7. Relations with Russia and China
Kazakhstan’s two giant neighbours inevitably loom large over foreign policy. Contemporary concerns include Russian ‘soft power’, China’s treatment of ethnic Kazakhs in Xinjiang, and the compatibility of regional integration projects.
Since independence in 1991, fostering good relations with Russia and China has been at the core of Kazakhstan’s foreign policy. This tradition looks set to continue: the foreign policy framework for 2014–20 prioritizes an alliance with Russia as well as a comprehensive strategic partnership with China.358 All parties involved seem content with this triangular arrangement. They talk about mutually beneficial cooperation and purport to link their development and integration projects.
However, behind the façade of strategic good-neighbourliness, there are tensions and potential cracks. In assessing the implications for Kazakhstan, this chapter analyses three levels of foreign policy interaction: bilateral relations, regional dynamics in Eurasia, and the global system. As far as bilateral-level policies are concerned, the analysis focuses on the challenges around ethnic minorities and nation-building – in particular, issues concerning the Russian minority in Kazakhstan, the effects of Russian ‘soft power’ in the country, and the treatment of the ethnic Kazakh minority in China. At the regional level, developments in economic integration are considered – namely, the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), and China’s Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) and Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Finally, at the systemic level, the chapter analyses and compares how China, Russia and Kazakhstan relate in different ways to the global order and its norms and institutions. Developments at all three levels are likely to affect – and be affected by – the unfolding and unpredictable power transition in Kazakhstan.
The evolving challenge of the Russian minority
To varying degrees, the Russian minority in Kazakhstan has always been an important issue for the government. In the period around independence, the existence of this minority in Kazakhstan was perceived as an existential challenge. According to the 1989 census, ethnic Russians numbered 6.2 million and accounted for 37.8 per cent of the population (almost equal to the 39.7 per cent share accounted for by ethnic Kazakhs).359 Ethnic Russians constituted a predominant group in the northern regions of Kazakhstan, and this stoked strong fears of separatism.
Fuelling such concerns were nationalist voices in Russia. These ranged from the venerated writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who called for the return of ‘southern Siberia’ and the ‘southern Urals’ to Russia, to the less respectable but highly popular proponent of the ‘renewed Russian empire’, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who led his Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia to victory in the 1993 Duma elections in Russia.360
Under these complex circumstances, Kazakhstan’s leadership adopted a carefully calibrated approach. It embraced Russia as its closest ally and partner, and tried hard to retain common economic space. Although Kazakhstan was painfully kicked out of the rouble zone in 1993, President Nursultan Nazarbayev remained committed to the economic relationship and in 1994 proposed the creation of a Eurasian Union. Thereafter he consistently continued to support Eurasian integration. His positioning on this issue removed incentives for Moscow to take a hostile approach towards Kazakhstan, and created a more comfortable environment for the country’s large Russian minority.
To accommodate rising Kazakh nationalism the government embarked on a ‘Kazakh-ization’ of public life. Ethnic Kazakhs received better access to positions of power and authority both in politics and the civil service
At the same time, domestically the government stressed the importance of inter-ethnic accord. This required a nuanced policy. On the one hand, to accommodate rising Kazakh nationalism the government embarked on a ‘Kazakh-ization’ of public life. Ethnic Kazakhs received better access to positions of power and authority both in politics and the civil service. On the other hand, the government enshrined the principle of non-discrimination in its legislation and strictly prohibited the ‘incitement of inter-ethnic discord’ (an offence interpreted very broadly by the law-enforcement authorities). To accommodate the non-Kazakh and ‘Russified’ Kazakh population, the 1995 constitution made Russian the official language for inter-ethnic communication, stipulating that it be ‘used on the basis equal with that of the Kazakh language in state bodies and bodies of local self-administration’.361
The same constitution banned dual citizenship, forcing members of the Russian minority to choose between Kazakhstan and Russia. Kazakhstan’s leadership also suppressed political movements across the board, including popular and capable Russian, Slavic and Cossack ones, in order to ensure political consolidation. Importantly, both the Russian Orthodox church and the Russian government supported the diffusion and co-opting of these movements by the Kazakh government.362
Gradually, the fear receded that Moscow would use ethnic Russians to fragment Kazakhstan or as leverage for its own politics and policies. This gave way to patient expectation of the emerging ‘demographic superiority’ of ethnic Kazakhs in the country.363 This lull was interrupted in 2008 when war broke out between Russia and Georgia, with Russia officially recognizing the independence of the separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. An even bigger shock followed in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea and the ‘hybrid war’ that Russia pursued in Ukraine. Although Russian actions in Georgia had rung alarm bells, the Ukrainian crisis was particularly disturbing to Kazakhstan due to the considerable parallels between the Russia–Ukraine relationship and the Russia–Kazakhstan one. For example, Kazakhstan had the same set of treaties on good-neighbourly relations with Russia as did Ukraine.
