Nudging Not Nagging: Leveraging Mentorship and Patronage in Sino-Uzbek Relations, 2017-2022

This paper considers Sino-Uzbek relations by critically assessing the positivist depictions of Central Asian states in their relations with larger countries like China. It uses the post-positivist and constructivist framework and adaptations made from the four-factor analysis framework adopted in the case of Uzbekistan to demonstrate avenues in which Uzbekistan demonstrates active agency in relations with China. This paper argues that Uzbekistan and other Central Asian states utilize nudging strategies which refer to a subtle and often indirect way of encouraging or guiding China’s behavior in a particular direction as opposed to so-called “nagging” which associates with persistent and repetitive pressuring China to perform a certain function. Accordingly, Uzbekistan’s approach to China can be described as the nudging strategy of designing the environment or context which makes China’s choices in its relations with Uzbekistan easier and more attractive in favor of policy decisions desired by the Uzbek government. As is depicted in the narrative of cooperation road maps, Uzbekistan’s approach involved both indirect signaling of certain policy preferences, choice-preserving (involving diversification of foreign partners), and positive reinforcement (through various policy incentives). This contrasts the persistent and repetitive pressuring, criticism, threats, or guilt-tripping, seen in relations between China and other Western states.