Soft or Hard Power? Russia Reacts to Uzbekistan's Draft Language Policy
By Farkhod Tolipov
June 8, 2020, the CACI Analyst
In May 2020, Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Maria Zakharova commented on a draft law initiated by Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Justice, stipulating the use of Uzbek language for the entire workflow in governmental bodies. According to the draft law, officials will be fined for failure to comply. Moscow reacted strongly to this political motion in Uzbekistan. Whereas support for national language and culture abroad is a normal feature of foreign policy and commonly regarded as a “soft power” tool; the statement of Russia’s MFA Spokesperson was received as another form of “hard power” in Uzbekistan.
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