Rubio’s Uzbekistan trip underlines Central Asia’s hunt for diverse partners

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio is arriving in Samarkand, the fabled Silk Road city in what is now central Uzbekistan, for talks with key regional ministers on Saturday.The C5+1 – Central Asia plus the US – summit to be held from Saturday to Tuesday heralds Washington’s new approach to the ex-Soviet region – pragmatic, purely transactional and devoid of speeches about democratisation and human rights.At the dawn of Central Asia’s independence, Americans used to show up in the mostly Muslim region strategically stretched between Russia, China and Iran, bearing gifts – and giving lectures.After the 1991 Soviet collapse, amid the region’s economic degradation, joblessness and poverty, US and European diplomats and businessmen were seen as ambassadors of the brave new world of capitalist prosperity.They wanted reforms – and not just the economic ones.Western diplomats made sure that former Communist apparatchiks-turned-new regional leaders understood that they’d get investments, technologies and international recognition only in exchange for abandoning the Soviet-era totalitarian ways of governing and building the economy.The West held forums and workshops on human rights,...