These developments revived fears among both Kazakhs and Kazakhstani Russians. The former were afraid that ethnic Russians would operate as ‘fifth columnists’, as occurred in eastern Ukraine; the latter were worried that they would be perceived as the agents and infiltrators of a hostile foreign power. This seems to have contributed to rising migration: 25,000 ethnic Russians left the country in 2016, while 27,000 did so in 2017.364 As well as being motivated by fears over the geopolitical situation, some Russian families have chosen to move because of worsening problems with the secondary education system, following policy changes that have included the hasty introduction of education in three languages.365
Nazarbayev’s resignation on 19 March 2019 appeared to mark the beginning of a new period in Kazakhstan’s history. The new president, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, has pledged to continue all of the government’s existing policies. However, the configuration of power will inevitably change, since the system that was centred on Nazarbayev cannot be sustained without him as president. This may result in more competitive public politics and the rise of nationalist populism, and may be unsettling both for minorities and for the country as a whole.
Concerns over Russia’s ‘soft power’
Kazakhstan’s government has become highly worried about Moscow’s capacity and possible intention to employ electronic media and internet resources to manipulate political processes or destabilize the country
Over the past few years, concerns about the Russian minority have been superseded by those about Russia’s ‘soft power’ – that is, its cultural and ideational influence. Kazakhstan’s high level of ‘Russification’ was seen as a challenge to full sovereignty right from independence in 1991. At the same time, there was appreciation of the role of the Russian language as the conduit of modernity, science and knowledge of the world; and also recognition of its indispensability as the language of governance (on an equal basis to Kazakh) for the newly independent Kazakhstan, as stipulated in the constitution of the country.
However, over the past decade Russia’s use of ‘information war’ techniques has added an ominous twist to traditional concerns about identity. Kazakhstan’s government has become highly worried about Moscow’s capacity and possible intention to employ electronic media and internet resources to manipulate political processes in Kazakhstan or even to destabilize the country altogether. Dmitry Gorenburg, an expert on Russia’s military policy, echoes these fears. He believes that if an anti-Russian government comes to power in Kazakhstan, Russia’s likely response would be subversive: it would seek to bring down the new leaders and replace them with more amenable ones. This response would involve the use of information warfare, including cyberattacks and a media and disinformation campaign.366
In 2009 Kazakhstan’s then prime minister, Karim Massimov, expressed concern that 55 per cent of the population lived inside the Russian information space.367 In 2011 a new (second) Information Security Concept was adopted. It acknowledged that the openness of the national information space, the popularity of foreign mass media (including television and the internet) and the low competitiveness of local media create a real threat that foreign information could influence and manipulate public consciousness in Kazakhstan.368
To address the situation, the government has tried to upgrade the national TV channels. Thus, in 2017 the state-owned Qazakhstan TV and Radio Company changed its management and upgraded its style and content, allowing for more vibrancy of opinion in its programmes. However, the independent media have seen no such relaxation; they are subject to even more rigid control, and face constant threats of suspension and closure.
The Kazakhstan government is also uncomfortable with the rampant anti-Western propaganda on Russian TV. This does not sit well with Kazakhstan’s multi-vector foreign policy and its deep interest in maintaining close links with the West. A programme on the Channel One Eurasia TV channel covering land protests in 2016, which showed a faked video of people receiving US dollars for taking part, outraged domestic public opinion. Interestingly, in an unexpected chain of events, the security services accused a businessman, Tokhtar Tuleshov, of having sponsored the protests and attempting a coup.369 Tuleshov had a strong affinity for Russia and claimed to hold positions as an adviser to Russia’s State Duma on economic cooperation, as an adviser to the chief ataman of the Cossack associations of Kazakhstan on strengthening allied relations with Russia, and as adviser and full representative of the Russkaya obschina (‘Russian community’) of Kazakhstan.370
Fears about Russian influence may have contributed to the administration’s determination to introduce a three-language education system – with classes in Kazakh, Russian and English – and to Latinize the Kazakh alphabet. Neither policy was new. In 2007 Nazarbayev, in his annual presidential address, had proposed a cultural programme known as ‘Trinity of Languages’ that would oblige the people of Kazakhstan to speak Kazakh as the official language, Russian as the language of inter-ethnic communication, and English as the language of integration into the global economy.371
The decision to switch the alphabet from Cyrillic to Latin had also had a long gestation. The idea was first raised in 1989 during a discussion of the law ‘On Language’, but only became policy in 2012 with the announcement of ‘Strategy Kazakhstan-2050’.372 In this document, Nazarbayev set 2025 as the year to complete the transition to the Latin alphabet, noting that its use would better enable Kazakhstan to integrate with the rest of the world.
