China’s Strategic Thinking toward Central Asia, 2013-2024

China’s thinking toward Central Asia is encapsulated by its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a grand strategy that has evolved over the past decade although Beijing has warned Chinese writers and officials never to call it a strategy. This article covers how Xi Jinping had intended to incorporate Central Asia into China’s grand strategy in 2013 when he introduced the BRI to the world while visiting Kazakhstan, and how it has evolved over the following decade up to 2024. While focus on the BRI often centers on the “21st century Maritime Silk Road” to the south, the initiative began and continues to depend heavily on the “Silk Road Economic Belt” (SREB) to the west.

Obscuring our ability to grasp the meaning of BRI is the fact that prior to the 2017 Belt & Road Forum, Beijing’s domestic discourse management stringently monopolized the BRI narrative. There was a moratorium on academic conferences on BRI before the forum. BRI was officially an initiative. BRI topics were assigned to researchers to prevent independent or critical studies. No domestic debate or criticism was allowed. International conference papers by Chinese authors were screened to ensure they followed the official position.¹ Yet, over time and with sustained attention, the actual contours and intentions of the BRI and a grand strategy could be discerned. In 2017, BRI was incorporated into the Constitution of the Chinese Communist Party, indicating it was more than an economic initiative but rather a state-guided political strategy. Nevertheless, Chinese authors continued to argue that it was not a grand strategy controlled by Beijing.

Three challenges stand out over the decade-long history of advancing the BRI. First is managing the division of labor with Russia, which deems Central Asia to be a critical part of its sphere of influence. Second is coping with the autonomous foreign policy aspirations of newly sovereign states wary of overdependence on one state, whose long-term intentions may be threatening. Third is fine-tuning a strategy in stages that suits China’s objectives without alarming others.

Chinese thinking on integration with Central Asia predates Xi Jinping by more than two decades when analysts in the late 1980s referred to “economic circles,” natural economic territories, that integrated border provinces’ economies with neighboring Central Asian countries, and then planned to extend that integration to the Middle East.² The collapse of the Soviet Union presented leaders with a strategic opportunity in the early 1990s. In this sense, the BRI in Central Asia is not Xi’s original idea, although it has come to define Xi’s foreign policy strategy.

While the story of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is mostly about the challenge of coordinating Chinese and Russian approaches to Central Asia (complicated by the addition of more members in recent years), the story of the northern leg of the BRI (SREB) is largely about China’s autonomous moves in Central Asia, watched warily by Russia. The groundwork had been laid for Chinese-Central Asian meetings without Russia twenty years before the BRI in the summer of 1994 in Urumqi in a Track 1.5 conference when the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences and a US organization IREX hosted Central Asian officials for the first time without Russian participation.³ In the 1990s, Chinese analysts discussed the “New Eurasian Land Bridge” that stretched from China across Central Asia to Europe and the Middle East, also two decades before the BRI was announced. It was only under Xi Jinping, however, when Beijing boldly extended its initiatives across the Central Asian region.

Chinese analysts understood Central Asian states after independence as undergoing a process of de-Russification, localization as they shaped national identities, and internationalization of foreign relations as they practiced multi-vector diplomacy with China, the United States, Europe, and the Middle East.⁴ Many expected that the process of de-Russification would allow a Chinese presence to expand, but they understood that a transitional period would be required.

In 2007, Sun Zhuangzhi wrote on Chinese and Central Asian interests in the “New World Order” that was forming, although they had different international strategies at that time. China was focused on the Asia-Pacific while Central Asia was focused on the West to help it escape Russian control. Zhuang claimed that Beijing’s fundamental policies toward Central Asia were peaceful, good-neighborly relations, mutual benefit, non-interference, and respect for sovereignty, similar to the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence in China-Southeast Asian relations, which has continued to be the basis of Beijing’s Central Asian relations to the present. Sun expected the SCO would be the framework for institutionalizing economic and security cooperation between China and Central Asia.⁵ As energy linkages expanded, China slowly sought a new framework.

Prior to Xi Jinping, new thinking about peripheral diplomacy, zhoubian waijiao (周边外交), led the way to reconceptualization. Strategic thinking toward Central Asia is embedded in strategies for peripheral diplomacy, and eventually the BRI. The concept of peripheral diplomacy is ancient but has been resurrected to manage potential problems with neighboring countries’ concerns as China rises, establishing a sphere of influence as it does so. In 2003 Wen Jiabao promoted a “Good Neighbor Policy” which referred to China’s pursuit of “amicable, peaceful and prosperous neighbors.” This was incorporated into Hu Jintao’s “Harmonious World” in 2005. The 18th Party Congress of the CCP in 2012 encouraged local governments on the border to strengthen exchanges with neighboring countries. The 12th Five-year Plan (2011-2015) also mentioned sub-national regions’ linkages with neighboring countries. Xi built on these moves.

By 2012, the world was wondering what China’s grand strategy was. In October 2012 in Global Times, Wang Jisi proposed China “Marching Westwards” through the Eurasian continent in order to avoid competition with the Obama administration’s pivot to the Asia-Pacific. In the Central Asian region, he argued, China’s presence there would be free of the US-led world order.⁶ Wang implied that China’s expansion westward was a response to pressure from the US rebalance strategy in the Asia-Pacific rather than a strategy focused on Central Asia. To be “free of the US-led world order” implied Beijing would construct an alternative world order.

In October 2013, in the same month that Xi introduced the BRI to Kazakhstan, the CCP Central Committee convened a work forum on diplomacy for the land and maritime regions bordering China, the periphery, the first work forum to consider China’s peripheral diplomacy. The forum had been preceded by several Politburo study sessions focused on defining China’s diplomatic strategy on its periphery. The November/December 2013 issue of Contemporary International Relations [现代国际关系] published position papers on peripheral diplomacy which had no doubt been presented to the work forum in October. At the 2013 CCP work forum, Xi Jinping changed the order of the general framework for China’s foreign relations, making peripheral diplomacy the top strategic priority for the first time. This reversed Deng Xiaoping’s 1979 priority which put “great power” diplomacy at the top with peripheral diplomacy secondary. The quest for a strategy for peripheral diplomacy became a critical part of the BRI from 2013.

Xi’s contribution to the strategy has been to make zhoubian waijiao the top priority in China’s foreign policy framework, displacing major power relations, which were put in a secondary position. Xi has also strived to give the strategy a political framework that would solidify economic relationships developed under the BRI into stronger political and diplomatic relationships. The political dimension of BRI would necessitate greater Chinese domestic center-local coordination in foreign economic relations. After 2013, Beijing mobilized provinces to participate in the BRI. Local governments created their own provincial BRI that would support the national-level BRI. Localities competed for BRI funds from Beijing. Beijing has presented the BRI as only the result of local-level initiative rather than a grand strategy, as it created central government institutions, in 2015, the BRI Leading Small Group for Advancing the Development of the Belt and Road Initiative, which oversees and coordinates implementation. The NDRC, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Ministry of Commerce serve as coordination mechanisms. The International Liaison Department of the CCP coordinates with international think tanks.

