Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Dictators without Borders
WORK NOTES: with Alexander Cooley
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY: British
http://socialsciences.exeter.ac.uk/politics/staff/heathershaw/ * http://socialsciences.exeter.ac.uk/politics/staff/heathershaw/biography/
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born 1976, in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, England; married; children: two.
EDUCATION:Aberystwyth University, bachelor’s degree, 1997; University of Hull, graduated; London School of Economics, Ph.D., 2007.
ADDRESS
CAREER
UK’s Ministry of Defence, research analyst; Department for International Development, consultant; Exeter Central Asian Studies (ExCAS) research network and Central Asian Political Exiles (CAPE) project, organizer; ESRC project Rising Powers and Conflict Management in Central Asia, investigator, 2012-16; Central Eurasian Studies Society, board of directors, 2011-14, Taskforce on Risk and Safety in Fieldwork, 2015-16; University of Notre Dame, Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, visiting Faculty Fellow; University of Exeter, associate professor in international relations.
MEMBER:European Society for Central Asian Studies, 2015-19.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Born in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, England, in 1976, John Heathershaw is associate professor of international relations at University of Exeter in the United Kingdom. He writes about politics, political power, and the influence of money in politics, and researches conflict, security and political development, as well as security in authoritarian political environments, such as post-Soviet Central Asia. Heathershaw holds a Ph.D. in political science from the London School of Economics.
Post-conflict Tajikistan and Paradox of Power
In 2009, Heathershaw wrote Post-conflict Tajikistan: The Politics of Peacebuilding and the Emergence of Legitimate Order, which examines peace-building efforts after the violence of the civil war during the 1990s of the Central Asian state. Drawing on discourse analysis, fieldwork, and participant-observation with international organizations, Heathershaw determines that while international intervention through democratization may seem to contribute to peace efforts, peace is actually being maintained through authoritarian governance through popular accommodation and avoidance strategies. For example, Heathershaw focuses on political parties, elections, security, community development, authority, sovereignty, and international donors.
Heathershaw next published the 2017 Paradox of Power: The Logics of State Weakness in Eurasia, part of the “Central Eurasia in Context” series. With coeditor Edward Schatz, associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto and director of its Central Asia Program, Heathershaw dispels the belief that the political development of postsocialist Central Asian states are destined to fail. The book presents essays and case studies of how these states may falter but do not collapse, and how they are able to provide public goods, creatively interact with societies, effectively defect internal opponents, and reject the description of “weak.”
Dictators Without Borders
In 2017, Heathershaw collaborated with Alexander Cooley, director of Harriman Institute at Columbia University and professor of political science at Barnard College, to publish Dictators Without Borders: Power and Money in Central Asia. Some in the West dismiss the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan as isolated and irrelevant. Yet due to these corrupt and politically unstable governments, Western entities are complicit in perpetrating corruption like money laundering, bribery, tax havens, shell companies, off-shore bank accounts, foreign lobbying by autocratic governments, and the exploiting of legal loopholes within Central Asia.
On the Arab News Website, Lisa Kaaki explained: “Alexander Cooley and John Heathershaw take us behind the scenes through an obscure network of bankers, lawyers and lobbyists in Frankfurt, London, New York and other financial capitals. They challenge the myth that Central Asia is remote and isolated from global influences. In fact, Central Asians are more knowledgeable about global popular culture than we are about them.” Authoritarian governors, financial institutions, celebrities, and oligarchs in the region are taking advantage of globalization, business networks, overseas courts, and Western lawyers to play a prominent role in politics and economics outside Central Asia. “That pernicious impact on global governance makes this subject salient and this book important,” according to Robert Legvold online at Foreign Affairs.
