In January, the Diplomat’s monthly magazine, which I have managed for more than decade now, will once again feature a full-cast cover story outlining our authors’ expectations for the year to come. In this magnum opus of an essay, we aren’t trying to predict the future but instead direct readers’ attention to what we’re watching as the new year dawns. It’s a futile exercise, in some ways. We are all – journalists and analysts, scholars and commentators alike – grounded in the present and (hopefully) well-steeped in the past. But the future is unknowable. Only madmen and prophets will tell you otherwise.
Here as we wind our way through the final days of 2024, I’ll once again take the opportunity to look back at my own effort to look ahead.
How did I do?
In my 2024 outlook vignette I directed readers first to Kyrgyzstan, outlining a number of black swans that could have (but ultimately didn’t) derailed the presidency of Sadyr Japarov in 2024, from energy shortages to a breakdown in negotiations with Tajikistan. I concluded that “[t]here is no shortage of pinch points for the powers that be in Bishkek” and that this reality may drive Japarov and his partner-in-governance, Kamchybek Tashiev, to extremes to forestall any kind of revolutionary stirrings by “further putting pressure on political opponents and the media, and using the country’s prime geopolitical position between Russia and China to escape criticism from the West.”
The black swans did not manifest. Indeed, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan ended the year with an apparent border deal. But the Kyrgyz government behaved largely as expected anyway.
In 2024, Kyrgyzstan’s authorities maintained a ban on protests in prime locations in the capital, and elsewhere, and did indeed put pressure on political opponents and the media, starting with the January arrest of a dozen journalists associated with Temirov Live and continuing throughout the year. The tandem knows Kyrgyzstan’s history, and its penchant for revolutionary changes of government, and have worked hard to head off any potential threats with a heaping dose of populism and a firm hand. But the flock of black swans always looms.
Next, I took note of the increased tempo of chatter about various roads, routes, and corridors across Central Asia throughout 2023 and surmised that this would invariably continue into 2024. What progress has been made remains paired with uncertainty, but corridors remain all the rage. Take the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan Railway as an example. In May, Japarov said construction would begin in October. Over the summer, Beijing injected new life into the project with a pledge to finance half of it. Construction reportedly began on December 27, after the three governments signed an investment agreement for the project. The Middle Corridor continues to be talked about. With the war in Ukraine ongoing, the impetus behind the vision remains in play.
Finally, following the whirlwind of diplomacy that was 2023 I suggested that “[t]he coming year may or may not keep that pace.” A bit hedging of me to write, I admit. But diplomacy is cumulative. Not every year breaks a record, but over time relationships evolve, and we saw that throughout the year. Central Asian states continue to navigate a difficult geopolitical terrain, in no small part because of the region’s large neighbors – China and Russia – and their relationships with the West. That difficulty presents risks, of course, but also opportunities.
The United States, embroiled in its own domestic political dramas and other geopolitical hotspots, had a quieter year in the region, as expected. The West has continued to sanction new entities in the region for aiding Russia, but the targeting has been careful, diplomatic even. China’s Xi Jinping, who does not travel quite like he used to, made the trek to Astana for the July Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit and then stopped off in Tajikistan for a state visit. Russian President Vladimir Putin made four trips to the region in 2024: Uzbekistan in May, Kazakhstan in July and again in November (for the SCO and then the CSTO summits, respectively), and Turkmenistan in October.
If 2023 was a diplomatic whirlwind, in 2024 some of the dust settled down. But it settled more like the lull in the eye of a hurricane than the calm after a storm. The winds are shifting again as we hurtle toward 2025.
You’ll have to check out the January 2024 issue of The Diplomat Magazine to get my read on the coming year.