Dealing with China: Central Asian Perceptions

SILK ROAD FORUM with Dr. Marlène Laruelle and Dr. Sébastien Peyrouse

Senior Research Fellows at the Institute for Security and Development Policy

Tuesday, May 12, 2009, 10:00–11:30

Since 2000, China has gained significantly in importance in Central Asia and is now in a position to pose a threat to traditional Russian domination in the region. Exactly how China will intensify its presence in Central Asia and how this alliance/competition with Russia will play itself out is going to depend partly on the approaches and attitudes of the Central Asian states themselves. For this reason, it is essential to comprehend not only Chinese and Russian objectives in the region, but also to look at the indigenous viewpoints of Central Asian governments, their visions of the world, and their room for initiative on political and geopolitical issues.

The lecture will focus on domestic Central Asian views about China will enable us to deepen geopolitical reflection, insofar as the rise of either Sinophilia or Sinophobia in Central Asia will most probably have a significant political, geo-strategic, and cultural impact on the situation in the region, and work either to speed up or to slow down Chinese expansion in it.

Dr. Marlène Laruelle is a Senior Research Fellow with the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, a Joint Center affiliated with Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, Washington DC, and the Institute for Security and Development Policy, Stockholm. In Paris, she is a associate scholar at Sciences Po (the Institute of Political Studies), and at the French Center for Russian, Caucasian and East- European Studies at the School of Advanced Social Sciences Studies (EHESS). Her main areas of expertise are nationalism, national identities, political philosophy, and the intellectual trends and geopolitical conceptions of the Russian and Central Asian elites. Dr. Laurelle has published and co-published a number of books and articles in English, French, and Russian.

Dr. Sébastien Peyrouse is a Senior Research Fellow with the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, a Joint Center affiliated with Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, Washington DC, and the Institute for Security and Development Policy, Stockholm. In Paris, he is an Associated Fellow at the Institute for International and Strategic Relations (IRIS). His main areas of expertise are political systems in Central Asia, Islam and religious minorities, and Central Asia’s geopolitical positioning toward China, Russia and South Asia. Dr. Peyrouse is an author and co-author of number of books and articles both in English and French.

Location: ISDP, Västra Finnbodavägen 2, Stockholm-Nacka. For a map and directions, please go here.

To attend: RSVP to Ms. Martina Klimesova at mklimesova@isdp.eu