Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived at Nur-sultan Wednesday for a state visit to Kazakhstan, the first foreign visit of the Chinese top leader since the COVID-19 pandemic, underscoring that he highly values the bilateral relations with the Central Asian country and indicating such visit will inject new growth momentum for the country, Chinese officials and experts said. As China's permanent comprehensive strategic partner, Kazakhstan is considered as a bridge connecting China with Central Asia and Europe, as it's also where the Chinese president first proposed the Belt and Road Initiative and on the first stop of the BRI's westward routes from China, bringing tremendous benefits for the region and the world.
Some experts also pointed out that Kazakhstan has been striking a balance between China and Russia in terms of political influence, and serving as a bridge for major powers also sets a good example for other Central Asian countries. Kazakhstan and Central Asia are in a very important position in China's overall diplomacy, as all five Central Asian states are China's strategic partners, and among them, China-Kazakhstan partnership has reached one of the highest levels, experts said.
Xi was warmly welcomed by Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, along with Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mukhtar Tileuberdi at the airport. Xi and Tokayev were expected to hold a meeting on Wednesday afternoon.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Kazakhstan. Standing at a new historical starting point of China-Kazakhstan relations, President Xi's visit will surely draw a new blueprint, inject new momentum to the bilateral relations, opening up a new chapter and another golden thirty years of bilateral relations, Zhang Xiao, Chinese Ambassador to Kazakhstan said on Monday. The bilateral relations have withstood a changing international situation, and the two countries firmly support each other on issues concerning their core interests, making important contribution to the regional and world peace and stability, Zhang noted. In recent years, under the strategic guidance of the two heads of state, the political mutual trust between the two countries has been continuously strengthened, and the two countries will continue to consolidate the political foundation of bilateral relations and create favorable conditions for bilateral cooperation in various fields, he said.
Almost a decade ago, Xi visited Kazakhstan, making a significant proposal that China and Central Asian countries build an "economic belt along the Silk Road", a trans-Eurasian project spanning from the Pacific Ocean to the Baltic Sea, during a speech at Nazarbayev University in Astana, now known Nur-sultan. He also visited the Central Asian country in 2015 and in 2017 to boost the bilateral ties and regional cooperation through the Belt and Road Initiative.
"President Xi's first visit abroad since the pandemic highlights the importance he attaches to Kazakhstan and Central Asia, which is also seen as a breakthrough in terms of China's foreign exchanges, especially the visits of high-level leaders," Zhao Huirong, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies, told the Global Times on Wednesday. Central Asia could be seen as China's key "strategic partner zone" in the world, she said, as the five Central Asian countries are all China's strategic partners. Among them, Kazakhstan was one of the first to become China's strategic partners, which enjoyed one of the highest-levels of strategic partnership, Zhao said.
In a signed article by Xi titled "Build on the Past to Make Greater Strides in China-Kazakhstan Relations" published Tuesday on the Kazakhstanskaya Pravda newspaper ahead of his state visit, the Chinese top leader described the two countries as being bound together by mountains and rivers and common interests, which are good neighbors, good friends and good partners.
Having stood the test of the changing circumstances and the passage of time, China-Kazakhstan relations have long become rock-solid, Xi said in the article. He said he will have in-depth discussions with President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev on how to further the China-Kazakhstan permanent comprehensive strategic partnership and how to advance our mutually beneficial cooperation across the board. Setting our sight beyond the pandemic, China would like to partner with Kazakhstan to remain pioneers in Belt and Road cooperation, Xi stressed.
China would like to deepen law enforcement, security and defense cooperation with Kazakhstan. Guided by the Global Security Initiative, the two countries should act on the concept of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security, and work together to promote the implementation of the Data Security Cooperation Initiative of China+Central Asia, the article said.
We should join hands to combat terrorism, separatism, extremism, drug trafficking and transnational organized crimes, and ensure the security of oil and gas pipelines and other large cooperation projects and their personnel. We should resolutely oppose interference by external forces and work together for lasting peace and long-term stability of our region, Xi said.
The world has been witnessing more uncertainties now including the uncertainties in supply chain and in foreign relations. China's good neighborhood lays a foundation for the country's prosperity, and as a corridor in Central Asia, Kazakhstan stands at a central stage of China's interaction with the Central Asian countries, Wang Yiwei, director of the Institute of International Affairs at the Renmin University of China, told the Global Times on Wednesday.
"The Central Asian country has been always hoping to serve as a bridge between China and Russia," Wang said, noting that striking such balance between major powers also serves as a good example for other Central Asian countries.
