China strengthens ties with Central Asia at Xi-hosted summit.

China's President Xi Jinping is hosting his first-ever summit with the leaders of five Central Asian nations in Xian, underlining Beijing's growing influence in a region that Russia has long considered its own back yard. The two-day event brings together the leaders of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan whose countries are crucial to China's trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). While the summit coincides with the high-profile G7 summit in Japan, analysts said the significance of the China Central Asia Summit was that it underlined the shifting patterns of influence in former Soviet states where Russia has long been influential.