China appears to have watched what’s happened in Uzbekistan over the last week and muttered to itself, “Damn, that’s hot.”
The Chinese president Hu Jintao has officially invited Uzbek president Islam Karimov to visit China at the end of this month. The announcement, made less then a week after the Andijan massacre, was given by the spokesman for the Chinese foreign minister Kong Quan. The main topics on the agenda for the visit include security in the Central Asian country and the fight against international terrorism.
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China complemented Tashkent for a return to “normality” following protests in the last week, when security forces fired on a group of protesters in Andijan killing hundreds. China is the only country to have given outright support to Karimov despite the protests.
No surprises here. I’m sure China wants to get across that no matter what, Uzbekistan has a friend in Beijing.
This post was written by...
Nathan Hamm – author of 2040 posts on Registan.net.
Nathan founded Registan.net in 2003. He was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Uzbekistan 2000-2001 and received his MA in Central Asian Studies from the University of Washington in 2007. Since 2007, he has worked full-time as an analyst, consulting with clients on Central Asian affairs, specializing in how socio-cultural factors shape risks and opportunities. Follow him on Twitter or drop him a line.
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Interesting. I saw an item about the visit on UzA a few days ago and couldn’t figure out from the wording if the visit had been planned pre-Andijan, but I guess it hadn’t. A friend in need and all the rest, I guess…