Rubio’s Uzbekistan Visit Highlights Central Asia’s Search for New Partners
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio landed in Samarkand, the historic Silk Road hub of central Uzbekistan, on Saturday to meet with senior regional ministers. The C5+1 summit – a gathering of the United States and the five Central Asian states – runs from Saturday through Tuesday and signals a shift in Washington’s policy toward the former Soviet republics. The new approach is described as pragmatic and transactional, leaving behind the rhetoric of democracy promotion and human‑rights advocacy.
When Central Asian nations first became independent, American officials arrived with aid packages and lectures, presenting themselves as ambassadors of a hopeful capitalist future. In the early 1990s, amid economic collapse, unemployment and poverty, U.S. and European diplomats and businesspeople were welcomed as symbols of a new era. Western governments linked investment, technology and international recognition to the abandonment of Soviet‑style authoritarian governance. They organized forums on human rights, democracy and decentralisation, and sent thousands of students and officials to study abroad. At the same time, they warned of sanctions if leaders altered constitutions to extend presidential terms, appointed relatives to key posts or built personal business empires that competed with Western investors.
Galiya Ibragimova, an Uzbekistan‑born analyst based in Moldova, told Al Jazeera, “When the West began moralising, teaching them about democracy, human rights, they immediately turned towards China or Russia.” Uzbekistan, the most populous Central Asian country with 37 million people, illustrates this pattern. Its former president, Islam Karimov, allowed a U.S. military base on Uzbek soil in 2001, only to expel it four years later after Washington condemned Karimov’s harsh crackdown on a protest in Andijan that left hundreds of civilians dead. A leaked diplomatic cable in 2005 described Karimov’s daughter, Gulnara, as a “robber baron” who seized lucrative businesses and was being groomed as her father’s successor.
Since Russia’s full‑scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the balance of influence has shifted. Moscow continues to wield soft power across Central Asia through cinema, pop music, theatre festivals and state‑run TV that spreads a distorted view of the war. The Kremlin also leverages its economic weight to promote the “Russian World” concept, portraying the region as Moscow’s near‑abroad and dismissing pre‑Russian heritage as backward. In 2014, President Vladimir Putin claimed Kazakhstan had “never had statehood,” and Russian allies have repeatedly threatened to annex the Russian‑speaking north of the country. This year, Kazakhstan began extraditing Kremlin critics and supplying gas to Russia despite Ukrainian drone attacks on its oil facilities. In January, Kremlin commentator Vladimir Solovyov suggested that Moscow should launch a “special military operation” in Central Asia and Armenia, echoing the terminology used for the war in Ukraine. Minor political voices offered criticism, but no senior officials publicly rebuked the suggestion. Meanwhile, Central Asian migrant workers have been misled or coerced into fighting in Ukraine, and Russian firms have used Central Asian companies to import microchips, communications gear and machine tools for drone and missile production. Ibragimova observed, “These days, the US and Russia have switched roles. Today, it’s Russia that began building ties through moralising.”
The Trump administration has abandoned the previous pro‑democracy stance, adopting a utilitarian, business‑first foreign policy. “Under Trump, American policy in Central Asia is all about ‘just business and nothing more,’ without being nosy about human rights or reforms. They are content with everything,” Ibragimova said. Earlier this month, President Trump met Saida Mirziyoyeva, the daughter of Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev. A year earlier, Mirziyoyev pledged to invest up to $100 billion in the United States, purchase Boeing aircraft and even buy U.S.‑grown cotton, despite Uzbekistan being one of the world’s largest cotton producers. Washington did not comment on Mirziyoyev’s crackdown on critics or his daughter’s increasing domestic influence.
After largely overlooking Central Asia during Trump’s first term, the White House now seeks to re‑engage. Alisher Ilkhamov, head of the London‑based Central Asia Due Diligence think tank, told Al Jazeera, “The interest is mostly geopolitical and military‑strategic, considering the region’s location in the zone of Russia’s and China’s interests.” He added, “In the future, Washington apparently wants to have a military base here as a deterrent measure against China.” Economic interests appear focused on rare‑earth minerals, essential for a wide range of technologies, and other critical elements, especially silicon.