Critics are exasperated by the government’s passivity, warning that the reforms needed for Tajikistan to weather this moment should have been adopted “the day before yesterday.”
Trade has plummeted, Chinese goods are disappearing from markets, and exports of China’s favorite Central Asian commodity – natural gas – have nosedived.
There are worries that election observers from Armenia – which has been relatively hard-hit by the COVID-19 outbreak – could bring the virus into Karabakh.
As the government pretends everything is normal, families are in a state of deepening anxiety over a perfect storm that could plunge the country into an unusually severe crisis.
Central Asia claims zero cases of coronavirus, but the economic symptoms are everywhere. This and more in our monthly briefing on Chinese business in the region.
Armenia went farther than most of Iran’s neighbors, closing its border for two weeks. Azerbaijan, meanwhile, was the only country to have not closed its border with Iran at all.