Rabstvo: realii tadzhikskoy trudovoy migratsii,” 8 January, 2018, available at [http://www.muhojir.info/ news/446]. 25 See: “Rabota za granitsey,” lalafo.tj, 7 February, 2020, available at [https://lalafo.tj/dushanbe/ads/raznorabocij-v- evrope-id-62163793]. 26 See: Ya. Shodmon, “Mintruda: vse bolshe tadzhikistantsev ishchut rabotu v Turtsii i Polshe,” 10 February, 2019, available at [https://rus.ozodi.org/a/29761680.html].

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There are 45 employment agencies in the Sughd region, including 37 state and 8 private ones. The best-known is the private agency Imkon Development and Employment Center. Most of the PEAs engaged in employment abroad are located in the Sughd region. Khatlon region is home to 53 employment agencies. Most of them are located in the city of Bokhtar (until 2018—the city of Kurgan-Tube) and the city of Kulob. The most prominent company that offers employment abroad is the Overseas Employment Agency in the city of Bokhtar. There are 24 employment agencies in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region, including 20 state and 4 private ones. The best-known are the Muhojir and Rahnamoi Muhojir PEAs in the city of Khorog, which offer employment within the country as well as abroad. A total of 28 agencies (all state-affiliated) operate in the Region of Republican Subordination (RRS). In the RRS, the Sector of the Migration Service in the city of Vakhdat is actively engaged in the sphere of employment abroad. Additionally, many RRS residents come to the city of Dushanbe to find other PEAs that offer employment abroad. Nine firms operate in Dushanbe, including 8 state-owned and 1 private. TOJIKOYANDASOZ (“Tajik future” in Tajik) agency offers employment opportunities in the European Union. The agency mostly offers vacancies for workers in factories and plants, warehouses, in the construction sphere, in meat factories (slaughterhouses), as well for plumbers, electricians and welders. The agency assists in obtaining certificates and documents required by the embassy. Citizens of Tajikistan with a category B driving license can work as taxi drivers in Lithuania; with categories C and E—as long-haul truck drivers in the EU countries. The main countries of employment are Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Finland, Sweden and Norway. TOJIKOYANDASOZ offers citizens of Tajikistan an annual Type D Schengen visa (national visa).27 Dushanbe is also home to agencies that offer work-study programs in the EU countries. For example, StudiumWeg is a youth consulting agency that offers work-study opportunities in Germany and Austria.28 The agency offers the following programs: Au Pair (childcare and household assistance); FSJ / FöJ / BFD (volunteer work: work in hotels and in the social sphere — caring for the sick, the elderly, children, household help, etc.); Ausbildung (work and study with a social package, salary, training); work in environmental and cultural programs. Au Pair (“equal” in French). The program invites employees to live with a host family and help with childcare, household chores, and housework.29 Working hours are 20-30 hours per week. The length of an employee’s stay depends on the wishes of the participants, the host family, and the laws of the country. Some countries have set minimum and maximum lengths of an employee stay, which range from three to twenty-four months. In Germany, the duration of the program is six to twelve months.30 FSJ / FöJ / BFD volunteer program—voluntary social year abroad. Under this program, candidates can find work in boarding houses, hospitals, homes for the elderly or disabled, youth hotels (hostels), agricultural farms, environmental organizations, sports youth associations, parks, etc. The candidate must be between 18 and 26 years of age, or between 18 and 40 for the BFD program. Basic knowledge of the German language (level A1-A2) is required. The program is usually designed for one year. As a rule, accommodations for the employees are provided by the inviting organization. Monthly wages range from 120 to 600 euros. Ausbildung (Duale System) is a work-study program. Participants can simultaneously work five days a week and study one day a week. The salary, depending on the specialty, ranges from 600 to 1,200 euros per month. The duration of vocational education depends on the chosen specialty and

27 See: “Rabota v Evrope v Dushanbe, Avtovokzal,” 27 June, 2019, available at [https://dushanbe.rg.tj/vacancies/208329]. 28 See: “‘StudiumWeg’ agentstvo tvoego budushchego,” available at [http://www.studiumweg.org/index.html#]. 29 See: “‘Au Pair’—rabota za granitsey,” available at [https://www.aupair.com/]. 30 See: “Programma ‘Au Pair’ v raznykh stranakh mira,” available at [https://www.aupair.com/ru/p-programma-au-pair- strany-mira.php].

108 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 ranges from two to three and a half years.31 Over 600,000 vacancies are offered annually in Germany within the Ausbildung framework.32 Tajikistan’s government structures also have a vested interest in sending Tajik migrants abroad. On 4 June, 2015 in Dushanbe, the Ministry of Labor, Migration, and Public Employment of the Re- public of Tajikistan opened a new building of the Agency for Employment Abroad.33 The agency’s main goal is to organize the regulated labor migration of Tajiks outside of Tajikistan. The Agency’s opening ceremony was attended by the Minister of Labor, Migration, and Public Employment of the Republic of Tajikistan Sumangul Taghoyzoda, the British Ambassador to the Republic of Tajikistan Hugh Philpott, the head of the IOM mission in the Republic of Tajikistan Tajma Kurt, the head of the U.K. Department for International Development in Central Asia Bob Leverington and others. As noted by Minister Sumangul Taghoyzoda, in the first year the government of Tajikistan allocated 100,000 somoni (about $18,000) from the state budget to support the agency’s staff. The agency staff comprises 27 people. In 2015, the Agency for Employment Abroad opened its branches in other regions of Tajikistan. In addition to state budget funds, the U.K. Department for International Develop- ment provided the agency with financial and technical assistance in the amount of over $150,000. The agency provides jobs for Tajik citizens, including jobs in other OECD countries. For example, in 2019, over one thousand Tajik citizens applied to the Foreign Employment Agency to work in Turkey and Poland.34 Here are excerpts from an interview with a labor migrant from Tajikistan in Turkey, who previously worked in Russia, where he compares the migration conditions in Russia and Turkey. A resident of the city of Dushanbe, M. Khusainov, came to work in Russia several times: “I worked in Russia. Employers often did not pay wages on time. The police were always on my case. It was difficult to file the documents. I turned to the Agency for Employment Abroad for help. Found a job in Turkey through the Agency. The documents were drawn up in two days. Two days later I was hired. I started working in the tourist industry, in a hotel. Accommodation and food are provided at the expense of the employer. An eight-hour working day.”35 According to the Ministry of Labor of the Republic of Tajikistan, citizens who have gone abroad to work through intermediary companies have better social security and working conditions. In the event of any difficulties, i.e., non-payment of wages, the recruiting agency protects the rights of its clients.

Interstate Agreements between Tajikistan and OECD Countries in the Sphere of Labor Migration Regulation

Currently, the Republic of Tajikistan has signed bilateral agreements on the regulation of labor migration with the Republic of Kazakhstan, Qatar, the Kyrgyz Republic, the United Arab Emirates, the Republic of Poland, the Russian Federation, the Turkish Republic, the Republic of Uzbekistan. A labor agreement with the Republic of Korea is slated to be signed in the near future. Meanwhile, citizens of Tajikistan can work in OECD countries only with a work visa.

31 See: S. Babkin, “Ausbildung—nemetskoe srednee professionalnoe obrazovanie,” 10 June, 2017, available at [https:// www.tupa-germania.ru/obrazovanie/ausbildung.html]. 32 See: “‘StudiumWeg’ agentstvo tvoego budushchego.” 33 See: “V Dushanbe otkrylos novoe Agentstvo po trudoustroystvu za rubezhom,” Dialog.tj, 8 June, 2015, available at [http://hrc.tj/materiali/84-v-dushanbe-otkrylos-novoe-agentstvo-po-trudoustroystvu-za-rubezhom.html]. 34 See: Ya. Shodmon, op. cit. 35 Ibidem.

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A visa-free regime for citizens of Tajikistan exists only with the Republic of Turkey. However, one cannot work there without a work visa either.36 According to the agreement, citizens of Tajikistan can stay in Turkey without a visa for 90 days every six months (180 days). This decree was signed on 11 November, 2018 by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Previously, citizens of Tajiki- stan were allowed to remain in Turkey without a visa for 30 days. The visa-free regime gives Tajik citizens a reason to apply for employment in Turkey. However, such employment cannot be legal. Despite this fact, Turkey is confidently becoming a new region ofemployment for Tajik migrants.37 On 16 April, 2018, a memorandum of understanding in the sphere of labor resources was signed between the Republic of Tajikistan and the UAE. As noted by the Minister of Human Resources and Emiratization of the United Arab Emirates Nasser Bin Thani Al-Hamli, the Memorandum of Under- standing is a sign of the desire of the two countries to strengthen their relations in the labor supply sphere.38 In accordance with this memorandum, citizens of Tajikistan can engage in labor activities in the UAE on the basis of a concluded labor contract between a worker and an employer. On 5 February, 2019, an agreement was signed in Doha on the regulation of the labor force and on the organized recruitment of Tajik citizens for temporary employment abroad between the Repub- lic of Tajikistan and Qatar.39 Tajik migrants are now able to find employment in Qatar on the basis of an employment contract.40 Qatar will submit a list of in-demand specialists to the Agency for Employ- ment Abroad under the Ministry of Labor of the Republic of Tajikistan. Tajikistan, in turn, will prepare and send them to work in Qatar. According to the agreement, Tajik migrants must take an Arabic language course prior to traveling to Qatar. Tajik migrants will be brought to Qatar through the Agency for Employment Abroad under the Ministry of Labor, rather than through private agencies or firms, based on requests from employers from Qatar. An agreement is concluded between the employee and employers, which will be governed by the Qatari labor code. The agreement also stipulates that the employer must provide the employee with housing, insurance, travel expenses, provide normal working conditions and pay compensation in the event of an accident.41 The Republic of Korea is a new destination of labor emigration for citizens of Tajikistan. So far, there is no bilateral agreement on labor migration between the Republic of Tajikistan and the Repub- lic of Korea. Due to the slowdown in the growth of the national economy, the Korean parliament has suspended the signing of any agreements with new countries in the field of labor migration. How- ever, Seoul promised Tajikistan that it would sign an agreement on labor migration as an exception, as reported by Deputy Prime Minister of Tajikistan Azim Ibrokhimov.42 On 24 January, 2020, the Minister of Labor, Migration, and Public Employment of Tajikistan Gulru Jabborzoda received the Ambassador of the Republic of Korea Li Vuchel in Dushanbe. During the meeting, they discussed issues of cooperation between the Republic of Korea and the Republic of Tajikistan in the migration

36 See: Dzh. Radzhabov, “Perspektiva dlia migrantov: tadzhikskikh grazhdan zhdut na rabotu v Polshe i Turtsii,” 7 February, 2020, available at [https://tj.sputniknews.ru/migration/20200207/1030675358/migrant-tajikskaya-rabochaya-sila- Poland-Turkey.html]. 37 See: “Turtsia uvelichila srok bezvizovogo prebyvania dlia grazhdan Tadzhikistana,” Resmi Gazete, 12 November, 2018, available at [https://tj.sputniknews.ru/world/20181112/1027388677/turkey-uvelichila-srok-bezvizovogo-prebyvaniya- tajikistan.html]. 38 See: N. Znaikin, “OAE i Tadzhikistan naladiat obmen rabochey siloy,” 19 April, 2018, available at [https:// russianemirates.com/news/uae-news/oae-i-tadzhikistan-naladyat-obmen-rabochey-siloy/]. 39 See: “V Mintruda rasskazali, kak izmenilsia potok migratsii iz Tadzhikistana,” SputnikTj, 6 February, 2020, available at. [https://tj.sputniknews.ru/migration/20200206/1030670764/migraciya-russia-tajikistan.html]. 40 See: “Tadzhikistan i Katar podpisali soglashenie o trudovykh migrantakh,” ТаджикТА, 5 February, 2019, available at [https://regnum.ru/news/2566229.html]. 41 See: A. Zarifi, “‘Na zarabotki v Katar’: uzhe letom pervaia gruppa tadzhikskikh migrantov otpravitsia v arabskuiu stranu,” 5 February, 2019, available at [https://rus.ozodi.org/a/29752137.html]. 42 See: “Seul poobeshchal Dushanbe ‘v vide iskliuchenia’ podpisat soglashenie po migratsii,” Azia Plus, 18 July, 2019, available at [https://www.fergana.agency/news/109100/].

110 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 sphere. Particular attention was paid to accelerating the signing of an agreement between the two countries on the organization of labor migration of Tajik citizens to Korea, the draft of which is being considered by the government of the host country. In this regard, Jabborzoda proposed to sign the aforementioned agreement on organizing the supply of labor from Tajikistan to Korea under the program previously endorsed by the Ministry of Labor and the provinces of Korea on the seasonal recruitment of Tajik citizens to work in this country.43

Conclusion

Labor migration from Tajikistan rose sharply in 1994-1995 due to the complex situation after the civil war, the transformation of the economy, changes in the structure of employment and the rise in unemployment. Currently, labor migration is the largest and most dynamic emigration flow from Ta- jikistan. In fact, every single aspect of the life of the Tajik society would be affected by labor migration. Russia and Kazakhstan are the main labor emigration destinations for citizens of Tajikistan, along with Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan to a certain extent. The role of the OECD countries grew gradually along with that of the CIS countries. Against the background of the widespread study of the English language in Tajikistan itself and the cutbacks in Russian language teaching, the active development of both private and state labor recruiting agencies, the possibility of reorienting some labor emigrants to OECD countries is becoming quite real. New Tajik communities are actively being formed in the OECD countries, and they may soon become networks of attraction for new migrants from Tajikistan. Migrants from Tajikistan to Russia and Kazakhstan do not require visas. Due to this fact, PEAs practically do not work with these migration destinations. But when new vectors of labor migration, such as OECD countries, opened up for Tajik migrants, the role of PEAs increased significantly, since these countries do require work visas and work permits. As a rule, it is difficult for Tajik citizens to go through the process independently, therefore, various intermediaries, both state and private, are actively working in these areas of emigration and employment. In addition, intermediaries provide assistance with paperwork, return of delayed or unpaid wages and housing rental in OECD countries. Despite Tajikistan’s attempts to regulate labor migration on the basis of bilateral agreements with OECD countries more actively, Russia still remains attractive for Tajik labor migrants. Russia’s advantages include the absence of a language barrier, the absence of the need to obtain a visa and work permit, a common mentality, the prospects of obtaining citizenship.44 However, the rigidity of migration policy and the drop in wages in Russia are the negative factors that will contribute to the partial reversal of the flows of labor migrants from Tajikistan in favor of the OECD countries. Under these conditions, Russia should reduce the unreasonable migration control pressure on Tajik migrants in terms of registration procedures and police checks. Otherwise, the active participation of intermediaries in the employment of migrants, as well as an active policy of attracting labor migrants from Central Asian countries to the OECD will lead to the loss of a significant part of Russia’s migration potential.

43 See: “Dushanbe v ocherednoy raz poprosil Seul uskorit otpravku tadzhikskikh migrantov v Iuzhnuiu Koreiu,” Azia Plus, 24 January, 2020, available at [http://muhojir.info/news/980]. 44 See: A.K. Rakhmonov, R.V. Manshin, “Trends and Strategies of Labor Emigration from Tajikistan to OECD Countries,” RUDN Journal of Economics, No. 27 (1), 2019, pp. 159-168.

