Competing Visions and New Regional Order in Central Asia and Caucasus

Differences in Characteristics and Outcomes Between Patients With Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy From Asian and European Centers.

Demand for natural gas is increasing more rapidly than anticipated in Far East markets because (1) China has modified its policies in order to increase reliance on gas, in part to mitigate the growth in its coal consumption (which now stand at almost half of world coal production), (2) Japan has announced its intention to eventually shutdown its nuclear power industry, and (3) India, which currently has more than 400 million people without electricity, desires to accelerate electrification. This analysis investigates the potential role of stranded gas from Central Asia, Russia, Southeast Asia, and Australia in meeting Asia's future demand for gas imports. It initially surveys the discovered or known gas in stranded gas accumulations in Central Asia, Russia, Australia, Indonesia, and Malaysia. It then examines the primary gas import markets of China, India, Japan, and South Korea by describing energy use, gas demand trends, and domestic gas supplies to establish boundaries that encompass the wide variation in gas import demands in these markets during the two decades following 2020. Then the cost of developing and delivering gas through overland pipelines from selected stranded gas fields in Central Asia and Russia to China is examined. Analysis shows that for the Shanghai market in China, the costs of developing and delivering Russia's stranded gas from the petroleum provinces of eastern Siberia are competitive with costs estimated for stranded gas from Central Asia. However, for the Western Siberian Basin, delivered gas costs are at least 3 US dollars per thousand cubic feet (USD/Mcf) higher than delivered gas from Central Asia. The extraction and transport costs to a liquefaction plant for gas from stranded gas fields located in Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the basins of eastern Siberia are then evaluated. The resource cost functions presented show development and extraction costs as a function of the volume of stranded gas developed for each country. The analysis demonstrates that, although the Russian fields in areas of eastern Siberia are large with relatively low extraction costs, distances to a potential liquefaction plant at Vladivostok make them initially the high cost suppliers of the liquefied natural gas (LNG) market. For the LNG markets examined, Australia and Malaysia are initially the lowest cost suppliers. For the Shanghai market, a comparison of the cost of supplying gas by pipeline with the cost of supplying LNG shows that the pipeline costs from areas of eastern Siberia and Central Asia are generally lower than delivered cost of gas as LNG from the LNG supply sources considered.

10. India’s Objectives in Central Asia

Notes on Contributors - Preface - Central Asia's Geopolitical Significance and Problems of Independence: An Introduction Hafeez Malik - The Russian Conquest of Central Asia and Kazakhstan: Motives, Methods, Consequences Seymour Becker - Soviet Reconquest of Central Asia Stephen Blank - Jadid Movement and Its Impact on Contemporary Central Asia Abdujabbar A. Abduvakhitov - Perestroika: Its Impact on the Central Asian Republics and the Future Relations of Moscow with Central Asian Republics Melvin Goodman - Impact of Afghanistan's War on the Former Soviet Republics of Central Asia Victor Spolnikov - Russia's Relations with the Central Asian States Since the Dissolution of the USSR Yuri V. Gankovsky - Central Asia and American National Interests Graham E. Fuller - The Problem of Nagorno Karabagh: Geography Versus Demography Under Colonialism and in Decolonization Tadeusz Swietochowski - Tragedy in the Aral Sea Basin: Looking Back to Plan Ahead? Michael H. Glantz, Alvin Z. Rubinstein, and Igor Zonn - Islam and Political Development of Tajikistan After 1985 Mavlon Makhamov - The Politics of Polarization in Tajikistan Muriel Atkin - Nationalism and Islamic Resurgence in Uzbekistan James Critchlow - New Relationships Between Central and Southwest Asia and Pakistan's Regional Politics Hafeez Malik -Turkish and Iranian Policies in Central Asia Oles M. Smolansky - Central Asia: Emerging Relations with the Arab States and Israel Carol R. Saivetz - Index

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With the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1991s Central Asian nations and Japan established diplomatic relations and partnership began to increase steadily as manifested by the level of official contacts. In 1997 the “Silk Road” Diplomacy concept was formulated for Japan's policy toward Central Asia. In the beginning of 21st century we see activization of new actors including India, Korea and Japan in Central Asia, which were mainly welcomed in the region. Tokyo recognized the growing strategic importance of Central Asia in the context of international security and sought to play a more active role as an Asian nation in Eurasia. During two decades Central Asian nations and Japan partnership began to increase steadily. Japan is one of the largest assistants to Central Asia in structural reforms and Japanese investments to the different aspects of region economy and transport communication add up to several billions. There are several areas of special interest to Japan in its relations with Central Asia, including cooperation in education, economic development of the region, political reforms, as well as energy resources. Japan's effort in creating the “Central Asia plus Japan” dialog is part of its multilateral diplomacy. At the same time there are some challenges and problems in Central Asia–Japan relations. However, there are potentialities for future bilateral and multilateral relations. Japan like Korea, India and other countries has a strong positive image in Central Asia, which could be regarded as an additional factor for fostering partnership of Central and East Asia as well as interregional relation with the vast Asian continent and beyond.

