According to the generally accepted political definition of the term, "Central Asia" encompasses the five states Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan, which became independent Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) republics only after the fall of the Soviet Union, though their character as national units and carriers of national sovereignty originated in Soviet times. Strictly speaking, intergovernmental relations to the PRC were therefore not established until the…