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RELIGION IN SOCIETY

ISAF WITHDRAWAL AND AN UPSURGE OF RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM IN AFGHANISTAN

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37178/ca-c.20.4.11

Dinara AYTZHANOVA Ph.D. student, Academy of State Administration under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan (Nur-Sultan, Republic of Kazakhstan)

Daniyar AYTZHANOV Ph.D. student, Lev Gumilev Eurasian National University (Nur-Sultan, Republic of Kazakhstan)

ABSTRACT

n upsurge of religious extremism and much stronger, as well as the activation of terrorism in Afghanistan that followed ISIS militants, who had come from Iraq and the 2014 withdrawal of the NATO-led Syria to continue fighting—contributed to its АInternational Security Assistance Force further exacerbation. All sorts of extremist (ISAF) confirmed the pessimistic forecasts religious groups in Afghanistan consolidated for the country’s future: a far greater number their positions and even created an unwel- of terrorist attacks and their victims among come possibility of their transit to the Central non-combatants across the country was the Asian countries. The authors have clearly most obvious repercussion. The civil war demonstrated that there is a direct interde- continued unabated, while the negative ad- pendence between the presence of ISAF ditional factors—the Taliban that had grown under U.S. command and the degree of vio-

112 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 lence of the Taliban, the Islamic State of Iraq the White House treated the document as and the Levant—Khorasan Chapter, and an election promise (formally) fulfilled. There Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan operating in Af- are enough extremist organizations (i.e., ghanistan. They have also analyzed the im- ISIS) that operate in the provinces and, free pact of the statement made by the U.S. re- from obligations and in pursuit of their own garding the signed agreement with the Tali- aims, might interfere in the attempts to fulfill ban that envisaged the removal of U.S. the agreement in its optimistic version. An troops from the country in the next fourteen assessment of certain processes suggests months and the release of Taliban prison- that the threats coming from ISIS are some- ers. Since the Government of Afghanistan what overestimated. The studies are based had been left in the cold, many doubted that on the following methods: comparative anal- the agreement would be fully realized any ysis of relevant literature, statistical analysis time soon. An analysis of the events that fol- of the dynamics of time series to identify the lowed demonstrated that the Taliban would developing trends of terrorist activities of re- not stick to its part of the agreement, while ligious extremists in Afghanistan.

KEYWORDS: religious extremism, radical groups, U.S. policies in Afghanistan, an agreement between the U.S. and the Taliban.

Introduction

Religious extremism in Afghanistan has a centuries-long history and is rooted in the development of Islam and the evolution of its main trends in the region. The Anglo-Afghan wars of late 19th-early 20th centuries can be defined as wars of liberation or holy wars, according to Afghan religious leaders. Until the mid-20th century, the religious parties were not popular among the broad masses. This was a period of conflicts between numerous groups that represented the interests of different ethnic communities—Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazara, etc. The radical Islamic and pro- Communist forces seized the opportunity to exploit this variety and contradictions in their own interests. In 1975, the Muslim Brotherhood religious movement, which had become very influential by that time, rebelled and was suppressed. In 1978, a revolution transformed Afghanistan into the Dem- ocratic Republic of Afghanistan. Secularization, which was one of the first steps taken by the new government, stirred up mass protests among the country’s traditionally minded population. Deter- mined to support the Communist government, the Soviet Union interfered in the civil war that developed into a war with the Afghan Mujahideen, who were actively supported by the U.S. and certain Arab states. To the local people this looked as another war of liberation, associated in their minds with Islamic ideology. The first step towards aggressive religious extremism in Afghanistan was taken. Throughout the 1980s, Saudi Arabia and other countries had been pouring a lot of effort into religious seminaries, many of which promoted the ideas of Islamist extremism. The Taliban, which came about in the mid-1990s, was one of their products. The movement survived the U.S. interference in the Afghan affairs and even the deposition of 2001 to continue brainwashing in the madrassas along the Afghan-Pakistani border. In 2001-20014, the war was unfolding as a confrontation between ISAF and the Afghan government forces, on the one hand, and the Taliban, on the other. Late in 2014, a decision was made to pull out the ISAF forces and transfer the responsibility for peace and order onto the government power structures.

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Aggravated after the withdrawal, the political situation in Afghanistan attracted all sorts of religious groups ranging from extremist, which relied on violence, to political parties with no armed detachments and firmly opposed to violence of all sorts. The Wahhabis and Salafis did not abandon their positions inside the country; many of them help organize rebels and lure people to radical extremist groups. The article traces the post-withdrawal development of religious radicalism in Afghanistan, the quantitative indices of terrorist activities of religious radicals, the qualitative composition and correlation of various radical religious forces; the factors behind different trends of radical Islam and the options for the future of the country abandoned by ISAF in the context of U.S. policy of military presence in Afghanistan. The methods include the selection, reference and analysis of relevant literature and sources and comparative analysis. Our studies of the dynamics of facts and repercussions of religious terrorism are based, in particular, on the methods of statistical analysis, the dynamics of time series in particular.

Fanning the Threat of Religious Radicalism in Afghanistan

As soon as the last detachment of ISAF left the country, experts started talking about the mount- ing threat of religious extremism. In 2015, a public opinion poll was carried out among 441 respondents scattered across different provinces to identify the scope of violent extremist activities, religious radicalization and the factors behind their spread across the country. It turned out that common people were generally convinced that religious extremists opposed the post-2001 political order, that they were prepared to kill civilians and were religious fanatics who either rejected or distorted the ideas of pure, true Islam. In most of the provinces local mullahs were responsible for the extent of the dynamics and popularity of radical religious ideas.1 All in all, 15-20% of the total population in different provinces believed that religious extremists were on the right side of history. The report prepared by the Afghanistan Institute for Strategic Studies based on interviews of at least 306 educators and students of 50 madrasas in ten different provinces of the country revealed that the threat of religious radicalization and extremist movements was real and that up to 15% of the madrasas are under extremist influence, and 8% of the interviewees believe in Salafism and Wah- habism ... and believe that Salafism and Wahhabism truly reflect Islam... 17% of those interviewed endorsed suicide attacks under specific certain conditions but the majority (80%) opposed suicide attacks against the Afghan forces. In the meantime, 60% of interviewees suggested that women should remain at home rather than focus on education; 33% said that women should not be involved in political activities... 97% said the rights of men and women are not equal. The report also revealed the frustration of survey participants regarding Taliban group activities, where only 3% of have endorsed their activities and 60% said that the group is fighting for the interests of the foreigners.2 When analyzing the causes of religious radicalism, Vyacheslav Belokrinitsky, a prominent Orientalist, has pointed to the specifics of the lifestyle of the Pashtuns who belong to the Confedera- tion of Ghilzays and Durranis. They were traditionally involved in nomadic pastoralism and profes-

1 See: C.C. Fair, “The Militant Challenge in Pakistan,” Asia Policy, Vol. 11, No. 1, 2011, pp. 105-137. 2 See: Extremism on the Rise in Unofficial Religious Madrasas in Afghanistan, available at [https://www.khaama.com/ extremism-on-the-rise-in-unofficial-religious-madrasas-in-afghanistan/], 24 January, 2020.

114 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 sional military service in the armies of tribal chiefs, attacks on trade caravans and villages. They are very conservative when it comes to observation and preservation of tribal traditions (Pashtunwali, the code of rules and customs) that should be transmitted from one generation to another. They constitute about 90% of the Taliban. Belokrinitsky has rightly stated that the members of this ethnic group, who demonstrated a lot of zeal in the wars of liberation in Afghanistan, were not nationalists with an obvious Pashtun identity, rather, they were religious extremists driven by the radical Islamic ideology.3 Extremist religious groups frequently rely on family, tribal and ethnic ties to lure new members (chiefly uneducated young men of 20-25 years) to their ranks. Madrasas and universities were and remain another source of radicalized young men. Ideology is not the only attraction: they are offered good incomes, not infrequently, cars, mobile phones and protection of their families.4 In the course of time radical extremists changed their style: they moved away from attacks targeting officials and state structures to armed disobedience and acts of terror to frighten the civilian population.5 Today, jihadism no longer operates within the religious and ethnic frameworks; Muslims often become its victims. This means that Islamist terror is one of the cruelest results of Islamic po- liticization.

Dynamics of Terrorism in Post-ISAF Afghanistan

According to global monitoring of extremism, in 2019 there were over 120 Islamist extremist groups operating across the world with the membership of nearly 230,000, a four-time increase against 2001. According to the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, in 2017, 84,000 fell victim to religious extremists.6 In the Global Terrorism Index Afghanistan comes second after Iraq: in 2018, their respective indices being 9.391 and 9.746.7 Terrorist acts are the most dangerous outcrop of radical extremism: in 2014-2017, the number victims of terrorist acts in Afghanistan grew from 3,111 to 4,653 (a 50% increase); the number of injured, from 3,721 to 5,015 (a 35% increase) (see Fig. 1). According to the Sydney Institute for Economics & Peace, in the year that followed the ISAF withdrawal in 2014 was “the worst year so far in its [Afghanistan’s] war with the Taliban, resulting in nearly 18,000 deaths from the conflict in 2015. Deaths from terrorism also increased to the highest recorded levels, with 5,312 deaths recorded in 2015, up by 18% from the previous year... The Taliban was responsible for the majority of terrorist attacks, and in 2015 they were responsible for 85% of all deaths from terrorism carrying out 1,094 attacks that killed 4,502 people. Police remain the main target of attacks by the Taliban and accounted for half of all attacks and deaths. Suicide bombings in Afghanistan are on average more deadly than other forms of attacks” which means that radical Islam is gaining weight in the terrorist movement in the country as a whole. “As well as the Taliban, there

3 See: V.Ia. Belokrinitsky, “Vooruzhenny ekstremizm v Afghanistane, Pakistane i Tsentralnoy Asii: vzgliad iz Rossii,” in: Puti k miru i bezopasnosti (spetsvypusk): Problemy terrorizma, nasilstvennogo ekstremizma i radikalizatsii (rossiiskie i amerikanskie podkhody), ed. by E.A. Stepanova, No. 1 (52), 2017, pp. 207-209. 4 See: A.S. Wilner, C.J. Dubouloz, “Homegrown Terrorism and Transformative Learning: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Understanding Radicalization,” Global Change, Peace, and Security, Vol. 22, No. 1, 2010, p. 38. 5 See: M.F. Murtazin, “Islam i islamizm: primer transformatsii religioznosti v politiku,” Kontury globalnykh transformatsiy: politika, ekonomika, pravo, No. 4, 2018, p. 202. 6 See: Extremism in 2019: New Approaches to Facing the Threat, ed. by B. Hoffman, Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, London, 2019, p. 12. 7 See: Global Terrorism Index 2018: Measuring the Impact of Terrorism, The Institute for Economics & Peace, Sydney, 2018, p. 20.

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Figure 1

Dynamics of the Main Indices of Terrorism in Afghanistan in 2014-2017

7,000

6,000

5,000

4,000

3,000

2,000

1,000

0 2014 2015 2016 2017

Number of deaths in terrorist acts, people Number of injured in terrorist acts, people Number of terrorist acts

S o u r c e: Compiled by the authors on the basis of: Global Terrorism Index—2018: Measuring the Impact of Terrorism, The Institute for Economics & Peace, Sydney, 2018, p. 20; Global Terrorism Index—2016: Measuring and Understanding the Impact of Terrorism, The Institute for Economics & Peace, 2016, Sydney, p. 26; Global Terrorism Index—2017: Measuring and Understanding the Impact of Terrorism, The Institute for Economics & Peace, Sydney, 2017, p. 23. are four other groups that conducted attacks in 2015. The most active of these groups was an ISIL affiliate. This branch of ISIL is active in the Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan.”8 “Afghanistan had the second highest number of deaths from terrorism in 2016. However, this was 14% lower than the previous year ... this reduced number of deaths provides some optimism.” However, this was not so much due to the reduced activities of radical religious groups across the country, but to the fact that the Taliban’s tactics appear to be evolving in comparison to previous years. “This trend reflects the move by the Taliban to engage in more traditional conflict tactics against the Afghan National Guard and focus on territorial gains, rather than terrorist activity. Con- versely, attacks on civilians aim to illustrate that the government is unable to provide security.” In 2016, the overall number of deaths from terrorism increased by 24%, the same can be said about abductions and murders of civilians. At the same time, the ISIL affiliated Khorasan Chapter of the Islamic State increased its terrorist activities that raised the death level among local population 4 times over. Tehrik-i-Taliban was the main source of its conscripts in Afghanistan; in 2016, many of its members joined the local ISIL branch.9 In 2017, Afghanistan moved to the first place among the states with the highest number of victims of terrorist activities. The Taliban assumed responsibility for 80% of them. The share of the

8 Global Terrorism Index 2016: Measuring and Understanding the Impact of Terrorism, The Institute for Economics & Peace, Sydney, 2016, p. 26. 9 See: Global Terrorism Index 2017: Measuring and Understanding the Impact of Terrorism, The Institute for Economics & Peace, Sydney, 2017, p. 23.

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Khorasan Chapter of the Islamic State in Afghanistan and Pakistan was 14%; this radical religious organization became the second most influential structure in Afghanistan, yet its activities were local- ized by the Afghan Government Forces and by its confrontation with the Taliban. “However, whilst the number of attacks on civilians declined, ISIL attacks on government targets doubled between 2017 and 2018.”10 The results of statistical analysis confirm the conclusion made by Ekaterina Stepanova: the threat of ISIS in Afghanistan and the region was generally over- stated by those who tried to use it in their own interests.11 After the first impressive successes of 2015-2017, the Khorasan Chapter was gradually retreating from the captured territories and suffered one defeat after another.

Radical Religious Groups in the Territory of Contemporary Afghanistan

The Taliban appeared in Afghanistan in 1994 as a reactionary religious group that united the Afghan Mujahideen and their Pashtun allies fighting against the Soviet armed invasion since the late 1970s. In 1996, having established control over the country they declared an Islamic emirate headed by their appointed leader. In 2001, NATO invaded Afghanistan and deposed the Taliban, which remained determined to restore its control over the lost territories. In the course of time its leaders have demonstrated greater openness to discussions; so far, however, it remains the main anti-government force responsible for the biggest number of dead and wounded among the civilian population. Unlike others, this radical religious movement limits its activity to Afghanistan. Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, another radical religious movement, operates in Pakistan and Af- ghanistan. Set up in Pakistan in 2007, it was expected to provide armed opposition to the pro-Western government of Pakistan and the NATO forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan and to establish, sometime in the future, a Shari‘a in the territories of both countries. Many of its leaders had acquired their fighting skills during the Afghan wars; later they offered the Taliban money and training camps during the war that also involved international forces led by NATO. As distinct from the Taliban, Tehrik-i- Taliban Pakistan is practically unstructured; according to the expert community, it consists of small groups of fighters with different levels of fighting skills, which usually act on their own, within -lim ited localities and, more often than not, cannot expand their control.12 It demonstrates loyalty in its relationships with the Taliban and ISIS; many of its members prefer to join more radical organizations such as the Taliban and the ISIL affiliated Khorasan Chapter of the Islamic State to get a chance to fight the government armed forces and to involve themselves in terrorist activities. In January 2015, an ISIS official representative announced that it had been decided to set up the Khorasan Chapter (Wilayat [Province] Khorasan) of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant to expand the Caliphate by setting up the Khorasan Province in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Irritated by the Taliban’s passiveness and lack of impressive results, the most active of its members willingly responded to the ISIS efforts to draw them in its ranks. Akhtar Mansour, the leader of the Taliban. asked the head of the Khorasan Chapter of ISIL to abandon this practice in Afghanistan, where the Taliban had been waging a “holy war” for many years. ISIS was blatantly building up its activities, causing

10 Global Terrorism Index 2018: Measuring the impact of terrorism, p. 20. 11 See: E.A. Stepanova, “Faktor IGIL i dvizhenie Taliban v politike Rossii po Afghanistanu i v bolee shirokom regione,” Puti k miru i bezopasnosti (spetsvypusk), pp. 224-226. 12 See: C.C. Fair, op. cit., pp. 124-127.