The November 2014 Central Conference on Work Relating to Foreign Affairs analyzed the successes and problems of China’s peripheral diplomacy. Xi Jinping called for expanding and broadening the peripheral diplomacy agenda, incorporating China’s neighboring countries into a “community of common destiny.” A Chinese analyst explained the extent of the BRI’s reach, “Beijing intends to bind more than 40 countries in Central and South Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern and Western Europe by means of long-distance transport corridors.”⁷ Beijing’s sphere of influence would be based on networks of road, railway, and pipeline infrastructure.

After academic debates on whether to focus on great power or peripheral diplomacy, in 2015, Yan Xuetong argued in China Daily that China’s security depends on fostering friendly ties with neighboring countries, rather than focusing on improving US-China relations. Yan, as did Xi Jinping, defined China’s “periphery” broadly to include East Asia, Russia, Central Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. Yan expected that neighboring countries would bandwagon with China given the asymmetrical power relationship between China and its periphery. ⁸

By 2017, it was still a foreign policy debate—should China focus on major power relations or peripheral diplomacy? Yan Xuetong argued all of China’s peripheral diplomacy challenges—the South China Sea, the Korean Peninsula and the Taiwan Straits—were impacted by US-China relations, implying that peripheral diplomacy was not separate from major power relations.⁹ Other analysts argued major powers, especially the US, would take advantage of Beijing’s disputes with countries on its border; it would be best to prioritize resolution of these disputes and expect that smaller countries on China’s periphery would one day bandwagon with Beijing.

Zhao Huasheng published on Sino-Russian relations in Central Asia one month after Xi Jinping’s 2013 introduction of the SREB. He predicted there would be Sino-Russian competition because both major powers sought spheres of influence in Central Asia although China’s approach to the region was simply implementing its peripheral diplomacy and economic integration as it did with Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia while Russia sought to create a Eurasian bloc. Zhao noted that Sino-Russian competition was unnecessary as Central Asian states, pursuing multi-vectored foreign policies, could hold membership in multiple projects.¹⁰ He argued that relations were overall cooperative with limited competition, and that China had connections similar to Russia’s, including “special geographic, historical, and humanitarian ties with Central Asia, and maintain close political, economic, and security relations with the region.”¹¹ It was implicit that China hoped a process of Sinification would take place in Central Asia based on “Asianness” while the region shifted away from Russia and the West.

Analysts claim major power geopolitical competition in Central Asia has intensified in recent years, presenting challenges from the US and Europe as they try to block China’s expanding influence. They argue that China’s response should be to act cautiously, rely on the Sino-Russian strategic partnership’s model of cooperation in Central Asia, and use the C5+1 mechanism in relations with Central Asian countries. They believe major powers’ struggles have had a negative impact on Central Asian unity as individual states take advantage of competition among major powers to maximize their own interests and use major powers to contain each other. All of this undermines regional cooperation among Central Asian states and China.¹²

Most analysts study the Great Game, geopolitical competition in Central Asia among major powers Russia, China, and the United States, which feeds into Russian and Chinese narratives of themselves as great powers leading the region. Artyom Lukin views China’s BRI as a geopolitical strategy to create a Chinese-led Eurasian empire in a region where Russia claims a political sphere of influence. Moscow acquiesces due to its need for Chinese support while it confronted the West after its invasion of Crimea in 2014.¹³ A year after the BRI was declared, Russians felt dependent enough on Beijing not to try to block the BRI but at the same time Russia did not join it. Nadege Rolland agreed that BRI is a geopolitical strategy to create a Sinocentric regional order using seemingly innocuous terms such as the “community of common destiny.”¹⁴

In contrast to geopolitical analyses, Daniel Markey’s focus is on the host country’s local actors, how they respond to BRI proposals, and how they direct and misdirect Chinese resources for their own personal agendas, thus impacting BRI outcomes in their country.¹⁵ In Central Asia, Kazakhstan has had the greatest capacity to shape BRI projects towards its national interests and to align BRI towards its own development goals. The Central Asian narrative of the region gives greater agency and autonomy to the Central Asian states especially Kazakhstan when it carries out multi-vector diplomacy in many directions. Chinese rarely acknowledge the region’s multi-vector diplomacy as something that originates from the regional states themselves.

Xi promised in May 2017 at the First Belt & Road Forum that Beijing had “no intention to interfere in other countries’ internal affairs, export our own social system and model of development, or impose our own will on others. In pursuing the BRI, we will not resort to outdated geopolitical maneuvering.” ¹⁶ To incentivize forum participants, Xi promised investment, free trade agreements, loans, railway infrastructure, power grids, surveillance technology to strengthen social control techniques, and assistance with law enforcement. MOUs were signed with many countries. The author attended the Track II Belt and Road Forum held simultaneously, which was a gathering of analysts, although government officials dropped in, blurring the lines. Despite promises, Xi does in fact promote the China Model for developing countries in Central Asia, referring to it as Chinese style modernization (中国式现代化).

Kazakhstan in the BRI

Kazakhstan deserves to be considered the core country in the SREB portion of the BRI, most important in Russian calculations, most conspicuous in its pursuit of diplomatic diversity, and central to Xi Jinping’s initiatives, beginning in 2013. In 2024 it is on the frontlines between the Russian assault on Central Asian sovereignty and China’s infringement of Russian prerogatives. It is also the prime test of China’s pursuit of a sphere of control and resistance seeking autonomy.

China’s first priority with its Central Asian periphery was to clarify demarcation of the borders. Kazakhstan began the process of negotiating its border with China right after independence in 1992, signing several treaties through years of negotiations before finalizing in 2002 the Protocol on Demarcation of the National Boundary Line between China and Kazakhstan. According to a Kazakh analyst, finalizing the border through compromise allowed for the Sino-Kazakh partnership to evolve, with the SCO multilateral framework facilitating the process.¹⁷

Although Kazakhstan gained legal independence from Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union, as a landlocked country it continued to depend on Russia’s Baltic Sea and Black Sea ports for exporting its oil. China’s construction of an oil pipeline across China to Lianyungang port allowed Kazakhstan to export to the Asia-Pacific region and break free of Russian control of its oil exports. Kazakh government and business elites were grateful for this boost to development. Yet, citizens since the 1990s have protested against allowing Chinese companies, workers, and goods into the country. The BRI triggered renewed Sinophobic protests over “expansionism.” Analysts have counted 156 anti-Chinese protests between 2018 and 2023.¹⁸ Kazakh protests are also triggered by the treatment of ethnic Kazakhs in Xinjiang. Kazakh political and business elites are less Sinophobic and often have found ways to benefit economically from BRI projects. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev speaks Mandarin and is considered to be a Sinophile. He was a student and then a diplomat in China in the 1980-90s.

