China Launches Campaign Against Uighur Militancy
By Jacob Zenn (06/04/2014 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Recent terrorist attacks in China show that international jihadists have infiltrated or influenced the Uighur nationalist cause. The increasing frequency of car-bombings and suicide bombings in Xinjiang and cities in eastern China attest to the use of al-Qaeda’s tactics, which militants in China may have learned from training with Central Asian jihadists in Pakistan, Afghanistan or Syria or seeing videos that militant groups disseminate on the Internet or through underground Islamist networks in China. In May 2014, China launched a one-year campaign to crack down on terrorism intended to uncover terrorist networks and extremist groups. However, the crackdown may also alienate Xinjiang’s Uighur population and boost recruitment into militant groups if the new counter-terrorism measures are perceived as over-reaching or invasive.
Uighur Militants Seek Targets outside Xinjiang
By Jacob Zenn (04/23/2014 issue of the CACI Analyst)
On March 1, six men and two women from China’s Xinjiang Province ran into a train station in Kunming, Yunnan Province and stabbed 29 people to death. This was a rare example of a terror attack in southwestern China. It occurred only five months after a family of three from Xinjiang rammed their car into a gate in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, killing several tourists. The Uighur-led Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), which now functions like the “spokesman” for Uighur militants in Xinjiang praised both the Kunming and Tiananmen attacks, but refrained from claiming direct responsibility. Meanwhile, an organized insurgency largely independent of the TIP is brewing in China, which benefits from the TIP’s propaganda.
CACI Analyst, March 19, 2014
Russia's Intervention in Ukraine Reverberates in Central Asia
By Slavomír Horák (03/19/2014 issue of the CACI Analyst)
While Russia's intervention in Ukraine at first glance has few implications for developments in the Eastern part of former Soviet territory, Central Asian governments and elites are likely to analyze Russia's recent actions carefully. While the Crimea intervention could serve as a short term deterrent against foreign orientations away from Russia's regional integration project, the increasing Chinese influence in Central Asia will in the long term offer these states a powerful alternative to Russia and the crisis in Ukraine is increasing China's attractiveness as a partner.
Mongolia's Former President Plots Political Return Despite Corruption Convition
By John C.K. (the 19/02/2014 of the CACI Analyst)
In 2012, Mongolia’s former Prime Minister and President Nambaryn Enkhbayar was convicted of graft, embezzlement, misappropriation of government properties and misuse of his position, and received a seven year prison sentence, with three years commuted. Denouncing the charges, Enkhbayar said that the legal actions were a pretext to stop him running for political office, commenting, "In all countries where the political opponents are removed from contesting elections, the leaders of that country use corruption as an excuse ... This just shows that corruption is a very charged political word to fight against political opponents."
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Staff Publications
Silk Road Paper S. Frederick Starr, Greater Central Asia as A Component of U.S. Global Strategy, October 2024.
Analysis Laura Linderman, "Rising Stakes in Tbilisi as Elections Approach," Civil Georgia, September 7, 2024.
Analysis Mamuka Tsereteli, "U.S. Black Sea Strategy: The Georgian Connection", CEPA, February 9, 2024.
Silk Road Paper Svante E. Cornell, ed., Türkiye's Return to Central Asia and the Caucasus, July 2024.
Book Svante E. Cornell, ed., "The Changing Geopolitics of Central Asia and the Caucasus" AFPC Press/Armin LEar, 2023.
Silk Road Paper Svante E. Cornell and S. Frederick Starr, Stepping up to the “Agency Challenge”: Central Asian Diplomacy in a Time of Troubles, July 2023.
Silk Road Paper S. Frederick Starr, U.S. Policy in Central Asia through Central Asian Eyes, May 2023.