117 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition clashes with the Taliban that had to retreat from several districts of the Nangarhar Province. In 2015, representatives of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan vowed allegiance to ISIS, and thus increased the Khorasan Chapter. In 2016, ISIS continued to oppose the government troops of Afghanistan, on the one hand, and the Taliban, which finally undermined its positions in Afghanistan, on the other. The United States used its tactics of pinpoint strikes at ISIS military bases. Certain objective ideological and cultural factors decreased the potential for ISIS popularity in Afghanistan. The majority of the Sunnis belong to Hanafi madhhab that differs a lot from Salafism or even doubts its faithfulness. The population of Afghanistan differs a lot, culturally and linguistically, from the Arabs of the Middle East, which limits, to a great extent, proliferation of religious radicalism and extremism. This means that ISIS stands no chance of competing with the Taliban, the autochthonous Afghani movement. The Khorasan Province, on the other hand, is vital for ISIS ideology: according to certain apocalyptical forecasts, an anti-messiah who would arrive in the Middle East to fight the final battle between the forces of good and evil, would emerge in this province.13

U.S. Policies in Afghanistan

In 2009, Democrat Barak Obama, the newly elected president of the United States, revised the American policies in Afghanistan. The new Af-Pac concept was devised to ensure security in Af- ghanistan and Pakistan by concerted efforts “to bring America’s longest war to a responsible end.”14 It envisaged more active efforts by the government of Afghanistan to bring more order into everyday life; to carry out reforms and transfer responsibility for security to local law and order structures that could expect more weapons and support in dealing with terrorism. In 2014, this strategy was further delineated, while remaining a part of the plan to reduce U.S. military presence in Afghanistan. Obama opted for a form of minimization of his country’s involvement in the Afghan conflict that helped Washington avoid catastrophic developments and a possible negative scenario.15 As soon as ISAF had pulled out its main contingent and thus lightened its military pressure on the Taliban, the latter expanded its influence across the country. The Afghan National Army lacked adequate training, organization, military equipment (combat aircraft, in the first place) and reconnaissance skills. By moving closer to Al-Qa‘eda, the Taliban acquired more weight and consequence (against the background of greater activity of ISIS); it replenished its ranks with extremists who had fled Pakistan under the pressure of the government army in the Northern Waziristan Province. The Taliban capitalized on the fact that the international community concentrated on the events in Syria, Iraq, and Ukraine, and spread far and wide by capturing small military bases, district centers and points of police control across Afghanistan. The Taliban captured a lot of various weapons to use them against the Afghan army; they skillfully exploited political squabbles in the corridors of power and the weakness of power structures at different levels. According to the BBC, the Taliban now controls or threatens much more extensive territories than in 2014, the year of U.S. withdrawal. According to the same source, Taliban fighters (whom the United States tried in vain to defeat at the cost of billions of dollars) are now openly active in 70% of Afghanistan. About 15 million people—half of the country’s population—are living in areas that are

13 See: E.A. Stepanova, op. cit., p. 219. 14 [https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/05/27/statement-president-afghanistan]. 15 See: N.I. Shapiro, “Neokonchennaia voyna B. Obamy,” Mirovaia ekonomika i mezhdunarodnye otnoshenia, Vol. 61, No. 2, 2017, p. 15.

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Figure 2

Taliban Presence in Different Parts of Afghanistan by District

Kabul

Herat

Jalalabad

Kandahar

PAKISTAN

Helmand province

IRAN

How the districts break down:

Open Taliban presence in government-held areas

High-attacked at least twice a week, 15% of districts

Medium-attacked at least three times a month, 20% of districts

Low-attacked once in three months, 31 of districts

Full government control, 30% of districts

Full Taliban control, 4% of districts

Labelled cities have also experienced deadly suicide attacks, car bombs and targeted killings

S o u r c e: BBC Research, 23 August-21 November, 2017.

119 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition either controlled by the Taliban or where the Taliban are openly present and regularly mount attacks.16 Areas that have fallen to the Taliban since 2014 include places in Helmand province like Sangin, Musa Qala and Nad-e Ali, “which foreign forces fought and died to bring under government control after U.S.-led troops had driven the Taliban from power in 2001.” The BBC study demonstrated that in January 2018, the Taliban were in full control of 14 districts (that is 4% of the country) and had an active and open physical presence in a further 263 (66%), significantly higher than previous estimates of Taliban strength.17 The government, on the other hand, has failed to set up legitimate power structures across the country, while the part of ISAF still present in Afghanistan are mainly American units that reduced their functions to the maintenance of law and order in Kabul and the regions controlled by the government troops. Ekaterina Stepanova writes that today certain authors and experts involved in the political discourse try to associate all armed units operating in Afghanistan either to the Taliban or ISIS, which is incorrect. Despite their relatively similar religious ideologies, the Taliban and the Khorasan Chap- ter of IS in Afghanistan are divided by deep contradictions that can only be resolved by armed clashes. The supposition that many small local groups used the “scary” brand and the well-known IS symbols to achieve their local aims in certain localities, while not sharing its deeply rooted ideology and being neutral or even negative about the idea of a caliphate and the ultra-radical interpretation of Islam looks highly possible.18 While the Islamic State has demonstrated that they can hit targets in places like Kabul, they are largely confined to a relatively small stronghold on the Pakistan border in the eastern province of Nangarhar. After 2014, the official government of Afghanistan started discussing the greater threat of ISIS to prevent even larger-scale withdrawals of the international contingents. Ronald Neumann, the then U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, said that this was done to preserve American military presence in their territory.19 This explains why Obama selected a less radical strategy of pulling American troops out of Af- ghanistan than it had been planned earlier. Throughout the 2010s, mediation in organizing a dialog between the Afghan government and the Taliban remained one of the main tasks of American diplomacy. Election of Donald Trump returned the Afghan issue to the American agenda. The new president who did not approve the involvement in economically unprofitable military adventures had no choice but to navigate between the expectations of the top military and his own position on Afghani- stan. Very much like his predecessors—George W. Bush and Barack Obama—he did not want to be remembered as the president who lost the Afghan war. In August 2017, Washington published its Afghan policy that presupposed, among other things, that from that time on it would be guided by the changing situation in Afghanistan rather than by the timetable of its obligations to gradually lower the numerical strength of its military contingent.20 Withdrawal was suspended, while the time period for which the American military could remain in Afghanistan was no longer specified. From that time on, Americans coordinated their policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan with their role in ensuring Amer- ica’s regional interests. Donald Trump widened the powers of the American military contingent that were previously limited by Obama: Americans became free to liquidate ISIS and Al-Qa‘eda, prevent retribution from the Taliban and exclude a possibility of terrorist acts against Americans.

16 See: “Taliban Threaten 70% of Afghanistan, BBC Finds,” 31 January, 2018, available at [https://www.bbc.com/news/ world-asia-42863116], 26 August, 2020. 17 See: Ibidem. 18 See: Global Terrorism Index 2018: Measuring the Impact of Terrorism. 19 See: N. Hodge, M. Stancati, “Afghans Sound Alarm over Islamic State Recruitment,” Wall Street Journal, 13 Octo- ber’ 2014. 20 See: E.A. Stepanova, op. cit., pp. 217.

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Figure 3

IS Presence in Afghanistan by District

Khanabad Kohistanat

Darzab

Kabul Jalalabad

Achin

PAKISTAN

IRAN

IS presence, 30 districts

No IS presence, 369 districts

S o u r c e: BBC Research, 23 August-21 November, 2017.

Later, the Trump administration turned to mediating a dialog between the fighting sides. In late August 2019, The Washington Post and The New York Times, the biggest American portals, informed the readers that the Taliban and the U.S. had reached a preliminary agreement on the withdrawal of 5,000 American military (out of the total 14,000 numerical strength of the NATO contingent in Afghanistan).21 The talks, in which U.S. President Trump, President of Afghanistan Ashraf Ghani and

21 See: N. Anisimova, K. Nagaev, “Trump ob’iasnil otmenu peregovorov s Afghanistanom,” available at [https://www. rbc.ru/politics/09/09/2019/5d76a1a39a79475a7513d6ed], 29 November, 2019.

121 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition the leader of the Taliban were expected to take part, had been scheduled to September 2019 and never took place. On the eve of the negotiations two NATO military died in a terrorist acts carried out by the Taliban, according to the statement made by its representatives. In late February 2020, the new coronavirus infection (COVID-19) that was spreading across the world with frightening speed pushed an event of historic importance to the side. On 29 Febru- ary, 2020, representatives of the United States and the Taliban met in Doha, capital of Qatar, to sign an agreement on the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan. The document was signed by Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation and the Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar in the presence of Mike Pompeo, the U.S. Secretary of State. The agreement between the U.S. and the Taliban outlined a series of commitments including the intra-Afghan dialog between the Taliban and the current Afghan government. The agreement also called for the release by the United States of 5,000 Taliban prisoners and 1,000 “prisoners of the other side.” Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who had been absent from Doha, said that Kabul was not one of the sides and, therefore, did not promise to let the Taliban out of prisons. According to him, this should become one of the points in intra-Afghan negotiations but not one of the commitments.22 In fact, many in the United States and Afghanistan looked forward to this event. By that time Americans had been stationed in Afghanistan for nearly two decades, at a significant cost to both sides. Americans were losing their military personnel and squandering their taxpayers’ money, while the Taliban had lost a great share of their former authority among and control over the local groups who were involved in an armed fight against the government. Trump, for his part, has fulfilled one of his election promises. It remains to be seen whether the Taliban will remain true to the agreement and will manage to ensure its peaceful realization.

 First, in Doha they promised to move away from Al-Qa‘eda;

 second, it looks doubtful that 18 terrorist organizations (including ISIS) that operate independently in Afghanistan will lay down their arms. It is much more probable that they try to disrupt the agreement through provocations. The latest chronicle of fighting in Afghanistan confirms the above: the threat of terror has -be come even more obvious while the agreement between the U.S. and the Taliban looks even more doubtful than before. Terrorists are spreading their influence to the country’s north. In 2015-2016, the Taliban who had established and twice lost their control over the strategically important Kunduz Province that borders on Tajikistan, have not yet abandoned their efforts to restore it. They continue their attacks: on 9 April they launched five missiles at the U.S. airbase in Bagram; they have no doubts that Americans will never denounce the February peace agreement and, at the same time, accuse Kabul and Washington of disrupting the peace process. In fact, the government defense and security forces have been abandoned to their own devises and without any chance of consolidating their authority in the struggle against terrorist groups of ISIS fighters across the entire country. Early in April, the official representative of the Taliban announced that his organization would limit the cease-fire regime to the areas with registered COVID-19 cases: in 2020, about 200,000 Af- ghans came back from Iran, where the epidemiological situation was not favorable at all. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg limited himself to the statement that the “rebels from the Taliban

22 See: J. Hansler, “US and Taliban Sign Historic Agreement,” 29 February, 2020, available at [https://edition.cnn. com/2020/02/29/politics/us-taliban-deal-signing/index.html], 26 August, 2020.

122 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 should discontinue their attacks on the Afghan security forces.” Washington, for its part, is calling on the Afghan government and the Taliban to speed up the exchange of prisoners of war, a potentially suicidal step for the pro-American government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.23

Conclusions

The above suggests that everything that has been done to minimize the international military presence in Afghanistan fanned religious radicalism and extremism, widened their qualitative configuration and spread ISIS ideology across the country. Despite certain restraining factors and an overall exaggeration of the threat that ISIS presents to regional stability, we should admit that the methods used by terrorists who have been supporting ISIS since 2014-2015 to scare common people led to even crueler extremist acts, more active propaganda of radical Islamic ideology and a higher level of aggression and fear. Today, a compromise and a coalition government have become an absolute priority for all political forces to be realized as promptly as possible. The February agreement between the U.S. and the Taliban, which was designed to achieve a compromise between the government and the Taliban, was the first step on the long road to peace. However, it was also equally important for America’s domestic policies: the 19-year-long ill-fated Afghan campaign should be ended relatively safely. Russia, too, looks forward to the long-awaited peace. On the one hand, it prefers withdrawal; on the other, the concluded mission will inevitably encourage religious extremists in the IRA and open the doors to armed groups of all sorts. Destabilization of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmeni- stan and intensified drug trafficking across their territories cannot be excluded. Today, nobody, neither the Afghan nor foreign experts, doubts that fighters of the Taliban and other foreign troops (of Central Asian origin operating under the patronage of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Ansarullah, the Islamic Movement of Eastern Turkestan, etc.) are present in the northern provinces of Afghanistan and, what is more important, have significant influence there. If the Taliban returns to power, the country will be pushed back to the Shari‘a; all secular achievements will be buried and peaceful coexistence between two political forces—the secular and the radical—hardly likely. At the negotiation table, the Taliban was saying a lot about the Islamic Emirate and the restoration of Shari‘a, the prospect rejected by a fairly large share of citizens of Af- ghanistan. Today, a third of several millions of schoolchildren in the IRA are girls (unacceptable for the Taliban); there are state and private universities; scores of privately owned media; Afghans (both men and women) have become prominent in art, culture and sports. This means that the 2014 pull-out of a greater part of the armed forces and an agreement on total withdrawal in 2020, which is expected to launch the peace process, could not and will not bring tangible results. Even if Kabul and the Taliban reach a relevant agreement in the distant future, foreign fighters will spare no efforts to perpetuate the crisis in their zones of influence. Complete extermination of foreign fighters looks like the most efficient or probably the only solution that will require identical approaches and concerted efforts of all countries involved in the crisis: the U.S., Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, the U.K., the Gulf countries, etc. At this point, this possibility hardly seems feasible. The international community should formulate and consistently realize a long-term comprehensive strategy of armed opposition to religious extremists and real and efficient assistance to Afghani- stan. Inside the country, the government should speak to the people and treat as absolute priorities a

23 See: D.A. Aytzhanov, L.N. Nursultanova, “Soglashenie mezdu SShA i ‘Taliban’: nachalo dialoga,” Vestnik KazNPTU imeni Abaia, Almaty, No. 2 (65), 2020, pp. 119-123.

123 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition higher quality of secular education, higher life standards and higher level of social security. Official authorities should consolidate their legitimacy with religious arguments through its active cooperation with non-violent Islamic groups and local leaders in provinces and districts, while the youth and its non-radical leaders should be involved in administration at all levels of state power.

RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM IN KAZAKHSTAN: THREATS OF SPREADING AND MEANS OF OPPOSITION

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37178/ca-c.20.4.12

Kalimash BEGALINOVA D.Sc. (Philos.), Professor, Department of Religious and Cultural Studies, Al-Farabi Kazakh National University (Almaty, Kazakhstan)

Madina ASHILOVA Ph.D., Associate Professor, Kazakh Abylai Khan University of International Relations and World Languages (Almaty, Kazakhstan)

Alibek BEGALINOV Ph.D., Senior Lecturer, International Information Technology University (Almaty, Kazakhstan)

ABSTRACT

oday, regional integration and globa- aware of the problem of religious extremism. lization have added new dimensions In these conditions, interconfessional rela- T to the problems of violence, religious tions as a guarantor of internal and external extremism and terrorism that attract a lot of stability in our republic is one of its most im- attention in the academic community of many portant problems. counties. This article presents the aspects relat- A polyconfessional and polyethnic state, ed to the religious environment and threats Kazakhstan, where various trends of world of religious extremism in Kazakhstan and religions are inevitably present, is especially outlines feasible solutions.

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KEYWORDS: religious extremism, terrorism, non-traditional religious cults.