Of the book’s four major case studies, one involves the American prosecution of telecom companies that paid out more than half a billion dollars in bribes to Gulnara Karimov, the eldest daughter of late Uzbek President Islam Karimov. These case studies provide insights into the broader patterns of corrupt financial and political dealings in the region. Calling the themes of the book a timely analysis of Central Asian politics, a writer in Publishers Weekly noted that Heathershaw and Cooley provide “a lucid, iconoclastic primer on the region that demolishes the artificial distinction between domestic and international politics in Central Asia.” With a similar viewpoint, Anton Moiseienko on the LSE Review of Books noted: “Besides all the usual hallmarks of high-quality academic work, a particular merit of this book is the sense of urgency that it conveys by combining scholarly analysis with a clear and powerful moral message.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Publishers Weekly, February 6, 2017, review of Dictators Without Borders: Power and Money in Central Asia, p. 57.
ONLINE
Arab News, http://www.arabnews.com/ (September 19, 2017), Lisa Kaaki, review of Dictators Without Borders.
Foreign Affairs, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ (November 1, 2017), Robert Legvold, review of Dictators Without Borders.
LSE Review of Books, http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/ (March 27, 2017), Anton Moiseienko, review of Dictators Without Borders.
Dr John Heathershaw
PhD, London School of Economics
Email:
Extension: 4185
Telephone: 01392 724185
Associate Professor
My research addresses conflict and security in authoritarian political environments, especially in post-Soviet Central Asia. It considers how and how effectively conflict is managed in authoritarian states. I convene the Exeter Central Asian Studies (ExCAS) research network and direct its Central Asian Political Exiles (CAPE) project. From 2012-16, I was principle investigator of the ESRC project Rising Powers and Conflict Management in Central Asia, collaborating with my close colleagues David Lewis, Nick Megoran and Catherine Owen and working with the NGO Saferworld.
I was elected to the board of directors of the Central Eurasian Studies Society for the period 2011-2014 and chaired its book prize committee in 2012-14 and ts Taskforce on Risk and Safety in Fieldwork, 2015-16. I am a member of the board of the European Society for Central Asian Studiesfor the period 2015-19; we will host the biennial conference at Exeter in 2019. My work has been influential in Geography and Anthropology as well as IR/Political Science, as measured by invitation to conferences and book projects.
Links to pre- and post-print versions of my other publications can be found on my Academia.Edu homepage.
Office: Amory Building, room 229
I am on research leave duirng the Autumn Term of 2017-18.
Dr John Heathershaw
Biography
I was born in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, in 1976 and raised in Retford, just across the border in Nottinghamshire. I was educated at what Tony Blair would later call a 'bog standard' comprehensive school. Although the school was subsequently assessed as failing and closed down by the authorities, I enjoyed most of my years there and became fascinated by history and politics at a time when the region was suffering from unemployment and social disolocation following the miners strike and subsequent pit closures of the 1980s and 1990s. After graduating with my first degree in 1997, I followed the logic of decades of UK government policy and contributed to the 'brain drain' of the north by migrating to southern England. I subsequently became an immigrant to The Gambia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and the United States - often benefitting from generous hospitality from the citizens of those countries. I returned to the UK in 2007 and have been increasingly concerned by the debasement of national discourse, the decline of British internationalism, the diminshiment of public services at home, and the continued failure of successive Westminster governments to re-articulate the purpose of politics: sustaining and expanding the common good.
In the late-1990s and early-2000s, I worked in the policy-making and practice of development, security and post-conflict interventions. After being as a volunteer on a UNHCR programme in West Africa, and a researcher at a conflict prevention NGO in London, I became a research analyst at the UK’s Ministry of Defence. I have also held research and consultancy positions at the Department for International Development and with various non-governmental organisations in Central Asia and offer advice to members of parliament, senior diplomats and government officials working on the region. From 2001-2005, I spent a total of three years living and working in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan and have returned for extended visits on many occasions since that time.
I completed my PhD at the Department of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2007. I have degrees from Aberystwyth and Hull, and have previously held teaching and research posts at the LSE, the American University in Central Asia, and King’s College, London. Before coming to Exeter I was a Visiting Faculty Fellow at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies of the University of Notre Dame. I have also studied Theology and Religious Studies at Notre Dame, London School of Theology, and Bristol Baptist College, and Central Asian languages in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
As a practising Christian, I am involved with and support a number of faith-based peace movements and development organisations; I am committed to understanding and taking part in the world from a theistic perspective which is specficially centred on the person of Jesus Christ. I have written and spoken on the role of religion in public life and have taken part in inter-faith dialogues between various Muslim and Christian traditions in Central Asia and Eastern Europe.