Belt and Road cooperation is a major highlight in China-Kazakhstan cooperation. In 1992, the bilateral trade volume was only $368 million, but it has reached $25.25 billion in 2021, said Zhang, the Chinese envoy to Kazakhstan. From January to July 2022, China-Kazakhstan trade reached $17.67 billion, up 18.9 percent year-on-year, which is expected to hit a record high for the whole year
The two countries have established a dialogue mechanism for production capacity and investment, and established a special fund for China-Kazakhstan production capacity cooperation, providing strong support for the development of Kazakhstan's energy, industry, transportation and other fields, the Chinese envoy said.
Also, among the Central Asian countries, Kazakhstan plays a fundamental role in the trade between China and the Eurasian region, while serving as an important channel for China to link Eurasian countries as the northern line of the China-Europe freight train service. "China-Europe freight trains pass through Kazakhstan to Europe, and Kazakhstan has gained a lot of benefits from Belt and Road cooperation, which also helped it achieve its long-standing will of serving as a transportation hub in Eurasia," Zhao said.
As more countries have been struggling in energy crisis amid Russia-Ukraine conflict and rampant inflation, trade activities between China and the Central Asian countries have been keeping their momentum. Such close partnership also triggered some speculation from the West on whether Russia's influence in the region has been overshadowed by China's presence.
"This is the typical intention of sowing discord between China and Russia. China and Kazakhstan are eyeing on strategic and concrete cooperation," Wang said.
Experts said the stability and development of Central Asia is not only the concern of the Central Asian countries, but also the concern of both China and Russia, as the two countries have many consensus and common interests in the region. The current instability in the international and regional situation directly leads to a greater desire for regional stability, peace and development, so there is more demand for closer and more efficient cooperation, Zhao noted. "As Xi's visit will not only enhance bilateral relations but also boost multilateral cooperation to meet those demand," she said.
Following the state visit to Kazakhstan, Xi will also visit Uzbekistan and attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit, a strategically important occasion of gathering of world leaders such as Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, according to media reports.
While China-Kazakhstan relations serve as an example for China-Central Asia ties, the geopolitical situation in the region has becoming more complex, and experts suggested that China and Central Asian countries should enhance communication and coordination in combating extremist forces.
"To crack down on 'Three Evils', China and Central Asian countries need to enhance security cooperation under the SCO framework including intelligence sharing, staff training, joint exercise in fighting drugs, cross-border organized crimes and preventing the spread of extremist ideas," Zhao said.
For his first visits abroad since the COVID-19 pandemic, Chinese President Xi Jinping will be in both Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit. Experts said such visits not only demonstrate that China attaches great importance on Central Asia and the SCO, but also show how China's cooperation with the two Central Asian countries sets a paragon for Beijing's relations with Central Asian nations in wide-ranging areas such as economic collaboration, fighting terrorism and upholding regional stability and peace. Also, the President's visit to a country where the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was first proposed, will help to take a glimpse of the fruitful achievement countries have gained together for the past years under the framework, and also signals that China is willing to expand the breadth and depth of bilateral exchanges with those countries, and expand cooperation in many new areas, said experts.
A signed article by Xi titled "Build on the Past to Make Greater Strides in China-Kazakhstan Relations" was published Tuesday on the Kazakhstanskaya Pravda newspaper ahead of his state visit to Kazakhstan. "During my upcoming visit, I will have in-depth discussions with President Tokayev on how to further the China-Kazakhstan permanent comprehensive strategic partnership and how to advance our mutually beneficial cooperation across the board. We will set out plans for working together to promote China-Kazakhstan relations with the objective and vision of building a China-Kazakhstan community with a shared future," reads the article.
Another signed article by Xi titled "Working Together for a Brighter Future of China-Uzbekistan Relations" was published Tuesday on Uzbek media ahead of his state visit to the Central Asian country. "Over 2,000 years of friendly exchanges and three decades of mutually beneficial cooperation show that enhancing China-Uzbekistan cooperation on all fronts conforms to the trend of history and meets the fundamental interests of both peoples. Standing at the intersection of past and future, we are full of confidence and expectation for a more promising prospect of China-Uzbekistan relations," reads the article.
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying announced Monday that President Xi will attend the 22nd meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the SCO in the city of Samarkand, and pay state visits to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan from September 14 to 16 at the invitation of the presidents of the two countries.
Mao Ning, spokesperson of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said at Tuesday's briefing that President Xi's visits to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan shows China's ties with the two countries have entered a new development era. She said Xi will hold talks with Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, and have in-depth exchanges on bilateral ties, cooperation in various fields and international and regional issues of mutual interest.
She said those visits will provide a new blueprint, new goals and new impetus for China's ties with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.Kazakhstan is an important node on China-proposed BRI, as the two countries witnessed ample achievement via the initiative; and it is where Xi announced this initiative in 2013, setting in motion a new era of economic ties with countries along the route.
