Uzbekistan as Central Asian game changer? Uzbekistan’s foreign policy construction in the post-Karimov era

Introduction

Over the past 26 years, the majority of Central Asian (CA) states have faced the challenge of finding a way to effectively interact with the international community. For most of these states, the challenge has been, on the one hand, not to give in to the ambitions of dominance of large international players such as Russia, the US or China. On the other hand, the CA states have also attempted to avoid falling into the trap of self-imposed isolation, as exemplified by the declared neutrality of Turkmenistan. However, one of the most watched and significant efforts to overcome this challenge has been the foreign policy of Uzbekistan, which has at times shown signs of isolation but, in the post-Karimov era, has demonstrated complete openness to the world. Uzbek foreign policy has been both praised and criticized for following a pragmatic course that, as Uzbek foreign policy experts claim, is dictated by Uzbek national interests. In fact, the notion of ‘Uzbek national interests’ has often been used to explain the drastic and frequently unpredictable shifts in Uzbek foreign policy behaviour that many experts connect to the policies of the first president of Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov.

With the passing of President Karimov in early September 2016 and the appointment of Prime Minister Shavkat Mirziyoyev as caretaker interim president, discussions among policy makers and analysts have focused on how these events will influence Uzbekistan’s foreign and domestic policies. Uzbekistan’s foreign policy under President Karimov has been framed in a variety of ways. While policy makers and analysts viewed Uzbek foreign policy priorities as emphasizing the importance of Russia and Turkey in the early years of Uzbekistan’s independence, the country’s priorities were later reconsidered in light of perceived threats from Turkey and a lack of commitment by Russia. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, analysts identified support shifting towards US and European initiatives. US criticism of the Uzbek government’s reaction to the 2005 Andijan events and the Western-backed colour revolutions pushed Uzbekistan towards closer economic and political ties with Russia, China and South Korea, while US and European initiatives were treated as potentially threatening to Uzbek sovereignty. These drastic shifts were described by observers as reactionary and opportunistic. With the intensification of the Russian Eurasian initiative and the Chinese Silk Road (One Belt One Road) project in the latter 2000s, Uzbekistan moved to balance Russian and Chinese influences by gradually improving its ties to the US in order to diversify its external partners.

With Mirziyoyev’s appointment as interim president in 2016 and his election to the presidency in December of the same year, speculation appeared in Russian and other media sources suggesting that Uzbekistan would move closer to Russia because of the close personal ties between the interim president and Russian elites. Others suggested that Uzbekistan would either follow the path designed by the first president or even fall into isolationism like Turkmenistan. This article aims to explain the continuity and the shifts in Uzbekistan’s foreign policy behaviour in the year after the death of the first president and the election of President Mirziyoyev.

What were the changes in Uzbekistan’s foreign policy following the death of the country’s president? How can these changes be explained and interpreted? What were the continuities and changes in its foreign policy behaviour? These are the questions that this article aims to answer. In terms of the message that this article aims to develop and deliver, the new president of Uzbekistan is committed to the general foreign policy of Karimov’s presidency and will build upon its international engagements based on how the image of Uzbekistan’s ‘self’ and the external ‘other’ are constructed in the process of social interaction with these powers. On the other hand, the new Uzbek president will also attempt to change the international environment around Uzbekistan both regionally and globally in order to remove the constraints left as a legacy of the first president by resolving CA regional problems and opening up the country to the international community. In addition, this article suggests that such a policy will not necessarily attempt to ignite competition between the great powers; rather, it aims to secure a proper international standing for Uzbekistan. Therefore, expectations of drastic shifts are speculative and premature.

The evolution of Uzbekistan’s regional foreign policy

Uzbekistan constructed its foreign policy in such a way that it uses the principle of non-alignment with military and political blocks and non-intervention in the affairs of neighbouring states. This principle was followed by Karimov and was reinstated by interim and now President Mirziyoyev in his first address to a joint session of the chambers of parliament in September 2016. Adhering to this principle in Uzbek foreign policy has several implications, both historically and in the contemporary context.

