The world is in turmoil.
The war in Ukraine is changing the world’s power balance.
Two global powers are shifting position, getting ready for change.
Russia’s Vladimir Putin wages war in Europe a bid for relevance and stability at home.
China’s Xi Jinping makes history with a third term in charge - and a mission to expand
its global influence.
Caught between the two – Kazakhstan.
Its geography puts it in this awkward situation – between Russia and China.
And its huge oil and gas resources make it very interesting to both its enormous neighbours.
We are in Astana, the capital of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
That building over there/behind me, with the blue cupola is the presidential palace.
Kazakhstan is the ninth biggest country in the world – by area.
But it only has 20 million people – that’s less than Florida.
Kazakhstan shares a HUGE border with Russia – and relations are complicated.
It’s in that palace that Kazakhstan’s geopolitical position between Russia and China
combines with national considerations to create a very particular way of dealing with the
world.
Kazakhstan’s foreign policy is officially described as ‘multi-vector’ – simply
put, that means the predominantly Muslim nation stays equally close – or distant from – everyone.
Russia, China and the West.
This is not an easy balancing act.
Nursultan Nazarbayev, the country’s first post-Soviet president, brought Kazakhstan
into NATO’s Partnership for Peace.
But he also made it a member of the Russian-dominated Eurasian Economic Union and Organisation of
Collective Security Treaty.
Annnnd he was also one of the co-founders of the China-sponsored Shanghai Security Organisation.
Nazarbayev established this balancing act at the heart of Kazakh politics which he dominated
from independence in 1991 until 2019.
His successor Kasym-Zhomart Tokayev so far continued this multi-vector strategy.
Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine tests this policy to the full.
Many Kazakhs feel very uneasy and even unsafe - when they see many parallels to Ukraine
It’s not only that both countries have a long border with Russia.
There is strong and deep Russian influence in Kazakhstan, as was once in Ukraine – before
the war.
More than three million native Russian speakers live in Kazakhstan – like in the Donbas
and Crimean regions of Ukraine.
And in many major cities people often speak Russian as well as Kazakh.
Relations with Russia have been good.
The balancing act held in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea – Kazakhstan did not recognise
the annexation, but also didn’t cut ties with Moscow.
And in 2021, Khazakhstan’s trade turnover figures put Russia in the top spot with around
22.1 billion dollars.
But, as Joanna Lillis told me, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine threw that
balancing act into doubt.
She’s worked as a journalist and author in Kazakhstan for nearly two decades.
She saw the Kazakh elite realise things had changed, and that they were in a dangerous
position.
“We see every sign that that Kazakhstan's political leadership from President Tokayev
down is very rattled by the invasion of Ukraine, by Russia's aggression in another part of
the former Soviet Union, in a neighboring country, and that it's taking measures in
order to not be caught up in that as far as possible, not to be caught up in the political
fallout, not to be tarnished by the West as a as a sort of pro war ally of Russia and
not to be caught up in the economic fallout.
Now, of course, it is caught up in all of that, especially the economic fallout perhaps.
But I think best this is best summed up perhaps by a deputy foreign minister who put it very
nicely.
Kazakhstan has no intention of ending up behind a new iron curtain.
And I think that's the policy of the leadership“.
That policy can be seen right here.
These Russians fled Putin’s conscription of men to fight in Ukraine – they headed
for Kazakhstan.
It’s estimated that nearly 200,000 found a welcome – and a promise that they wouldn’t
be sent home.
It’s one way for President Tokayev to show his people, and the world, that he’s not
doing Putin’s bidding.
For Kazakhstan’s political opposition, this distancing from Russia is a desirable - and
inevitable - process.
Nurzhan Altayev used to be a deputy minister – now he leads an opposition party called
“Tyrege yel” – “Pillar of the People”.
They are closely monitored by the government, and have little chance of coming to power.
But they are tolerated to a degree that Putin’s opponents could only dream of.
Altayev speaks for many when he says Kazakhstan should accelerate that distancing process
from Russia.
