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Identifying the relationships between moisture changes in arid central Asia and those in East Asia may help us understand the interplay between the westerlies and the Asian summer monsoon. We combined proxy moisture records with the results from a transient simulation forced by changes in orbital parameters to analyse their relationships during the Holocene (9.5-0 ka BP). The proxy records and simulation results generally agree with a relatively dry early Holocene, the wettest period in the middle Holocene, and a dry late Holocene in East Asia. These periods were not solely controlled by precession-driven East Asian summer monsoon variability, but were significantly influenced by precipitation during the other seasons and by evaporation. However, different proxy records show contrasting results for moisture changes in arid central Asia during the Holocene. To study this, we analysed the climatic signals of the competing proxy records by comparing these proxy records with simulation results. We found that speleothem delta O-18 was significantly influenced by water vapour sources and evaporation rather than by the amount of precipitation. Thus, the model data reveals a persistent wetting trend throughout the Holocene that was out-of-phase with the trend in East Asia. The wetting trend in arid central Asia was caused by precipitation that increased faster than evaporation during the Holocene. The enhanced water vapour input from South Asia and the Middle East was the main cause of the increase in precipitation in arid central Asia, which in turn gave rise to the intensification of evaporation. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.