Kazakh analysts in 2008, after the financial crisis, discussed the key goal of creating an Alliance of Central Asian States that Astana would lead. Analysts noted their geopolitical preferences were towards the European Union, called the “Road to Europe,” and good relations with NATO and the US. In 1992, Kazakhstan joined the North Atlantic Cooperation Council, a forum to discuss security issues with post-Soviet states. and then in 1995 joined NATO’s Partnership for Peace. In 1992, it had also joined the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Kazakhstan was OSCE chairman in 2010 and 2022. Membership in these organizations symbolized Kazakhstan joining the global community in a multi-vector foreign policy.

In 2008, Murat Laumulin expected that as OSCE chair, Kazakhstan would organize a dialog between European organizations OSCE and NATO, and Eurasian organizations SCO, the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) to further Europe-Eurasian cooperation and integration.¹⁹ This would demonstrate the logic of Kazakhstan’s multi-vector diplomacy as it reached out to China, Russia, Europe, the US, the Middle East, and elsewhere. But by 2010, Laumulin noted that “most of the states in the Central Asian region are experiencing a crawling, inconspicuous but growing influence of China.”²⁰ The priorities of these states’ foreign policies were changing as they turned to Asia. Continued hope for international cooperation with all the major powers appeared better for economic development,²¹ but the pull of China within the BRI was hard to deny after Xi made Kazakhstan the linchpin in China’s corridor to Europe due to its important transit role in a trans-Eurasian transportation network through Kazakhstan. China became the dominant economic presence in Kazakhstan as more than 50 projects were agreed to that would transfer industrial capacity from China to Kazakhstan.

The Kazakh response to the BRI has been more independent than Beijing had expected. In 2014, the president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazerbayev, introduced a new economic policy, Nurly Zhol (Bright Path), which included state investment of $9 billion in domestic infrastructure projects, transportation and logistics, industrial infrastructure, energy, public utilities, housing, social infrastructure, small and medium-sized enterprises. It focused on Kazakhstan’s own development priorities, while linking the Nurly Zhol to the BRI. In implementing BRI projects, the Chinese encountered what Alexander Cooley refers to as “local rules,” providing an analysis that gives host country actors greater agency than a focus on the Great Game would.²² Cooley argues that Moscow, Beijing, and Washington have adapted to the local rules.

In March 2015, the Chinese Foreign Ministry at the Boao Forum presented a plan for the BRI, the Vision and Actions on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road. Central Asia, and especially Kazakhstan, would link China with the Middle East and the Mediterranean Sea creating a China-Central Asia-West Asia corridor. Xi Jinping would later suggest to Putin that the Chinese BRI and Russian Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) could be docked thereby avoiding a competitive struggle, a Great Game, over Central Asia. The prolonged Sino-Russian dialogue from 2015 to 2024 on how to dock their contending plans for Central Asia served as a confidence building measure, placing guardrails on their potential competition.

The events of 2022 led to Chinese rethinking security relations in Central Asia. Tokayev requested Russian troops to help quell the January 2022 protests in Kazakhstan. Chinese were astonished to be left out and felt marginalized in the region. Being the economic leader in Central Asia did not get Beijing included in security issues. Nevertheless, a Huanqui headline claimed, “China and Russia join hands to prevent chaos and war in Central Asia.” The protests were blamed on the West trying to start a “color revolution.” Li Haidong claimed the security and stability of China, Russia, and Central Asian countries were closely linked, and supported by the BRI, EEU, CSTO, and SCO. Li concluded that China and Russia would not allow Kazakhstan to change through a “color revolution,”²³ which would derail China’s emerging sphere of influence and undermine the potential for Central Asia, especially Kazakhstan, becoming the regional base for creating an alternative world order.

While cultivating China’s sphere of influence in Central Asia, Beijing has seemingly supported Kazakh initiatives to strengthen Central Asian autonomy such as the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA). In June 2002, Chinese president Jiang Zemin attended the first summit of CICA held in Almaty, noting that China would be an active participant. In 2002, China signed with Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan the Treaty on Friendship, Good-Neighborliness. In 2006, President Hu Jintao encouraged CICA to construct a regional security architecture. Under Xi Jinping CICA gained new prominence, as Asia for the Asians.

Kazakhstan has not worried about entrapment in a Chinese sphere or being in a BRI-induced debt trap as other countries have. In October 2023, during Tokayev’s visit to Beijing, Chinese and Kazakh companies and institutions signed 30 commercial documents worth $16.54 billion in oil, transport infrastructure, lines of credit, trade, and electric vehicles. A mutual visa-free regime for China and Central Asia was enacted on November 10, which would facilitate trade and business. In 2023, Kazakhstan’s National Statistics Bureau reported that China accounted for 21.3 percent of Kazakhstan’s total foreign trade. Russia’s share of trade was 18.6 percent. The China-Kazakhstan permanent comprehensive strategic partnership is important to both. China’s BRI has made Kazakhstan an infrastructure hub for Eurasia, connecting China to Europe.

Beijing underestimated Astana’s capacity for acting independently because the Chinese concept of sphere of influence does not include middle powers following multi-vector diplomacy. Astana has managed to bend BRI to support its own development plans, and to use China to implement its multi-vector diplomacy. Kazakhstan does not follow Beijing and Moscow’s anti-Western positions but rather seeks closer ties with the United States and the European Union. Kazakhstan is a member of the NATO Partnership for Peace and Organization of Turkic States.

On June 8-9, 2023, Tokayev held the Astana International Forum (AIF), a celebration of Kazakhstan’s role as an influential middle power with multidirectional ties with the world, serving as a bridge between East and West. There were discussions on the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR) which connected China through Kazakhstan, to the Caspian Sea and Black Sea, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey and Europe. Panels were organized around key topics: international security, development and sustainability, economy and finance, and energy and climate. The author was invited to present at the Forum. The most astonishing aspect of the forum, which had 1,000 participants, was that neither Russia nor China had a large presence, compared to large numbers of Europeans and Middle Easterners.²⁴ Astana is planning to hold a 2024 Astana International Forum titled “Empowering People, Uniting Nations: Building a Better World Together” in June 2024 with 5,000 participants, 40% of which appeared to be from Europe. Among the keynote speakers, there are no Chinese or Russians, while among the panelists, there are a few Chinese with no Russian organizations represented.

Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)

Although the SCO began as a security organization negotiating borders and fighting the “three evils,” Beijing has always sought to develop the SCO as an economic organization. Tang Shiping writes on the impact of external and internal great powers on the formation of a multilateral organization like the SCO. Tang notes that originally only Russia was an internal power in Central Asia and China was an external power, but due to a greater economic presence, China became an internal power while the United States continues as an external power. He estimates that China accounts for 79-83% of intra-SCO trade.²⁵ Russia, however, believed its role in the SCO was enhanced if it focused on security and has resisted an economic function for the group.

The SCO created rules of the game and provided an institutionalized framework for the Sino-Russian partnership in the region, internationalizing it, without which Moscow and Beijing would have had separate non-transparent channels with Central Asian capitals that would have increased suspicions. Over time, Beijing sought a greater political voice. Xi was concerned that the BRI has no political framework and has searched for ways to construct one. In June 2018, at the SCO Qingdao summit, Xi proposed the SCO be incorporated into the BRI. Beijing’s BRI White Paper had noted that BRI would pull various organizations into itself such as the SCO. Existing multilateral organizations such as the SCO would provide a political framework that the BRI lacked and would help institutionalize China’s political leadership within the BRI.  India, a member of the SCO but not the BRI, vetoed incorporation of the SCO into the BRI while some SCO members supported it. This left the BRI in Central Asia with an institutional deficit which combined with China’s soft power deficit created uncertainty in Beijing’s sphere of influence.

Beijing had underestimated China’s soft power deficit in Central Asia, especially in Kyrgyzstan, even as China’s security role expanded. Some Kyrgyz analysts argued that China had a set of tools that it used to covertly expand its influence in Kyrgyz security. They focused on the Kyrgyz government transferring its citizens’ personal data to China, Kyrgyzstan financial dependence on China, and Chinese educational programs for Central Asian security service employees that are preparation for the legalization of the presence of Chinese private military contractors. Kyrgyz and Chinese security agencies had been cooperating since approximately 2015. The analysts argue this is done covertly in order to not openly challenge Russia’s traditional security role in the region.²⁶ In 2019, the Kazakh government, concerned with China infiltrating the government, leaked information that a senior government advisor had been spying for China and was subsequently arrested.²⁷  

Being marginalized during the January 2022 Astana protests with no security role had startled Chinese. Xi Jinping would try again at the September 2022 SCO meeting by introducing the Global Security Initiative (GSI), incorporating Xi’s concept of common, comprehensive, cooperative, and sustainable security, which he hoped Central Asian countries would join. Xi urged the SCO to build a security architecture. He announced the expansion of China’s security involvement in Central Asia and China’s greater security leadership role, presenting it as a partnership with Russia to maintain stability, a responsibility of the two major powers.²⁸

Xi also announced China, as a responsible major power, would promote capacity-building for SCO member states to counter security threats, and would promote greater SCO security collaboration at a China-SCO base for training counter-terrorism personnel and police.²⁹ China’s security leadership in Central Asia diminished Russia’s traditional role of security guarantor in the region, and appeared to challenge the old Central Asian division of labor that assigned security leadership to Moscow. The 2022 SCO meeting issued the Samarkand Declaration, which stated that member states consider Central Asia the core of the SCO, challenging the presumed dominant role of China and Russia. The declaration promoted sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity of states, concepts Beijing seemed to support but Moscow did not.³⁰

In August 2022, China’s Defense Minister Wei Fenghe, at the 19th meeting of SCO defense ministers, encouraged SCO member states to deepen security partnerships, developing a SCO security community within the GSI.³¹ In February 2023, China’s foreign ministry issued the GSI Concept Paper, which suggested that a security institution be formed by combining existing organizations in which Central Asian countries already belonged. The GSI could leverage the roles of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, BRICS cooperation, the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA), the “China+Central Asia” mechanism, and relevant mechanisms of East Asia cooperation, and carry out security cooperation incrementally to achieve similar or same goals.³²

By grouping these organizations into the GSI, Xi hoped to hold security policy dialogues on traditional and non-traditional topics, and conduct exchanges among university-level military and police academies. The GSI would provide the political framework for the BRI in Central Asia that Xi Jinping had been seeking for a decade. The GSI challenges the US-led world order as Beijing builds a sphere of influence in Central Asia, as well as Southeast Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America that would create a post-Western security order. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan have endorsed the initiative. China’s Xiangshan Forum, created as an alternative to the Shangri-la Dialogue, would be included in the GSI.³³

The 2022 SCO meeting revealed that most Central Asian states sought greater autonomy over Central Asia’s relations with the world and rejected the Sino-Russian joint hegemony over the region that Moscow and Beijing had been carefully negotiating for a decade. The 2023 SCO produced less interest as it was a video conference but did reaffirm support for the BRI. In July 2023, at the video conference chaired by India, Iran formally became a member, increasing the membership to nine countries.

Chinese analysis noted that the SCO had expected to have Sino-Russian dual leadership but, since the Ukraine war began, Moscow had been distracted and overwhelmed, giving Beijing a larger security role in the SCO. According to Pan Guang, China remained cautious in its expanded role so as not to offend Russia or other SCO members. Pan thought that economic and trade cooperation within the SCO had not made significant progress due to member disputes, but the SCO was important as a platform where disputes, such as the China-India dispute, could be managed. Because of Russia’s domestic instability during the Ukraine war, Chinese opinion had become divided into two factions within academic circles and public opinion circles. One recommended distancing from Russia as soon as possible. Even former diplomats were critical of Russia. The other faction maintained firm support of Russia, which is the official position.³⁴ As the war has dragged on, China’s commitment to Russia has deepened.

Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) at 10 Years

The year 2023 marked a decade of the BRI and was a time to assess the achievements in Chinese connectivity with Central Asia in infrastructure, trade, finance, cultural exchanges, and policy coordination. Several meetings dealt with events in 2022. Beijing had incrementally expanded its security role in Central Asia, undermining the logic of the old Central Asian formula of Chinese leadership in economics and Russian leadership in security.  There had been signs throughout 2022 that China was slowly edging into more of a security role in the region displacing Russia’s traditional security role in Central Asia.³⁵ This trend has continued.

