China Expands Its Economic Footprint Across Central Asia

Soft power, in the form of scientific cooperation, is helping to drive an expansion of China’s economic influence in Central Asia. Uzbekistan and China, for example, recently launched the joint hyperspectral satellite, Samarkand-2028, which will support applications in agriculture, environmental monitoring, water resource management and natural disaster response. The satellite also features an Uzbek-developed AI module for onboard data processing, reducing the volume of data transmitted to ground stations while increasing the speed and efficiency…