Opinions - The Times Of Central Asia

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CKU Railway

Opinion: China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan Railway Opens New Options Beyond Europe

The China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway is often presented as a new route to Europe, but its first benefits are likely to be felt closer to home. It could give Central Asian shippers more choice and governments more room to negotiate transport costs, even where sanctions restrict access to European markets. Excavation of the 209.6-meter Kosh-Dobo North No. 2 tunnel was completed on August 5. Work is also underway on other tunnels along Kyrgyzstan’s mountainous section of the railway. CKU is advancing as falling Caspian water levels make the Middle Corridor more expensive to maintain. That could increase demand for alternative routes, although each comes with its own costs and restrictions. Kyrgyz officials have high expectations. Deputy Prime Minister Edil Baisalov told TCA that “this railroad will virtually transform Kyrgyzstan.” Fulfilling that ambition will require the country to earn more than transit fees. Much depends on Makmal, where a transshipment station and possible logistics center are planned. The Torugart-Makmal section will use the Chinese standard gauge of 1,435 mm, while the Makmal-Jalal-Abad section will use the 1,520 mm gauge common across the post-Soviet rail system. Changing gauge adds time and expense as cargo moves between trains. The planned station will handle transfers between the two systems, as well as cargo sorting and train assembly, operations which could support local logistics businesses, provided there is enough traffic. Warehousing and customs services would give Kyrgyzstan a chance to earn more from that traffic. Whether Makmal develops into a wider logistics hub will depend on the services available and their cost to shippers. The mountainous terrain makes the line expensive and slow to build. It also limits the options for competing routes through the Tien Shan. That may strengthen Kyrgyzstan’s negotiating position, but only if the railway offers a reliable service at competitive rates. The trans-Caspian Middle Corridor avoids Russia and Iran, making it more attractive to European companies concerned about sanctions. Yet, as TCA has reported, falling Caspian water levels are raising the cost of the route through Aktau and Kuryk. Low sea levels around Aktau and Kuryk reduce loading efficiency and increase transport costs. Kazakhstan has dredged Kuryk and launched deeper work at Aktau, aiming for a 7.7-meter depth in the operational part of the port. The Caspian route remains workable, but maintaining it requires continuing investment. If those costs rise, shippers will have more reason to compare alternatives. There are also delays to address. In a recent TCA interview, the TITR secretary general stressed the need to speed up the route and ease Caspian bottlenecks as freight volumes grow. A southern route could avoid Caspian transshipment. From Uzbekistan, cargo can move through Turkmenistan and Iran to Turkey. Uzbek, Iranian, and Turkish officials have already discussed linking this corridor with the CKU railway. Some freight already travels south on existing lines. In September, a 55-container block train was dispatched from Kazakhstan’s Altynkol station after crossing from China. Its announced route ran through Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan to Iran via the Sarakhs border station. It carried...

Saida Mirziyoyeva

Opinion: Why Uzbekistan’s Presidential Administration Was Given Sweeping Powers and Broad Immunity