Introduction

Today, globalization has become the main path of human development, which implies univer- salization, integration and unification of the global community. This presupposes an increasing interdependency and mutual influence of the states, which “undermines national-state sovereignty under the pressure of new actors on the global scene.”1 For certain historical reasons the United States and the West European countries became the initiators, or entities of this globalization. They are driven by their own national interests; their aims do not objectively correspond to the social development priorities, hence the numerous challenges to the world community. Religious extremism and terrorism are among the worst threats and the most urgent problems of our days: terrorism is rooted in more than a deviant psychological personality type and aberration of ideas about the world. It is also a highly specific political mentality and destructive activities. In polyconfessional Kazakhstan, the prevention of religious extremism and terrorism is one of the poignant trends. In recent years, the number of religious organizations has multiplied: on 1 Janu- ary, 1989, there were about 700 religious associations of 30 confessions, by 2011 (before the Law on Religious Activities and Religious Associations had been passed) there were over 50 confessions and denominations present in Kazakhstan. There were 4,551 religious associations—2,337 of them Mus- lim; 281—Orthodox; 82—Catholic; 27—Judaic; 1,189—Protestant; the rest belonged to non-traditional religions. By 1 January, 2017, there were already 3,600 officially registered religious associations and their branches that belonged to 18 confessions. There is a total of 3,464 cultic buildings in the republic: 2,550 of them are mosques; 294 Orthodox and 109 Catholic churches; 495 Protestant churches and prayer houses, 7 synagogues, 2 Buddhist temples; 7 prayer houses of the Hare Krishna Movement and Bahaism.2 Hanafi Islam and Christian Orthodoxy are two main religions. Certain political forces aspire to present Islam as an aggressive religion that copes with its problems from the positions of force. This is quite understandable: Islam is a “secular” religion closely associated with many urgent social and political problems of our days. Hence the temptation of certain false believers to present it as a spiritual foundation of extremism and terrorism, contrary to its true nature and image. Islam is one of the Abrahamic religions of salvation; it is concerned with the salvation of human souls, not with political power and terrorism. One can remember that Surah Two, Ayat 256 of the Koran says: “Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from Error: whoever rejects evil and believes in Allah hath grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold, that never breaks. And Allah hears and knows all things.” Real Islam is an ally of secular authorities in preventing terrorism and extremism, and religious education is the only efficient instrument of struggle against religious extremism and terrorism. It is no accident that in his book Kriticheskoe desiatiletie (The Critical Decade) Elbasy Nursultan Nazarbayev has pointed out, and with good reason, that

1 E.G. Polikanova, “Fenomen globalizatsii, raznooobrazie opredeleniy poniatia ‘globalizatsia’,” Mezhdunarodny nauchno-issledovatelsky zhurnal, Issue 6 (6), 2012, pp. 7-8, available at [https://research-journal.org/philosophy/fenomen- globalizacii-raznoobrazie-opredelenij-ponyatiya-globalizaciya/], 19 December, 2019. 2 See: “V Kazakhstane deystvuiut bolee 3 600 religioznykh ob’edineniy, predstavliaiushchikh 18 konfessions,” SI “Zakon.kz”, available at [https://www.zakon.kz/4871654-v-kazahstane-deystvuet-bolee -3600.html], 19 December, 2019.

125 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition there is no extremism in religion.3 In fact, the extremism that we refer to as religious is political extremism, and as such uses religion to justify its aggression.

Specifics of Religious Extremism in Kazakhstan

Religious extremism refers to a devotion to extreme religious views and opinions and to extreme methods of response to, and impact on, those who do not share them. Extremism implies the rejection of the system of religious values and dogmatic foundations typical of any traditional society and a very aggressive propaganda of the ideas that oppose them. Religious extremists are determined to impose their religion as the dominant one on any society and suppress all other religious confessions by forcing them to join theirs.4 In Kazakhstan, religious extremism has not reached the scope discernable in certain other countries, yet the dangers of confessional destabilization are fairly obvious. An analysis of available materials reveals that the country is an object of close scrutiny by Islamic religious associations determined to transform it into a breeding-ground of supporters, as well as by leaders of protestant organizations that have already appreciated Kazakhstan as a source of raw materials and a place to invest in order to build up their wealth. There are no inner prerequisites for acts of terror and extremism because there is no adequate social and political base, owing to a great extent to the balanced policies implemented by the country’s leaders. However, transparent borders with our neighbors and the mentality shared with the states, where certain radically minded elements have already gained a foothold (Uzbekistan, Tajiki- stan, Kyrgyzstan, and the Russian Northern Caucasus), as well as geographical closeness to the hotbeds of tension, cannot exclude the possibility of an external impact designed to set up structures of international terrorist and religious extremist organizations in our republic; we should not ignore the possibility that our citizens conscripted into terrorist organizations may commit terrorist acts against foreign diplomats stationed in our country. Hizb ut-Tahrir (banned in 2005) is the most active in this sphere; it is still promoting the ideas of a worldwide Islamic state, the Caliphate. Proliferation of radical religious ideology was and remains the main problem in the southern and western Kazakhstan due to the activities of the Turkish religious movements Tarihatshilar, Farhat ata, Tablighi Jamaat, etc. The age of members of the organizations mentioned above ranges between 16 and 30, that is, their social base is predominantly young. At the beginning of the current year leaflets with Salafi content were registered in different regions of Kazakhstan. A huge amount of -lit erature and leaflets was found and confiscated in students’ dormitories in Pavlodar, Petropavlovsk, Shymkent, Kostanai, etc. where criminal cases on dissemination of leaflets and calls to depose the Constitutional order by force were initiated. In fact, poor or even destitute social groups were and remain the main social base of destructive terrorist organizations. Ahmad Zia Massoud has rightly pointed out: “Hungry people were ready to join the army of the Taliban for a piece of bread. To acquire a chance to uproot terrorism we should raise the level of living of the Afghanis and give them jobs and bread.”5 While in the past the Salafi and protestant destructive organizations drew mainly members of the poorer social strata into their ranks, they re-

3 See: N.A. Nazarbayev, Kriticheskoe desiatiletie, Atamura, Almaty, 2003, 240 pp. 4 See: “Religiozny ekstremism,” Экстремизм.ru, available at [http://www.ekstremizm.ru/baza-znaniy/item/23- religioznyy-ekstremizm], 19 December, 2019. 5 A.Z. Massoud,” Nashey molodezhiu zanimaiutsia vse, krome Russkikh,” available at [https://iz.ru/news/261743], 19 December, 2019.

126 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 cently switched their attention to businessmen, civil servants, intellectuals and students. Today, the following international organizations have been defined as terrorist and banned in Kazakhstan: 1. Al-Qa‘eda 2. The Turkistan Islamic Party 3. The People’s Congress of Kurdistan 4. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan 5. Asbat-an-Ansar 6. The Muslim Brotherhood 7. The Taliban 8. Boz Qurd (Grey Wolves) 9. Jamaat of Central Asian Mujahideen 10. Lashkar-e-Taiba (Pakistan) 11. Society of Social Reform 12. Hizb ut-Tahrir-al-Islami 13. Aum Shinrikyo 14. The East Turkestan Liberation Organization.6 The number of terrorist organizations is steadily growing in the southern and western regions of Kazakhstan, to which they are attracted by the extensive gas and oil resources. Missionaries, including extremist missionaries, are also engaged; they have already brainwashed a certain number of local residents. In an effort to stir up an interest in their confession, they lie about their organizations, disseminate religious literature, videos and audio materials that point to other religions’ sore spots. This exacerbates the problem of proselytism. The missionaries help the heads of confessions set up multi-layered manage- rial, financial and religious organizations. Today, there are about 400 missionaries from 22 countries working in Kazakhstan; some of them represent destructive religious associations. Such are, for example: 1. The Church of Scientology, outlawed in 100 countries of the world as a threat to the health of its followers; 2. Jehovah’s Witnesses, banned in 25 countries as a totalitarian and destructive sect; 3. The Sri Chinmoy association, banned in European countries; 4. The Church of Transcendental Meditation, banned in Russia, Germany, the United States, Denmark and India; 5. Ahmadiyya, banned in all Muslim CIS countries; 6. The White Brotherhood sect, banned in all CIS countries; 7. Seventh Day Adventists, banned in all European countries; 8. The following religious organizations—New Life, Grace Evangelical Church, the Church of New Generation, the Church of Christ’s Love and the World Evangelical Church—are banned in Russia, Ukraine and certain CIS countries as totalitarian.7

6 See: M. Shibutov, V. Abramov, Terrorizm v Kazakhstane 2011-2012, Almaty, 2012. 7 See: B.T. Sapar Ali, T.Zh. Eldysbai, “Osobennosti religioznoy situatsii v Kazakhstane. Strukturnoe reformirovanie DUMK ne terpit otlagatelstva,” 15 March, 2010, available at [https://centrasia.org/newsA.php?st=1268604000].

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Unfortunately, all these organizations are legally functioning in our republic. Totalitarian associations, which are not alien to using force to achieve their aims, are especially dangerous. This has already happened in our republic: in the town of Stepnogorsk an armed group of 12 members of Hizb ut-Tahrir tried to take over the akim’s office, the Department for Internal Affairs and take high- offi cials from Astana as hostages. The Hare Krishna Movement robbed the local people of 47 hectares of land in the Karasai District, Almaty Region. The United States, Britain and India objected against court procedures that followed this illegal act. The Grace Evangelical Church plans to baptize three thousand believers in Kazakhstan and build ten thousand churches in our country. The AROK (As- sociation of Religious Organizations of Kazakhstan) headed by A. Kliushchev, leader of the New Life Church (information was borrowed from the Kazakhstan media) started an international TV channel that works 24/7. This and other religious organizations attract young people and older generations by false promises and all sorts of charities. People are hooked: they tend to forget that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Once tempted, these people find it hard, if at all possible, to disentangle themselves. Leaders of these associations use their members as suicide bombers.

Religious Extremism Scenarios in Kazakhstan and Methods of Managing Them

Today there are two methods of dealing with this highly complicated problem: 1. Respond to terrorist acts with terror. 2. Start negotiating with terrorists in an effort to achieve consensus, mutual concessions and a profound mutual understanding. The first road leads nowhere: an armed struggle may go on until everybody dies; it means mutual destruction. This is what Palestine is doing: it is ready to fight until the last Palestinian. The second road is more humane and, as such, preferable. No matter how dirty are the deeds of religious extremists and terrorists, no matter how many lives they have already destroyed, negotiations are the only reasonable solution. This is a long road that looks absurd and illogical to many. There is another road of counterterrorist struggle: “Terrorism is political warfare. By deliberately and indiscriminately killing innocents, it is designed to break the will of the opponent. Counter- terrorism also has to involve political warfare. It must strive to isolate the terrorists politically in order to extirpate them physically.”8 Kazakhstan is making a major effort to liquidate the threats of religious extremism; within a fairly short period, it has mobilized considerable administrative, financial and information resources. In 2013-2017, it funneled over $1 billion into the state program of counteracting religious extremism and terrorism. In late March 2018, the country approved a new state program of counteracting religious extremism and terrorism for 2018-2022 that generally relies on the Concept of State Politics in the Religious Sphere until 2020. These documents are geared at a key aim: religion should not be used for destruction. The researchers have identified three possible scenarios of the development of religious extremism in Kazakhstan:

8 Z. Brzezinski, “A Plan for Political Warfare,” The Wall Street Journal, 25 September, 2001, available at [https://www. wsj.com/articles/SB1001379897905265560].

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(1) The “Chechen” version of the early 1990s; introduction of the Shari‘a as the main regulatory norm. It is considered to be less likely for Kazakhstan, which is a secular state with a fairly powerful Kazakh nationalism. (2) The “Egyptian” version, when structures of the Muslim Brotherhood type and their leader Mohamed Morsi came to power through elections. This scenario may be realized if one of the Islamic structures dominates all others, which seems impossible in sovereign Kazakh- stan at this point. (3) The Turkish, “Erdoğan” version of creeping Islamization; it should not be excluded in Kazakhstan, since the positions of the secular leader and the corps of laws are preserved in the context of gradual Islamization of lifestyle, which is especially obvious in the communities of relatives and neighbors. The structure of Islamic organizations in Kazakhstan makes this version the more probable one.9 Despite the fact that these scenarios seem impossible today, we should look ahead and consider their different versions. In order to succeed, the country and its leaders should address social and economic problems: extremism is a by-product of the low living standards, poverty and ignorance. Today, Kazakhstan is facing a strategically important task of repatriation and adaptation of those who fought in the ranks of radicals. According to the Tashkent Center for Investigation Initia- tives, starting with 2011, 9,000 citizens of post-Soviet countries have been fighting in the ranks of the ISIS in Syria and Iraq: 3,500 of them came from Russia; 1,500—from Uzbekistan, over 1,000—from Tajikistan; the rest, or 3,000—from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and other countries. According to the Committee for National Security, there are about 800 Kazakhstanis in Syria and Iraq; they left Ka- zakhstan in 2011-2016. Despite their fairly small number, we should bear in mind that those who return are radically-minded, well-trained and experienced fighters. In 2019, the humanitarian Zhusan operation repatriated citizens of Kazakhstan in three stages:  Zhusan-1—6 January, 2019; 47 citizens of Kazakhstan (11 women, 6 men and 30 children) were brought back to Kazakhstan;  Zhusan-2—7-9 May, 2019; 231 people were repatriated, including 59 women, 16 men and 156 children;  Zhusan-3—28-31 May, 2019; 238 people were brought back, including 67 women and 171 children. They were placed in an adaptation center, where they were rehabilitated and received other help. On 9 January, 2019, President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev published a statement on his official site: “Innocent people were glad to be rescued; we have done everything to prevent similar cases in future... Duped and cheated, they were brought into a country steeped in a crisis to become hostages of the terrorists of ISIS, an international terrorist organization.”10 It seems that educational efforts are much needed: population, and the younger generation in particular, should know more about religion, religious extremism and terrorism to prevent similar cases in future. This does not mean that imams or pastors should be invited to educational establish-

9 See: “Today It Has Become Especially Important for Kazakhstan to Identify the Scenarios of Religious Extremist Activities as the Most Probable,” Internet gazeta Zona.kz, available in Russian at [https://zonakz.net/2018/11/08/dlya-kazax- stana-sejchas-kak-nikogda-vazhno-ponyat-kakie-scenarii-religioznoj-ekstremistskoj-deyatelnosti-stanovyatsya-naibolee-ve- royatnymi/], 19 December, 2019. 10 See: Zaiavlenie Glavy gosudarstva v sviazi s zaversheniem gumanitarnoy operatsii po evakuatsii grazhdan Kazakh- stana iz Sirii, available at [http://www.akorda.kz/ru/events/zayavlenie-glavy-gosudarstva-v-svyazi-s-zaversheniem-gumani- tarnoi-operacii-po-evakuacii-grazhdan-kazahstana-iz-sirii], 19 December, 2019.

129 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition ments. Studies of religion and teaching of religion are two different things. Today, religion is taught in mosques, madrassahs, churches, etc. Each citizen of our country is free to be taught or not taught religion. But religious studies should become a duty of all citizens of Kazakhstan. Today it does not suffice to say: “I know that there is no God” as a proof of one’s knowledge of religion. Atheists and believers alike should study religion to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. We should bear in mind that Kazakhstan is a unique ground, where either useful or poisonous plants can grow. This means that the true nature of each religion should be disclosed. In fact, all religious trends and sects claim that their interpretation of any religion is the only true one. In Islam, for example, jihad, associated with the concept of gazzavat (“jihad of the sword” or holy war against infidels), is one of the central points of theoretical struggle. If we proceed from its interpretation in earlier Islam and in the Koran, we should accept jihad not as struggle of Islam against all other religions, but as the struggle against paganism of the Arab tribes of the Jahiliyyah period that aimed to consolidate the positions of Islam as the only true religious teaching. This can be compared with the New Testament: “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10), which is interpreted not as struggle against non-Christians but as struggle against the internal “Self,” against its ideas about the world nurtured by those who have not yet become true Christians. They should use the sword to liquidate what was left of the pagan pre-Christian religion. The same fully applies to Islam. This means that we cannot accept the contemporary extended interpretation of jihad as a merciless struggle against non-Muslims. Muslim extremists rely on certain provisions of the Koran and distort their meaning. This has happened, in particular, to Surah 60, Ayats 1 and 2 that say: “...do not take My enemies and your enemies as allies... If they gain dominance over you, they would be to you as enemies and extend against you their hands and their tongues with evil, and they wish you would disbelieve,” etc. In fact, misinterpretation of certain provisions of the Koran confirms that Islam is used as a political instrument, as a means of achieving certain political aims. Today politicians, ideologists and specialists in religious studies should realize this and explain to all those involved in political battles that Islam is not a religion of hatred of man.