Russia shows signs of irritation
Understandably, Russian commentators did not welcome the plan to abandon the Cyrillic script. While there is little Russian interest generally in what happens in Kazakhstan and the rest of Central Asia, Nazarbayev’s announcement on this matter ruffled feathers in Moscow and received substantial media coverage. With Nazarbayev’s visit to the US and meeting with Donald Trump in January 2018, and Kazakhstan’s abstention on 14 April of the same year in a UN Security Council vote on a Russian-sponsored resolution denouncing US, British and French airstrikes on Syria, it seemed that Russia’s ally was finally drifting away.373
Irritation with Kazakhstan also started to show itself in Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s critical statements towards the country, now increasingly common. In March 2018, Lavrov expressed surprise that Kazakhstan had implemented a visa-free regime for US citizens without consulting Russia. Kazakhstani diplomats retorted that the scheme had been introduced long ago and that Kazakhstan did not have to consult anyone on the issue. In June 2018, at a meeting of the foreign ministers of members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Lavrov also aired his dissatisfaction at Kazakhstan’s agreement to allow the US to use the Caspian Sea ports of Aktau and Kuryk for transporting goods to Afghanistan, and at the presence of a US biolab in Almaty.374
As with the visa-free regime, the accusations were out of date. The criticized pact was a protocol to a 2010 agreement between Kazakhstan and the US facilitating the commercial rail transit of special cargo. The protocol adding Aktau and Kuryk to the list of transit points (previously, the only transit points were in Russia and Uzbekistan) was signed in September 2017 and ratified in May 2018.375 The biolab in question was the Central Reference Laboratory, built with the support of the Nunn–Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) programme and launched in 2016. It is the only biosafety laboratory in Central Asia focusing on the most dangerous pathogens.
Treatment of Kazakhs in China and anti-Chinese sentiment
Until recently the Kazakh minority in China – around 1.5 million people living mostly in Xinjiang – was not a problematic issue for relations between Kazakhstan and China.376 On the former’s independence in 1991, an agreement was reached that those who wanted to emigrate to Kazakhstan would be allowed to do so by the Chinese authorities. Oralman (ethnic Kazakhs) from China greatly contributed to creating links between the two countries in the areas of trade, education, media and culture.377
However, this benign state of affairs – at least in most aspects of two-way relations – changed in 2016 when Chen Quanguo was appointed by China as the new Communist Party secretary of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR). He immediately stepped up the already harsh security measures in place against the Uighur population, thus confirming a reputation as an enforcer acquired during his posting in Tibet (2011–16). Chen hired thousands more security personnel, introduced high-tech surveillance methods, and forced residents of Xinjiang to surrender their passports to the police.378 As a result, ethnic Kazakhs and members of other minorities who had family and business ties in neighbouring Kazakhstan could not travel there anymore without the permission of the authorities.
It was also reported that thousands of people, ethnic Kazakhs and Kyrgyz included, were sent to so-called ‘re-education’ centres, where they were required to ‘recite Chinese and Xinjiang laws and policies’, watch pro-government propaganda videos, and renounce their ethnic and religious identities; the latter requirement included reciting slogans such as ‘religion is harmful’ and ‘learning Chinese is part of patriotism’. The fact that the Chinese government’s ‘strike hard’ policy, which had previously focused on the Uighurs, was now also being applied to ethnic Kazakhs came as a shock in Kazakhstan. Media outlets reported that some Xinjiang Kazakhs had been detained for having travelled abroad or for having ‘spoken about Kazakhstan a lot’. Information also emerged that some people who had recently become Kazakhstani citizens (oralman from China) were being recalled by the Chinese authorities to China and detained.379
The effect on public opinion in Kazakhstan, hitherto largely indifferent to the travails of the Uighurs in Xinjiang, led to increasing calls for an official response to this mistreatment. As supporting the Kazakh diaspora is also among the four policy goals in the government’s ‘foreign policy concept’, this added to the pressure to act.