In terms of the evolution of this principle, Uzbekistan has followed a path from showing support for Russian-led economic and military alliances in the early 1990s, to support for regional economic cooperation initiatives (such as strategic partnerships with Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan and the initiation of the Central Asian Union) in the mid-1990s, to an emphasis on bilateral cooperation schemes from 2000 onwards, none of which necessarily led to the establishment of any kinds of alliances. Uzbekistan, similar to other CA states, joined the CIS at the end of 1991, after the Ashgabat meeting of CA leaders. However, its motivations for integration were and remain purely economic. Beginning in the second half of the 1990s, the first President of Uzbekistan, Karimov, clearly and consistently indicated that under his foreign policy, Uzbekistan would not join any type of re-integration scheme that implied the establishment of a transnational body. Such a lack of support for transnational bodies did not develop suddenly but was a result of unsuccessful integration attempts in the post-Soviet space in previous years, the first step of which was Uzbekistan being kicked out of the Russian currency zone in the early 1990s. Among the other CA republics, Uzbekistan lacked the experience, the necessary preparation and the economic base to introduce its own currency. Thus, it did its utmost to remain in the Ruble Zone. However, Russia was more concerned about its own economic sustainability, and it unilaterally imposed conditions for using Russian currency overseas, including in CA. This was the first signal for the CA states to begin the now-irreversible process of distancing themselves from Russia. As was famously stated by President Karimov, ‘None of the post-Soviet states object to integration. At the same time, none is going to abandon its independence’ (Karimov, 1992: 302). Thus, the main policy objective of Uzbekistan was, and still is, the creation of a common market and the promotion of free trade. Anything that goes beyond this goal alarmed the Uzbek leadership and motivated it to protect the nation-state’s sovereignty. When characterizing the agreements of the Central Asian Common Economic Space (CES), President Karimov stated:

This [Central Asian] region has always been integrated in one way or another. After acquiring independence, the peoples of this region realized once again the necessity to collectively build their own future. One of the practical steps in this direction was the signing in Tashkent by the Presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan of an Agreement on Common Economic Space among these sovereign Central Asian states. (Karimov, 1992: 311)

The second aspect of Uzbekistan’s foreign policy closely relates to the first one explained above. It concerns Uzbekistan’s recent emphasis on dramatically improving and maintaining its relations with neighbouring CA states as an area of vital importance. While cooperation with its neighbouring states is not a new direction in Uzbek foreign policy, there have been a few periods in the past when relations between Uzbekistan and its neighbours intensified, similar to the current situation. For instance, in January 1993, CA states signed the ‘Protocol of Five Central Asian States on a Common Market’. The immediate task of currency coordination in the period after the exit from the Russian Ruble zone served as a uniting factor for the CA states. Therefore, a step in that direction was the conclusion of an agreement between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan in 1993 on coordinating the process of national-currency introduction (Karimov, 1992: 311). While the meeting and consequent agreement were filled with various plans for coordination between the two states, the outcomes did not deliver on the promises.

The history of regional summits has continued with the CES, which was initially created between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan at the Tashkent Summit on 10 January 1994, to promote the free movement of goods across borders and the simplification of procedures for such movement. Kyrgyzstan expressed its intention to join only a few days after the announcement of the creation of the new regional grouping on 16 January 1994. On 29–30 April 1994, a meeting was held in Bishkek at which the host – Kyrgyzstan – became a formal member of the Central Asian CES. There was an outpouring of predictions by both scholars and politicians about the unification of the whole of CA into one state and reviving Turkestan, which existed in the region prior to the Russian Revolution. Some even suggested that the Turkistani identity in the region had always prevailed over other identities, which is not exactly true (Hyman, 1997). Over time, pan-Turkistan ideas have faded into obscurity due to a lack of popular and political support behind such a unifying ideology. CA states have chosen a different pattern of integration.