Conclusion

As could be expected, Islam as a spiritual phenomenon was used for mercenary purposes, yet its essence is entirely different. This is perpetrated by those who distort religion for their selfish and mercenary purposes. As a social and spiritual phenomenon, Islam has never betrayed man. Its strong sides are humanism, theo- and anthropo-centrism and clemency. Any religion invariably points out that all confessions, not matter how varied, share God as the Creator of the World and Man. All think- ers of the past deemed it necessary to point to the common geographic and mythological roots of many religions. All religious clashes are caused not by religions, and not by Islam in particular. They are caused by people who have failed to grasp the meaning of religion, who have forgotten that they were created by God, and who have placed themselves above God. We cannot condemn religion and anathematize it for what false apostles have done and are doing. People who feel lonely in an information society and amid the triumphs of technological civiliza- tion lean towards things that are close to the heart: compassion, mutual understanding, balance and harmony; they want to save their souls and avoid loneliness. They can find all of this in religion as a social phenomenon. By way of summing up we can say that in our country religion and religious organizations occupy an important place in the social structure; they are an important foundation of spiritual agreement of all religions and peoples living in our gracious country with its unique spiritual and cordial

130 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 aura. Religion continues functioning as the basis, the substance of spiritual life of our society. It should be studied and remain in the center of our attention to create and preserve the positive situation at the level of personal and universal relations. Ultimately, the sources, essence, forms of regulation of social relationships in all religions make them religions of humanism and charity.

SOCIAL ASPECTS OF YOUTH RELIGIOUS CULTURE AS A FACTOR OF SOCIAL STABILITY IN KAZAKHSTAN AND RUSSIA: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37178/ca-c.20.4.13

Aliya NYSANBAYEVA Ph.D. (Political Science), Acting Associate Professor, Department of International Relations, Kh. Yasavi International Kazakh-Turkish University (Turkestan, Kazakhstan)

ABSTRACT

s of this time, the religious behavior of In the course of our studies we defined young people, the specifics of their the level of religiosity by the extent to which A religious practices and their general the sacral duties (i.e., fasting, praying, pil- attitude to religion have not been adequately grimage to holy places and voluntary offer- studied. The same fully applies to the influ- ings) were observed. The attitude of the ence of youth religious culture on the reli- younger generation to religious extremism gious environment. Meanwhile, a better un- was also examined. We based our research derstanding of the religiosity level among on the results of public opinion polls among young people and its specific features would the young people in the cities of Turkestan have produced a more balanced and more (Kazakhstan) and Nizhnekamsk (Tatarstan, adequate religious policy and helped pre- Russian Federation). serve interconfessional harmony and stabil- It turned out that the level of religiosity ity in the post-Soviet space. (as per the above parameters) among the

I would like to express my gratitude to Galina Nosanenko, Associate Professor, Department of the Theory of State and Law and Public Disciplines, Kazan Innovative University (IEML) (Nizhnekamsk, Tatarstan, Russian Federation) for help in conducting a sociological survey in the city of Nizhnekamsk.

131 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition young people of Tatarstan was lower by al- threat of religious extremist activity and fear most two times than that in Kazakhstan, yet it is nearly 40%; the share of those who ad- the type of their religious culture does not mit that religious extremists are present negatively affect religious stability. The high among the republic’s younger generation is and ever-growing level of religiosity among even higher (81%). While the majority of the all population groups (younger generation respondents assessed the religious situa- included) is present in the southern regions tion in Tatarstan as fairly stable, 40% re- of Kazakhstan (the Turkestan Region being mained convinced that religious extremists no exception), which are seen as a zone of may destabilize the religious environment in high risk of religious extremism. The results the region. Since the level of religiosity of recent studies, however, confirmed that among the polled young people in Tatarstan current social instability is not rooted in is nearly half the size of that in Kazakhstan, youth radicalism: the level and nature of re- it can be defined as a zone of low youth reli- ligious activity in this population group are gious activity. The level of religiosity in not a threat to religious stability in the re- Turkestan makes it a zone of average religion. Indeed, the majority of the respondents gious activity. in the Turkestan Region had no personal Comparative analysis of the religiosity experience of dealing with radical religious level among the younger generation helped extremists; a smaller part (a third) of the re- us identify certain factors that negatively af- spondents believes that the threat is real. fect interconfessional stability in Kazakhstan In Tatarstan, on the other hand, the and Russia and suggest an efficient reli- share of respondents who are aware of the gious policy.

KEYWORDS: religiosity, young people, religious policy, interconfessional stability.

Introduction

Today, the myths about the growing religiosity in different population groups, especially the younger generation, have become particularly popular. There is a myth that the level of religiosity of the country’s population can increase due to more active religious behavior among the youth, a larger share of believers in this population group and a greater interest in religion among its members. There is a myth that the religious environment may be destabilized by radically-minded young people brainwashed by those who returned home after fighting in the zones of religious extremism in Syria and other Middle Eastern states. It is commonly believed that the southern regions of Kazakhstan together with the Turkestan Region should be considered one of the zones where all population groups may become excessively religious.

Scope of Research

Today, the subjects related to religion have come to the fore. Indeed, the changes in the minds of religious people, especially young people, are an area inaccessible to state control and regulation.

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Previously, studies of religion and related subjects proceeded in the following directions: — analysis of the topical aspects of the religious environment1; — religiosity as a social institution2; — religiosity as a socio-political process unfolding in the social and religious consciousness of common people3; — religiosity as traditional religious culture.4 The article discusses the attitude of young people to religion as a factor of social stability in Kazakhstan and Russia; identifies different types of religious culture of the younger generation and the degree of its religiosity as an important factor of social stability in both countries.

Methods and Research Methodology

To arrive at reliable numbers related to youth religiosity levels as a factor of social and interconfessional stability we have used the following sociological methods: qualitative (questionnaires), and quantitative (focus groups and narrative interviews). The questionnaires in this sociological poll were based on the methodologies that reveal the level and concept of religiosity, and the values and orientations of religious culture in the student milieu actively used by Russian experts led by Nadezhda Shakhmatova: “Gerhard Lenski has formulated ... two types of religiosity, social and spiritual. Social religiosity makes its bearer devoted to the commonly approved social attitudes. This type of religiosity is much less connected to internal spiritual needs. This is how it differs from spiritual religiosity, which is a profound religious feeling, an awareness of one’s unity with God and of religious brotherhood with other believers.”5 In her article Nadezhda Shakhmatova interpreted social religiosity (according to Lenski) as cultural religiosity that presupposes a superficial religious feeling, while spiritual religiosity (Lenski) is defined as true religiosity. The research also utilized comparative analysis, expert opinions and questionnaire surveys. The following concepts were used to define the level of youth religiosity: religious consciousness, religious culture, the depth of religious feelings, and the religious environment.

Results

By conducting sociological polls among students in Turkestan (Kazakhstan) and Nizhnekamsk (Tatarstan, RF), researchers aimed to discover to which extent these myths (hypotheses) are true. The Kh. Yasavi International Kazakh-Turkish University teaches the Yasavitanu to second-year and Re- ligious Studies to third-year students. Both courses are related to the foundations of world religions,

1 See: O. Sgibneva, “Sovremennaia religioznaia situatsia: sotsiologichesky analiz,” Vlast, No. 3, 2012, pp. 75-78. 2 See: E.E. Burova, Trendy novoy religioznosti v sovremennom Kazakhstane (opyt sotsiogumanitarnogo izmerenia), Monograph, Institute of Philosophy, Political Science, and Religious Studies of KN MON RK, Almaty, 2014, 200 pp. 3 See: I. Karabulatova, S. Galiullina, K. Kotik, “Terrorist Threat in Russia: Transformation of Confessional Relationships,” Central Asia and the Caucasus, Vol. 18, No. 3, 2017, pp. 93-104. 4 See: S.S Maliavina, “Predstavlenia molodezhi o religioznoy kulture (po rezultatam kross-kulturnogo issledovania),” Integratsia obrazovania, No. 4, 2011, pp. 104-108, 5 N.V. Shakhmatova, I.A. Beginina, M.A. Gavriley, N.N. Ogurtsova, S.V Sitnikova, Regionalnye transformatsii: sotsio- logicheskiy monitoring: informatsionny biulleten TsRSI SGU, Issue 2 (13): Religioznaia sotsializatsia saratovskoy molodezhi: osnovnye protivorechia i tendentsii izmenenia, ed. by N.V. Shakhmatova, Saratov University Press, Saratov, 2011, p. 17.

133 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition including Islam. This makes it especially interesting to identify the values and religious orientations of two groups of students: those who have already taken the Religious Studies course and those who have not yet taken it. In September 2018, we conducted a sociological poll using the face-to-face questionnaire method among students in the city of Turkestan (“Social Aspects of Comparative Anal- ysis of the Level of Religious Culture of Young People as a Factor of Social Stability in Kazakh- stan”), in the course of which we polled 132 respondents—64 women and 68 men. The questions were related to — religious affiliation; — interest of young people in religion and religious books; — opinions about the religious situation, the role of young people in its changes, prediction of its future developments; — assessment of the Religious Studies course; — fulfillment of the sacral duties by a religious person; — the attitude of young people to religious extremists; — possible presence of religious extremists among young people; — possible destabilizing influence of religious extremists on the religious situation; — the place of religion among other basic values; — attitude to religion among the youth. An analysis of the obtained information demonstrated that the respondents belonged to two groups: — the first consisted of those who already took the Religious Studies course (62 students), — the second, of those who have not yet taken the course (70 students). We have also established that 43% of the respondents liked the Religious Studies course, they believe that it helped them raise the level of their religious awareness; 43.9% did not like it believing that it did not help them; 12.8% remained undecided. Forty-two percent of the respondents described themselves as true believers; 40% considered themselves believers rather than unbelievers; 4%—unbelievers rather than believers; 6.8%—unbelievers; 6% were undecided. The respondents obtained religious information from the following sources: — within their families—33% of respondents of the first group and 60% of the second; — from imams and clergy—53% of respondents of the first group and 10% of the second; — from the Internet—3% of respondents of the first group and 10% of the second; — from those who frequent mosques—0% of the respondents of the first group and 10% of the second. The respondents from the city of Turkestan read religious books constantly (3,7%), frequently (12%), from time to time (3%), rarely (60%), never (15%), undecided (5,3%). Mosques attendance—frequent—8% of the polled; on Fridays—6%; on religious holidays—48%; rarely—4.5%; never—16%, undecided—6%. The respondents observe the following duties of a faithful person: — fasting (uraza)—56%; — read prayers—22.7%;

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— perform hajj to Mecca—3.7%; — make donations and voluntary offering (the zaket and sadaqah)—48%; — none of the above—4.5%; — undecided—11%. The above can be interpreted as follows: despite the fact that over 80% of the respondents describe themselves as faithful, only over half of them (56%) are true believers. Not only do they call themselves believers, they also fulfill all duties and obligations of a religious person.This means that religiosity is only partially spread among the younger generation; it is average even in the Turkestan Region, which is commonly regarded as a zone of higher religious activity. In view of the fact that the religiosity level is an indicator of the religious environment, it may be considered a region of average religious activity, where the state should pursue targeted confessional policy. A recently increasing interest in religion demonstrated in recent years is not the result of greater religiosity among youth. This dismisses the first hypothesis as a myth which has nothing in common with the real situation in the region. The religiosity depth among the youth, assessed by the extent of performance of all sacral duties, is not very high—from 3.7% to 56%. This means that the religious culture remains at the average level among the youth, which treats Islam as part of an ancient traditional culture. The Religious Studies course had a positive impact on the social awareness of those who took it and, even more importantly, those who did not study it yet became interested in it. The bearers of cultural religiosity speak of themselves as Muslims, yet prefer to avoid the sacral duties and obligations of any Muslim: praying, namaz, uraza (fasting), donations (the zaket) and hajj

Figure 1

Which Opinions are You Ready to Accept?

Kazakhstan is a secular state 80

Religion should be separated I am not interested in religion 60 from the state

I don’t like religious 20 I respect other traditions and values religions 0

I am ready to accept Each person only my religion should be free to choose any religion

Islamic values are highly We should raise the level of important for the resurrection of religious awareness the nation

135 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition to Mecca. They tend to regard Islam as an ancient traditional culture. Many men regularly visit mosques on Fridays (Jummah prayer); women limit their religiosity to reading religious books. Many of those with a tendency to cultural religiosity are convinced that people can choose their religion and beliefs, something that is impossible within the scope of true religiosity. The bearers of true religiosity internally consider themselves Muslims; they know that they were born Muslims and should, therefore, obey the will of Allah and fulfil all obligations (they pray, they observe namaz and uraza). Many of them believe that they have no right to choose their religion; they cannot abandon the sacral duties and obligations of every Muslim. This is what is written in the Koran, and they know this. At the same time, they speak of Islam as a method of self-expression that strengthens their personalities. Many men normally limit their visits to mosques to Friday prayers; and women—to Muslim religious holidays. On other days they support their religious feelings with reciting prayers, namaz and uraza. As could be expected, these religious norms form a firm foundation of commonly accepted true Muslim social norms to become the cornerstone of traditional culture. There is an opinion that the level of social confidence of true believers is higher than among the carriers of cultural religiosity and atheists. The latter explain their atheism by the antireligious policy of Soviet times: atheist parents raised their children as atheists. Lack of morality and spirituality is another product of these politics and ideology; today, society is spiritually destitute with social confidence in a deep crisis. On the other hand, it remains to be seen whether the development of social confidence and its steady increase in the minds of young believers can create a firm platform of continued interconfessional stability in the region. The respondents assessed the religious situation in Kazakhstan as follows: stable—45%; rather stable—20%, rather unstable—5%, unstable—9.8%, undecided—18.9%. 49% assessed the role of the younger population groups in changing the religious situation in Kazakhstan as considerable; 15% as rather big; 4.5% as rather insignificant; 15% as insignificant; 15.9% were undecided. Despite the fact that many respondents tended to speak of the religious situation as stable (20%-45% of the polled) many of them (15%-49%) were fully aware that the younger generation may contribute to its further stabilization or destabilization. Several questions related to what young people thought about possible destabilization of the religious situation by radically minded groups of young people that may appear in the future. The following responses were obtained: — there are no reasons to be afraid of extremists—16.6%; — they may be dangerous—13.6%; — they are probably dangerous—36%; — they are very dangerous—17.4%; — undecided—15.9%. This means that a third of our respondents were convinced that extremists could be dangerous to different degrees; one-sixth of them were unaware of the potential threat presented by extremists and their activity. On the other hand, it means that most of the respondents had no personal contacts with religious extremists, among young people in the first place. When asked about a possible presence of religious extremists among the youth in Kazakhstan, the respondents gave the following answers: definitely yes—16.6%; probably yes—26.5%; probably no—5%; definitely no—6.8%; don’t know—35.6%; undecided—9%. This may mean that 16.6 to 26.5% believed that there may be extremists among members of their generation, yet they had never met them: prior to answering the question many of our respondents asked: “Who are religious extremists?”