Being the country where the BRI initiative was first proposed, Kazakhstan's participation in the BRI provides a "demonstration effect" for other similar neighboring landlocked countries on how China and Central Asia could expand cooperation and how such cooperation could benefit Central Asian economies, Wang Yiwei, director of the Institute of International Affairs at the Renmin University of China, told the Global Times.Elaborating on the significance of the BRI to Central Asian economies, Wang said that the initiative has helped landlocked Central Asian countries like Kazakhstan to connect with the sea, which is a great boost to local economies.
According to media reports, China and Kazakhstan have set up a logistics terminal in Jiangsu Province's Lianyungang Port, which is Kazakhstan's first exit to the Pacific Ocean. Products from Kazakhstan could be transported to the terminal via China-Europe Railway Express trains and then be shipped to overseas countries by sea. The port is the first project of China and countries involved in the BRI to start operating.Data revealed in a Xinhua News Agency report showed that China's trade volume with five Central Asian nations had surged by more than 100 times in the 30 years since China established formal diplomatic relations with them.
Annual bilateral trade between China and Kazakhstan reached $25.25 billion last year, nearly 70 times the amount in 1992, the year in which the two countries established diplomatic ties, making the country "a vanguard and exemplary zone in co-building the Belt and Road," said Chinese Ambassador to Kazakhstan Zhang Xiao.
China and Uzbekistan are also working toward the goal of reaching $10 billion in annual bilateral trade, according to Chinese Ambassador to Uzbekistan Jiang Yan.
On the other hand, the BRI also opened the door to more cooperation between China and Central Asian countries in areas like politics, economy, safety, humanity, and international affairs, while expanding the breadth and depth of bilateral exchanges between China and those economies, Liang Haiming, dean of the Belt and Road Institute at Hainan University, told the Global Times.
"This shows that via the BRI, China and Central Asia not only share deep friendship, their cooperation is also supported by tangible results, so that the countries and their people can truly enjoy the benefits of such cooperation," Liang said. According to experts, the BRI cooperation between China and Central Asian economies presents a new concept of international relations, which focuses on connectivity instead of decoupling, as well as provides a model of dialogue between (ancient) civilizations.Experts also noted that there's ample space for China and Central Asian economies to expand cooperation in the future. Wang said that China and Central Asian countries' cooperation used to center on areas like energy and infrastructure, but opportunities also exist that cooperation could be launched in areas like digital, healthcare and other high-quality projects.
Xi choosing Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan as destinations for his first foreign visit, and before the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, showcases that China attaches great importance to the SCO, trying to push for healthy development of the organization amid increasingly complicated international background, Yang Xiyu, a senior research fellow at the China Institute of International Studies, told the Global Times.Yang noted that Beijing's ties with Nur-Sultan and Tashkent set paragons of cooperation within SCO members, as well as China's collaboration with Central Asian countries. "The SCO originally was set up to tackle security issues in the region, but over the years, member states witnessed more and more cooperation on trade and the economy. Leaders from China, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan will likely have in-depth discussion about economic cooperation this time; and the close collaboration between China and those two Central Asian countries will inject strong momentum into the SCO on trade ties," said Yang.
Now, with the potential entry of "mini powerhouses" like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the SCO is likely to become one of the world's most influential international organizations without under the influence of the US. "It will become an organization that represents the emerging industrial nations, which will play a pivotal role in safeguarding world stability and peace," Zhou Rong, a senior researcher at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies of the Renmin University of China told the Global Times. Experts also believe that the friendly ties between China, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan represent a successful model between China's ties with Central Asian countries.
Take anti-terrorism and solving domestic problems as an example, the reason why China has smooth collaboration with those countries on fighting terrorism, and why they speak highly of each other's handling of domestic ethnic issues is because we always uphold international laws, and stick to the principles of sovereign equality and non-interference, said Yang.
In April 2021, Vladimir Norov, then secretary-general of the SCO, along with diplomats from countries such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, visited China's Xinjiang region. They visited an exhibition of anti-terrorism in Xinjiang and spoke highly of China's achievements in this field. They also demonstrated their support for China's efforts in cracking down on terrorism in the region. When violent demonstrations erupted in Kazakhstan in January this year, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi pledged China's firm support to Kazakhstan in ending violence in the country and safeguarding security, during a phone call with Kazakh Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mukhtar Tileuberdi, shortly afterwards.
When China and Central Asia come closer, it also triggered what experts called "sour grape" mentality of some Western countries, with many Western media and think tanks sparing no efforts of sowing discord in the relationship between China and Russia, another close partner of Central Asian countries.