The summit on 29–30 April 1994, in Cholpon-Ata on Lake Issyk Kul, stressed the need for increased cooperation in the political, cultural and especially economic spheres among CA states (Text of Communiqué of Issyk-Kul, Central Asian Union Summit, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Kyrgyz Service, 4 May 1994). The CA CES was declared open for membership to all CIS member-states that were willing to join and to adhere to the purposes of the organization.

On 8 July 1994, the leaders of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan agreed at their summit in the Kazakh capital (at that time, Almaty) to form a comprehensive defence and economic union. Under the terms of the agreement, a new Council of Heads of States and a Council of Heads of Governments were formed to oversee the standardization of laws and the implementation of decisions. It was also decided to form a similar Committee of Foreign and Defence Ministers to coordinate the three countries’ foreign policies and work on improving regional security.

During the meeting of the Council of Heads of Governments in August 1994 in Bishkek, the Central Asian Bank for Cooperation and Development (CABCD) was established based on the contributions of member-states of the Union. The bank’s first loan was extended in April 1995 to fund a joint-stock venture, ‘Sayman’, which specialized in making electricity meters (Hunter, 1996: 103). The Prime Ministers’ Council was also given responsibility for coordinating finance and economic planning issues.

It was decided that the member-states would chair the inter-state committees on a rotational basis. During the Almaty Summit, it was announced that Kazakhstan was to chair all committees for a period of one year, and then Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan would in turn serve as chair for one year each (Almaty Summit of the Heads of States of Central Asian Union, 8 July 1994, Almaty). The Chair of the Summit, Kazakh President Nazarbaev, emphasized that the structure of the Union outlined in the Summit documents was only the beginning of the process of integration in the region, and he suggested that membership in the Union should be open to all member-states of the CIS. Summits were held on a regular basis that focused on the region’s economic and security issues.

On 24 April 1995, a meeting of the Heads of Governments in Bishkek approved a five-year integration plan. According to many analysts, the institutional side of regional integration was finally formed at this summit: the Executive Committee of the Interstate Council, the Council of Ministers of Defence, the ‘Centralazbat’ peacekeeping force and the Assembly of Central Asian Culture, among others (Yuldasheva, 1999: 108).

Another significant document at the time was the Treaty on Eternal Friendship between the Republic of Uzbekistan, the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Kyrgyz Republic, which was also signed in Bishkek on 30 May 1996.

Beginning with the next meeting, the focus of the Heads of State moved on to particular problems and concerns. Although summits on the Aral Sea problem had been held before (Kazakhstan, 1993, Nukus, 1994 and Turkmenistan, 1995), the 28 February 1997 meeting of the Heads of State was the latest to devote itself to addressing the Aral Sea environmental disaster. Consequently, the Almaty Declaration of the leaders of the CA states pronounced 1998 a year of protecting the environment in CA under the aegis of the UN. The meeting also declared the non-nuclear status of CA.

During the December 1997 meeting in Akmola (later re-named Astana), the Heads of State of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan discussed the process of implementing the Agreement on a Common Economic Space as well as the issue of establishing water, food, communication and raw-mineral resource consortiums within the region, as had been initially planned. This meeting showed a certain level of concern among the CA leaders that most decisions included in the initial agreement had not been implemented.

Further, in January 1998, the Heads of State met in Ashgabat and signed a joint declaration on regional cooperation, specifically referring to certain areas of special concern. Again, the presidents opted to highlight certain areas because they realized that without a political decision, integration in the region was slowing down.

On 26 March 1998, the presidents of four CA states (including Tajikistan, which was not a member of the Union) held the Tashkent Summit. The presidents again focused on discussing issues of cooperation within the framework of the Agreement on Common Economic Space created among Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan at the Tashkent Summit of 1994. The presidents welcomed Tajikistan’s request to join the agreement ( BBC News, 1998). However, in combination with the solemn mood of welcoming the new member, concerns remained over the efficiency of the organization.