Saida Mirziyoyeva, the 41-year-old daughter of Uzbekistan’s president who has headed his administration since 2025, is taking an increasingly active role on the international stage. She participated in the 15th United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice in Abu Dhabi, and was received by UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. During the meeting, the two sides discussed further expansion of cooperation between Uzbekistan and the United Arab Emirates. Combined with the law on Uzbekistan’s Presidential Administration adopted in August, Mirziyoyeva’s growing international profile raises a broader question: how far could her political influence extend? A New Legal Framework The Constitutional Law on the Administration of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, approved by the Senate on August 7 and signed by Shavkat Mirziyoyev a week later, on August 14, followed closely on the heels of a constitutional amendment establishing that the administration’s legal status and powers should be defined by law. Officially, the legislation was drafted to implement Article 109 of Uzbekistan’s Constitution. The article states that the president forms an administration and appoints its head to provide organizational, legal, and analytical support for the exercise of presidential powers. An amendment that took effect on July 25 added that the legal status, main tasks, organization, and powers of the Presidential Administration are to be determined by law. Saida Mirziyoyeva had been appointed head of her father’s administration in June 2025. When the bill, consisting of four chapters and 34 articles, was presented in the lower house of parliament, lawmakers said the experience of a number of countries had been studied. They included Turkmenistan and Taiwan, as well as Finland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Latvia, the United States, and Kazakhstan. Lawmakers cited these countries’ arrangements for regulating presidential administrations, offices, or chancelleries. The Uzbek law combines substantial administrative and coordinating authority with extensive immunity provisions for senior Presidential Administration personnel. Powers of a “Successor”? Under the new law, the head of Uzbekistan’s Presidential Administration has the authority to: introduce or eliminate additional staff positions and create or abolish project offices responsible for developing individual sectors and industries; coordinate and oversee administrative reforms in national and local executive bodies and submit proposals to the president on improving public administration; facilitate the introduction of key performance indicator systems in government bodies; appoint and dismiss certain officials of government bodies and organizations; create or abolish compliance units in government agencies, as well as positions for deputy heads or advisers responsible for compliance and internal anti-corruption controls. The head of the administration may also hire independent advisers on a contractual basis. Under the law, the head of the Presidential Administration also becomes deputy chair of the Security Council under the president and organizes and coordinates the activities of its members. Some Uzbek opposition figures, most of whom live and work abroad, see Mirziyoyeva’s expanded powers as adding weight to speculation that the president may be preparing his daughter as a possible successor. “She was already de facto the No....

AI Education

Opinion: Kazakhstan Is Betting on AI to Close Its Rural Education Gap. Is the Infrastructure Ready?

PISA 2022 exposed a persistent divide between Kazakhstan’s urban and rural schools. Students in rural schools trailed their urban counterparts by 18 points in mathematical literacy and 26 points in science. The gaps had narrowed since 2018, but they remained substantial. Kazakhstan is now betting that artificial intelligence can help narrow them further. On September 1, the government launched a pilot project in ten small rural schools in the Pavlodar and Kyzylorda regions. More than 50 fourth-grade students are taking part. The project is expected to expand in stages to about 2,600 small rural schools by July 2028. The potential is considerable. Students in remote communities can gain access to stronger teaching, more varied educational material, and learning tools that respond to their individual needs. But AI will not close Kazakhstan’s rural education gap by itself. Its success will depend on something less glamorous: reliable infrastructure and teachers who are properly prepared to use it. What AI Can Do, and What Distance Learning Does President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has argued that digital technology can help reduce differences in educational opportunity between cities and the regions. In his 2025 State of the Nation Address, he called for a small-school model based on distance learning and AI that would give rural students access to high-quality educational materials. The distinction between those two elements is important. In the current Qazaq Digital Mektebi model, experienced teachers in Astana deliver live online lessons from a specially equipped studio, while local teachers remain in the classroom to support students. That is distance learning. The AI layer has a different role: it analyzes students’ responses, identifies gaps in their knowledge, and helps teachers determine who needs additional support. This combination could be particularly valuable in small rural schools. Kazakhstan has about 2,600 such schools, and some classes have only five or six students. Recruiting an experienced specialist for every subject is difficult in many remote communities. Online teaching can widen access to expertise, while AI can help make that teaching more responsive to individual students. Used well, AI can assess a student’s pace, identify areas of weakness, and adjust exercises to an appropriate level. That could help move schools away from a uniform approach in which every student receives the same material regardless of progress. It can also give local teachers more information about where additional attention is needed. But this should not be confused with replacing teachers. The most promising feature of the pilot is precisely that it combines technology with human instruction. AI can process patterns in student performance, but teachers still have to interpret those signals, understand the child, and decide how to respond. Infrastructure Comes Before Ambition That model depends on infrastructure that cannot be taken for granted. Around 67% of Kazakhstan’s schools are in rural areas, and roughly half of those are classified as small-enrollment schools. Digital education therefore has to work across a large and geographically dispersed network. Internet access has improved significantly, but connection quality remains uneven. In August 2025, Prime...