I am married with two children and live in the city of Exeter.
I now split my football loyalties between Nottingham Forest and Exeter City. I like to swim off the cost of the south-west of England and cycle and hike through the hills, valleys and moors of Devon.
John Heathershaw
2
Articles
0
Comments
Associate Professor in International Relations, University of Exeter
Profile
Articles
Activity
I am Associate Professor in International Relations with interests in two fields: Central Asian studies, including the former Soviet republics and Afghanistan; Peace and Conflict Studies, including the interdisciplinary study of the politics of conflict, security and political development. I have spent several years working for governmental, international non-governmental and academic institutions in and on Central Asia. I have been elected a director of the Central Eurasian Studies Society, serving from 2011-2014, and the European Society for Central Asian Studies, 2015-2019. I am a member of the International Advisory Board of Central Asian Survey. I am the convenor of the Exeter Central Asian Studies (ExCAS) research network (http://blogs.exeter.ac.uk/excas/).
I was Principal Investigator of the research project (ES/J013056/1) Rising Powers and Conflict Management in Central Asia (2012-2016) which has received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council.
My approach begins with the premise that distinctiveness of Central Asia’s international relations comes neither from its ostensibly distant location nor its purported backwardness, but from its modern political history. In particular, the region has been distinguished by the fact that the former Soviet republics became independent later than most postcolonies, in an era of globalization, increasingly intrusive and normatively-driven international intervention, and lax regulation of international finance. However, although the post-Soviet Central Asian states have experienced remarkably little political violence and mass political upheaval they have also failed to meet external demands for liberal reform. Thus, rather than considering political behaviour in Central Asia according to certain pre-determined categories of action (democratization, statebuilding, national security), I look at how the regional political environment is found in the emergence of new political formations and coping strategies that conform neither to the Soviet models of the past nor the liberal models of the idealised future. My doctoral work on international peacebuilding in Tajikistan which was published as a book in 2009 makes its argument in this vein.
My most recent book is Dictators Without Borders: politics and money in Central Asia (Yale University Press, 2017), co-authored with Alexander.
Experience
–present
Associate Professor in International Relations, University of Exeter
Dictators Without Borders: Power and Money in Central Asia
264.6 (Feb. 6, 2017): p57.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Dictators Without Borders: Power and Money in Central Asia
Alexander Cooley and John Heathershaw. Yale
Univ., $40 (312p) ISBN 978-0-300-20844-3
In this timely analysis of the unexpected global dimensions of Central Asian politics, Cooley and Heathershaw, Central Asia experts at Columbia University and the University of Exeter, respectively, pull back the curtain on a region too often dismissed by Westerners as isolated and slumbering. The key to understanding the region, the authors argue, is not examining the internal dynamics of the authoritarian Central Asian states, but exploring the embedding of Central Asian elites in a vast transnational network of financial and legal creations--including offshore bank accounts, foreign arbitration, and tax havens--that are upheld by complicit Western institutions and mobilized toward ensuring the continued survival of those authoritarian regimes. "At the heart of this story is a failure in the international financial system to effectively identify money laundering when it occurs," the authors note. But the story they tell is about much more than corruption. They adroitly tie together topics as far-flung as the effects of piecemeal economic liberalization in the former Soviet Union, the rise of a cosmopolitan Central Asian elite, and the sordid underbelly of Western-style globalization. This is a lucid, iconoclastic primer on the region that demolishes the artificial distinction between domestic and international politics in Central Asia once and for all. (Apr.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Dictators Without Borders: Power and Money in Central Asia." Publishers Weekly, 6 Feb. 2017, p. 57. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA480593874&it=r&asid=5c0a80c091f57609c4b6cc2a8ea8a86b. Accessed 2 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A480593874
Book Review: Dictators Without Borders: Power and Money in Central Asia by Alexander Cooley and John Heathershaw
37
Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
37
Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
13
Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
13
Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
Click to print (Opens in new window)
In Dictators Without Borders: Power and Money in Central Asia, Alexander Cooley and John Heathershaw look at the under-explored financial reach of the ruling elites of five Central Asian states – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan – who reap the benefits of globalisation while denying civil liberties to their own populations. Anton Moiseienko welcomes this book for combining high-quality scholarly research with an urgent and powerful moral message.