As seen above, the intensification of relations between Uzbekistan and its CA neighbours in the past included plans for the creation of a common market of goods, services and capital through a free trade zone, a customs union and a currency union. However, later years showed that both Uzbekistan and its CA partners were moving too fast in their quest to establish CA cooperation schemes. This past experience is also a factor that influences the current initiatives of President Mirziyoyev and his counterparts. Therefore, a majority of Uzbekistan’s proposed initiatives aim to establish a working system of bilateral relations to create a favourable environment and spirit between the countries, which might be helpful in resolving regional problems (among others, water and borders) based on ‘realistic compromises’. Prior unsuccessful experiences with cooperation serve as lessons for these states not to engage in immature institution building but rather to focus on building bilateral relations.

Therefore, the first year of President Mirziyoyev’s foreign policy has been marked by attempts to focus on improving relations with neighbours and creating a friendly neighbourhood around Uzbekistan. This is a rather radical departure from the foreign policy of Mirziyoyev’s predecessor, who only sought to develop relations with those regional countries that had similar positions as Uzbekistan. A good example of this were relations with Tajikistan, with whom Uzbekistan has been embroiled in conflict over water and other issues and with whom relations have remained ‘frozen’ for the last two decades. With the succession of the presidency to Mirziyoyev, Uzbekistan has clearly signalled to its neighbours its newly found strategic objective of improving ties with its regional counterparts. Mirziyoyev sees the region as a ‘single organism which for decades had common geography, economic and cultural space’ (Muminov, 2017). In his own words, Mirziyoyev’s regional policy consists of two elements: ‘not to avoid (discussing) sharp corners and (seeking) reasonable compromises’ (Muminov, 2017). This policy was launched at the funeral of the former president, during which he clearly indicated to his regional counterparts that he intended to change the dynamics of relations with them. After the funeral, the newly appointed acting president initiated several visits of high-ranking officials to all the countries of CA in order to discuss ways to ‘normalize’ and improve relations with them. Additionally, he initiated public diplomacy by mobilizing local communities in the Fergana Valley to exchange visits in order to build a friendlier environment for uneasy political decisions ( Jahon, 2017). Although the mutual visits of local community and administrative leadership between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan in the autumn of 2016 were not easy to conduct given the history of two inter-ethnic conflicts in Kyrgyzstan against the Uzbek minority there, these visits paved the way for more fruitful later visits by the heads of state and government of the two states. This unconditional approach to the regional states by Mirziyoyev has resulted in 11 meetings of the regional heads of state, two working visits and 15 phone calls between the leaders of the CA states over the 10 months since Mirziyoyev’s succession ( Jahon, 2017). The aim of these visits and calls on the Uzbek side was to signal to his CA counterparts that Mirziyoyev is genuinely interested in closer and friendlier relations. For President Mirziyoyev, improvement of the ties with neighbours is not purely a matter of reshaping Uzbekistan’s regional identity. It also includes an element of changing Uzbekistan’s economic standing. In particular, during his first trip abroad to Turkmenistan, Mirziyoyev discussed transportation infrastructure development through Turkmenistan, such as a rail- and motor-road ‘Uzbekistan-Turkmenistan-Iran-Oman’ corridor as a way of opening up the country to the international community ( Jahon, 2017). In Kazakhstan, he signed a road-map for economic cooperation that paved the way for further projects to be discussed later in Tashkent in September 2017 ( Jahon, 2017). In its relations with Kyrgyzstan, the issues of opening the borders to Uzbek goods, removing obstacles to railroad construction between China and Uzbekistan, part of which needs to run through Kyrgyzstan (Kashgar-Osh-Andizhan, a route that has been a matter of great concern in Kyrgyzstan) and the resolution of water-related disputes ranked very high on the Uzbek agenda (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan, 2017). To find compromises, Mirziyoyev conditionally dropped the Uzbek objection to dam construction up-stream in Kyrgyzstan during his state visit in September 2017. This stance would have been unthinkable in the years of President Karimov, who even referred to the possibility of ‘water wars’ in the region. In the case of Tajikistan, President Mirziyoyev paved the way for the revival of air flights between the two countries for the first time since 1992 as well as the restoration of rail- and motor-road communications between the two states. This resulted in the revival of cultural and economic cooperation between the two countries, with Uzbek producers of electric goods and machinery holding a successful exhibition in Tajikistan. The traditionally strong ties with Kazakhstan have also further developed, with the presidents of both countries exchanging state and working visits with each other and boosting trade in military equipment, oil, machinery, vehicles and other goods produced in both countries. The volume of trade between the two countries has increased 35% on a year to year basis, reaching 2 billion dollars ( Jahon, 2017).