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This probably means that only one out of six respondents was absolutely sure that extremists were present among the youth; a quarter was not entirely sure, while just over 10% of the respondents were convinced that there were no extremists among them; while over a third could not provide an answer. When asked about the possible influence of religious extremists on the religious situation and its destabilization, the respondents provided the following answers: they cannot destabilize the situation—6.8%; probably cannot—9%; probably can—20%; can—48%; undecided—15%. One-sixth of the respondents rejected the possibility of negative impacts on and destabilization of the religious situation; 20%-48% of the respondents admitted that negative impact was possible; 15% of the respondents remained undecided. Despite the fact that interconfessional stability has become a greater challenge in recent years, the assumption that radicals in the younger generation were the reason was disavowed by our poll as another myth: the religious situation in the Turkestan Region is fairly stable. The respondents answered the question about the future of the religious situation as follows: — it will remain unchanged—16.6%; — it will be rather stable—33%; — it will be rather unstable—9%; — it will be destabilized—3.7%; — undecided—37%. A similar poll was carried out in Nizhnekamsk, Tatarstan, Russian Federation. Out of 96 respondents, 3 took the Religious Studies course; the rest did not. The analyzed results of the poll revealed that a third (34%) of the respondents were Muslim; slightly less than half (43.7%) were Orthodox Christians while a fifth of the respondents considered themselves atheists (21.8%). At the same time, a quarter of the respondents (25%) described themselves as true believers; 31%—as a sort of believers; 21.8%—as non-believers rather than believers; 18.7%—as non-believers; 3% remained undecided. The respondents from the city of Nizhnekamsk read religious books constantly (3,2%), frequently (3.2%), from time to time (3.2%), rarely (12%), never (75%), undecided (3,2%). A small share (3%) frequently attends mosques/churches; 28% do it on religious holidays; 12.5% do it rarely, 50%—never; 6% of the polled were undecided. The respondents fulfil the following obligations of a religious person: — observe fasts—3%; — read prayers—18.7%; — make pilgrimages to holy places—3%; — make donations—31%; — do none of the above—62.5%. The results may mean that despite the fact that over 56% of the polled consider themselves religious, only up to one third (from 3 to 31%) are bearers of true religiosity: they consider themselves faithful and fulfil all corresponding duties. Thus, the index of religiosity of the respondents in Ta- tarstan (31%) is practically two times lower than in Kazakhstan (56%). This, in turn, defines Ta- tarstan as a zone of low religious activity that allows the state to regulate the level of religiosity by targeted confessional policy. A somewhat heightened recent interest in religion cannot be explained by a higher religiosity level among the youth in Tatarstan, which makes the first hypothesis a myth: it has nothing in common with the real religious situation in the region. The level of religiosity among

137 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition young people depends on the degree to which all sacral duties and obligations of a true believer are fulfilled.In Tatarstan this level is fairly low: from 3 to 31%, that is, practically two times lower than in the Turkestan Region. This also means that the religious culture of the youth of Tatarstan is practically undeveloped, while religion is regarded as part of an ancient traditional culture. The results of the poll in Tatarstan also revealed three religiosity levels (and corresponding groups); bearers of true religiosity, of cultural religiosity, and atheists. Here, too, the share of bearers of cultural religiosity is bigger than the share of bearers of true religiosity and atheists. Those described as bearers of cultural religiosity agreed with the following: — Russia is a secular state; — religion should be separated from the state; — other religions should be respected; — all and everyone should have the right to religious freedom. The bearers of true religiosity tend to adhere to the following opinions: — religious values are important for the resurrection of the nation; — only their religion is recognized; — the level of religious awareness of the country’s population should be raised. The atheists speak of — an absence of interest in religion; — no support for religious values and traditions. The respondents assessed the religious situation in Tatarstan as: stable—31%; rather stable—43.7%; rather unstable—12.5%; unstable—6%; undecided—6%. 12.5% of the respondents believe that the role of the younger generation in changing the religious situation in the country is high; 31% assessed it as rather high; 18.7%—as rather low; 25%—as very low; 12.5% remained undecided. Even though a large share of the respondents (31 to 43.7%) assessed the religious situation as stable, many of them (12.5 to 31%) were fully aware of the fact that young people could significantly promote its further stabilization or destabilization. The following answers shed light on what the respondents think about religious extremists: — there are no reasons to be afraid of them—15.6%; — they might be dangerous—18.7%; — they are probably dangerous—3%; — they are very dangerous—53%; — undecided—6%. A third of the respondents are aware of the danger presented by religious extremists, albeit to different degrees; one-sixth of the respondents merely underestimate the possible dangers. On the other hand, this probably means that they have no personal experience of dealing with religious extremists, especially among young people. The share of youth who admit a possibility of religious extremist presence among them are the following: yes—18.7%; probably yes—62.5%; probably no—3%; no—3%; don’t know—21.8%, undecided—1%. Between 18.7 and 62.5% of the respondents believe that there probably are religious extremists among them in Tatarstan; over half of the respondents are practically convinced that there are religious extremists among the youth, which stirs up fears.

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The opinions among the respondents about the possible destabilizing impact of extremists on the religious situation in Tatarstan were as follows: such impact is impossible—12.5%; unlikely—3%; somewhat likely—31%; very likely—9%, undecided—43.7%. One-tenth of the respondents gave negative answers; up to one-third believed that unwelcome developments were possible (9%-31%); nearly half of the respondents could not provide an answer. The recent problems of preserving interconfessional stability and the emergence of zones of instability strongly affect the religious consciousness of Russian citizens and stir up certain concerns and mistrust. This explains why despite a large (31 to 43.7%) share of those who assessed the religious situation in Tatarstan as fairly stable, the share of those who feared religious extremists was also big enough (nearly 40%). Even more respondents (81%) admitted that religious extremists could be found in the youth milieu; 40% believed that religious extremists may destabilize their region. According to our respondents, in Tatarstan the myth of possible destabilization of the religious situation as a result of appearing the radically minded young people may become obvious. Today, according to the same people, the situation in Tatarstan is fairly stable. It seems that fears and alarm- ist feelings are explained by Tatarstan’s relative geographic proximity to the Caucasus, one of the main zones of regional instability in Russia. When asked to forecast the future of the religious situation in Tatarstan, the respondents offered the following answers: — it will remain unchanged—30%; — it will be stable rather than unstable—35%; — it will be unstable rather than stable—11.5%; — it will be destabilized—5%; — undecided—18%. This means that half of the respondents in Tatarstan anticipate religious stability. The distribution of values and orientations in the religious culture of Kazakhstani and Russian youth is important. Table 1 demonstrates the rating of the most important values of Turkestan and Nizhnekamsk citizens.

Table 1

Rating of the Most Important Values (in the order of decreasing importance)

Turkestan Citizens Nizhnekamsk Citizens

 family,  health,  education,  family,  health,  work  wellbeing of loved ones,  wellbeing of loved ones,  religion,  education,  work,  love,  friendship,  friendship,  love,  material status,  material status,  politics,  politics.  religion.

S o u r c e: Results of the sociological poll Social Aspects of Comparative Analysis of the Level of Religious Culture among Youth as a Factor of Social Stability in Kazakhstan and Russia, conducted among students in the cities of Turkestan (RK) and Nizhnekamsk (RF), September 2018.

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According to the above, religion occupies the lowest place (and is among the bottom 5 values) in the rating of values of the polled citizens in Nizhnekamsk; it is obviously unimportant to them. Unfortunately, the place of politics is not much higher than that of religion in the rating: it does not occupy an important place in people’s minds. Among the Kazakhstanis, religion is among the top 5 values in the rating, which makes it much more important as compared with politics, which occupies the bottom line. This may also mean that collectivism plays a more important role in Kazakhstan than in Tatarstan; traditional cultural and religious values are much more respected among the Kazakhstanis than among the Tatarstan citizens. At the same time, the poll revealed that spiritual values are cherished much higher than material values in both cases—a positive trend in the religious culture of citizens of Kazakhstan and Tatarstan.

Discussion

Today, sociologists tend to discuss the religious culture of the younger generation from philo- sophical and theological positions. Here we have discussed the religious culture of the youth as a traditional culture of one of the most active social groups. Today, topical aspects of the development of religious culture among the Kazakhstanis and citizens of Tatarstan have become especially relevant because of the transformations in their religious consciousness. This explains why Kazakhstani experts Elena Burova and Anatoli Kosichenko have referred to Islam as a mechanism of ethnic consolidation.6 The obtained results lead to doubts that Islam can become a form/instrument of social and religious consolidation of the younger generations in both cases. Indeed, the level of religiosity of respondents in Tatarstan (31%) is lower by practically two times than that in Kazakhstan (56%). Religiosity of the young respondents in Tatarstan is less profound (3 to 31%) than in the Turkestan Region, which demonstrates 56% on average. Religiosity is one of the indicators of the development of religious culture. This means that in view of the low (Nizhnekamsk) and average (Turkestan Re- gion) development level of religious culture, religion can hardly become a firm foundation of social consolidation in both cases.

Conclusions

The results of the sociological poll suggest the following conclusions: — Religion occupies a fairly important place in the minds of the younger generation. On the one hand, its members consider it one of the ancient forms of traditional culture transmitted from one generation to another. The family is the main social institution of the development of religious culture, and its younger members perceive religious values and practices endorsed by the older family members. — In view of the fact that Kazakhstan and Russia are secular states, secondary and higher education systems are mainly secular, which means that the mandatory education system cannot promote religious culture in the youth milieu. — A comparative analysis of the youth religiosity level as a factor of social stability in Kazakh- stan and Russia allowed to identify three groups with different development levels of reli-

6 See: E. Burova, A. Kosichenko, Aktualnye problemy razvitia religioznoy situatsii v Respulike Kazakhstan, ed. by Z.K. Shaukenova, Almaty, NFPR KN MON RK, 2013, p. 75.

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gious culture: cultural religiosity, true religiosity and atheists. The level of religiosity among the youth in Tatarstan is practically two times lower than in Kazakhstan. — We have also studied the attitude of young people to religious extremists. The south of Ka- zakhstan (including the Turkestan Region) is believed to be one of the zones of possible religious upsurge among the local populations, including youth. In recent years, it has become harder to preserve social stability, however this happens not because of radicalization of certain groups of young people. Our poll has demonstrated that it is retaining the average level of youth religious activity that preserves religious stability in the Turkestan Region. The majority of the respondents has no practical experience with radically minded religious extremists, while only a third of the respondents are fully aware of the threats they represent. On the other hand, in recent years, it has become much harder to preserve social and interconfessional stability in the center and regions of Russia, an emergence of tension zones strongly affected and continues to affect the religious consciousness of Russians and stir up wariness and mistrust. This is confirmed by the obtained results: despite the fact that the majority of the respondents assessed the religious situation in Tatarstan as stable rather than unstable, the share of those who feared religious extremists was rather high (40%). The share of those who did not exclude the possibility of the presence of religious extremists among youth was almost 81%. Forty percent of the respondents were convinced that religious extremists may destabilize the religious situation in the region. — In Tatarstan, the religious situation may be destabilized by radically minded people in the youth milieu; the threat may become very real, according to our respondents. Today, however, they describe the religious situation in Tatarstan as rather stable. — The religiosity index in Tatarstan is two times lower than in Kazakhstan, which means that Tatarstan is a zone of low religious activity, according to the polled population groups. Turke- stan, on the other hand, is a zone of average religious activity of the younger generations. — The level of religiosity in the generations in question corresponds to the level of religious stability in the corresponding regions, which, in turn, is one of the circumstances that influence religious policy in both regions. Comparative analysis of the religiosity level among the young people can reveal certain negative factors that may unbalance interconfessional stability. — On the other hand, the religious factor has moved to the fore in the minds of young people and affects their social and religious consciousness. This means that it has become more important than before to limit the impact of religious extremists and their propaganda on the youth. In this context, it is essential to study the social and religious culture of the young people in both regions. By way of conclusion, it can be stated that only ongoing and consistent studies of the religious culture of the younger generations will keep researchers aware of the religious situation; allow to analyze and assess the religious situation and recommend preventive anti-extremist measures that are indispensable in preserving social and interconfessional stability in the regions in question.

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ETHNIC RELATIONS AND MIGRATION

BRAIN DRAIN FROM THE REPUBLIC OF KAZAKHSTAN AS ANALYZED BY POLITICAL SCIENTISTS

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37178/ca-c.20.4.14

Kargash ZHANPEISOVA Ph.D. (Political Science), Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Lev Gumilev Eurasian National University (Nur-Sultan, Republic of Kazakhstan)

Gulnaz KALIASKAROVA Doctoral Student, Department of Political Science, Lev Gumilev Eurasian National University (Nur-Sultan, Republic of Kazakhstan)

Bagysh GABDULINA Ph.D. (Hist.), Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Lev Gumilev Eurasian National University (Nur-Sultan, Republic of Kazakhstan)

Manshuk MUKASHEVA Ph.D. (Philol.), Department of Journalism, Kh. Dosmukhamedov Atyrau State University (Atyrau, Republic of Kazakhstan)

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ABSTRACT

rain drain, a well-known phenome- dence and arrived at a certain hypothesis non, stirs up concerns in the Republic checked by polling school graduates and in- В of Kazakhstan, which is facing a con- depth interviews with experts who study the sistently growing outflow of educated young problem and the Kazakhstani researchers people. The authors have analyzed the fac- working abroad. tors and causes of migration, its impact on By way of conclusion the authors sug- the country’s present and future, the educa- gested that intellectual migration may be tional system, its current condition and its partly halted by establishing scientific cen- role in the current migration sentiments. The ters and taking economic, social, scientific authors have compared and analyzed the and professional measures designed to sup- questionnaires filled out by specialists who port and encourage the country’s intellectual left the country during the years of indepen- community.

KEYWORDS: intellectual migration, migration biases, national security, educational migration.

Introduction

The aim of research was to analyze the brain drain problem in the Republic of Kazakhstan that became apparent in the beginning of its independence, identifying the causes and main vectors of intellectual migration and assessing its impact on national security. We live in a world where human intellectual capital forms the cornerstone of the country’s economic, political, social and scientific wealth; this means that people in power should treat its preservation and temptations offered by richer countries as one of its priorities. This makes brain drain an urgent problem that should be studied by different disciplines, political science among them. Kazakhstan as one of the entities of the contemporary world, plunged in the depths of powerful global information streams and developed information systems, cannot escape intellectual migration. Today, scientists and specialists in different fields need high-quality education and practical experience available in the highly developed countries. Many of those educated and trained abroad do not hasten to return; this threatens the future of their homeland and its national security. Time has come to create mechanisms of control of brain drain, a difficult scientific task. The paper contains the results of an empirical study of intellectual migration that might lead to scientifically substantiated recommendations.

Intellectual Migration: Conceptualization

In the globalized world practically all states are aware, to different extents, of the migration problem. It is no wonder that today the factors and mechanisms of intellectual migration have come to the fore in many countries, Kazakhstan being no exception. The discourse of intellectual migration is concentrated in three basic concepts:

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The brain drain concept describes the processes closely connected with intellectual migration and is normally used as synonymous with the latter. The formula suggests that the process is seen from the point of view of the country that loses its best specialists because of limited and shrinking state investments in education, as well as the inability of the state political and economic institutions to offer adequate conditions to well-educated and highly qualified specialists. The state that squanders its intellectual potential is left with an acute awareness that in the absence of highly qualified specialists its production technologies are stalling or even decreasing, and that it can no longer keep its economy at the adequate quantitative and qualitative level. There is another relative trend of intellectual migration, i.e., brain circulation: specialists educated and trained abroad come back home. In her study The New Argonauts: Regional Advantage in the Global Economy AnnaLee Saxenian compared intellectual migration with communicating ves- sels.1 According to the researchers who study this phenomenon, the intellectual flow vectors regularly change their directions. Many leave their country to earn money, acquire professional experience and return with an impressive luggage of new knowledge and experience. The third concept defined as brain waste describes the situation in which a migrant unable to find a job adequate to his qualification in a new country is forced to take a less qualified job, where he loses qualification and professional experience.2 The phenomenon that has come to the fore in Kazakhstan should be defined within the brain drain concept, the one-way outflow of highly qualified specialists. Below we will discuss its causes, subjects and methods of its regulation with due account for the country’s highly specific development, as well as the current state of intellectual outflow from Kazakhstan, its trends, problems, forecasts and prospects.

