Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
The marriage of material gifts to interpersonal elite social bonds is a distinctive feature of China’s approach to Central Asia—one that resonates with local traditions and practices. This characteristic contrasts starkly with the approach preferred by the transatlantic West, which has tended to anchor its engagement with Central Asia in political norms and principles.
Concerns and public resentment over the influx of Russians cannot be seen any other way than through the prism of the long colonial history between the Central Asian states and the Russian (and later Soviet) empire.
As more Russians flee to neighboring countries and more nationals of those countries go to fight in Ukraine, their governments will find it increasingly difficult to ignore these developments.
Central Asia is very interested in finding new alternatives and China is the best alternative.
The leaders of China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan met in the ancient Silk Route city of Samarkand on September 16 for a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, the red lines in its relationship with Russia have been unclear for Kazakhstan. If earlier Kazakhstan holding military drills with NATO would not have angered Russia, now Moscow sees itself as being at war with the West and may act much more aggressively.
The war in Ukraine has enabled Kazakhstan’s Tokayev to reinvent himself as a truly independent figure, no longer reliant on either his predecessor Nazarbayev or Russia’s Putin. Now Tokayev hopes to cement this status by securing a popular mandate to rule.
All eyes will be on the China-Russia strategic partnership, but the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s Central Asian members have greater confidence and bargaining power than ever before—and Beijing knows it.
What kind of country would Kazakhstan or Ukraine be if, back then, they had tried to push their way into the nuclear club?
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