Under the new leadership, Uzbekistan has also shown signs of appreciating the soft-power potential of improving its image. In particular, the country has attempted to solidify its foreign policy gains by organizing exhibitions dedicated to its culture and economic potential in neighbouring countries while also promoting the potential of neighbouring countries in Uzbekistan. The events dedicated to Kyrgyzstan were held in August and September 2017, prior to the visit of the Uzbek president to Kyrgyzstan. In September 2017, the first exhibition of Tajik culture and economic potential was held in Tashkent. It was the first such exhibition to be organized in the last 20 years ( Jahon, 2017). Kazakhstan announced during the visit of President Nazarbayev to Uzbekistan in September 2017 that 2018 would be the year of Uzbekistan in Kazakhstan (meaning that various events introducing Uzbekistan to the Kazakhstani public would be held), and Uzbekistan announced that 2019 would be the year of Kazakhstan in Uzbekistan ( Jahon, 2017). For Uzbek foreign policy, these exhibitions represent ways to support and promote its regional policy while signalling to neighbouring countries that Uzbekistan’s aim is not only to exploit its neighbours’ potential but also to promote regional capacity building. This approach of promoting both economic potential and cultural attractiveness can also contribute to the formation of a regional identity, which can then translate to common or similar identifications of ‘self’ and a consensus about the vision of the ‘other’ with respect to the regional states.

In this sense, Mirziyoyev’s newly defined regional policy signifies a shift in Uzbek foreign policy towards prioritizing cooperation with neighbouring CA countries, which is an obvious departure from the Karimov-era policy that tended to downplay the regional identity of Uzbekistan and its regional partners while balancing the influences of global powers such as China, the US and Russia. Such policy change has also been well received in neighbouring countries. Water-related disputes with Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan were deescalated over the period of Mirziyoyev’s presidency, and air travel with Tajikistan restored, as mentioned. The traditionally strong partnership with Kazakhstan, which showed certain signs of competition for regional domination, improved to a degree that facilitated more intensified economic relations and trade.

And finally, the biggest change that can be observed in the newly found foreign policy of Uzbekistan is a move from a politically-motivated one towards an economics-driven one. Certain elements of the developmental state model, in which a government promotes foreign economic activity in priority areas, have been adopted, with Mirziyoyev criticizing the diplomatic corps of the country for ineffective promotion of economic interests of Uzbekistan abroad and for enlarging the economic functions of embassies abroad while downplaying geopolitical ones. As Mirziyoyev infamously told diplomatic staff and ambassadors in December 2017: ‘Listen carefully. We will change the work drastically starting from the new year. I do not need such Ambassadors who do not report weekly on work regarding investments and who do not bring even 10 tourists into country’ ( Daryo.uz, 2017). In order to promote such economic attractiveness, Mirziyoyev abolished entry visas for passport holders of seven countries (Japan, Indonesia, Israel, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Singapore and Turkey), while relaxing the visa rules for a large number of other states (see Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan, https://mfa.uz/en/consular/visa/). In addition, each region of Uzbekistan is now attached to the Embassy of Uzbekistan abroad, with such missions of Uzbekistan abroad responsible for promotion of the region’s external economic relations and investments into it ( Uza.uz, 2018).

