The Center for Regional Studies held international conference “China and the United States in Central Asia the Middle East and South Asia”
On May 16, 2026, the Center for Regional Studies at the Turan University Graduate School of International Relations and Diplomacy held an International Conference “China and the United States of America in Central Asia, the Middle East and South Asia.” This conference is a continuation of the traditional conferences on cooperation between China and the Middle East, the first of which was held at Peking University in 2015.
The current VI conference expanded the regional scope of the issues discussed, including Central and South Asia on the one hand, and the US policy on the other. Therefore, the discussion of scholars at the conference at Turan University focused on urgent issues of geopolitics of three important Asian regions – Central Asia, the Middle East and South Asia, in the context of political interaction between the countries of the region and the two leading superpowers of our time – China and the United States of America. At four sessions of this academic forum, 43 researchers and experts from 16 countries – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, the USA, India, Russia, Great Britain, Serbia, Slovenia, Turkey, Georgia, Namibia, the United Arab Emirates, Thailand, Indonesia, Sweden, delivered 34 papers.
The papers were devoted to general and specific issues of foreign policy and geo-economics of the countries of these regions and relations with superpowers and regional powers, the role and nature of cooperation between countries and the activities of international organizations. The conference was attended by leading experts from the world centers for the study of International relations, including Klaus Larres Richard, Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (USA), Professor of Nanjing University Zhengchun Jiang (PRC), Director of the Podar International School Dr. Sudhanshu Nayak (India), Professor of the Kazakh National University named after al-.Farabi – Fatima Kukeyeva (Almaty) and others. The relevance of the conference theme was demonstrated by recent summit of the US President Donald Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping in Beijing on May 13-14, 2026.
The Center for Regional studies organized the conference jointly with Tugrul Keskin, Professor of Cappadocia University (Turkiye), who was the initiator and organizer of previous academic forums on China’s relations with the Middle East. Currently, Professor Tugrul Keskin is a visiting scholar at Center for Regional Studies of Turan University. The conference “China and the United States of America in Central Asia, the Middle East and South Asia” has become an important event in the academic life of Kazakhstan. It was received with great interest by students and undergraduates of the specialties “International Relations” and “Regional Studies”, who listened were among the attendees.
