The Japanese premier Junichiro Koizumi, 小泉純一郎, is off on a tour to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, the two biggest countries in Central Asia. Uzbekistan with 27 million inhabitants is the most populous one, and Kazakhstan with almost 3,000,000 km² has the by far largest area.
This is not just a polite trip to some poor countries who need some help. All Central Asia has recently shown a strong economic development. The countries are small compared to their neighbours China, India and Russia, but they seem to have got rid of the stagnating Soviet economic system at least as efficiently as Russia, and their economy is booming.
They work together with the giants China and Russia and the much smaller Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Шанхайская организация сотрудничества, 上海合作组织, shàng hǎi hé zuò zǔ zhī, to further make sure that the countries of the old Silk Road will not be forgotten in the economic evolution of one of the most dynamic areas of the world.
One can note that neither Turkmenistan nor Mongolia is a member of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. Hopefully that does not mean that they are forgotten, but only that they are busy with other things, like playing football or building hightech factories.
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