Global actors and Mirziyoyev’s foreign policy objectives

Following the principles of foreign policy outlined immediately after being appointed interim president of Uzbekistan in September 2016, President Mirziyoyev prioritized Russia and China as the most important partners external to the region. In doing so, he adhered to the legacy of previous successful engagements with these countries (be it the agreement on eternal friendship with Russia, Uzbekistan’s dependency on the Russian labour and trade markets or its involvement in the China-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization) that created the foundations for common norms (such as Shanghai spirit or Eurasian identity) in partnerships.

At the same time, the discourse about Uzbekistan siding exclusively with Russia, China or the US in the post-Karimov era was not empirically proven by the events that occurred in the first year of Mirziyoyev’s presidency. This discourse was heavily present in the Russian and Western press. Those portraying President Mirziyoyev as a pro-Russian sympathiser emphasized his successful handling of negotiations with the Russian president in the aftermath of Karimov’s death and the positive mood in those negotiations. This led to speculation that Mirziyoyev would pay his first state visit to Russia to coordinate his further steps as president with Putin (Asatryan et al., 2016). Some even expressed hope that it would pave the way for further integration between Uzbekistan and Russia, possibly including integration into the Eurasian Union (Asatryan et al., 2016). However, these hopes and predictions proved to be groundless. The Uzbek president made his first visit not to Russia but to politically neutral neighbour Turkmenistan. Not even Mirziyoyev’s second visit was to Russia but rather to neighbouring Kazakhstan, as if to symbolize the importance of good neighbourhood construction for Uzbekistan in the post-Karimov era. The Uzbek president eventually met Putin on his third foreign visit in April 2017 when he explicitly welcomed Russian investment agreements for US$12 billion and trade contracts for US$3.8 billion (Falyahov, 2017). In addition, issues related to controlling and managing labour migration from Uzbekistan to Russia received attention and were followed up on after the visit ( Sputnik, 2017a). However, it became obvious that Mirziyoyev did not contemplate Russian dominance in his country or a radical switch to a pro-Russian stance. This balanced attitude towards Russia has led observers to again prematurely believe that Mirziyoyev is a pragmatic politician in the style of Karimov who looks for opportunities to exploit his Russian and CA counterparts (Knyazev, 2017). Other analysts have proclaimed that Uzbekistan is pivoting towards China by portraying Sino-Russian competition and comparing the results of Mirziyoyev’s Russian visit in April with his China visit in May 2017 (Panfilova, 2017). However, such extreme expectations that Uzbekistan will switch its strategic partnerships subscribe to a rather binary (‘all or nothing’) conception of international relations that is not well-grounded in empirical evidence. In contrast, from the perspective of Uzbekistan, many of the projects promoted by the EU, the US, Russia, China, South Korea and Japan are compatible with one another and do not necessarily imply a conflict of interest.

Mirziyoyev’s foreign policy shows signs of prioritizing areas in which certain countries could contribute more than others. Thus, the selection of partners and areas of cooperation is instead made on the assumption that Russia can contribute more in areas of trade because a number of goods produced in Uzbekistan (cars, agricultural products, cotton and textiles and human resources) can find a vast market in Russia, while Russian-produced machinery, oil and certain agricultural products can be sold in Uzbekistan. Among the most significant contracts Uzbekistan signed was with Gazprom for the annual purchase of 4 billion cubic metres of Uzbek natural gas beginning in 2018 (Falyahov, 2017). Other contracts included the organization and production of composite materials in Uzbekistan, the modernization of air traffic control and supplies of equipment and spare parts for oil- and gas-extracting corporations in Uzbekistan. In terms of military and security cooperation, Uzbekistan continues to use a large arsenal of Russian-made arms for which it needs maintenance support. By the April 2017 visit, the parliaments of both countries had ratified an agreement on military cooperation that implies cooperation in the maintenance of equipment as well as the modernization of military hardware and training. Thus, it is clear that Mirziyoyev’s Russia policy is not ideologically driven but is rather focused on elements of pragmatic cooperation. He readily accepts facets of cooperation with Russia that are advantageous for both countries but is not in a rush to make ambitious announcements about politically driven initiatives such as entry into the Eurasian Union. Russia is Uzbekistan’s second-largest economic partner after China, and it will remain so for the foreseeable future. Mirziyoyev is eager to further utilize Russia’s competitive advantages for the development of Uzbekistan, but the contracts signed so far indicate that those areas of cooperation do not collide with the interests of other large players such as China.