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a US-headquartered organization recently published a piece saying that "engagement in Central Asia, the Russian Far East, and the Arctic has tested Russia's and China's abilities to manage their differences and translate the rhetoric of partnership into tangible gains."
Chinese experts see those attempts not only as a way to ferment conflict between Beijing and Moscow, but also a reflection of Western countries' zero-sum mindset and narrow-mindedness as the West views geopolitics as members vying for competition and a game with losers and winners.There's no such thing as squeezing someone out of Central Asia, as this region needs to cooperate with other countries, and both China and Russia are joining hands with regional countries to pursue a win-win cooperation, Yang Jin, an associate research fellow at the Institute of Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.
He said that also, China and Russia's investments are complementary in Central Asia as Moscow has strong influence in security area whilst China's economic and trade investment is growing in this region. The economic cooperation with China has stimulated growth in this region, which Russia is also happy to see, according to Yang Jin.
The situation on the battlefield of the Russia-Ukraine conflict has taken a complicated turn in recent weeks. According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday, the Ukrainian army has recaptured 6,000 square kilometers of territory since the "counteroffensive" was launched in early September. However, Russia publicly explained that its troops withdrew on its own initiative to regroup "to liberate Donbass." The actual situation is still unclear, but the US and Western media couldn't wait to celebrate Ukraine's "big victory in the counteroffensive." While aiming their guns at Russia, some have fired hidden arrows at China.
Hal Brands, a professor of political science at the Johns Hopkins University in the US, recently tweeted that "if Russia's battlefield situation in Ukraine is as bad as it seems, it will create serious dilemmas for China." Some US and Western media also claimed that Ukraine's rapid advances have "certainly left China in an uncomfortable position." and even called for China to "draw lessons from Russia." These arguments are both absurd and vicious. They first demoralize Russia by magnifying its "defeat" on the battlefield and then convert it into a "defeat" of China in a far-fetched way. According to the logic of the West, they either "bind" China and Russia tightly or attempt to create a rift between the two countries.To be precise, such expressions have mostly exposed the US and Western elites' secret wishes. In particular, the inclusion of China, which is neither a party concerned nor a culprit of the conflict, is not based on facts at all, but is driven by malicious motives. China has never been involved in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, so how can the situation of "he who rides a tiger is afraid to dismount" be applied to China?It should be emphasized that China's position on the conflict between Russia and Ukraine has always been the same, and the nature of Beijing's relationship with both Moscow and Kiev has also not changed. China has always stood for respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries, abiding by the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, attaching importance to the legitimate security concerns of all countries, supporting all efforts conducive to the peaceful resolution of the crisis, and committing itself to promoting peace talks to ease the humanitarian situation. China consistently opposes unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdictions that have no mandate from the UN Security Council. Both the Russian and Ukrainian sides have expressed appreciation for China's objective and impartial position on the Ukraine issue.
On this matter, China has never added fuel to the fire, nor did it take advantage of the opportunity to seek geopolitical self-interests, unlike the US and the West, which have continued to make provocations and want to use Ukraine to bring down Russia. Not only that, the outbreak of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine is regrettable, and we are worried about the protracted conflict and the development of a war of attrition. No matter how the situation on the battlefield changes, it is a definite and hazardous fact that the factors that led to the outbreak of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine have not been resolved, but have become more serious. Except for those with geopolitical ambitions, who else would see such an outcome as a victory?
Many American and Western media and politicians have emphasized in a high-profile manner that the weapons of the US and NATO have helped Ukraine "dramatically reverse the situation," forming an atmosphere of public opinion that strengthens the delivery of weapons to Ukraine. Some reports, citing senior US defense officials, said that Washington and its allies are discussing Ukraine's long-term needs, such as the possibility of supplying Kiev with fighter jets in the "medium and long term." On one side is Washington's desire to fight "to the last Ukrainian," and on the other is Russia's emphasis on continuing the special military operation "until all the goals that were originally set are achieved." This likely means that the bloodshed won't stop anytime soon, and may turn into a prolonged stalemate. The damage caused by this trend is not only reflected in the brutal battlefield.
The Russia-Ukraine conflict has lasted for more than 200 days. It has had a significant impact not only on the people of Russia and Ukraine. In addition, the ordinary people in Europe and many developing countries are suffering from the disastrous geopolitical consequence. Recently, a former British MP pointed out that "this is the US being willing to fight to the last drop of Ukrainian blood and being ready to fight to the last European." Now Washington wants to further drain Ukraine's geopolitical value, trying to forcibly drag China into the conflict between Russia and Ukraine in every possible way. Such greed is really ugly. Washington's bottom line is lower than the world can imagine.
Reported on September 13-14 2022 by the Global Times (China).
