“China is moving very cautiously and with a mindset of not upsetting Moscow by increasing its profile too rapidly,” said Lyle Goldstein, director of the Asia Engagement program at Defense Priorities.
But Defense Priorities’ Goldstein, who studied at the Pushkin Institute in Moscow, said Russia’s decline in the region should not be overly exaggerated. “Russian soft power still goes a long way in Central Asia,” he said, adding, “U.S. prestige after Afghanistan coupled with the faltering war in Ukraine is also not so stellar.
“The negative legacy of the Afghanistan War for the region is likely to leave all players quite skeptical of great power games for at least a generation,” Goldstein said.
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