Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

US Secretary of State John Kerry hosted in Washington, DC last week a high-ranking delegation of Central Asian officials comprising the foreign ministers of the five states, known in the West as the "stans." Their visit to the US came under the auspices of the so-called C5+1 group, which was established in November when Kerry paid a visit to Samarkand in Uzbekistan.

Since then, the US-Central Asian agenda has taken on a truly regional tone, with Kerry saying this time that cooperation will focus on counterterrorism, economic assistance, transcontinental transportation and clean water initiatives. On the last count, the US pledged $15 million in assistance. Yet, despite all the rhetoric, it should be acknowledged that US influence in Central Asia has been in steady decline ever since the beginning of Barack Obama's first term as president in 2009.

According to US government statistics, the US federal authorities provided about $6.8 billion worth of aid to the region between 1992 and 2014, very little by US standards. The most prolific year was in 2010, in line with the Obama administration's decision to implement a troop surge in Afghanistan.

The military dimension of US-Central Asian cooperation has remained prominent chiefly thanks to the war in neighboring Afghanistan and the need for the US military to fly troops and equipment across the entire continent.

Although Obama decided last year to postpone indefinitely the planned withdrawal from Afghanistan, the key focus of his foreign policy has been elsewhere. In late 2011, the US Department of State, led at the time by Hillary Clinton, this year's Democratic nominee for president, announced a "pivot" to Asia.

Under the Obama doctrine, US relations with China, India, the Philippines, Indonesia and other Asian countries were deemed far more important for global geopolitical clout than its "boring" relationship with Europe, shaky ties with Russia and the economically insignificant involvement in Africa.

Russia's latest quarrel with Ukraine, which erupted into civil war in the latter in 2014, has patently reinvigorated US-EU ties, also highlighting the relevance of NATO for collective defense in the 21st century. But Central Asia still stays in the shadows of larger geopolitical imperatives. Obama has never visited any of the five "stans" since taking office more than seven years ago.

For Central Asia, the US was, in the early years of the 1990s, the embodiment of prosperity, good governance and global power. The likes of Chevron and ExxonMobil soon took seats at the table of major energy projects while security cooperation strengthened considerably in the wake of 9/11. The end of the Bush era and the start of a more pragmatic chapter under Obama, who once promised to end all the US foreign wars and even received a Nobel Peace Prize for that, coincided with the rising influence of Russia and China.

Moscow and Beijing have masterfully benefited from the lack of Washington's attention to promote their own visions of regional peace and prosperity only partially related to the US quest for stability in Afghanistan. Both the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union and China's One Belt and One Road initiative put Central Asia into a wider context of trans-Eurasian trade flows and all-encompassing economic development.

However, there is little chance the US will lose its appeal in Central Asia any time soon. For those wary of Russia's dominance, Washington offers the readily available alternative of a supposedly impartial partner who strives to maintain Central Asia's independence intact while keeping the door open to the Western world.

Another reason is that whoever wins the US presidential election in November, a new administration would likely see Russian and Chinese policies in the region with a more suspicious eye. The current favorite, Clinton, has consistently criticized Moscow's and Beijing's actions in Eastern and Central Europe, Central Asia and East Asia alike. In 2012, she publicly accused Vladimir Putin of seeking to "re-Sovietize" Russia's neighborhood.

It appears then that the C5+1 format could well grow into something much larger if Clinton wins the presidency. Would the US be able to disrupt Russia's and China's strategies in Central Asia? Unlikely, yet the "New Great Game" might reignite like never before.

The author is a Paris-based international affairs expert who writes for the Jamestown Foundation and IHS Jane's Intelligence Review. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn Follow us on Twitter @GTopinion