Sustainable supply of energy and access to water are among the major issues facing the Central Asian and South Asian countries due to climate change. There is a need of an environmental friendly and cost-effective energy production technology to achieve reasonable energy production without affecting climate by release of any kind of greenhouse gases. This renewable and sustainable source of energy can be provided by floating photovoltaic systems/technology (FPVS) which also helps in achieving sustainable supply of clean water. This chapter discusses the working of Floating Photovoltaic (FPV) technology and its technical, economic and ecological feasibility over the land-based PV systems. It also discusses the prospects of implementing this technology in Central Asian, South Asian and South East Asian region by providing the case studies of already implemented systems in different parts of the world. The implementation of FPVS in Indus Basin, Kabul River Basin and water resources in Central Asian Countries, South Asian and South East Asian Countries can prove to be greatly effective by controlling huge amount of evaporation and precipitation and can prevent climate change in this region at bigger scale.KeywordsRenewable energyFloating photovoltaic systemsFeasibilityCentral AsiaSouth Asia

Reviewed by: Hidden Treasures and Intercultural Encounters: Studies on East Syriac Christianity in China and Central Asia Matteo Nicolini-Zani Hidden Treasures and Intercultural Encounters: Studies on East Syriac Christianity in China and Central Asia. Edited by Dietmar W. Winkler and Li Tang. [Orientalia—patristica—oecumenica,Vol. 1.] (Münster–Vienna: Lit Verlag. 2009. Pp. iv, 395. €39,90 paperback. ISBN 978-3-643-50045-8.) In the last twenty years, research on the commonly mistermed “Nestorian” Christianity in central and eastern Asia has grown in Eastern and Western academic circles. New publications have resulted in a new approach that is based more on sources and a broader philological foundation, which can be truly regarded as a turning point in the history of research on East Syrian Christianity in Asia. The volume under review is the outcome of the second conference on “Research on the Church of the East in China and Central Asia” in 2006. It contains papers written by scholars from disciplines such as church history, [End Page 616] philology (Syriac, Turkic, Iranic, and Chinese), archaeology, and theology. It explores the subject of East Syrian Christianity from various perspectives. The volume is organized in four parts. The first part, on “Inscriptions” (pp. 13–132), contains current research on texts carved in stone from various geographical areas (Central Asia, Inner Mongolia, China). Particularly relevant in this section are essays on Syriac and Syro-Turkic inscriptions by Mark Dickens, Wassilios Klein, Kuvatbek Tabaldiev, Li Chonglin, and Niu Ruji. They give the original text, transliteration, translation, and a commentary of Christian gravestones found in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzistan, Inner Mongolia, and Xinjiang (China), all dating from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Also worth mentioning is Li Tang’s preliminary study (text analysis, commentary, and translation) on the Chinese Christian inscription found in Luoyang in 2006 and dating from the ninth century. The second part deals briefly with “Manuscripts and Texts” (pp. 135–80). Among the three articles in this section, Max Deeg’s provocative essay invites scholars to consider the proper and improper ways to proceed in placing in their context the Chinese Christian documents of the Tang period (618–907). The third part, on “History” (pp. 183–334), is the richest and presents the evaluation and interpretation of various sources such as inscriptions, archaeological evidence, and texts coming from different regions of central and eastern Asia and dating back to various historical periods. Among the eleven essays contained in this section five concern Syriac Christianity in China and Korea during the first centuries of the second millennium: Pierre Marsone writes on the time when the Temple of the Cross at Fangshan was a “Christian Temple”; Maurizio Paolillo about King George, the thirteenth-century Christian chief of the Öngüt tribe; Li Tang on Christians of the Mongol (or, better, Mongolised Turkish) Naiman tribe and one of their princes, Küchlüg khan, as referred to in medieval sources; Yin Xiaoping on Christians in the Chinese region of Jiangnan during the Yuan dynasty (1272–1368); Alexander Toepel about Christians in Korea at the end of the thirteenth century. In addition, Matteo Nicolini-Zani shows how Jesuit missionaries in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries referred to Tang Christianity in their writings to further their own mission, and Chen Huaiyu investigates the textual and artistic encounter between East Syrian Christianity and Tantric Buddhism in medieval China and Tibet. The last part is devoted to “Liturgy and Arts” (pp. 337–92), with three articles exploring the fields of liturgical music and religious arts. Yan Xiaojing’s article, in particular, shows the interaction between Christian, Buddhist, and Daoist artistic patterns. Photographs of historical relics are inserted in some of the contributions. Regrettably, the volume is rather carelessly edited. The two editors note in their introduction that they were aware of the challenging work of editing [End Page 617] such a collection of diverse interdisciplinary scholarship. Nevertheless, the book is a unique collection of “hidden treasures” for all those who wish to know more about those fascinating and mostly neglected interreligious and intercultural exchanges in which Christianity was involved in its diffusion along the Silk Road for about one thousand years. Matteo Nicolini-Zani Monastero di Bose Magnano...