Water Security

Opinion: Chinese Firms Expand Their Role in Kyrgyzstan’s Water Infrastructure

Kyrgyzstan plays a central role in Central Asia’s water system and is of growing interest to China. According to figures cited by President Sadyr Japarov in April 2026, approximately 50 billion cubic meters of surface runoff are generated annually within the country. About 12 billion cubic meters are used domestically, while around 7 billion, or 14% of the total, flow to China. Kyrgyzstan has five main water-management basins. The Issyk-Kul–Tarim management area includes both the closed Issyk-Kul basin and rivers flowing toward China, making its transboundary component a distinct area of bilateral cooperation. The Aksu River, which originates in Kyrgyzstan and feeds the Tarim River in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, is particularly important. Estimates put its contribution at 70–80% of the Tarim’s flow. Given Xinjiang’s importance to China’s domestic stability and the Belt and Road Initiative, these shared waters have economic and long-term geopolitical significance for Beijing. Legal and Regional Context Kyrgyzstan and China established a strategic partnership in 2013, but no publicly available bilateral agreement specifically governs the allocation and management of their shared waters. Neither country is a party to the 1992 UNECE Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes or the 1997 UN Convention on the Law of Non-navigational Uses of International Watercourses. The significant asymmetry in the countries’ economic and negotiating capacities makes the absence of a dedicated water-sharing framework a potential source of vulnerability for Kyrgyzstan. Its importance could grow as water stress intensifies and economic activity in the shared basins expands. For Central Asia, China’s involvement has broader implications. Kyrgyzstan is an upstream country whose rivers supply its downstream neighbors. Chinese participation in water infrastructure adds another external actor to a sector that has historically been one of the most sensitive areas in regional relations. The Changing Nature of China’s Presence China’s involvement in Kyrgyzstan’s water sector includes bilateral assistance for irrigation as well as construction contracts financed by multilateral institutions. These channels coexist, making it important to distinguish Chinese funding from work undertaken by Chinese companies. Kyrgyzstan’s chronic electricity shortage and need to modernize its water and energy infrastructure have created opportunities for greater Chinese involvement. The upgrading of bilateral relations to a comprehensive strategic partnership in the new era in 2023 provided an additional political framework, with hydropower identified as a priority for practical cooperation. Agreements totaling more than $1 billion were signed at the Kyrgyz-Chinese business forum in Urumqi in August 2023, underscoring the broader expansion of economic ties. Chinese companies are also winning contracts funded by international financial institutions. In September 2025, a Sinohydro Bureau 16–Sinohydro joint venture signed a contract for water-conveyance structures and the powerhouse for the second generating unit at Kambarata-2, financed by the Eurasian Fund for Stabilization and Development. The tender had been launched in 2024. The Asian Development Bank lists a $12.8 million contract dated July 2025 for an Issyk-Kul wastewater treatment plant, awarded to a joint venture involving China Road and Bridge Corporation. That contract includes three years...

Cold War

Opinion: Weaponizing Faith – The Cold War Roots of Central Asia’s Security Dilemma