We have a lot of people in the Kazakhstan elite who lived in the Soviet Union.
They are used to following the Moscow line, and not accustomed to making independent decisions.
They always keep Moscow’s attitudes in mind.
This is absolutely wrong.
But these people will now gradually fade into the background and leave the stage.
New people are coming, who have absolutely nothing to do with Moscow, nothing to do with
Russia.
These are young politicians who say: maybe we need to focus more on the West, on Europe,
on the United States.
There are also people who say we need to get closer to the Turkic-speaking countries - Turkey,
Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan.
They and we have one blood, one gene pool, one language, one religion and so on.
You know, Kazakhstan is a rather young country, and young people absolutely do not associate
themselves with the Soviet Union or the Russian Federation.
So Kazakhstan may be shifting its diplomatic balance away from Russia – does that open
an opportunity for China to step in?
Remember that geography?
And all that oil and gas?
All very interesting for China too - And China is already a major player in Kazakhstan.
It’s only a couple of billion dollars behind Russia in terms of trade – in second place
with around 19 billion dollars of turnover.
Evan Feigenbaum was US deputy assistant secretary of state for Central Asia under President
Obama.
He says China is an inevitable new focus for Kazakhstan, and by extension, the region.
What China's leveraging is the map in the first instance and then the second instance
- economic gravity.
When I say the map, it's because China is just geographically congruous to the region,
and so if you're a landlocked region that's looking for additional infrastructure links,
additional markets, additional connections to the global economy and, in particular,
if you're trying to foster alternatives to Russia, China is part of that geographic reality.
That's why China's it's an opportunity from the Central Asian perspective.
But China strategically has been able to leverage realities of the map in its favor.
But the main thing China is trying to leverage is economic gravity: China is not just a trader,
it's a builder, it's a lender and it's an investor, and so, from the standpoint of governments,
that creates, as I said, options and opportunities.
But many in Kazakhstan view those options and opportunities with deep suspicion.
When I was first here, back in 1994 , Almaty was the capital of the newly established republic.
Three years later president Nazarbayev moved the government to the center of the country.
Officially the move was to avoid the risk of earthquakes in this mountainous region.
But here we’re just three hundred kilometers away from the border with China – and that
would have been a consideration too.
The Chinese haven’t won over ordinary Kazakhs either.
Workers at Chinese enterprises in Kazakhstan have rioted over the last decade.
Their grievances?
Harsh working conditions, weak environmental protection and what might be at best Chinese
managers’ condescending attitude – at worst, their racism.
Opposition politician Nurzhan Altayev says a pivot from Russia to China would be very
frightening for Kazakhs.
Our people are very afraid of the Chinese, they are afraid of Chinese expansion.
Every time the question arises of new Chinese investments or maybe land to be leased to
the Chinese, our people immediately react and demand a halt.
People feel a certain danger on an intuitive level.
I found a leading Kazakh political analyst to explain the dilemma his country’s leadership
is in.
Dosym Satpayev was speaking with representatives of German businesses operating in Kazakhstan.
For the leadership of Kazakhstan, relations with China are a double-edged sword.
On the one hand, they understand that China can be a kind of counterbalance to Russia.
This is a very important point.
China would not be pleased if Russia tries to take over Kazakhstan’s northern territories
– Crimean style.
If only because China has invested around 30 billion dollars here.
Routes that are important for China pass through here.
Kazakhstan is also important as a stable state because of the proximity of Afghanistan and
China’s Xinjiang province.
Because of all this China is unambiguously against any military confrontations with Russia.
But, on the other hand, nobody can erase the anti-Chinese sentiments in Kazakhstan.
For Kazakhstan’s government this is trap, a significant trap.
President Tokayev’s conundrum is indeed very difficult.
He needs to keep relations with China active, as a counterweight to Russia, which feels
increasingly threatening.
And yet getting too close to China could provoke unease among Kazakhstan’s elite, and even
unrest on the streets.
China seems uninterested in such delicate considerations.
In September 2022 Xi Jinping used an official visit to Astana, to launch a new idea.
