Uzbekistan: The violent crackdown by the Uzbek government on Karakalpakstan protests may have serious repercussions for Central Asia as well as the balance of power between Russia, China, and the West.

Rare protests that took place last week in the autonomous Karakalpakstan region of Uzbekistan, which borders Kazakhstan in the northwest of the country, turned deadly.

The government reports that clashes between security personnel and protesters resulted in 18 fatalities and 243 injuries. Over 500 people were held.

Law enforcement officers and civilians were both killed, according to the authorities, who withheld the identities of those who died. The proposed constitutional changes, which would have stripped the vast region of its autonomy and right to secede, had sparked the unrest.

Following the brutal crackdown, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, the president of Uzbekistan, visited the area and declared that "order had been restored." He also admitted that he changed his mind about wanting to limit the region's sovereignty.

The news coming out of the former Soviet Republic did not garner much attention on a global scale amid a number of serious crises, such as an ongoing pandemic and a war in Europe. For many, what happened in Karakalpakstan was just a small, bloody disturbance in a far-off, seemingly insignificant part of the world.

Even the Soviet Union regarded Karakalpakstan as an outlying region that required little attention. People transported works of art deemed "degenerate" by the government to the outlying area during Stalin's rule because they knew the authorities would not bother pursuing them there. The second-largest collection of works by the Russian avant garde is still kept at the State Museum of Arts of the Republic of Karakalpakstan, but due to its isolation, visitors are infrequent.

However, we shouldn't be misled into believing that events in Karakalpakstan and possibly Uzbekistan won't have a significant impact on the rest of the world. The brutal crackdown on demonstrators last week in Karakalpakstan marks a turning point in Mirziyoyev's political, economic, and geopolitical plans. As a result, not only could Karakalpakstan and Uzbekistan be affected by its aftermath, but also the future of the larger, strategically significant region.

Although Mirziyoyev is not a democrat, he has shown the ability to conduct business with the rest of the world, including the West, at least up until very recently. Whether this was done out of conviction or out of convenience will depend on how he responded to the unrest in Karakalpakstan. The power dynamics at the centre of Eurasia will be shaped by how the rest of the world reacts. The West should do everything in its power to assist in putting Mirziyoyev back on the path of reform and progress in order to maintain at least some influence over a seemingly remote but critically important country and to ensure the well-being of the people of Uzbekistan.