Central Asia’s contemporary security dilemma is partly rooted in Cold War strategies that transformed Muslim identity into a factor of geopolitical competition. Washington viewed Soviet Central Asia’s Muslim populations as a potential pressure point against Moscow. The Soviet Union itself mobilized Central Asian Muslim personnel during its intervention in Afghanistan. These policies did not alone create later radical movements, but they contributed to a regional environment where existing grievances, ideological narratives, and transnational networks could be redirected and intensified. The origins of Washington’s interest in Soviet Muslim populations as a strategic factor emerged during the final years of the Cold War. In 1977, the Nationalities Working Group, an interagency task force within the National Security Council, was established to examine vulnerabilities among the Soviet Union’s non-Russian nationalities. Declassified U.S. records show that American officials studied ethnic, cultural, and religious identities as possible sources of pressure against Moscow. Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, this approach became part of Washington’s broader effort to weaken Soviet influence. Through Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the United States provided assistance to Afghan resistance organizations, while Saudi Arabia contributed significant financial support. Pakistan’s military government under General Zia-ul-Haq favored Islamist factions among Afghan resistance groups, helping connect military assistance with religious mobilization against Soviet forces. During his visit to the Khyber Pass in early February 1980, U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski addressed Afghan resistance fighters, declaring: "That land over there is yours. You will go back to it one day because your cause is right and God is on your side." The remarks reflected how the anti-Soviet struggle was framed not only in geopolitical terms but also through religious language and symbolism. [caption id="attachment_56711" align="aligncenter" width="2560"] Soviet T-62 tank leaving Afghanistan; image: U.S. Department of Defense.[/caption] The Afghan conflict was also fought through education and information campaigns. Between 1986 and 1992, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) funded an approximately $50 million educational program through the University of Nebraska–Omaha’s Center for Afghanistan Studies for Afghan refugees and schools. Research has shown that some textbooks incorporated violent imagery, references to weapons and combat, and themes glorifying holy war and the duty of martyrdom. Produced for wartime Afghanistan, these materials reflected, and arguably helped sustain, a militarized ideological environment. Islamic religious life in Central Asia had its own deeper roots. Despite Soviet restrictions, religious learning survived through underground hujra networks and unofficial scholarship. Figures such as Muhammadjon Hindustoniy-Rustamov, born in the Fergana Valley and later one of Soviet Central Asia’s most influential unofficial Islamic scholars, shaped generations of students even as Afghanistan became an arena of international rivalry during the 1980s. Moscow also used Central Asian Muslim identity for strategic purposes. The 154th Separate Spetsnaz Detachment, known as the “Muslim Battalion,” was composed largely of Uzbek, Tajik, and Turkmen soldiers from the Soviet Turkestan Military District. The unit participated in Operation Storm-333 in December 1979, the Soviet operation that killed Afghan President Hafizullah Amin and installed Babrak Karmal. The selection of Central Asian...

Nature Investment

Opinion: Financing Nature: Why Biodiversity Investment Matters for Central Asia

Just imagine: only 50 years ago, wildlife was far more abundant across many of the world’s forests, grasslands, rivers, and seas. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature’s Living Planet Report 2024, the average size of monitored vertebrate populations fell by 73% between 1970 and 2020, based on data from almost 35,000 populations worldwide. That extraordinary decline has taken place within a single human lifetime. We are used to treating this as an environmental statistic, a sad fact trotted out in a nature documentary to which we have little emotional connection. Seen this way, we miss a vital truth: food, agriculture, construction, and forestry all depend immensely on natural systems. Pollination, water filtration, soil fertility, and flood control are among the functions that biodiversity provides for us. When that infrastructure fails, the economy built on top of it becomes more expensive, then less reliable, and eventually, in some places, unworkable. Emergency Room Most of what passes for environmental action today is triage. A river floods a city that paved over its wetlands, and engineers are called in to build higher walls. A heat wave kills crops, and governments subsidize irrigation for farmland that used to be forest. A fishery collapses, and the response is a moratorium, arriving years after the fish are already gone. This is the pattern across almost every domain of environmental policy: we manage consequences with enormous expense, and we manage causes almost as an afterthought. It is also the least efficient way to run a planet. Treating a symptom after it has metastasized costs orders of magnitude more than preventing it, financially as much as ecologically. Some of this triage is now unavoidable. The carbon already in the atmosphere will continue influencing the climate for years regardless of what we do next, while a great deal of the damage caused by air pollution is already locked in and can only be managed, not undone. These are debts we are stuck repaying. Biodiversity is often different because it is still substantially in our hands. A species pushed to the edge can, with sustained effort, be pulled back from it. A degraded watershed can, over a generation, recover its function. In Kazakhstan, recent estimates place the snow leopard population at between 152 and 189 animals, close to levels last recorded in the 1980s. The recovery has been associated with sustained monitoring and habitat protection. It demonstrates that when species and ecosystems are effectively managed and adequately protected, conservation measures can deliver tangible results by maintaining biodiversity and helping threatened species recover. That kind of recovery is rare in climate policy. This disconnect risks creating dangerous trade-offs. We cannot decarbonize an economy while continuing to bulldoze the ecosystems around it. An electric vehicle removes tailpipe emissions from a city street, and that is real progress. But it also requires critical minerals such as lithium, copper, nickel, and cobalt, whose extraction can carry substantial environmental costs. None of this is a criticism of electric vehicles. It is a reminder...