The issue was raised in parliament in October 2017, when Senator Nurlan Kylyshbayev made an official request to the government to confirm whether reports that ethnic Kazakhs were being persecuted in China were true. The following month, foreign ministry representatives held talks with their Chinese counterparts in both Beijing and Astana to discuss the ‘frequent complaints by ethnic Kazakhs about problems they face in the People’s Republic of China’. China’s ambassador to Kazakhstan, Zhang Hanhui, replied that heightened security measures such as surveillance and vetting procedures were in place for all citizens around the 19th Party Congress due to reports of possible planned disruption.380
China’s mistreatment of ethnic Kazakhs, and the consequent rise in anti-Chinese sentiment in Kazakhstan, risks undermining the development of bilateral economic ties
Nevertheless, in 2018 the Kazakhstani government continued to raise the issue. In May, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that talks on consular matters had also involved the two sides discussing the ‘protection of the rights and interests of the citizens of the two countries, and also mutual trips of residents of Kazakhstan and China’. The next day, Foreign Minister Kairat Abdrakhmanov said that he had information on some 170 ethnic Kazakhs ‘experiencing difficulties’ in China.381 In August, he told journalists that his first deputy had held negotiations with the leadership of the XUAR, and that the latter was considering lifting the emigration ban for 675 ethnic Kazakhs.382 In January 2019, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that 2,000 ethnic Kazakhs had received permission to leave Xinjiang and move to Kazakhstan.383
At the international level, Kazakhstan’s government also finds itself walking a tightrope. In July 2019 it abstained from signing either of the two letters prepared by different coalitions of countries and sent to the UN Human Rights Council, one denouncing China’s policies in Xinjiang, the other supporting them; the letter of support was signed by Russia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, among others.384
Social media networks have continued to circulate information about so-called ‘re-education centres’. The information has come from various sources, including Western newspapers, and has further fuelled long-standing anti-Chinese sentiment in Kazakhstan. In 2019 public attention focused on Serikzhan Bilash, the leader of the Atazhurt Eriktileri (‘Volunteers of the Fatherland’) movement, which campaigns for the release of ethnic Kazakhs from China’s camps. Bilash was arrested by the Kazakhstan authorities and put on trial for inciting ethnic tensions. In August, agreement was reached between him and the Chinese authorities and he was released after paying a fine.385
China’s mistreatment of ethnic Kazakhs, and the consequent rise in anti-Chinese sentiment in Kazakhstan, risks undermining the development of bilateral economic ties. Negative public opinion has already hindered cooperation in the agricultural sector, one of the most potentially promising areas for joint action. In 2016, following amendments to land regulations, protests flared up across Kazakhstan against allowing the long-term leasing of land to foreigners. The protests were triggered by various fears, including that Chinese companies would contaminate the land and that China would in effect seize Kazakhstani territory. The government suppressed the protests, but at the same time imposed a moratorium (until December 2021) on amendments to the Land Code allowing foreigners and legal entities with 50 per cent or more foreign participation to lease agricultural land for up to 25 years.386
During the presidential election campaign in 2019, the political group Halyk Kurultayi (‘People’s Assembly’) demanded a comprehensive ban on the sale or leasing of land to foreigners, a solution to prevent the persecution of ethnic Kazakhs in Xinjiang, and an end to borrowing from China.387 Similar demands are becoming a staple of anti-government protests now occurring regularly in Kazakhstan’s biggest cities. These developments signal more difficult times ahead for bilateral relations just as Kazakhstan itself begins a new political chapter.
At the nexus of Russian and Chinese integration projects
Kazakhstan, Russia and China actively engage in seeking to shape Eurasian and Central Asian affairs. They address security issues through organizations such as the CSTO, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA). While there are differences in the approaches and goals of each country in these forums, overall there are no significant tensions affecting their participation.