Although many analysts see or predict Sino-Russian collusion and even rivalry in Uzbekistan, the contracts and agreements signed between Uzbekistan and China during the May 2017 visit of the president of Uzbekistan to China suggest that there is currently no sign of exclusive rivalry between Russia and China in the country. The focus of the 11–13 May 2017 visit of President Mirziyoyev to China was obviously the promotion of economic ties between the two countries based on the Shanghai spirit bargaining strategy. ¹ Negotiations on many of the 11 inter-governmental, one inter-municipal and a package of economic contracts for the amount of US$22.8 billion were started even before Mirziyoyev was elected president. ² In total, the number of agreements, memorandums and protocols signed during the visit reached 76, of which 35 were agreements of various types (including agreements between the governments, between agencies and framework agreements), 31 were memorandums (including notes of meetings that focused on particular projects with the general budget allocation of these projects already decided) and 10 protocols (which were discussions of intent for particular enterprises). The largest infrastructure-related agreements focused on the joint production of synthetic fuel (US$3.7 billion), investments in Uzbekistan’s oil industry (US$2.6 billion), investments in new projects (US$2 billion), cooperation agreements for the construction of energy-generation plants (US$679 million), railroad infrastructure development agreements (US$520 million), an agreement on the Tashkent-Osh road construction (US$220 million) and a number of other projects. In terms of establishing manufacturing lines in Uzbekistan, agreements were reached to facilitate the establishment of manufacturing facilities for cement (US$153 million in Andijan and US$100 million in Tashkent), textiles (US$200 million), electrical appliances (US$139 million), metal goods (US$115 million) and glass goods (US$83 million) (for details, see Dadabaev, 2018). In terms of the memorandums and protocols, some are already being realized in established production facilities, such as one for the production of soft and hard toys in Tashkent at the Soviet-era toy production factory Tashkentigrushka (Decree of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, 2017). The costs of the project are calculated at US$23 million, and it is expected to produce 700 types of plastic and soft, electronic and mechanical toys and to generate 950 jobs ( Gazeta, 2017). The majority of these projects represent attempts to establish production and infrastructure-related facilities to enable Uzbekistan to produce goods not just for its large yet still limited internal consumption but also for exports. This is exemplified by the toy production facility mentioned above, which aims to produce 7 million units of toys annually, of which 80% are meant to be exported to other countries in CA, Russia, Afghanistan and other countries. In this sense, Afghanistan and other neighbours are placed as not only important political actors for Mirziyoyev but important economic markets and trade partners. Stabilization in Afghanistan is considered not only as pre-empting political threats but importantly opening up new opportunities for Uzbekistan. This is the reason why Uzbekistan championed organizing a conference on peace in Afghanistan in Tashkent in March 2018, during which Mirziyoyev emphasized that Afghanistan needs not to be seen as a threat but as an important neighbour (see Center 1, 2018).

In this sense, Mirziyoyev’s foreign policy inherited the economic priorities of the Karimov era, which aimed to create production facilities within the country and export the goods to neighbouring countries (Fazendeiro, 2017). In doing so, Uzbekistan attempts to turn its disadvantage of being the most populous country in the region into a competitive advantage and to use its lower labour costs and high literacy and education levels to boost its exporting potential. This is another reason why the new Uzbek foreign policy treats its neighbours with care: it helps Uzbekistan open up new trade routes for its newly emerging industrial base. Chinese technology might not be the most advanced internationally, but it is advanced enough for Uzbekistan to develop a manufacturing sector to satisfy the needs of its population, create an export-oriented economic manufacturing base and generate employment for its large population. In addition, the economic structures of both countries are somewhat similar in terms of the relations between the state and the business community, as government plays a significant role in both countries that resembles the developmental state model. Thus, the tasks for the working groups that were preparing agreements between the two countries were less complicated because their negotiating and bargaining styles somewhat resembled each other (interview with an official aware of negotiations between the two countries, Tashkent, 7 September 2017). The agreements signed during the May visit of the president to China are considered to be the backbone for a strategic partnership between Uzbekistan and China; thus, their implementation is strictly controlled and administered by a special committee headed by the prime minister (Decree of the President of Uzbekistan, 2017).