Dictators Without Borders: Power and Money in Central Asia. Alexander Cooley and John Heathershaw. Yale University Press. 2017.
Find this book:
While the reality of globalisation is universally acknowledged, its workings are not always obvious. Dictators Without Borders: Power and Money in Central Asia by Alexander Cooley and John Heathershaw sets out to show how appearances can be misleading and how the deceptively isolated post-Soviet region of Central Asia is in fact deeply embedded in the fabric of globalisation. Dictators Without Borders offers a poignant account of how the ruling elites of Central Asian countries reap the benefits of interconnectedness while denying civil liberties to their populations. It also argues that all too often foreign corporations are keen to seize on dubious business opportunities in the region while Western governments remain complacent.
Dictators without Borders deals with the five Central Asian states: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. All of them share a Soviet past and faced similar challenges on the path of transition to market economies. Despite some marked differences in their post-1991 experiences, in each of these countries, Cooley and Heathershaw argue, the national economies have been brought under the control of tightly-knit networks based on family ties and patron-client relationships.
The book is structured around four case studies. One of these revolves around the US prosecution of three mammoth telecom companies for transferring about US$684 million in bribes to the unnamed ‘Government Official A’ in Uzbekistan. This official is reported to be the late President Islam Karimov’s elder daughter Gulnara, a one-time pop star and Uzbek ambassador to Spain (129). After criminal charges against the companies were settled out of court, the US Department of Justice is continuing to seek civil forfeiture of approximately US$550 million in alleged bribe proceeds that had been stashed away in a Swiss bank. The protagonists of Dictators without Borders also include other members of the ruling families from Central Asia as well as the absconded Kazakh banker Mukhtar Ablyazov, who has been accused of owing around US$4 billion to the bank that he once ran.
Image Credit: Astana, Kazakhstan (Ninara CC BY 2.0)
A major difficulty in writing a book on corruption is that the phenomena it deals with are mostly clandestine. Commentators are often consigned to a diet of speculation, conjecture and ‘guesstimates’, which can lead to unverifiable conclusions. Dictators without Borders avoids this pitfall by making extensive use of court cases from jurisdictions with established rule of law traditions. The four case studies have in common not just the staggering amounts at stake, but also the fact that each gave rise to litigation beyond the borders of the state concerned. Many of these cases do not prove any individual wrongdoing but nonetheless give reasonably reliable insights into the broader patterns of economic and political life in the region. Bringing the available information together in a detailed but lucid narrative, Cooley and Heathershaw conclude that:
autocratic elites and their allies routinely use the professional services and institutions of the West to elevate their status, play up their cosmopolitanism, relocate personal funds and camouflage their identities (220).
A sceptical reader might question the novelty of these insights. After all, the notion that the wealthy across the world use offshore companies to conceal their assets is hardly new. Nor will anyone be surprised by the finding that real estate in places like London is probably an attractive investment, or that the rich and powerful tend to retain top lawyers and PR firms and vigorously defend their reputations. In a sense, one could say that Dictators without Borders confirms something that the public has already known about developing countries in general – albeit without awareness of the specific Central Asian circumstances.
However, the authors convincingly argue that – surprising as it might be – the importance of international financial ties in Central Asia has not been fully appreciated or acted upon up until now. Far from being redundant, such a study is in fact long overdue. By spelling out how cross-border activities can sustain domestic corruption in the long run, it points out the elephant in the room and calls for action. The involvement of foreign facilitators and intermediaries in illicit cross-border flows means that developed nations, including the UK, are in a position to curb them by enforcing laws against money laundering and foreign bribery.