As a founding member of the Russian-led EAEU but also an enthusiastic participant in China’s BRI, Kazakhstan is strategically dependent on how the two integration projects develop in relation to each other
Economic cooperation and integration are more problematic. It is in these areas of policy that trilateral relations have the potential to become more unsettled, due to the political and geopolitical complications involved. As mentioned, the two major economic integration projects currently under way in the region are the EAEU and the BRI. Kazakhstan is a founding member of the Russian-led EAEU, but also an enthusiastic participant in China’s BRI. It is the biggest recipient of Chinese foreign direct investment among members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).388 This makes Kazakhstan strategically dependent on how the two integration projects develop in relation to each other, and in particular whether – notwithstanding official rhetoric and announcements on planned coordination – they actually unfold in a competitive or complementary manner. Will the EAEU and BRI intermesh to accommodate large-scale co-developments supported by both Russia and China, in other words, or will Kazakhstan find itself caught between having to support one sponsor in preference to the other?
The progress of Eurasian economic integration has been mixed. Development was initially rapid, with major milestones passed in just a few years. The project started with the Customs Union, launched by Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus in 2010. It morphed into the Single Economic Space in 2012 and was superseded by the EAEU in 2015, when Kyrgyzstan and Armenia were also added as members.
However, once the EAEU had been established, policymaking slowed down and deadlines were missed. A customs code, which was supposed to have been in force from 1 January 2016, was not launched until 1 January 2018. A common market for medicine and medical equipment, originally scheduled to become operational in January 2016, is now expected to be fully in force only from 2026.389 The launch of a common electric power market, planned for 2019, has been postponed.390 The slow pace of development of EAEU instruments reflects the complexity of the task of unifying regulations and frameworks in different economies. There are limits to what political will can do.
Apart from these impediments, Eurasian integration was also set back by the outbreak of the Russia–Ukraine conflict in 2014. As such, a project that had been designed to foster prosperity in the post-Soviet space ended up dividing Ukraine, creating a geopolitical flashpoint and damaging the European security architecture. Without Ukraine as a member, the whole concept of the EAEU as an integrated economic space between Europe and Asia made less sense to potential investors. The military conflict also raised levels of caution among both member states and potential member states. It reinforced several governments’ determination to pursue multi-vector foreign policies in parallel to any engagement with the EAEU, and certainly in preference to relying on a Russia-dominated integration model alone. Further proof that Russia does not consider its Eurasian neighbours and near-neighbours to be equal partners came when Moscow introduced counter-sanctions against the West without consulting other EAEU member states.
While Russia is openly at odds with the US and the EU, it has to take a more nuanced approach towards China, given the latter’s growing influence in Central Asia and Eurasia. The growing imbalance between its own economic power and that of China worries Russia, but there is little it can do to change the situation. It has chosen a policy of accommodation. In 2015, President Vladimir Putin and President Xi Jinping made a joint declaration on cooperation in aligning the EAEU and the SREB – the latter of which constitutes the land-based ‘Belt’ element of the BRI – and confirmed their support for each other’s mega-projects.391
In 2017 the Eurasian Economic Commission announced that it had developed criteria for selecting priority projects for linking the EAEU and the SREB. The Commission reported a list of 39 infrastructure projects, encompassing road construction, road modernization, the creation of transport logistics centres and the development of transport hubs. These projects included: a motorway from western China to western Europe, connecting Lianyungang on the Yellow Sea to St Petersburg on the Baltic Sea; the Moscow–Kazan high-speed train; the China–Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan railway; and the Armenia–Iran railway.392 The completion of the western China–western Europe motorway depends on Russia building its section of the road (China and Kazakhstan completed their parts in 2014 and 2016 respectively). After years of uncertainty, the motorway was mentioned in Putin’s 2018 Decree on National Goals and Tasks of Strategic Development Until 2024.393 However, in 2019 the Russian government greenlighted the construction of a privately funded ‘Meredian’ motorway connecting China, Kazakhstan and the Russia–Belarus border.394 The other three projects continue to experience difficulties. There is no clarity about the economic feasibility of the Moscow–Kazan high-speed rail link, and the China–Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan railway and Armenia–Iran railway projects are currently delayed in negotiations. In the case of the latter, one of the problems is Moscow’s support for an alternative railway project linking Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran.395
Russia claims to be interested in co-developing the EAEU and the BRI. Yet it feels challenged by China’s rising power and economic expansion. As such, Moscow is trying to shape an arrangement that would softly counterbalance China through engagement with other big players, particularly in Asia. In 2016, at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, President Putin proposed the formation of a Greater Eurasia region that would expand on the EAEU’s core network of countries by establishing free-trade agreements with more than 40 states and international organizations, including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Initially, such agreements would aim to simplify and unify regulations (such as on investments, intellectual property, and technical, phytosanitary and customs requirements). Later, they would involve lowering tariffs, which could ultimately lead to the creation of a much larger free-trade zone.