The Karakoram-Himalayan region is the cradle from where ancient Indian culture including Buddhism spread to different directions in Central Asia, East Asia and South East Asia. Gilgit, Chilas, Chitral, Baltistan, Ladakh, Zanskar and other frontier areas have been important mileposts on the famous Silk Route. Buddhist savants from India contributed to the spread of Buddhism in Central Asia and East Asia. One of the eminent scholars was Kumarajiva (344-413 AD) who broke political, geographical, cultural and linguistic barriers for propagation of Buddhism. Hieun Tsiang mentions four important centres of Buddhism in Central Asia - Shan-shan (Kroraina), Khotan, Kucha and Turfan. Kashmir played an important role in introducing Buddhism to Khotan, which in turn played a key role in the transmission of Buddhism to China. Several important places on the Silk Route system such as Kucha, Balkh, Bamiyan, Khotan, Kashgar etc. developed into important centres of Buddhism when parts of Central Asia and north-western India were integrated into a single kingdom under the Kushans.)

Identifying the origin of moisture is a key process in revealing the formation mechanisms of precipitation, but the moisture sources for central Asia have not been well documented in previous studies. In this work, we employ the Lagrangian model FLEXPART over 2011–19 to address this question. Multiple observational products indicate that the times of dry and wet seasons are opposite for western and eastern central Asia bounded by 75°E. The wet season is November–April (NDJFMA) for western central Asia but May–October (MJJASO) for eastern central Asia, while the opposite is true for the dry season. The main moisture source regions for western central Asia are local regions (with a contribution of 49.11%), western Eurasia (21.47%), and western Asia (11.37%) during MJJASO and local regions (33.92%), western Asia (27.50%), and western Eurasia (17.60%) during NDJFMA. For eastern central Asia, moisture mainly originates from local regions (52.38%), western central Asia (25.22%), and northern Eurasia (9.26%) during MJJASO and western central Asia (30.86%), local regions (30.82%), western Asia (10.31%), and western Eurasia (10.26%) during NDJFMA. The differences in moisture sources between dry and wet seasons mainly occur in local regions and western Asia for western central Asia but in local regions for eastern central Asia. The moisture from northern Eurasia, western Eurasia, and western central Asia is transported into target regions by the westerly and southwesterly winds that are associated with a deep low trough over central Asia. Moisture is transported from western Asia by the anticyclone occurs over North Africa and western Asia in the lower and middle troposphere.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1991s Central Asian nations and Japan established diplomatic relations and partnerships began to increase steadily as manifested by the level of official contacts. In 1997 the “Silk Road” Diplomacy concept was formulated for Japan’s policy toward Central Asia. At the beginning of the 21st century, we see the activation of new actors including India, Korea, and Japan in Central Asia, which were mainly welcomed in the region. Tokyo recognized the growing strategic importance of Central Asia in the context of international security and sought to play a more active role as an Asian nation in Eurasia. During two decades Central Asian nations and Japan began to increase steadily. Japan is one of the largest assistants to Central Asia in structural reforms and Japanese investments in the different aspects of the region's economy and transport communication add up to several billion. There are several areas of special interest to Japan in its relations with Central Asia, including cooperation in education, economic development of the region, political reforms, as well as energy resources. Japan’s effort in creating the “Central Asia plus Japan” dialog is part of its multilateral diplomacy. At the same time, there are some challenges and problems in Central Asia–Japan relations. However, there are potentialities for future bilateral and multilateral relations. Japan like Korea, India, and other countries has a strong positive image in Central Asia, which could be regarded as an additional factor for fostering partnerships between Central and East Asia as well as interregional relations with the vast Asian continent and beyond. This article explores the interests of the Central Asian states as members of the SCO, and their compatibility with the SCO goals. This study shows that the SCO is compatible with the Central Asian states' security and economic interests, regional cooperation, and the need for balanced relations with the great powers— China, Russia, and the United States.

Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) countries are major energy producers and consumers in the world, and they have enormous potential for energy cooperation, energy saving, and CO2 emissions reduction due to their various resource endowments. However, little quantitative research has been conducted under the BRI in the same framework. Therefore, by developing a data envelopment analysis optimisation model combined with the window analysis method, this paper investigates the energy performance of BRI countries for the period from 1995 to 2015, and evaluate the potential of energy saving and CO2 emissions reduction for each BRI country. The results show that, first, the average energy performance of 56 BRI countries is about 0.69, with evident difference across regions and countries. Specifically, in Sub-Saharan Africa and Europe and Central Asia, energy performance is relatively lower, and their averages are 0.59 and 0.60, respectively; in particular, Ukraine has the lowest energy performance among the 56 BRI countries (0.24); while the energy performance in Middle East and North Africa and South Asia appears relatively higher (0.80 and 0.89, respectively). Second, these 56 BRI countries have great energy saving potential, about 9.95 billion metric tonnes of oil equivalent from 1995 to 2015. Among them, Europe and Central Asia, East Asia and Pacific, and Middle East and North Africa make relatively larger contribution. Finally, these 56 BRI countries may produce potential CO2 emissions reduction of 50.87 billion metric tonnes during the study period, and Europe and Central Asia and East Asia and Pacific contribute the most (45.18% and 25.53%, respectively).

This chapter discusses the rock art traditions of Northern, Central, and Western Asia, first providing an overview of the chronological-cultural context of much of the known rock art in Northern and Central Asia before describing the main geographical concentrations of rock paintings and petroglyphs in the area. In particular, it examines the dilemmas with regards to ascertaining the age of ‘Stone Age’ rock art, along with the presence of chariots in rock art as an iconographic determinant of the Bronze Age. It also considers the association of the Bronze Age with the expansion of Indo-Iranians, expansion of Buddhism through Central Asia as reflected in the rock art, relation of Siberian rock art to shamanism, and major rock art regions of Northern and Central Asia. It concludes by assessing the rock art of Western Asia and how the advent of Islam in mid–seventh century ad changed Arabian traditions of rock art.

Hydroclimate variations since 1300 in central and monsoonal Asia and their interplay on interannual and interdecadal timescales are investigated using the tree-ring based Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) reconstructions. Both the interannual and interdecadal variations in both regions are closely to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). On interannual timescale, the most robust correlations are observed between PDO and hydroclimate in central Asia. Interannual hydroclimate variations in central Asia are more significant during the warm periods with high solar irradiance, which is likely due to the enhanced variability of the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, the high-frequency component of PDO, during the warm periods. We observe that the periods with significant interdecadal hydroclimate changes in central Asia often correspond to periods without significant interdecadal variability in monsoonal Asia, particularly before the 19th century. The PDO-hydroclimate relationships appear to be bridged by the atmospheric circulation between central North Pacific Ocean and Tibetan Plateau, a key area of PDO. While, in some periods the atmospheric circulation between central North Pacific Ocean and monsoonal Asia may lead to significant interdecadal hydroclimate variations in monsoonal Asia.

Summary This analysis shows the important contribution that stranded gas from central Asia, Russia, Southeast Asia, and Australia can make in meeting the projected demand for gas imports of China, India, Japan, and South Korea from 2020 to 2040. The estimated delivered costs of pipeline gas from stranded fields in Russia and central Asia at Shanghai, China, are generally less than delivered costs of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Australia and Malaysia are initially the lowest-cost LNG suppliers. In the concluding section, it is argued that Asian LNG demand is price-sensitive, and that current Asian LNG pricing procedures are unlikely to be sustainable for gas import demand to attain maximum potential growth. Resource volumes in stranded fields evaluated can nearly meet projected import demands.