The day before he arrived, he published this.
Xi later pitched the same ideas at the summit of the Shanghai Security Organization.
It sounds like a major proposal, a confident Chinese step forward in the region.
But does it mean Beijing is ready to replace Moscow as Kazakhstan’s security guarantor?
Journalist Joanna Lillies thinks it might.
It sounded like a kind of shot across the bow to Russia.
Don't do anything in Kazakhstan.
Now we know that China has not condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine, although it's certainly
not offered wholehearted support either.
But I do think that that was a real statement to Russia, that there are red lines for China
and probably, you know, getting entangled in one of our neighbors China's neighbors,
is a red line for us.
And I think that's going to be very welcome to the Kazakh leadership to hear a really
a really mighty power kind of warning Russia not to encroach, although, of course, they
didn't name Russia.
But China would unlikely be prepared to open its security umbrella over Kazakhstan and
the whole of Central Asia, says former US diplomat Evan Feigenbaum.
This kind of stuff - commitment to sovereignty, territorial integrity - this is boiler plate
in Chinese foreign policy.
In fact, China has had a lot of the same things to say about Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial
integrity.
And where has that led us since February 24th?
If I were sitting in Kazakhstan, I certainly wouldn't expect much from the Chinese in terms
of picking a fight with Russia or fracturing their relationship on anybody's behalf.
China is not prepared to act as a proxy for anybody else.
They're acting in their own interests.
So, I read this, as I said, more as boilerplate, and I think the game is to try to foster a
sense of balance, including in a way that makes Moscow think twice, but tangibly I don't
expect much.
If China is unwilling to step in with firm security guarantees – and Russia is losing
influence, what should the West do?
It already has well-established relations with Kazakhstan – don’t forget that oil
– Collectively, the EU is an even greater trading partner than Russia.
US and European energy companies, such as Chevron and ENI are heavily involved in the
Trans-Caspian pipeline project – which takes gas to Europe without passing through Russia
. Western powers want this kind of thing to
continue.
And that would require Kazakhstan to continue its political balancing act, says political
analyst Dosym Satpayev Neither the United States nor the European
Union want Kazakhstan to become pro-Chinese, part of some kind of Chinese bloc.
But they also don’t want Kazakhstan to fall under the influence of Russia, like Belarus,
which is now all in with Russia.
They want this region to be neutral at best.
But if the West want Kazakhstan to turn away from Russia and NOT turn to China, they’ll
need to figure out who’s going to protect that strategic land, and all that oil and
gas.
This long avenue in Astana is Kazakhstan’s main parade ground.
It is here that the president reviews the troops on Fatherland Defender’s Day each
May 7th.
Putin’s war against Ukraine suddenly directed attention to Kazakhstan’s armed forces and
their state of readiness.
And they look pretty vulnerable.
They’re plagued by rampant corruption, and are dependent on Russian-made weapons, and
Russian-based training.
Corruption can only be fixed by the Kazakhs themselves, but the West could help in other
areas, says Joanna Lillis.
I do think that the West could give specific security assistance in terms of improving
Kazakhstan's armed forces so that it is better positioned to face down a threat.
Now, I can't obviously speak for the government, but I do think that the noises that the government
is making about improving the armed forces, greater spending on the armed forces could
indicate that it might be open to that kind of assistance.
And obviously it should be transparent, it shouldn't be misconstrued.
But I do think that that would be an area where the West could help.
The military is not the only area where foreign powers could have influence.
Across the region China is offering economic growth to a new generation no longer automatically
looking towards Russia.
Kazakhstan’s leadership may want to continue its international balancing act.
But the ground is shifting under its feet.
Russia may bleed its men, money and credibility in Ukraine but it still sees Kazakhstan as
an indispensable economic partner and strategic gateway to Central Asia.
With China poised to push expansion of its influence in the region – maybe at Russia’s
cost – Kazakhstan may find itself under pressure from both regimes.
As the stand-off between the US and China becomes global the West would be wise to pay
attention to Kazakhstan – and work out what to do fast.