C5+Xi: China Makes Moves in Eurasia

As the world’s attention was focused on Iran, last month Chinese President Xi Jinping made a trip to Astana, Kazakhstan, to meet with the leaders of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. This second Central Asia-China summit was designed to follow up on the May 2023 meeting in Xi’an, which had unveiled an ambitious agenda for far more investment and closer relations. While both summits set off alarm bells in Washington, manifestations of any fundamental changes in Central Asia-China relations since May 2023 have been sparse.

The message from the Chinese side to Central Asia, both during and after the trip, was clear: not only was there nothing else Xi would rather be doing on his 72nd birthday than deepen Sino-Eurasian ties and personally chair meetings, but China is fully committed to reinforcing already excellent ties. Press releases from every foreign ministry in Central Asia largely mirror this and are similarly cordial. While the ritual is somewhat repetitive, policymakers in Washington and elsewhere would do well not to dismiss the importance of this latest Central Asia-China meeting, especially concerning China’s overall strategic posture. Often, gradual and routine steps typify Chinese statecraft.

For China, Central Asia is an area of great strategic importance, especially in comparison to flashpoints along the Pacific Rim. Historically, nearly every dynasty that succeeded in unifying the core of China first projected power west down the Silk Road into Central Asia, even before projecting influence on Mongolia or Manchuria and Tibet, the latter two of which are within China’s modern borders.

The first contact between Chinese and Western cultures occurred when the Han dynasty fought “the war of heavenly horses” with successor states established in the region by Alexander the Great. China’s interest in the region is long-lasting.

It was not a coincidence that it was in Kazakhstan that China first launched what would come to be known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Nor was it happenstance that, when the BRI was re-launched over a decade later, it was re-launched from its cradle. Xi’s first foreign trip after his COVID-19 isolation was to the region.

Such attention is lavished on more than just the niceties of neighbors. Deepening China's influence in the Central Asian states addresses many of Beijing’s primary strategic imperatives. With significantly higher infrastructure investment, China could utilize Central Asia as an economic artery to transport goods overland to Europe through Northern Corridor (via Russia) and Middle Corridor (via Kazakhstan and the Caucasus), and mitigate U.S. naval supremacy. Doing so may even help widen the emerging Euro-American split.

Central Asia serves as an effective conduit for China to ensure Russia’s economic dependency and hinder its return to great power status. When former Russian President and current professional Twitter troll Dimitri Medvedev stated Kazakhstan was an artificial state and Russia should consider nuking it, China responded by releasing a statement that it recognized the full sovereignty and territorial integrity of all Central Asian states. China may see Russia as a strategic asset to harry the West, but Beijing is in no hurry to enable Moscow’s expansion in Central Asia.

China backs this up with investment. Chinese trade flows and economic cooperation dwarf the West and Russia, although the areas the West does invest in tend to balance Beijing’s influence. Chinese trade with Central Asia sits at around $95 billion per year; U.S. trade is around $5 billion per year.

The Central Asian states are not passive actors in this story. Warm relations with China are a necessity for the region’s multivector foreign policies. Under Central Asia’s power balancing, China is the only actor capable of physically deterring Russia’s expansionary impulses. The United States is both too distant and unwilling, after the end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the domestic rise of isolationism. Europe is seen as too weak – if Paris and London won’t commit troops and more weapons to Ukraine, what hope does Central Asia have?

Nevertheless, the region is not willing to uncritically embrace China, even as cooperation deepens to the level of an “eternal strategic partnership,” according to Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. Protests against Chinese investment are a frequent occurrence, and local historical memories and ethnic animosities have inculcated a far greater degree of societal skepticism compared with other recipients of Chinese investment, for example, in sub-Saharan Africa.

Just before Xi arrived in Astana, Kazakh Foreign Minister Murat Nurtleu was invited to Washington, D.C. to meet with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer. Nurtleu shared Kazakhstan's vision of cooperation on building supply chains of rare and strategic elements with the United States. His presence in the U.S. capital on the eve of such a significant event with China reflects the maturity and seriousness of Kazakh diplomacy, showing its ability to act strategically without offending any side. It’s a common regional strategy that, while best exemplified by Kazakhstan, is undertaken by all of the Central Asian states.

While there is minimal confidence in the West’s ability to deter Russia in the region militarily, Western economic ties are sought both as a model for business and societal development and as a counterweight for Chinese influence derived from the BRI. At every stage, Western investment, services, and educational exchanges are sought as a means of balancing.

This delicate balancing act between Russia, China, and the West has mostly been successful. Kazakhstan has used the policy effectively, and it has enabled Tokayev to stand up to Putin. Simultaneously, China’s presence hasn’t been so overbearing as to prevent cooperation with the West.

Washington’s win condition in Central Asia is the promotion of regional integration and economic development to reinforce local state actors and prevent Chinese or Russian divide et impera while creating new profitable economic relationships. For the United States, the recent Central Asia-China summit is not a foreign policy failure, but neither can it be dismissed as simply an exercise in state pageantry.

Instead, it is a bellwether that indicates many troubling trends in U.S. foreign policy. Russia’s unchecked expansionism, European weakness, the fraying Western alliance, and increasing Chinese soft power are all global trends that intersect in Central Asia. The greatest manifestation of this is the inability of the West to direct investment to the region for strategically desirable or even profitable projects in the same way that China can. The cutting of USAID programs while China offers a strategic alternative of $208 million for 2025 in grants is further testament to this.

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” so goes the Chinese proverb. This summit may have had no great birthday gifts for Xi to unwrap and local resiliency balanced Chinese aspirations, but that won’t always be the case if the West remains needlessly disinterested in the region. The second Central Asia-China summit represents an incremental success for Chinese diplomacy. If the West has any hope of countering Chinese influence, it has quite a few steps to make up quickly.