The structure and content of the agreements between Uzbekistan and China and between Uzbekistan and Russia reveal that there are only a few areas where the expertise and interests of the countries overlap. To a great extent, these interests diverge from each other, offering Uzbekistan a chance to pragmatically develop its relations with both countries in a non-exclusive manner. Similarly, Uzbekistan’s foreign policy under Mirziyoyev does not exclude other non-regional partners. For instance, Mirziyoyev suggested that Japan and South Korea could be important partners in economic cooperation agreements and as sources of investment and technology for the Uzbek economy. In particular, technologies that are available in Japan and South Korea but that are unavailable in China and Russia can serve as a motivating factor for developing deeper cooperation. For example, the Ministry of Agriculture and Water Management of Uzbekistan currently cooperates with Japan on increasing the efficiency of water consumption at the consumer level. Additionally, the Ministry announced in 2017 that Uzbekistan is interested in importing technologies using hydroponic growing methods for agricultural products from Japan, South Korea and Iran ( Sputnik, 2017b). Hydroponic growing uses mineral nutrient solutions to feed the plants in water, without soil. This technology is important for Uzbekistan, as it faces water deficiencies and soil corrosion in certain areas of the country. In addition, this technology could allow Uzbekistan to produce agricultural products throughout the year. Finally, India and Pakistan were given roles as trading and humanitarian exchange partners.

Concluding remarks: Challenges ahead

Naturally, there are obvious challenges in Uzbekistan’s quest to form a new economically motivated foreign policy in the region. One of the largest challenges for the country’s newly launched foreign policy is determining how much its signalling is well-accepted in other countries in the region and internationally. The opening up of Uzbekistan has been initially well-received in all of the regional countries. If the economic diplomacy and increasingly developmental policies of Uzbekistan’s foreign policy bring about the expected outcomes, there are grounds to expect that Uzbekistan has the potential to follow the East Asian path of development, offering its abundant human resources and territory for the creation of a manufacturing pad in Central Asia. In this sense, there is a certain degree of reactivity in Uzbekistan’s current foreign policy, which will depend on the outcomes produced by the policies of first few years of Mirziyoyev’s presidency.

The second challenge relates to public support regarding the improving relations with its neighbours. The current supportive mood of the general public in Uzbekistan is not guaranteed, and it could change depending on how foreign policy influences the public’s everyday life. In this regard, initiatives on the improving of ties with neighbouring countries are to a great extent subject to improvements in the everyday living conditions of the people in border areas and Uzbek enclaves.

The third challenge is consistency and continuity in Uzbekistan’s opening to the world. Mirziyoyev’s first year as president of Uzbekistan demonstrated that the country was embracing an opportunity to resolve the problems left by the first president’s hard-line policy towards its neighbours and internationally. Uzbekistan signalled not only its intention to improve relations with its neighbours but also a desire to open the country to the international community by abolishing visa requirements for a large number of countries and welcoming visitors. Additionally, the exit stickers required for citizens of Uzbekistan to visit other countries are to be abolished and changed to foreign passports beginning in January 2019, to effectively provide basic human rights for the population regarding freedom of movement. On a visit to the US, the Uzbek president also invited the large Uzbek diaspora in the US to contribute to the country’s development. These progressive decisions and initiatives are incremental, and they must not simply remain on paper but must also be implemented. To a great extent, the successful implementation and resulting ‘success stories’ from these decisions will determine the pace and the future of Uzbekistan’s newly shaped regional and international identity.