The most disturbing part of Dictators Without Borders is its account of what it terms ‘extraterritorial internal security’: namely, attempts to silence or punish dissidents and whistleblowers living abroad. The text abounds with examples of the dangers that haunt those who dare to challenge the wrongdoing of powerful officials. By making explicit the link between economic wrongdoing and other sorts of abuse, the book brings the human costs of corruption to light. It describes how even the exiles who find refuge in European countries remain at risk, especially when their home states seek their extradition on trumped-up charges through Interpol’s Red Notice system. Ensuring that Interpol and the courts prevent such abuse should be another priority.
In the past few years, several noteworthy books have been published that shed light on dysfunctional governmental practices in various parts of the world, among them works by Sarah Chayes and Karen Dawisha. Without a doubt, Dictators without Borders is a welcome addition to this literature. Besides all the usual hallmarks of high-quality academic work, a particular merit of this book is the sense of urgency that it conveys by combining scholarly analysis with a clear and powerful moral message.
Anton Moiseienko is a PhD candidate at the Criminal Justice Centre, Queen Mary University of London. He writes about the fight against corruption and international law. Read more by Anton Moiseienko.
Dictators Without Borders: Power and Money in Central Asia
by Alexander Cooley and John Heathershaw
Reviewed by Robert Legvold
Corruption is no mere nuisance; it can suffuse a country’s core institutions and dominate political life. On this subject, Russia gets all the attention, but virtually every post-Soviet state, with the exception of the Baltics, is as bad or worse, especially the five Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. In this relentless exposé of corruption in the region, Cooley and Heathershaw detail the looting of state coffers, bribery on a massive scale, a labyrinth of opaque means for hiding assets abroad, and the ways in which corrupt elites use their wealth not only for personal excess but also to amass ever more political power. Such revelations, however, are not the authors’ primary purpose. Instead, they are intent on highlighting the extent to which the corruption of authoritarian rulers in these countries relies on the complicity of outside abettors, including Western lawyers, banks, and even courts, and how such collusion erodes the power of international norms and institutions. That pernicious impact on global governance makes this subject salient and this book important.
Book Review: Challenging myths about Central Asia
Lisa Kaaki | Published — Tuesday 19 September 2017
AddThis Sharing Buttons
Share to Facebook
Share to Twitter
Share to Google+
Share to WhatsApp
Share to Reddit
Share to Email
‘Dictators Without Borders’ sheds light on the inner workings of a little-understood corner of the world.
Related Articles
Book Review: If you are happy and you know it, post that selfie
Book Review: Does slow and steady win the race in India?
Book Review: A testament to creativity and imagination
Central Asia brings back the romance of the old Silk Road, one of the greatest trading routes in the world, and perhaps more notably, an avenue for the exchange of ideas and technologies. This ancient world in modern ferment has acquired considerable geostrategic importance due to the situation in Afghanistan, its natural resources, and its location between Europe, Asia, Russia, China, India and Iran.
“Dictators Without Borders: Power and Money in Central Asia” sheds light on the close link between secret financial transactions and political machinations in the Central Asian republics that became independent in the 1990s.
Central Asia made headlines worldwide when the Panama Papers were leaked to the press. The secretive world of tax havens became public knowledge. Politicians, celebrities, oligarchs — no one was spared. It became clear that Central Asian elites and businesses, far from operating in isolation, are embedded in a highly globalized system of shell companies and offshore intermediaries.
Alexander Cooley and John Heathershaw take us behind the scenes through an obscure network of bankers, lawyers and lobbyists in Frankfurt, London, New York and other financial capitals. They challenge the myth that Central Asia is remote and isolated from global influences. In fact, Central Asians are more knowledgeable about global popular culture than we are about them.
