Peking. The intention of Chinese President Xi Jinping is to fill the void left by Russia in Central Asia, the traditional power in this region, now weakened by the sanctions resulting from the war in Ukraine.
The former Soviet republics of Central Asia play a key role in the Chinese initiative called the New Silk Roads, also known as the Belt and Road.
This pharaonic program, promoted by Chinese President Xi Jinping, wants to build roads, ports, railways and infrastructure abroad with Chinese funds.
In Central Asia alone, China claims that its trade with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan reached $70 billion last year, rising 22% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2023.
Analysts say the war in Ukraine has further accelerated the pro-Beijing trend as some countries question their traditional ties with Russia and look elsewhere for economic and diplomatic reassurance.
“After the Russian aggression in Ukraine, the Central Asian republics began to fear for their sovereignty,” says Ayjaz Wani, a researcher at the Indian think tank Observer Research Foundation.
Xi Jinping will receive the leaders of the five countries in the region on Thursday and Friday in the city of Xi’an, the former eastern end of the Silk Road, in a summit that Beijing describes as “extremely important”.
The summit should be an opportunity to advance some infrastructure projects, including the $6 billion China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway line and the expansion of the Central Asia-China oil pipeline. .
“China’s approach to Central Asia has been very consistent,” says Nargis Kassenova, director of the Central Asia Program at Harvard’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies.
Kassenova cites Beijing’s long-standing ties to these countries in terms of security, infrastructure and development.
“To the arms of China”
The war in Ukraine, he says, has only “pushed the Central Asian countries into the arms of China.” However, Beijing’s influence is not always welcome.
Anti-Chinese demonstrations broke out in Kazakhstan in 2019, fueled by a sense that China’s grip had become too strong.
Analysts say China is more popular with Central Asian governments seeking investment to develop their countries than with their populations.
“This is partly due to the great asymmetry, demographic and economic, between them and China,” says Li-Chen Sim, of the US think tank Middle East Institute.
Popular resentment is also fueled by “the lack of jobs reserved for local people in projects financed by China” and “high levels of indebtedness” with Beijing, it says.