There had been a perceptible shift in the BRI strategy. China’s domestic economy had slowed down with numerous structural problems. Practices of the original BRI, lending $1 trillion to more than 100 countries for infrastructure projects that covered the globe, had receded by 2016–17 when there were several BRI failures with smaller countries that could not repay their loans. Xi Jinping’s 2018 speech had referred to the BRI shifting from the Xieyi to Gongbi style of painting, i.e., from sketching thoughts to sketching reality. Beijing changed its regulations for overseas investment. Another problem is that the BRI provided cover for illicit Chinese capital flight. The revised BRI scaled down costs and focused on less capital-intensive areas such as trade, telecommunications, and green energy, shifting away from big infrastructure projects.³⁶

By 2021-2022, many BRI debtor countries had experienced financial distress needing to negotiate debt restructuring. The world was aware that some BRI countries were in a “debt trap,” but transactions were opaque. By 2022, 60% of Beijing’s overseas lending portfolio went to rollovers refinancing loans to borrower countries.  Information on Chinese bailouts for these debtor countries was revealed by AidData researchers who found that “by the end of 2021, China had undertaken 128 rescue loan operations across 22 debtor countries worth $240 billion.”³⁷ A report published by researchers at AidData, the World Bank, the Harvard Kennedy School, and the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, China as an International Lender of Last Resort, concluded that China’s rescue loans were opaque, had high interest rates, and were bailouts primarily for debtors in China’s BRI.³⁸ Bailouts rose sharply after 2015, only two years into the BRI, reaching their highest point in 2021.

Mongolia was a major recipient of Chinese bailouts, but Central Asian countries were not. Either they had delayed implementing BRI projects, as did Kyrgyzstan, or they had sufficient resources to repay BRI debts, as did Kazakhstan. Both situations allowed Central Asian countries to maintain their political autonomy. In 2021, at the height of Chinese BRI bailouts, Foreign Minister Wang Yi had pressured Astana to deepen cooperation under the framework of the BRI, suggesting that Kazakhstan had not participated to the extent Beijing wanted it to.³⁹ In November 2021, at a China-Kazakhstan Cooperation Committee meeting, Chinese Vice Premier Han Zheng called for increased implementation of cooperation plans within the Committee’s 12 subcommittees in security, customs, transport, railway, trade and economic, water management, energy, scientific and technical, financial, cultural, humanitarian, environmental and geological cooperation.⁴⁰

In June 2023, Xi Jinping hosted the first C5+1 China-Central Asian summit in Xian, celebrating the BRI’s ten-year existence in Central Asia, and reaffirming all five Central Asian countries commitment to it. The C5+1 summit gave Xi a platform to push for greater institutionalization. Xi encouraged these countries to strengthen institution building within the C5+1 by setting up meeting mechanisms in a wide array of areas—foreign affairs, customs, business council, education, and agriculture, and to participate in the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Cultural Initiative. He called for strengthening institution building and deepening connectivity. Xi promoted the “Cultural Silk Road” through educational exchanges, cultural centers, and exchange programs such as the “Year of Culture and Arts for the Peoples of China and Central Asian Countries.”⁴¹ The Cultural Silk Road is meant to mitigate China’s soft power deficit in Central Asia.

Foreign analysts took it as a sign of China’s security role when Xi stated at the summit that China would support Kazakhstan in safeguarding national independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity. Astana had become alarmed at Putin’s comments that Kazakhstan was not a real nation-state in a manner similar to how he spoke about Ukraine. Lu Shaye, China’s ambassador to France, echoed Putin, questioning post-Soviet states’ sovereignty, but the Chinese foreign ministry quickly walked that back.⁴²

The C5+1 summit issued the Xian Declaration, which mentioned numerous official mechanisms to institutionalize the relationship and address China’s institutional deficit in the region.It used phrases distinctly Chinese although it was supposed to be a joint statement that reflected a consensus, emphasized state security and political stability in Central Asia, and committed to aligning Central Asian countries’ national plans with the BRI. Those plans include Kazakhstan’s New Economic Policy Nurly Zhol; Kyrgyzstan’s National Development Program until 2026; Tajikistan’s National Development Strategy up to 2030; Turkmenistan’s “Revival of the Great Silk Road” and Uzbekistan’s Development Strategy for 2022-2026.⁴³ In 2021, Wang Yi had pressured Astana to better align Kazakhstan’s 2025 Development Plan with China’s 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) under the framework of the BRI. The C5+1 summit tried to institutionalize this.

In October 2023, the Third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing was held, issuing a book, The New Decade of the BRI. The book argues BRI’s global expansion was the result of “comparative advantage,” which involves the global division of labor, natural endowments, and overcapacity. The purpose of explaining BRI through comparative advantage was to present the initiative as something that had emerged naturally and organically rather than by design. The forum was attended by only 30 heads of state, much reduced from the 2017 BRI Forum that had 100 foreign leaders. China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment and the NDRC jointly hosted a BRI International Cooperation Summit Forum on Green Development. Documents relevant to Central Asia include: “One Belt, One Road” Green Growth Beijing Initiative, Green Development Investment and Financing Partnership, and Central Asia Regional Green Technology Development Initiative. The Ministry of Ecology and Environment and the NDRC had previously in March 2022, along with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Commerce, issued a document on the greening of the BRI, titled “Opinions on the Joint Implementation of Green Development in the Belt and Road Initiative.”⁴⁴ Beijing had announced in September 2021 that it would stop building new coal-fired power plants along the BRI corridors, and in 2021 it had signed “On Building a Green ‘Belt and Road’” with the United Nations Environment Program. The same four ministries in 2017 had issued “Guiding Opinions on Promoting Green Belt and Road Construction.” The author, participating in the Track II BRI Forum in 2019, witnessed international participants pressuring Beijing to green the BRI. In December 2023, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) issued six Blue Book Reports (蓝皮书) on the BRI,⁴⁵ including the Green Silk Road Development Report.

In October 2023, Beijing held an international symposium for the 10th anniversary of China’s neighborhood (periphery) diplomacy principle, issuing a book Outlook on China’s Foreign Policy on Its Neighborhood in the New Era. The Global Times astonishingly claimed this was the first time Beijing comprehensively explained its neighborhood diplomacy (peripheral diplomacy) through a document despite the years of debates over peripheral diplomacy.⁴⁶ This symposium was held a week after the Third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.

Zhou Xiaochuan, vice chairman of the Boao Forum for Asia, continued the decade-long Chinese narrative that BRI projects are not part of a carefully calibrated Beijing grand strategy, not state projects but rather commercial projects by private firms and initiatives of entrepreneurial provinces, simply the cumulative actions of firms and provinces. Zhou argued China’s comparative advantage is in infrastructure due to strong investment and financing capabilities combined with strong construction capabilities, a natural process emerging organically rather than a deliberate strategic design. BRI was based on natural endowments, the global division of labor, and China’s efficiency advantage leading to overcapacity.⁴⁷

The main financial institutions are the China Development Bank (CDB) and the ExIm Bank of China which issue bonds in the PRC for BRI projects. ExIm Bank of China is a policy bank and a sovereign lending institution. CDB should be a development banking institution and is not a state credit institution. According to Zhou, the actions of these financial institutions should not be considered state actions, therefore state forgiveness of loans to help developing countries escape a debt trap, discussed in international lending institution meetings, is impossible for China. Zhou regretted that so many BRI host countries have been influenced by the “debt trap” theory, leading to negative attitudes in their dealings with the PRC.⁴⁸