Another myth the authors refute is that Central Asia’s lack of economic liberalization has caused its economic and governance problems. Although the old Soviet-Russian ruble was immediately replaced by new currencies in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, privatization policies instigated by Western experts were not governed by the rule of law, but “by the principles of neo-patrimonial relations, where ruling elites provided assets to relatives and allies in return for their absolute loyalty and a cut of the spoils,” write Cooley and Heathershaw.
These states, which have embraced economic liberalization while retaining authoritarian rule, are referred to as “hybrid regimes.” They are defined by the quasi absence of a boundary between politics and economics, and between the public and private sectors.
“Crony capitalism” has connected Central Asia to the hidden and complex global system of tax havens and shell companies, which provide the world’s mega rich with the means to dodge their taxes and protect their unlawful fortunes.
In “Tax Havens: How Globalization Really Works,” authors Christian Chavagneux, Richard Murphy and Ronen Palan explain that in financial circles, “those who know do not talk and those who talk do not know. In tax matters, those who know talk, sometimes, but those who do not know talk a lot. The world of tax havens is opaque, confusing and secretive. It is a world that is saturated with stories and anecdotes. Yet the veritable flood of information can sometimes hide a dearth of solid data.”
The post-Soviet-state-building coincided with the rapid expansion of globalization. But Eastern Europe and Central Asia took different paths. For East European countries, joining the EU dominated their political agenda.
Central Asian states were originally interested in joining European institutions, but in time they became closer to China and Russia, and joined the Eurasian Economic Union and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Under Russian President Vladimir Putin, Central Asia became a stratregic priority.
Following the 9/11 attacks, Central Asian rulers became new allies in the global “War on Terror.” Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan provided logistical military bases for Operation Enduring Freedom, and all the Central Asian states provided transit rights for resupply and refueling. In return, the EU and US turned a blind eye to their increasingly authoritarian practices.
The Central Asian states skillfully juggled the new opportunities, institutions and legal tools provided by globalization to pursue their private economic agendas on a more global scale. Their use of shell companies played a key role in covering up their personal transactions and corrupt deals.
Corruption and environmental abuse watchdog Global Witness, in a report on Turkmenistan’s intermediary energy trading companies, says: “These companies have often come out of nowhere, parlaying tiny amounts of start-up capital into billion-dollar deals. Their ultimate beneficial ownership has been hidden behind complex networks of trusts, holding companies and nominee directors and there is almost no public information about where their profits go.”
Since many Central Asian shell companies are registered abroad, legal jurisdiction and contestation have shifted to foreign courts. In 2011, the Financial Times reported that about half of all active cases in the English Commercial Court were linked to Russia and the former Soviet states.
But this legal globalization has not advanced global governance or standards of accountability. Central Asian states have used and abused legal proceedings for their own purposes, mixing without qualms their personal business with state obligations.
Central Asian elites and oligarchs have also acquired passports and citizenship by taking part in a growing number of investor-residency programs. Countries such as Portugal, Cyprus and Malta provide passports to investors, which gives them free movement and residency rights in the EU’s Schengen area.
The UK, another popular destination, offers the Tier 1 Investor Residency program, which according to the Home Office is for people with a high net worth who want to make a substantial financial investment in the country.
The memory of the road that saw all the treasures, ideas, inventions, products and skills of the peoples of Eurasia remains alive. Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced in 2011 the concept of a New Silk Road (NSR), a web of economic and transit connections that will bind together a region too long torn apart by conflict and division. The NSR strategy continues to be a centerpiece of US policy in Central Asia and Afghanistan.
Two years later, in September 2013, Chinese Premier Xi Jinping declared that his country would promote a Silk Road Economic Belt. A few months later, he said the land-based belt includes building transportation networks (high-speed rail, airports and roads), energy infrastructure (power generation and energy pipelines) and a 21st-century Maritime Silk Road Belt. These two belts are known as One Belt, One Road (OBOR). This project, worth $1 trillion, is far more ambitious than the NSR.
Today’s Central Asian autocrats defend their authoritarianism and protect their activities as global individuals. They benefit from the complicity of Western institutions, companies, banks, regulators and politicians, and from the indifference of the rest of the world.