On January 25, 2022, China hosted a virtual summit to commemorate the 30th anniversary of diplomatic ties with the Central Asian states. Two days later, on January 27th, India also gathered all central Asian leaders to celebrate the 30th anniversary of diplomatic relations. Heads of states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan participated in both virtual summits. Given the traditional competition between China and India, the coincided two summit meetings are considered under their larger matrix of geopolitical rivalry, along with their competition for influence in the Central Asian region.
PDFDr.Albina Muratbekova is a research fellow of the Eurasian Research Institute at H.A.Yassawi Kazakh Turkish International University. Albina holds a PhD degree in Oriental Studies from Al Farabi Kazakh National University. She was a Fellow of the EUCACIS PhD support programme, Fudan Fellow 2017, a visiting student of the Cambridge Central Asia Forum at the University of Cambridge along with being an exchange student at Lanzhou University. Previously, she had worked at the international departments of Narxoz and AlmaU universities on the implementation of the internationalization strategy of th