Trusting Sino-Kazakh relations set to further strengthen after Xi visit

Chinese President Xi Jinping (pictured) kicks off his visit to Kazakhstan Thursday before starting a tour to Russia where he will attend the celebrations marking the 70th anniversary of the defeat of the Nazism.

He last visited the Central Asian country in September 2013 and it was during this visit that he came up with the Silk Road Economic Belt initiative which is aimed at tightening connections between Asia and Europe.

Almost two years on, the initiative has moved toward implementation as China released the principles, framework, priorities and mechanisms earlier this year. Kazakhstan’s geographical position and efforts to seek multi-faceted foreign relations make it a critical country in playing an exemplary role for other countries concerned in forging ahead the initiative.

Kazakhstan’s recently re-elected President Nursultan Nazarbayev said that his country highly supports the initiative that will bring it enormous benefits. During Xi’s visit an array of agreements on major projects concerning the initiative are expected to be signed. These make Xi’s ongoing visit to Kazakhstan a particularly significant one.

China and Kazakhstan have maintained their overall relationship, economic and political, at a high level. This can be demonstrated by important agreements that feature projects on a large scale and massive investments signed by the two sides.

Kazakhstan, with which China shares a border of over 1,700 kilometers, boasts convenient transportation in road and railway and abundant resources such as oil, gas and uranium. China is the largest trade partner of Kazakhstan as the bilateral trade volume grows by 20 percent annually and is also its largest export market.

As Kazakhstan is keen to attract foreign investment, China’s strategy of going global has ensured massive flow of investment. From 1991 to 2013, it received $22 billion in investment from China. In December Chinese Premier Li Keqiang brought $14 billion investment to Kazakhstan by signing some 30 agreements during his visit. As Nazarbayev said late last year, about 20 percent of Kazakh oil is produced with the participation of Chinese companies.

Kazakhstan has adopted a multi-vector foreign policy and its self-positioning and development strategies have offered many ways to collaborate with China. The two sides naturally have many interests in common and sectors to work on together.

There are some dissenting voices concerning relations between China and Kazakhstan. Some conservative forces in Kazakhstan have concerns given China’s expanding economic cooperation in the region and some critics argue that Kazakhstan has to carefully strike a balance between China and Russia competing for larger clout in Central Asia.

In spite of that, Astana and Beijing have built up sound mutual trust and they are aware that the well-developed bilateral relationship is not at the cost of Kazakhstan’s ties with any other country.

With their massive economic cooperation on energy, in the future development China and Kazakhstan will also have their eyes on other non-energy spheres, namely infrastructure, transportation and finance. They also need to work on better policy communication and business environment. Besides, the China-proposed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, where Kazakhstan is one of the 57 founding members, and the Silk Road Economic Belt will serve as a good platform for the two countries to expand and improve their cooperation

The article was compiled by Global Times reporter Sun Xiaobo based on an interview with Wu Hongwei, a research fellow with the Institute of Russian, Eastern European, Central Asian Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. People’s Daily and Global Times.

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