However, while Russia claims to want to shape regulations in Greater Eurasia, the recent agreement on trade and economic cooperation between the EAEU and China – signed in May 2018 at the Astana Economic Forum – shows no progress in this regard. This non-preferential agreement has the relatively modest aims of increasing transparency and improving mutual understanding of trade policies, with an eventual aspiration to gradually harmonize standards, technical regulations and compliance assessment procedures.396
In contrast, Kazakhstan is fully on board with the concept of wider economic integration. Even before the announcement of the SREB in 2013 (not by chance, in Astana), it had been investing heavily in building and modernizing transport infrastructure intended to help it become a bridge between East and West. In 2015, Nazarbayev and Xi announced plans to link the SREB and Kazakhstan’s Nurly Zhol (‘Bright Path’) economic programme. Launched in 2014, Nurly Zhol is a five-year plan focusing in particular on domestic transportation, industry and energy infrastructure.
The governments of Kazakhstan and China also compiled a list of 51 projects, estimated at around $26 billion in value, that would involve industrial capacity being transferred from China to Kazakhstan.397 In 2019, Kazakhstan borrowed RMB 2 billion ($283 million)398 from the Export-Import Bank of China. Apart from being the country’s first loan in renminbi, the deal is notable for its purpose: to finance the modernization of 10 checkpoints on the border of EAEU countries. This makes it an interesting case of an effort to physically link the EAEU and China without direct EAEU participation.399
However, the burgeoning cooperation between China and Kazakhstan also brings its problems. As with Russia–China relations, it is mired in a lack of trust. Kazakhstan welcomes Chinese investments with one hand, and keeps up barriers to China’s presence in the country with the other. Unlike citizens of European countries, Japan, South Korea, Australia, the US and Canada, Chinese citizens are not covered by the visa-free regime. The procedure for a Chinese national to get a visa for Kazakhstan is complicated and requires the permission of the Migration Police in Kazakhstan. Chinese investors have complained about the difficulty of acquiring visas for themselves and labour migrants. The Chinese ambassador to Kazakhstan has raised the issue. Since 2016, it has also become more difficult for Kazakhstani citizens to obtain Chinese visas.
In short, while Kazakhstan positions itself as an eager participant in regional economic integration projects, it does not appreciate Moscow’s politicized approach to the process, and is fearful of Russia’s ability to cause problems. At the same time, the government is worried about China’s overwhelming size and appetite for commercial expansion.
Russia, China and Kazakhstan in the global order
Russia, China and Kazakhstan share a number of important similarities in terms of how they position themselves in the international system. Using David Kerr’s term, all three can be defined as ‘sovereign globalizers’, in the sense that they ‘welcome globalization, but in a selective manner that rejects cosmopolitanism and embraces globalization only to advance and affirm sovereignty in principle and practice’.400
All three emphasize the importance of the international rule of law and the UN Security Council as the supreme authority in international security. Yet as authoritarian states, they oppose the universality of liberal values and the liberal-democratic political order, and promote regimes reinforcing the right of the state against internal and external challenges. Kazakhstan, together with China, Russia and other members of the SCO, co-sponsored a code of conduct for information security that was submitted to the UN General Assembly in 2015. The code underlines states’ rights to ‘independent control of information and communications technologies’ and the role of the state in ‘encouraging a deeper understanding by all elements in society, including the private sector and civil-society institutions, of their responsibility to ensure information security’.401
At the same time, Russia, China and Kazakhstan diverge in their approaches to global order and governance. Russia is a former superpower trying to retain this status. It is not comfortable in the current order, finding itself in a position of offering token support for the ‘rise of the rest’ while itself being a declining power. Its praise for the ‘democratization’ of international affairs is thus half-hearted at best. Having failed to adapt to geopolitical and geo-economic change and develop genuine strategic alliances, it has turned into a ‘stand-alone power’ which seeks to take pride in its ‘geopolitical solitude’ and refusal to play by the Western rules.402
Russia’s approach to global economic governance reflects the weakness of an insufficiently modernized economy overly dependent on natural resources. As Bobo Lo points out, it is ‘predominantly a taker rather than setter of trends’, realizing that changes in the current system might not be to its advantage. Russia also shows little interest in providing public goods or actively contributing to tackling global challenges such as climate change, poverty in Africa and water scarcity – issues that ‘barely feature in Russian elite (or public) discourse’.403
While Russia’s power has been shrinking and becoming more destructive than constructive, China has enjoyed the opposite trend. It has accumulated the resources and political will to expand, and is now becoming the second superpower. Beijing takes preparation for this role seriously. It increasingly preoccupies itself with matters of global governance, trying to decide which role China should play, which elements of the international system need to be maintained and which need to be changed. It has also started positioning itself as a supplier of public goods, with the BRI’s role in facilitating transcontinental connectivity presented as China’s major contribution to regional and global development and security.
