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Russia, China and Central Asia
Parts of the former Soviet Union are beset by The Islamic
Movement of Uzbekistan — powered by the Afghan drug trade, trained
by the Taliban and operating out of Tajikistan — which wants to
establish an Islamic state in parts of each. The new
quasi-democracies have beefed up armies, tightened borders, stifled
dissent and turned to Russia. Russia says Muslim radicals in
Chechnya are getting help from bin Laden and the Taliban. Caspian
and Black Sea oil make it a strategic region. U.S. companies want
access to Kazakstan’s oil reserves and to natural-gas fields in
Turkmenistan.
China’s leaders have asked the Taliban to close Afghan-based
camps used to train Muslim separatists called Uighurs (pronounced
WEE-gurs) in China’s Xinjiang region, which borders Pakistan and
Afghanistan. Already hemmed in by U.S. forces in Japan and South
Korea, China would not welcome U.S. soldiers to its west.
Area: China (3.7 million square miles); Russia (6.6 million
square miles); Uzbekistan (172,700 square miles); Tajikistan (55,300
square miles); Turkmenistan (188,500 square miles); Kazakstan (1
million square miles); Kyrgyzstan (76,600 square miles).
Population: China (1.3 billion); Russia (145 million);
Uzbekistan (25 million); Turkmenistan (4.5 million); Kazakstan (16.7
million); Kyrgyzstan (4.6 million); Tajikistan (6.6 million). The
people of Tajikistan, originally part of Tibet, are closely related
to the Chinese, while the other republics have mainly Turkic
peoples.
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