By Umair Jamal

September 30, 2020, the CACI Analyst

China and Iran’s US$ 400 billion trade deal will hurt India’s economic and security interests. With Iran likely to offer China the Chabahar port project, India’s Central Asia policy has suffered a huge setback. The Iran-China deal increases the importance of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a project that India opposes. Going forward, India’s ability to isolate Pakistan and balance China’s role will be severely circumscribed. The concerted effort of Iran, Pakistan and China to increase economic connectivity will definitely also involve Afghanistan, whereas India’s diplomacy faces an uphill task with the loss of a key ally to China. 

By Tristan Kenderdine

April 28, 2017, the CACI Analyst

There are two major policy shifts occurring simultaneously in China which will open new markets for Central Asian agroindustrial development and exports. The first is monumental. China is not only relaxing subsidies on domestic agricultural production while promoting the market mechanisms required to import more grains, it is genuinely letting go of domestic production as a food security ballast, and will begin to let other nation states feed its populace. The second is industrial international capacity cooperation, the policy solution to China's overcapacity malaise. The program envisions moving whole production chains offshore, essentially shifting Chinese industrial capacity to external geographies.