Kazakhstan is obviously in a different league to Russia and China. It is a small power, squeezed in between those two giants, in a moderately problematic neighbourhood. It is a young state that greatly benefited from the world order into which it emerged in the early 1990s. That order, and the governance institutions associated with it, allowed the newly independent Kazakhstan to build up its sovereignty – perhaps not a complete form of sovereignty, in the eyes of Russian elites, but still one providing a status recognized by the international community. To support its independence, Kazakhstan pursued a multi-vector foreign policy that involved fostering good relations and interdependencies with all external powers. The leadership also sought international recognition for Kazakhstan as a progressive, responsible and active stakeholder in global and regional affairs. The authorities initiated a plethora of initiatives, in such wide-ranging areas as the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, global inter-confessional dialogue, Eurasian integration and efforts to resolve the conflict in Syria (the latter attempted via the ‘Astana talks’).
Kazakhstan wants to be firmly embedded in a global order that fosters its sovereignty and allows it to enhance its recognition and reputation. Driven by this interest, it can occasionally find itself in a different camp to Russia, despite the normally close relations between the two countries. For example, on 12 April 2017 members of the UN Security Council voted on a draft resolution condemning the reported chemical weapons attack on the Syrian town of Khan Shaykhun, and demanding immediate and unfettered access to any and all sites associated with the incident. Kazakhstan and China abstained from the vote, while Russia voted against the resolution. Also, as mentioned, Astana’s abstention in an April 2018 vote on a UN Security Council resolution, proposed by Russia, condemning Western airstrikes against Syria caused considerable displeasure in Moscow.
In a similar instance of discord a decade earlier, both Kazakhstan and China aligned themselves against Russia in refusing to recognize the breakaway republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. At the SCO summit in August 2008, they resisted Russia’s lobbying for diplomatic recognition of its clients. China and Kazakhstan take consistently negative positions on separatism. They did not recognize Kosovo, and had deep reservations about Crimea’s 2014 referendum on seceding from Ukraine and joining the Russian Federation. In March 2014, both China and Kazakhstan abstained during the UN General Assembly vote on the resolution that declared the secession referendum invalid.
Overall, Kazakhstani policymakers seem to appreciate China’s respectability and gravitas in global affairs. Unlike Russia, China projects the image of a forward-looking and rapidly modernizing state, comfortably embedded in global markets. This is exactly what Kazakhstan itself aspires to be. However, this does not mean that it would be comfortable in a China-dominated order.
Conclusion
As Kazakhstan nears the end of its third decade of independence, it continues to find the interaction with its two giant neighbours highly challenging
As Kazakhstan nears the end of its third decade of independence, it continues to find the interaction with its two giant neighbours highly challenging. The leadership rightly congratulates itself on having established good-neighbourly relations with Russia and China. However, both the so-called ‘strategic alliance’ with Russia and the ‘strategic partnership’ with China are stymied by a shortage of trust on each side.
Kazakhstan is worried, as it was in the early 1990s, about imperial trends and ambitions in Russian foreign policy. The challenge of having a considerable Russian minority is deemed by the government to be less acute of a problem than before, due to the consolidating majority of Kazakhs in the country, and their growing share of the population in Kazakhstan’s northern regions. At the same time, however, there is a concern about Moscow’s increasingly sophisticated ‘information war’ capabilities, which have accentuated weaknesses in the domestic information space and local-content production. The success of Russia’s efforts to control the information and media agenda has also, more generally, highlighted the incompleteness of Kazakhstan’s nation-building project. The continuing outward migration of ethnic Russians from Kazakhstan is a sign of this.
The sense of vulnerability to external forces has grown more acute since Nazarbayev’s resignation in March 2019. He retains considerable powers, and his successor pledges continuity. Yet while the government tries to assure everybody of the smooth continuation of key policies during and after the domestic political transition, the eventual unravelling of the system of power built around Nazarbayev seems inevitable.