Methodology

The analysis of the figures provided by the Ministry of National Economy of Kazakhstan and the Committee for Statistics forms an empirical base of our studies and questionnaire survey of a sampling of citizens of the Republic of Kazakhstan educated abroad. Today, 90,243 young people from Kazakhstan study abroad; we polled 120 respondents, or 0.13% of the total number studying in 17 countries and carried out in-depth interviews with experts in different spheres of knowledge who are engaged in researching different aspects of this problem.

The Scope of Brain Drain in Kazakhstan: An Assessment

The intellectual outflow from Kazakhstan was studied over the entire period of its independence. The causes of brain drain in the initial years of the newly acquired sovereignty (from the early 1990s to the 2000s) are fairly well known. At that time, many members of nationalities other than Kazakh who lived in the Kazakh S.S.R. for different reasons returned to their historical homelands. According to statistics, in 1994-2004 Kazakhstan lost 245,390 people with higher education;

1 See: A. Saxenian, The New Argonauts: Regional Advantage in a Global Economy, First Thus edition, Harvard University Press, 31 October, 2007, 432 pp. 2 See: Intellektualny kapital i intellektualnaia migratsia v usloviiakh globalizatsii. Monograph, ed. by A.V. Dolzhikova, RUDN, Moscow, 2016.

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82,974 people with incomplete higher education and 463,323 with specialized secondary education. An analysis of people with higher education who left Kazakhstan forever revealed that in 1996-2004, 47,563 were people with technical education; 37,990—educated teachers; 19,266—medics, 18,380— economists; 12,061—architects and construction engineers; 9,595—agronomists; 4,500—lawyers; 35,277—specialists in other fields.3 During this period the country received a fairly big number of qualified specialists, yet the gap between the numbers of outgoing and incoming professionals remained fairly wide: 152,949 people with higher education; 36,947—with incomplete higher education and 383,705—with specialized secondary education. Starting in 2004, emigration lost its previous scope, because the outflow of people of nationalities other than Kazakh had halted or, at least, passed its highest point. In the 1990s, intellectual migration was caused by the Soviet Union’s disintegration, which gave people of other nationalities a chance to return to their historical homelands, while today talented young people leave Kazakhstan for different reasons. Starting in the 2000s, brain drain became more regulated: people are driven not by their national affiliation, but by social and economic reasons and careers in science. Below are the migration statistics of the population of the Republic of Kazakh- stan over 15 years of age (by profession).

Figure 1

Outflow of 15+ Population of Kazakhstan, by Profession

16,000

14,000 Architecture and 12,000 construction

10,000 Medicine

8,000 Pedagogy

6,000 Engineering 4,000

2,000 Economics

0 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

The outflow of highly educated specialists reached its peak in the first half of the 2000s. In 2000, the country lost 13,998 technology experts; 5,460 teachers; 3,906 economists; 2,868 medics; 2,195 architects and construction engineers. Figure 1 demonstrates that technology experts occupy the highest place among highly qualified emigrants. In 2006, the numbers shrank to 290 technologists; 623 teachers; 74 economists, 499 medics; 252 architects and construction engineers, probably due to eco-

3 See: Committee for Statistics of the Ministry of National Economy of Kazakhsyan, 2019, available in Russian at [https://taldau.stat.gov.kz/ru/NewIndex/GetIndex/2929764?keyword], 12 March, 2020.

145 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition nomic stabilization in Kazakhstan. Predictably, the 2009-2010 crisis intensified the outflow. It continued on a similar scale: in 2017, qualified economists dominated; 2,805 economists against 1,633 teachers; 5,293 technology experts; 578 medics; 453 architects and construction engineers. The latest figures for 2019 speak of an increased outflow: 2,062 more technology experts; 1,092 economists with a higher degree; 845 educators and 647 medics left the country. At the same time, the outflow of architects and construction engineers dropped: there were 63 fewer emigrants among them against the preceding year.4 However, the sphere of work for economists has expanded, in particular, in trade, service, business, etc. Today, the migration processes in the Republic of Kazakhstan are unfolding under the pressure of social, economic, political, ethnic and other factors. Migration and its regulation were and remain state policy priorities that are still unresolved. What are the causes of brain drain? Today, qualified specialists, especially young and talented ones, are not sufficiently appreciated by our society, while corruption makes it much harder for young people to find good jobs. This is what many experts think. When asked “Which factors are the key ones in intellectual outflow and whether it threatens the country’s national development?” political scientist Alua Zholdybalina pointed to an absence of conditions of self-realization and of personal development prospects. Indeed, the knowledge and skills of biotechnologists and IT specialists are barely needed: the country has no laboratories and work centers equipped to the latest world standards. Low wages of qualified specialists are the second factor coupled with the third: it is practically impossible to find jobs without the concerted efforts of friends and relatives. Sinan Eraslan, Deputy Director for Educational Work, International school in Nur-Sultan, whose duty is to help schoolchildren choose their future vocations, pointed to several factors responsible for the brain drain from Kazakhstan. He is convinced that the government should pay more attention to the quality of education in the country that, so far, leaves much to be desired. Society, the government and the academic community should pool their efforts for in-depth studies in sociology, political science, etc. and for elaborating special development programs. The state of school education should be improved. The country needs more competitive schools to offer greater advantages to the most talented pupils. Private schools that operate under state control can increase competitiveness and improve results. Gulnar Kendirbay, Professor of Columbia University (U.S.) has pointed out that developed countries create comfortable conditions for their talented and better educated citizens in the form of adequate scientific environment, financial support and a space for professional growth. To protect its intellectual capital and ensure its future as a developed state, Kazakhstan should extend comprehensive (including financial) support to talented young people. Dolores Tiulebekova, lecturer at the Department of Political Science of the Lev Gumilev Eur- asian National University, is convinced that corruption is the main factor in brain drain and that society should develop corporate culture and ethics. Janat Mokushev from Kazakhstan, who currently works in the sphere of education in the U.K., deemed it necessary to recall that at all times and in all countries intellectual emigration was fraught with great risks, and that an absence of conditions for self-realization was one of the most important push-factors. This means that in order to stop brain drain we should increase our international competitiveness. The above suggests that in the absence of adequate responses to the challenges of worldwide rivalry, brain drain will go on unabated.

4 See: Committee for Statistics of the Ministry of National Economy of Kazakhsyan, 2019.

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The above should not be taken to mean that the state remains indifferent to the problem. The Concept of the Migration Policy of Kazakhstan for 2017-2021 outlined the key trends (freedom of intellectual migration for all) and wider conceptual definitions of migration policy: the risk of even greater brain drain, prevalence of low-qualified workforce and an obvious deficit of highly qualified workers in certain economic sectors caused by the very low educational level.5 Experts shared their recommendations on state measures (besides laws and the migration policy concept) that might offer intelligent young people more self-realization options in their own country. Alua Zholdybalina, for example, suggested that new laboratories and research centers should be established in order to raise the status of science in society and the quality of scientific research, scientific infrastructure, the academic community and research should get more attention and funding. New research centers in Kazakhstan should employ at least 20% leading international scientists, and the remaining 80% should be Kazakhstani specialists. According to Sinan Eraslan, the state should pay more attention to training and education of specialists in the disciplines that are unavailable in the country at this point; offer attractive grants to those who study to become teachers: the educational system should be treated as one of the priorities. Gulnar Kendirbay believes that the state should offer stimulating and well-paid jobs; Dolores Tiulebekova has pointed out that the path to the resolution of the greatest problems begins with comfortable work conditions, good wages and professional growth. Janat Mokushev believes that corruption and nepotism at the state level should be uprooted, that people should be hired according to their professional skills, rather than family and social ties and that this will solve many problems. The question “Can you forecast the future of intellectual migration in this country?” invited the following answers. According to Zholdybalina, intellectual migration has become one of the common features in the globalized world. It should not be feared, let alone banned: the state should create all conditions for education and training in other countries, and be attractive enough to pull intellectual migrants back. Eraslan has pointed out that the population of Kazakhstan and Central Asia as a whole adheres to traditional values and is ready to accept new phenomena. This means that in the age of digital technologies and thanks to its talented youth, Kazakhstan can cover the road that took 50-60 years in other countries in just 25-30 years. In order to accomplish this, the country should persuade qualified educators to remain in their homeland to train much needed experts. The current practice of encourag- ing high school graduates with average or even barely passing grades to enter pedagogical universities and to become teachers, we are sentencing our country to backwardness; while our younger generation will try to obtain real knowledge outside its borders. Kendirbay suggested that the current pervasive world crisis would increase the outflow of unemployed young people. D. Tiulebekova sounded fairly pessimistic: young people educated abroad do not return to their country; confronted with the situation in their native country, those reckless enough to return would immediately leave again. Educated abroad and living in her native country, Dolores Tiulebekova cited several relevant examples. Mokushev, who lives and works in Great Britain, believes that in the future brain drain will at best remain at the present level with no decrease anywhere in sight. All experts agreed that intellectual migration in the globalized world might create certain risks for their country: intellectual young people will go abroad with no intention of coming back. This means that the state, scientific community and society should work hard to prevent this.

5 See: Vneshniaia molodezhnaia migratsia v stranakh Tsentralnoy Azii: analiz riskov i minimizatsia negativnykh posledstviy, Chapter 2: “Regulirovanie migratsionnykh protsessov na natsionalnom urovne,” Astana, 2019, p. 26.

147 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Educational Emigration from Kazakhstan Today

For many years Kazakhstan has been losing its intellectual potential. While we are holding forth about our future, other states efficiently use our best minds to leave us behind. Today, the best minds of Kazakhstan work in many developed countries: the U.S., Canada, Russia, Germany, Israel, Hong Kong, Singapore and China. The permanent intellectual migration has become the greatest of challenges: the world needs the best of minds. Kazakhstan has no particularly attractive offers to persuade the talented and qualified youth to remain in their home country; it cannot offer more or less efficient support to science and scientific community. Indeed, the wages and social perquisites (and many other parameters) are much lower than those offered by the developed countries. This means that we should immediately assess and analyze the damage done by squandering our intellectual capital, otherwise it would be next to impossible to estimate the need for highly qualified workforce in different economic branches and different regions. The intellectual potential of the younger generations will shape our future and the future of science and technology. The outflow of intellectual specialists threatens our country, since the youth that should form the foundation of our future statehood may be going abroad for good. We invite our readers to scrutinize the most urgent problems of labor and educational migration of the younger population groups. Today, about 90,243 young Kazakhstanis are studying abroad. Questionnaire polls were used in the majority of countries in which citizens of Kazakhstan are studying and involved respondents from 17 countries (samplings were not always proportional to the numerical strength of the so-called student diasporas). This, however, did not affect the reliability of the results: the studies were mostly qualitative rather than quantitative. The main part of the polled studied in Hong Kong, 26,6%; Turkey, 18,3%; Poland, 14,1%; South Korea, 10,8%; Great Britain, 5%; Germany, 4,1%; Slovakia, 4,1%; Italy, 3,3%; Russian Fede- ration, 2,5%; Czech Republic, 3,3%; the PRC, 1,6%; Spain, UAE, the U.S., Nigeria, Finland, and Belgium, 0,8% in each country. We heeded attention to the forms of educational grants, since many people are especially interested in educational grants provided by foreign universities. According to the results, 70.8% of the respondents study under grant programs; 29.2% pay for their education. Educational establishments in other countries use fairly efficient technologies to lure the best minds to their universities. High school graduates are attracted by grants and scholarships. Since 1996, Germany has been accepting high school graduates with an adequate knowledge of German to receive a free education in any university. The Baltic countries follow suit with scholarships and free residence for foreign students. Russia, in its turn, selects school graduates from Kazakhstan through school Olympiads and offer them budget-funded places at its universities, which organize entrance exams in Kazakhstan, a far more convenient option for the graduates: there is no need to go to another country for entrance exams. Offline testing is also used. This means that it is much easier to enter any university in Russia than in any other country. Scholarships, free student dorms and future employment allow Russia to select the most talented and promising secondary school graduates. Many high school students prefer to continue their education abroad because they are not sure that they would pass the United National Test or because they failed to get the minimal required

148 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 200,000 Figure 2 74,000 100,000 50,000 20,000 people 10,000 5,000 2,479 2,065 1,764 1,677 2,000 1,321 956 1,000 681 650 572 506 451 500 370 367 332 322 306 , available at [http://uis.unesco.org/en/uis-student-flow]. 213 193 179 177 200 136 127 104 99 100 70 69 57 50 Places of Greatest Attractions for Students from Kazakhstan, 20 Italy UAE Egypt Japan Latvia U.S.A. France Turkey Poland Austria Finland Canada Ukraine Belarus Georgia Bulgaria Hungary Malaysia Germany Tajikistan Uzbekistan Global Flow of Tertiary-Level Students 2020 Great Britain Saudi Arabia Czech Republic Kyrgyz Republic Republic of Korea Russian Federation Hong Kong SAR (PRC) S o u r c e:

149 Volume 21 Issue 4 2020 CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS English Edition number of points. They prefer to study in the countries of the near abroad, with Russia being their top choice. Today, there are 74,000 students from Kazakhstan in Russia’s universities;6 while their home country is losing, sometimes forever, its human resources. Young people of 18 are the most valuable human capital; the state pours billions into schools and higher education. According to the Director of the Center for Macroeconomic Studies Olzhas Kudaybergenov, education of one child from the first year at school to baccalaureate, costs some $100-150,000; further studies under master’s programs cost $30-100,000. The state should take into account the potential effect of the use of human capital it had created with its own funds and the scope of possible lost profits; it should take relevant measures to lower the losses. Today, well-educated and talented young people prefer foreign universities for serious reasons. Some of them can be retrieved from answers to our questions. For example, the question “What is especially attractive in this country (in professional respect)?” invited the following answers: high level of education (37.5%); the global rating of the chosen university (15%) This means that young people know that their successful future depends on the quality of their education and, therefore, select those foreign universities that can give them competitive education: over 10% of the respondents are attracted by grants; 6.6% are convinced that the knowledge of English is important for their studies; 6.6% of the polled said that the chosen profession is not taught in Kazakhstan; 6.6% wanted to know more about the country, hence their choice of the university; 4.1% wanted to use all chances of studies and work abroad; 3.3% were tempted by adequate prices; 3% believed that an international diploma was an important factor in future employment. This means that the young people who prefer foreign universities seek high quality and internationally competitive education. The intellectual youth of Kazakhstan is undoubtedly tempted by the potential of education abroad. The question “Which possibilities does the country in which you study offer you?” invited the following answers: “involvement in research and the chance to practice in the best companies (33.3%); educational grants (70.8%). This means that in order to stop brain drain, Kazakhstan should create a system of grants for the most talented students and to raise the ratings of its universities. Today, in Kazakhstan, a country with the population of 18 million, there are over 129 higher educational establishments.7 Universities of Kazakhstan occupy rather low places in the Interna- tional Rating of the Best Universities of the World. In 2019, according to the QS World University Rankings the al-Farabi Kazakh National University was 236th; the Lev Gumilev Eurasian National University was in the 336th place; the Satpaev Kazakh National Technological University—in the 411st place; the Abai Kazakh National Pedagogic University—in the 491st place.8 University rankings takes into account academic reputation; relations with employers, the students’ educational level, etc. Scientific research and teaching are the main criteria for future students. No wonder that talented young people, graduates of specialized schools, with good records of achievements at school Olympiads prefer universities with high international ratings, grants and free student dorms. Gener- ally, many Russian universities occupy higher places than universities in Kazakhstan. The Lomono- sov Moscow State University is 114th in the quoted ranking because of high-quality scientific work demonstrated by the teaching staff and by students. When asked why they preferred higher education abroad rather than in their own country, 36.7% pointed to the low educational level in Kazakhstan, 16.6% spoke of corruption that interfered in the sphere of higher education, which forced many citizens of Kazakhstan to emigrate.