In October 2023, the State Council issued a BRI white paper, “Jointly building the BRI: a major practice in building a community with a shared future for mankind.” The paper noted that the world, Central Asia especially, had positive attitudes toward the BRI and its impact on transforming the world, “After 10 years of jointly building the BRI, it has brought remarkable and profound changes to the world and has become a landmark event in the history of the development of human society.”⁴⁹

At the end of the year in December 2023, Chinese Ambassador to Russia, Zhang Hanhui, published an article “China, Russia and Eurasian Cooperation” for Russian audiences in Russian Friends Club, a magazine of the Russian parliament. Zhang continued the narrative of joint Sino-Russian leadership in Central Asia, claiming China and Russia are “both influential powers on the Eurasian continent, and the Eurasian region is the common strategic periphery of China and Russia.” Zhang noted the Eurasian region was the starting point of the BRI and continues to be a pilot demonstration area. He further noted that Beijing and Moscow “should continue to serve as leaders of cooperation in the Eurasian region,” they are “the main engine and ballast stone for peace, stability, development and prosperity in Eurasia.” Zhang thought that although the Central Asian region is very diverse, it should have a common development under the BRI and the docking of the BRI and the EEU, using the SCO as the framework to organize the region’s common development.⁵⁰ Zhang’s article was directed at a Russian readership, and gave little agency to the Central Asian states themselves. Zhang did not mention the old division of labor formula that had previously given China leadership over economics and Russia over security. They were now equal partners.

At their March 2023 summit, Xi and Putin had agreed to cooperate in Central Asia, but then held separate meetings with the Central Asian countries. Cooperation appears difficult in areas such as Kazakhstan’s uranium resources as it, the world’s leading uranium exporter, exports to both. Beijing had proposed building a Chinese nuclear power plant in Kazakhstan, which Astana has resisted. The cost is half of other countries’ proposals, but the technology is not as advanced.⁵¹ In May 2023, Astana decided to allow a Russian firm to take control of a uranium mine, despite domestic opposition, and decided to increase uranium exports to China, which required a production increase of 50 percent.

Conclusion

Despite Chinese obfuscation over BRI and its strategy for Central Asia, the record of the decade from 2013 through 2023 demonstrates continuity of objectives along with frequency of moves to deflect concerns. The paramount Chinese goal was a Sinocentric sphere of influence, putting economic integration in the forefront, gaining increasing political clout, and establishing a firm security presence. Central Asian states were wary, led by Kazakhstan’s pursuit of multi-vector diplomacy. Russia was suspicious, deflecting the SCO becoming a vehicle for Chinese efforts at economic integration. Yet, as Russo-Central Asian ties grew tenser, China gained an opening.

China’s strategy for Central Asia that emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union was always based on a vision of China as a major power leading a region of smaller, dependent countries. This vision, which led to placing priority on China’s peripheral diplomacy rather than major power relations, went beyond bilateral exchanges to construction of a Sinocentric regional order which the region and Russia have resisted.

Niklas Swanström had argued in 2015 that regional organizations such as the SCO were promoted by Russia to serve its interests and to constrain China’s role in Central Asia by discouraging the SCO from taking on economic functions which would privilege China’s position in the organization.⁵² However, China, as it often does within international organizations, managed to incrementally shape from within the nature of the SCO, circumventing Russian preferences by guiding the SCO towards economic issues and trying to use it as a political framework for the BRI, and then incrementally expanding China’s security role in the region. Swanstrom also noted that China’s strategy in Central Asia was successful as it used cultural and educational exchanges, training in Chinese military academies, investment, and trade.⁵³

Although China’s soft power has made inroads into the region, its soft power deficit in Central Asia precludes adopting the Chinese Model. The Chinese business presence in Central Asia has lacked transparency, raising suspicions. Although China would like to be the rule-maker and Central Asian countries the rule-taker, there is resistance. Xi hoped that if countries adopted the China Model, they might be more amenable to a Chinese sphere of influence. But Central Asia has not been attracted to the China Model. As a Kazakh analyst wrote “It is an open question if China can offer Kazakhstan and other Central Asian countries a new system that promotes the rule of law, active civil society, transparency, and accountability of governmental institutions.”⁵⁴

Despite Xi Jinping’s repeated efforts to create a political framework for the BRI, or to co-opt an existing organization such as the SCO as the political framework, this strategy has not yet been successful. Central Asian countries, notably Kazakhstan, have retained their political autonomy, incompatible with Xi’s “China Dream” of a sphere of influence stretching across Central Asia.

Shi Yinhong noted that it was time for Beijing to re-examine, re-discuss, and re-plan the direction of the BRI. He thought Beijing should allow countries to define what they really need rather than have Beijing do it, and Beijing cannot assume that these countries welcome adopting China’s path (the China Model). He thought Beijing should also discuss the geostrategic significance of BRI behind closed doors rather than discuss it publicly in order not to raise suspicions in host countries. Shi argued that BRI projects have not necessarily improved China’s periphery diplomacy. Support for strategic and political goals should be accompanied by viable economic projects. Relations are far more complicated than Chinese had expected. He noted Xi Jinping’s 2018 speech referred to shifting from the Xieyi to Gongbi style of painting, which meant taking a more realistic approach to BRI.

Without directly criticizing Xi Jinping’s prioritizing peripheral diplomacy, Shi seemed to support a foreign policy focus on major power relations rather than peripheral diplomacy as he argued that China needs stable relations with the West to facilitate technology transfer needed in China. Therefore, Taiwan, the East China Sea, the South China Sea, strategic military cooperation with Russia, and BRI countries should be in a secondary position. The US free trade agreements with the developed world that exclude China could leave Chinese trade confined to only developing countries in the BRI which would have limited profitability. Shi’s argument is that China’s BRI should not create an alternative world order as it would split the world economy, excluding China from the more profitable developed world.⁵⁵

Russia is losing ground to China as its soft power in Central Asia declines primarily because of its war in Ukraine. Nargis Kassenova in 2024 reflected a Central Asian view that perceptions of China and Russia had changed after the Ukrainian War started in 2022. China is perceived as more reliable, Russia less so because of Russian statements undermining and threatening the sovereignty of post-Soviet states. Since 2022, China has demonstrated good behavior while Russia demonstrates bad behavior. China has gained in gravitas while Russia has lost gravitas in the eyes of Central Asians.⁵⁶

Moscow knows it is losing ground in Central Asia but can only counter this symbolically as in May 2023, when Putin pressured the five Central Asian presidents to watch the Victory Day parade. Several reports indicated they were reluctant to attend.⁵⁷ Another exercise in symbolic politics is the issuance of statements on creating a Eurasian security architecture, an alternative world order and a new world order in Central Asia and in the SCO and BRICS. At the end of 2023, the Russian Foreign Ministry provided a list of its main foreign policy results for the year which included an updated version of the Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation. It committed Russia to creating a more “just and stable” international system and world order, initiating discussions on a Eurasian Security Architecture, and expanding the membership of the SCO and the BRICS.