The Georgian and Ukrainian crises, in 2008 and 2014 respectively, also exposed weaknesses in the external support structures on which Kazakhstan’s sovereignty and independence rely – including international treaties, memoranda and assurances that previously were taken for granted. Because Russia is less predictable and less concerned with its reputation in the eyes of the Western community, it remains potentially ready to challenge Kazakhstan’s freedom of manoeuvre or create trouble in the region.
Kazakhstan–China cooperation, meanwhile, has increased substantially but is currently clouded by the problem of the treatment of ethnic Kazakhs in Xinjiang. The Kazakhstani authorities understand that the XUAR and developments there are a highly sensitive issue for China, but they cannot afford to ignore a situation that is a source of considerable negative public opinion. The rise in anti-Chinese sentiment has already resulted in a ban on the foreign acquisition of land.
Regional economic integration is among the tools that Kazakhstan has used to improve the viability of its economy – and thus to protect its own sovereignty. It was initially enthusiastic about Eurasian economic integration, and later about the Chinese-led SREB/BRI. However, progress on the former has been undermined by the Russia–Ukraine crises and consequent exchange of sanctions and counter-sanctions between Russia and the West. Meanwhile, development of Kazakhstan’s involvement in SREB/BRI projects remains hampered by fears of China’s overwhelming strength and hidden intentions. Moreover, there is no certainty about the compatibility of these two mega-projects or the ability of Moscow and Beijing to accommodate each other’s interests, despite the official rhetoric of ‘alignment’ (sopryazheniye) and co-development. Russia also clearly lacks enthusiasm to surrender ambitions for Eurasian integration to a separate development agenda.
Finally, at the global level, Russia, China and Kazakhstan present both similarities and differences in terms of their international positioning, approaches and goals. All three are authoritarian states, adamant about the priority of state interests both domestically and internationally. As such, they offer a united front in terms of seeking to shape international regimes that would protect their sovereignty. At the same time, there are important differences in how each of the three countries relates to the global order. Russia is a disenchanted former superpower with a largely parochial outlook on global governance. Importantly, and worryingly for Kazakhstan and its other neighbours, Russia has a flexible approach to the principle of ‘territorial integrity’ and ‘non-interference in internal affairs’. This makes it an ally and regional power that cannot be fully trusted.
Kazakhstan recognizes China’s growing role in the regional and global order, and tries to benefit from this rise. However, there are concerns and fears over what a China-dominated order would bring for Kazakhstan and its citizens. These concerns are becoming more pronounced as Kazakhstan enters a new phase of political development in the aftermath of Nazarbayev’s resignation.
358 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan (2014), ‘Foreign Policy Concept for 2014–2020 Republic of Kazakhstan’, http://mfa.gov.kz/en/content-view/kontseptsiya-vneshnoj-politiki-rk-na-2014-2020-gg (accessed 24 Aug. 2019). In September 2019, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev visited China and signed a joint statement on a China–Kazakhstan ‘long-term, comprehensive, strategic partnership’. Interestingly, the Chinese media reported this as an agreement on ‘permanent, comprehensive, strategic partnership’. Official Site of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan (2019), ‘President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev held talks with Chinese President XI Jinping’, 11 September 2019, http://www.akorda.kz/en/events/international_community/foreign_visits/president-of-kazakhstan-kassym-jomart-tokayev-held-talks-with-chinese-president-xi-jinping (accessed 12 Sep. 2019); and Xinhuanet (2019), ‘China Focus: China, Kazakhstan agree to develop permanent comprehensive strategic partnership’, 12 September 2019, http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-09/12/c_138384816.htm (accessed 12 Sep. 2019).
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367 Quoted in Sabitov, D. (2016), Информационная Безопасность Казахстана: Защита Данных и Смыслов [Information security in Kazakhstan: protection of data and meanings], Institute of World Economics and Politics under the Foundation of the First President of the Republic of Kazakhstan – Leader of the Nation, p. 49, http://iwep.kz/files/attachments/article/2016-04-07/doklad_-_informacionnaya_bezopasnost_daniyar_sabitov.pdf (accessed 24 Aug. 2019).
368 Ibid., p. 16.
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377 Oralman are ethnic Kazakhs who have immigrated to Kazakhstan since it became independent.
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398 At an exchange rate of RMB 1:US$0.1414 on 24 October 2019. Source: Reuters (2019), ‘Currencies’, https://uk.reuters.com/markets/currencies (accessed 24 Oct. 2019).
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