6 See: Embassy of the Republic of Kazakhstan in the Russian Federation, Information by University, 2020, available in Russian at [https://kazembassy.ru/rus/studenty/vuzy/], 3 November, 2020. 7 See: Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan, 2020, available in Russian at [https://www. gov.kz/memleket/entities/edu/activities/272?lang=ru], 3 November, 2020. 8 See: QS World University Rankings, Almaty, 2011, available at [https://www.educationindex.ru/articles/university- rankings/qs/?year=2018], 18 March, 2020.

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The question “Will you come back some time in the future?” invited the following answers: “Yes” (35.8%); “No” (19.10%) while 5% remained undecided and said that they were still thinking. On the other hand, the question “How will you help the development of your country in future?” 83.3% of the respondents said that upon graduation they would help promote their work sphere in their own country. A very small share (5.8%) said that they did not intend to return and that, therefore, they would not make any contribution to the future of their country. This means that the majority remains undecided about their future. Ten percent were convinced that development and upgrades in the education sphere might change the situation and that it was the key to the country’s prosperous future. It follows from the above that the rising level of brain drain is explained by the efforts of young people to find their personal identities and their desire to graduate from the best possible universities; due to these factors, the country has come close to losing its most intelligent and talented young people. We should raise the level of higher education to be competitive in the globalized world.

Conclusion

Today Kazakhstan is sustaining huge economic losses due to intellectual migration, the so- called brain drain, which will negatively affect all other spheres of the country’s development. Certain bias towards the humanities, likewise, misbalances the higher education system by training too many specialists who remain unemployed after graduation. On the other hand, there is a deficit of technical specialists in the country, while many of them leave for other countries. Intellectual migration, however, is believed to have its benefits. In one of his interviews, the former minister of information and communications Dauren Abaev has pointed out: “Professionals cannot be tied down by high salaries. Their salaries are high anyway, yet they need more experience... There are no real problems: after working in Kazakhstan, some of them move to other countries and, having accumulated new experience, come back to use their new knowledge in their homeland. “There are countries that regularly invite the most gifted and the best educated from all countries. China has finally managed to stop the process by developing their own transnational companies, Huawei, which is as prestigious as Google, among them. Chinese expats returned home in huge numbers.”9 Intellectual migration of the younger generation has certain positive sides, yet the state should spare no effort to encourage young people to come back home after a certain time spent abroad. This analysis allowed to discover certain factors in brain drain.  First of all, the results of in-depth interviews demonstrated that intellectual migration is inevitable in the globalized world, yet, for the sake of its future, any country should take preventive measures. Corruption, which makes it next to impossible to provide jobs to all highly qualified young specialists, should be uprooted. To discontinue an outflow of intellectuals from the country, Kazakhstan should offer all qualified specialists the salaries they would find adequate to their skills and the total volume of perquisites, while the state should support science and education, encourage young talented specialists with awards and grants to stop brain drain.  Secondly, according to our poll, the majority of young Kazakhstanis educated abroad associate their future with their homeland and are ready to contribute to its development. This

9 “Abaev ob ‘utechke mozgov’ iz Kazakstana: eto challenge dlia nikh,” available at [https://tengrinews.kz/kazakhstan_ news/abaev-ob-utechke-mozgov-iz-kazahstana-eto-chellendj-dlya-nih-359336/Tengrinews.kz], 21 March, 2020.

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means that we should supply those who, after obtaining a higher education abroad, are ready to return with a foundation of their scientific studies and professional growth.  Thirdly, the polled experts remain convinced that Kazakhstan has the potential to realize its plans and meet the demands of intelligent and talented young people. This can be done by developing science in Kazakhstan and giving young specialists the chance to be engaged in scientific research in Kazakhstan, contributing to the country’s prosperous future. This means that comprehensive development of education in Kazakhstan is a priority and a sine qua non of containment of intellectual migration in the globalized world.

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Contents of the Central Asia and the Caucasus Issues English Edition Volume 21, 2020

Issue 1 Page

Ahmad Naser Vakhshiteh, Marina Lapenko, Aigerim Ospanova. MOSCOW-ANKARA-TEHRAN: A TRIPARTITE TACTICAL ALLIANCE IN THE SYRIAN CRISIS 7 Erzhan Kerimbaev, Nabizhan Mukhametkhanuly, Aynur Turgenbay, Zaure Nabizhankyzy. MAIN FACTORS OF CHINA’S SOFT POWER IN CENTRAL ASIA 20 Olga Timakova. STRATEGY OF THE GULF COUNTRIES: SPECIAL ASPECTS OF POLICY TOWARDS CENTRAL ASIAN COUNTRIES 33 Sergey Zhiltsov. JAPAN’S POLICY IN CENTRAL ASIA AND ITS IMPLEMENTATION 42 Araz Aslanli, Nazim Jafarov. SYRIAN CRISIS AND THE SOUTH CAUCASUS STATES 50 Vladimir Karyakin. GEOPOLITICAL REGIONALISTICS: THE GREATER MIDDLE EAST AS THE “HEARTLAND” OF THE 21ST-CENTURY WORLD-SYSTEM 59 Assel Tokeyeva, Dauletbek Rayev, Dinara Dauen. BELT AND ROAD: BENEFITS AND PROSPECTS FOR KAZAKHSTAN 70 Kulipa Baisultanova, Elmira Kagazbaeva, Dinara Dauen, Zhanar Yesserkepova. ISSUES IN FORMATION AND FUNCTIONING OF POLITICAL CULTURE IN POST-SOVIET KAZAKHSTAN 80 Aidarbek Amirbek, Kanat Makhanov, Rashid Tazhibayev, Makpal Anlamassova. THE CENTRAL ASIAN COUNTRIES IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY: THE CHALLENGES OF ECONOMIC INTEGRATION 90 Bauyrjan Makangali, Sagynysh Amirbekova, Marvan Khamitova, Erkin Baydarov. RELIGIOUS ASPECTS OF THE SYRIAN CRISIS ON SOCIAL MEDIA 102 Irina Babich. MODERN PROTESTANT IDEOLOGY AND DENATIONALIZATION OF NORTH CAUCASIAN PEOPLES (CASE STUDIES OF NORTH OSSETIA AND ADYGEI) 112

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Page Duman Jampeisov, Sergey Ryazantsev, Sergey Peremyshlin, Dauren Jampeisov. MANAGING ETHNIC REPATRIATION EXPERIENCE: CENTRAL ASIAN STATES AND RUSSIAN FEDERATION 124

Issue 2

Anna Czyż. TEN YEARS OF THE EASTERN PARTNERSHIP: EXPERIENCES AND PERSPECTIVES 7 Nuriddin Sultanmuratov, Fatima Kukeyeva, Yermek Chukubayev, Kuralay Baizakova. KAZAKH-TURKISH LYCEUMS: PROMOTION OF GÜLENISM IN KAZAKHSTAN 17 Oleg Karpovich, Adelina Nogmova, Larisa Aleksanyan. ISRAEL: THE NEW PERIPHERAL STRATEGY IN CENTRAL ASIA 28 Sergey Zhiltsov, Igor Zonn, Nicolai Orlovsky. ISRAEL IN THE SOUTHERN CAUCASUS: POLITICAL ASPECTS 41 Takhir Ganiev, Vladimir Karyakin, Sergey Zadonsky. MILITARY STANDOFF BETWEEN THE U.S. AND IRAN: THE PARTIES’ MILITARY POTENTIALS AND HYPOTHETICAL SCENARIOS OF CONFLICT DEVELOPMENT IN THE MIDDLE EAST 50 Agnieszka Miarka. ARMENIA’S DOMESTIC POLICY AFTER THE VELVET REVOLUTION: SELECTED ISSUES 66 Gabit Konusov, Yang Li, Taisia Marmontova. REGULATION OF RELATIONS BETWEEN THE STATE AND RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS IN THE PRC AND THE RK: AN ATTEMPT AT COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS 76 Dzhamilya Gusenova, Naila Sarkarova, Siyadat Alibekova, Gabibat Baisaidova. CONTEMPORARY ISSUES AND WAYS OF IMPLEMENTING THE GREAT SILK ROAD TOURISM PROJECT IN THE CENTRAL ASIAN REPUBLICS 85 Aziz Mullaev. COMPREHENSION OF CHINA’S BELT AND ROAD INITIATIVE AND ITS EFFECT ON UZBEKISTAN 98 Ramakrushna Pradhan, Sunil Kumar Padhi, Sachita Nanda Sa, Smruti Sikta Thapa. THE ENERGY FACTOR IN THE GEOPOLITICS OF CENTRAL ASIA IN THE POST-REFORM PERIOD 110 Raikhan Zhanbulatova, Miras Zhiyenbayev, Maira Dyusembekova, Roza Nurtazina. THE ENERGY VECTOR OF KAZAKHSTAN-RUSSIA RELATIONS IN THE CONTEXT OF GLOBAL CHANGES ON THE INTERNATIONAL ENERGY MARKET 121 Alexey Bragin. HOW CAN MIGRANTS INFLUENCE DEMOCRACY IN THEIR COUNTRIES OF ORIGIN? CASE STUDY: CIS COUNTRIES OF CENTRAL ASIA 131

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Page Artem Lukyanets, Sergey Ryazantsev, Evgenia Moiseeva, Roman Manshin. THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF ENVIRONMENTAL MIGRATION IN THE CENTRAL ASIAN COUNTRIES 142

Issue 3

Dinara Bayshulakova, Georgy Dubovtsev. SCO ACTIVITIES AT THE PRESENT STAGE AND THE INTERESTS OF THE CENTRAL ASIAN COUNTRIES 7 Gulnara Birimkulova, Aigerim Ibrayeva, Yermek Duisenkozha, Erkin Baydarov. KAZAKHSTAN IN THE SYSTEM OF GEOPOLITICAL AND REGIONAL RELATIONS OF THE EU AND THE PRC 15 Vladimir Karyakin. PAN-TURKISM: CIVILIZATIONAL PROJECT OF MODERN TURKEY 31 Rustem Kadyrzhanov, Nazken Abdykaimova. KAZAKHSTAN: NATIONAL IDENTITY IN THE CONTEXT OF INTEGRATIONAL RELATIONSHIPS WITH RUSSIA 37 Shugyla Kilybayeva, Azamat Nurshanov. THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON KAZAKHSTANI YOUTH’S POLITICAL BEHAVIOR 46 Sergey Ryazantsev, Zafar Vazirov, Marina Khramova, Alexey Smirnov. THE IMPACT OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC ON THE POSITION OF LABOR MIGRANTS FROM CENTRAL ASIA IN RUSSIA 58 Lasha Tchantouridzé. COVID-19: THE CASE OF GEORGIA 70 Zhamiga Tanatarova, Baurzhan Mustafayev, Saniya Nurdavletova, Lazat Nursultanova. INVESTMENT COOPERATION BETWEEN KAZAKHSTAN AND MIDDLE EASTERN COUNTRIES: PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS 79 Myrzakhmet Zhuzey, Nataliya Seitakhmetova, Madina Bektenova, Sholpan Zhandossova. THE MOSQUE IN POST-SOVIET CENTRAL ASIA: SACRAL AND SPIRITUAL CONTEXTS 94 Elena Burova, Akhan Bizhanov, Aidar Amrebayev. KAZAKHSTAN TODAY: POLITICAL RECONSTRUCTION OF RELIGIOUS TRENDS IN A SECULAR STATE 109 Asiyat Buttaeva, Akhmed Kakhaev. INTER-CONFESSIONAL RELATIONS AS A SPECIAL TYPE OF SOCIAL RELATIONS: RUSSIA’S POLY-CULTURAL MILIEU 124 Anjela Gabueva. NORTH OSSETIA-ALANIA: RELIGION IN THE AXIOLOGICAL STRUCTURE OF ITS POPULATION 131 Gulnar Nasimova, Cynthia S. Kaplan, Kadyrzhan Smagulov, Kirill Kartashov. REASONS FOR AND FACTORS IN EDUCATIONAL MIGRATION FROM KAZAKHSTAN 137 Victoria Medved, Sergey Ryazantsev, Ivan Filatov, Timur Miryazov. CHINA ON THE INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION SERVICES MARKET: SPECIFICS OF RECRUITMENT OF RUSSIAN STUDENTS AND THEIR ADJUSTMENT IN THE PRC 147

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Page Issue 4

Assima Aubakir. NEW EU STRATEGY FOR CENTRAL ASIA: HISTORY, VISION, PROSPECTS 7 Ahmet Berdiyev, Nurettin Can. THE IMPORTANCE OF CENTRAL ASIA IN CHINA’S FOREIGN POLICY AND BEIJING’S SOFT POWER INSTRUMENTS 15 Ali Salgiriev, Vakha Gaziev, Magomed Soltamuradov, Sultan Galbatsov. INFORMATION THREATS TO THE STABILITY OF POLITICAL SYSTEM IN THE NORTHERN CAUCASUS 25 Botakoz Shakeyeva, Mukhtarbek Shaikemelev, Nurken Aitymbetov. TRIBALISM IN KAZAKHSTAN: TRADITION REBORN OR SOCIAL INSTRUMENT 33 Mirzokhid Rakhimov, Sadriddin Rakhimov. STATE BORDER ISSUES IN THE MODERN HISTORY OF UZBEKISTAN 42 Usmon Butaev. ISSUES OF CONTINUITY AND A NEW COURSE IN UZBEKISTAN’S POLITICAL PROCESS 52 Sergey Zhiltsov. COVID-19: NEW CHALLENGES FOR CENTRAL ASIA 60 Feruz Bafoev. AFGHANISTAN DURING THE PANDEMIC ERA: DIFFICULTIES, ACHIEVEMENTS, PROSPECTS 71 Marina Khramova, Sergey Ryazantsev, Abubakr Rakhmonov, Osim Kasymov. THE IMPACT OF REMITTANCES FROM ABROAD ON SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN TAJIKISTAN 79 Sergey Ryazantsev, Abubakr Rakhmonov. LABOR FORCE RECRUITMENT TO THE OECD AND MIDDLE EASTERN COUNTRIES IN THE REPUBLIC OF TAJIKISTAN: TRENDS, MECHANISMS, CONSEQUENCES 96 Dinara Aytzhanova, Daniyar Aytzhanov. ISAF WITHDRAWAL AND AN UPSURGE OF RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM IN AFGHANISTAN 112 Kalimash Begalinova, Madina Ashilova, Alibek Begalinov. RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM IN KAZAKHSTAN: THREATS OF SPREADING AND MEANS OF OPPOSITION 124 Aliya Nysanbayeva. SOCIAL ASPECTS OF YOUTH RELIGIOUS CULTURE AS A FACTOR OF SOCIAL STABILITY IN KAZAKHSTAN AND RUSSIA: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS 131 Kargash Zhanpeisova, Gulnaz Kaliaskarova, Bagysh Gabdulina, Manshuk Mukasheva. BRAIN DRAIN FROM THE REPUBLIC OF KAZAKHSTAN AS ANALYZED BY POLITICAL SCIENTISTS 153

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