Despite these sources of competition, Sino-Russian relations have remained stable in Central Asia through a process of adaptation and accommodation during the past decade of the BRI. Xi’s emphasis on peripheral diplomacy in Central Asia has not led to smaller countries on its periphery bandwagoning with Beijing against Washington. Xi’s repeated efforts to provide BRI with a political framework have not had support from Russia or Central Asian states, yet over the years, he has continually tried different approaches without success. Nevertheless, the Chinese media continues to celebrate the BRI and its achievements.

1. Baogang He, “The Domestic Politics of the Belt and Road Initiative and its Implications,” Journal of Contemporary China, Vol. 28, No. 116 (2019), pp. 10-11.

2. Gaye Christoffersen, “Xinjiang and The Great Islamic Circle: The Impact of Transnational Forces on Chinese Regional Economic Planning,” China Quarterly, No. 133 (March 1993), pp. 130-151.

3. The conference was titled “The Dynamics of Economic Development in the Central Asian Region,” organized by IREX, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences, Urumqi, Xinjiang, August 1994.

4. Yang Cheng, “De-Russianization, localization and internationalization: analysis of the formation and consolidation of individual and collective identities in the newly independent countries of Central Asia in the post-Soviet era,” Russian Studies, No. 5 (2012), pp. 93-154, [杨 成, 去俄罗斯化、在地化与国际化：后苏联时期中亚新独立国家个体与集体身份的生成和巩固路径解析, 俄 罗 斯 研 究, 2012 年第5 期, 93-154].

5. Sun Zhuangzhi, “The Relationship between China and Central Asia,” in Eager Eyes Fixed on Eurasia: Russia and Its Neighbors in Crisis, Akihiro Iwashita, ed. Slavic Research Center no. 16-1, Hokkaido University, 2007, https://src-.slav.hokudai.ac.jp/coe21/publish/no16_1_ses/contents.html. Sun Zhuangzhi is the Director of the Institute of Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

6. Wang Jisi, “Marching West, China’s Geostrategic Rebalancing,” 环球时报 [Global Times], October 17, 2012.

7. Zhang Xiaotong, “China’s Eurasian Pivot,” The Asan Forum, December 1, 2014, https://theasanforum.org/chinas-eurasian-pivot/

8. Yan Xuetong, “Diplomacy should focus on neighbors,” China Daily January 2015

9. Yan Xuetong, “China Must Not Overplay Its Strategic Hand,” Huanqiu.Com, August 10, 2017, https://en.huanqiu.com/china-must-not-overplay-its-strategic-hand/

10. Zhao Huasheng, “China-Russia Relations in Central Asia,” The Asan Forum, November 22, 2013.

11. Ibid..

12. Wang Shusen and Zeng Xianghong, “New Diplomatic Trends in Central Asia among Great Powers,” Contemporary International Relations, No. 10 (2020), pp. 44-52, [王术森, 曾向红, 大国中亚地区外交新态势, 《现代国际关系》2020 年第10 期, 44-52].

13. Artyom Lukin, “Mackinder Revisited: Will China Establish Eurasian Empire 3.0?” The Diplomat, February 07, 2015, https://thediplomat.com/2015/02/mackinder-revisited-will-china-establish-eurasian-empire-3-0.

14. Nadege Rolland, “Eurasian Integration “a la Chinese”: Deciphering Beijing’s Vision for the Region as a “Community of Common Destiny,” The Asan Forum, June 5, 2017, http://old.theasanforum.org/eurasian-integration-a-la-chinese-deciphering-beijings-vision-for-the-region-as-a-community-of-common-destiny/#

15. Daniel Markey. China’s Western Horizon: Beijing and the New Geopolitics of Eurasia. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020).

16. “List of Deliverables of the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation,”
China Daily, May 16, 2017, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2017-05/16/content_29359377.htm

17. Aydar Amrebayev, “The Contemporary International Configuration and Role Changes of the SCO: A Kazakhstan Perspective,” Russian Studies, No.4, Aug 2021, [艾达尔·阿姆列巴耶夫, 当代国际局势与上合组织的角色变化——哈萨克斯坦的视角, 俄 罗 斯 研 究, 2021 年第4 期].

18. Berikbol Dukeyev, “What Kazakhstan’s history classrooms teach their students about China,” The China Project, May 17, 2023, https://thechinaproject.com/2023/05/17/what-kazakhstans-history-classrooms-teach-their-students-about-china/

19. Murat Laumulin, “Geopolitical Landmarks: Central Asia Today,” Central Asia and the Caucasus, Nol. 5, No. 53 (2008)

20. Interfax-Kazakhstan, “China is strengthening its influence on the Central Asian countries,” November 2, 2010.

21. Murat Laumulin, Central Asia in the Era of Transformation. Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies at the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Astana, 2020.

22. Alexander Cooley, Great Games, Local Rules: The New Great Power Contest for Central Asia (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2012).

23. “Oppose foreign forces in the region to interfere in internal affairs and support Kazakhstan in quelling unrest  China and Russia join hands to prevent chaos and war in Central Asia,” Huanqiu Shibao, January 12, 2022, p. 1.

24. “Astana International Forum – Dialogue platform for solving key global challenges,’ https://astanainternationalforum.org/en.

25. Shiping Tang, “Regionalism in the Shadow of Extraregional Great Powers: A Game Theoretical Explanation of Central Asia and Beyond,” The Chinese Journal of International Politics, 2021, p. 402.

26. Zamira Tulkunovna Muratalieva, Asia Tashtanbekovna Esenbekova, and Nadezhda Sergeevna Tatkalo, “China in the Shadow of Russia: Covert Tools for Expanding China’s Influence over Kyrgyzstan’s Security,” India Quarterly, Vol. 78, No. 1, March 2022, pp. 88-103.

27. “China-Kazakhstan Relations: Setting a Standard for Central Asian States,” February 10, 2021, Daniela Žuvela, Future Directions Institute, https://www.futuredirections.org.au/publication/china-kazakhstan-relations-setting-a-standard-for-central-asian-states/

28. “How to Limit Putin and Xi’s ‘No Limits’ Friendship, As Russia’s military failures in Ukraine mount, the US and its allies should remind China of how much it also stands to lose,” Bloomberg editorial, September 15, 2022, https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-09-15/xi-putin-meeting-china-russia-wartime-alliance-is-more-fragile-than-it-seems#xj4y7vzkg.

29. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China. President Xi Jinping Attends the 22nd Meeting of the SCO Council of Heads of State and Delivers ImportantRemarks, September 16, 2022, https://www.mfa.gov.cn/eng/zxxx_662805/202209/t20220916_10767162.html.

30. Samarkand Declaration of the Council of Heads of State of Shanghai Cooperation Organization,
September 16, 2022, http://eng.sectsco.org/documents.

31. Ministry of National Defense of the People’s Republic of China, “Chinese defense chief delivers video speech at SCO defense ministers meeting,” August 24, 2022, http://eng.mod.gov.cn/news/2022-08/24/content_4919270.htm.

32. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, “The Global Security Initiative Concept Paper,” February 21, 2023, https://www.mfa.gov.cn/eng/wjbxw/202302/t20230221_11028348.html.

33. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, “Jointly Implementing the Global Security Initiative For Lasting Peace and Security of the World—Keynote Speech by H.E. Nong Rong Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs At the 10th Beijing Xiangshan Forum,” October 31, 2023, https://www.mfa.gov.cn/eng/wjbxw/202311/t20231102_11172214.html.

34. Pan Guang, “Does SCO expansion imply there are more potential conflicts to be managed?”, Guanchazhe, July 6, 2023, https://www.guancha.cn/PanGuang/2023_07_06_699722.shtml. Pan Guang is Director of the SCO Studies Center in Shanghai.

35. Gaye Christoffersen, “Central Asia over a Decade: The Shifting Balance between Russia and China,” in Putin’s Turn to the East in the Xi Jinping Era, in Gilbert Rozman and Gaye Christoffersen, eds. (London and New York: Routledge, 2024), pp. 91-118.

36. Matt Schrader and J. Michael Cole, “China Hasn’t Given Up on the Belt and Road,” Foreign Affairs, February 7, 2023.

37. Alex Wooley, “Belt and Road bailout lending reaches record levels, raising questions about the future of China’s flagship global infrastructure program,” AidData, March 27, 2023, https://www.aiddata.org/blog/belt-and-road-bailout-lending-reaches-record-levels.

38. Sebastian Horn, Bradley C. Parks, Carmen M. Reinhart, Christoph Trebesch. China as an International Lender of Last Resort. AidData working paper no. 124, Mar 28, 2023, https://www.aiddata.org/publications/china-as-an-international-lender-of-last-resort.

39. “China eyes high-quality BRI cooperation with Kazakhstan,” CGTN, May 12, 2021, https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-05-12/China-eyes-high-quality-BRI-cooperation-with-Kazakhstan-10d5YpUNqqQ/index.html.

40. “Chinese vice premier calls for more outcomes from cooperation with Kazakhstan,” Xinhua, November 27, 2021.

41. The State Council of the People’s Republic of China, “Full Text of Xi Jinping’s Speech at China-Central Asia Summit,” May 19, 2023.

42. “Chinese ambassador sparks European outrage.” CNN, April 25, 2023.

43. State Council of the People’s Republic of China, “Xian Declaration of the China-Central Asia Summit,” May 19, 2023, https://english.www.gov.cn/news/202305/19/content_WS6467059dc6d03ffcca6ed305.html

44. Dimitri De Boer, Christoph Nedopil Wang, and FAN Dantin, “China’s Government Clarifies Its Vision For a Green Belt and Road Initiative,” China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED),  https://cciced.eco/environmental-industries/chinas-government-clarifies-its-vision-for-a-green-belt-and-road-initiative/.

45. The Blue Book Reports were: Green Silk Road Development Report; China and Latin American and Caribbean Countries Jointly Build the “Belt and Road” Development Report; Jointly Building the “Belt and Road” People-to-People Connect Development Report (2023); China and African Countries Jointly Building the “Belt and Road” Development Report; Jointly Building the “Belt and Road” “One Belt, One Road” International Cooperation Development Report in the Field of Traditional Chinese Medicine; Development Report on China-ASEAN Countries’ Joint Construction of “One Belt, One Road”, https://www.yidaiyilu.gov.cn/p/0URO7R0I.html.

46. Bi Mengying, “China expounds neighborhood diplomacy through document for 1st time,” Global Times, October 24, 2023.

47. Zhou Xiaochuan, “Comparative Advantage and Financing Issues in the the BRI,” Aisixiang, December 10, 2023, https://www.aisixiang.com/data/147878.html. Zhou’s article was from the introduction to a book The New Decade of One Belt, One Road, published by CITIC Press Group for China International Capital Corporation (CICC).

48. Zhou Xiaochuan, “Comparative Advantage and Financing Issues in the the BRI,” Aisixiang, December 10, 2023.

49. State Council, “Jointly building the BRI: a major practice in building a community with a shared future for mankind,” Xinhua, October 10, 2023.

50. “Ambassador Zhang Hanhui, “China, Russia and Eurasian Cooperation’ in the ‘Russian Friends Club’ magazine,” February 1, 2024, http://ru.china-embassy.gov.cn/sghd/202402/t20240201_11238295.htm.

51. Kazakhstan reluctant to approve Chinese nuclear plant proposal – report,” Eurasianet, December 22, 2023, https://eurasianet.org/kazakhstan-reluctant-to-approve-chinese-nuclear-plant-proposal-report.

52. Niklas Swanström, “The Security Dimension of the China- Central Asia Relationship: China’s Military Engagement with Central Asian Countries,” Institute for Security & Development Policy, 18 March 2015, https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Swanstrom%20Testimony_3.18.15.pdf.

53. Niklas Swanstrom. China and Greater Central Asia: New Frontiers? Silk Road Paper Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, Johns Hopkins University-SAIS and Institute for Security and Development Policy, Stockholm:  December 2011, p. 7.

54. Roza Nurgozhayeva, “Rule-Making, Rule-Taking or Rule-Rejecting under the Belt and Road Initiative: A Central Asian Perspective,” The Chinese Journal of Comparative Law, Vol. 8, No. 1 (2020), pp. 250-278.

55. “Shi Yinhong on the BRI and China’s Strategy, Q&A conducted by CASS Prof. Xue Li,” China Review News Agency, November 30, 2023.

56. Video by Temur  Umarov, Nargis Kassenova, and Jiayi Zhou. “Carnegie Global Dialogue: China and Central Asia,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, February 5, 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUetgGlVCq8.

57. Temur Umarov, ”Why Did Central Asia’s Leaders Agree to Attend Moscow’s Military Parade?” Carnegie Politika, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, May 12, 2023, https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/89741; Zhar Zardykhan, “Central Asia celebrates Victory Day amid Russian pressure,” Global Voices, June 2, 2023, https://globalvoices.org/2022/06/02/central-asia-celebrates-victory-day-amid-russian-pressure/.