How Does China Approach Central Asia?

On the edges of last month’s China-Central Asia summit, Chinese leader Xi Jinping hosted four of the five visiting Central Asian leaders for state visits and bilateral discussions. (Turkmenistan’s President Serdar Berdymuhamedov made a state visit to China the first week of 2023.)

With international attention on the group summit, and the promised “important document” it produced – which turned out to be a declaration with very little novelty – it’s worth parsing the bilateral meetings and individual joint statements with an eye to how, if at all, China differentiates between the states of Central Asia.

If you want to enrage a Central Asianist, use the term “the Stans” to refer to the countries of Central Asia collectively, and cartoonishly. Or, do as John Kerry did in one of his first speeches in 2013 as U.S. secretary of state and mash up two Central Asian countries: He invented Kyrzakhstan when trying to praise Kyrgyzstan for its democratic progress. The New York Times created Kyrgyzbekistan in 2015. The late Herman Cain’s mangling of Uzbekistan’s name – as “Uzbeki-beki-stan-stan” – in 2011 was perhaps more purposefully rude than just a flub of the tongue.

The point here is that like all states, those in Central Asia take pride in their independence and sovereignty. That their modern independence and sovereignty is so fresh – just over 30 years – heightens the offense when they’re unceremoniously lumped together.

That said, diplomatic and strategic necessities push external powers toward engaging with the countries of Central Asia lumped together as a region. Since 2015, the United States has gotten more diplomatic bang for its buck in pooling Central Asian foreign ministers together in the C5+1 format, for example. It’s a popular approach, taken by countries near (Russia, but only since 2022) and far (Japan, since 2004).

At its China-Central Asia summit – featuring leaders rather than foreign ministers – Beijing laid out the literal red carpet for the strongmen of Central Asia. But under the umbrella of multilateral diplomacy, is there much differentiation in Chinese approaches to each individual Central Asian state?

Yes and no.

On the one hand, what jumps out from the four separate bilateral joint statements is how alike they are. There are certain, expected, ingredients in Chinese joint statements with many countries, including those in Central Asia. There’s the necessary pledge to the “One China” policy and mandatory ding on Taiwan, and there’s flowery language heralding the triumphs of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In addition, no joint statement with a Central Asian country would be complete without a reference to combatting the “three evils” (ethnic separatism, religious extremism, and violent terrorism).

And in each joint statement, as in every bilateral joint statement ever penned (probably), there’s a survey of the major areas of cooperation. When it comes to Central Asia these include trade, transit, investment, energy, people-to-people ties, and others. The matter of energy security and stabilizing gas supplies came up in both the Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan statements. These statements were issued in the early days of springtime after a hard winter during which both Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan stalled gas exports to China in order to meet high domestic demands.

On the other hand, there were clear differences in the bilateral joint statements. Niva Yau, an analyst who focuses on Chinese engagement in Central Asia, noted a disparity in the number of items contained in each respective bilateral statement in a Twitter thread analyzing the bilateral outcomes – Uzbekistan (28), Tajikistan (18), Kyrgyzstan (11), and Kazakhstan (7).

Prior to the death of Islam Karimov in 2016 Uzbekistan had slid into a phase of relatively detached diplomacy; the Mirziyoyev era has seen Tashkent engage more not just with its direct neighbors but with powers farther abroad, including China. The Uzbekistan statement reflected this catching up. The statement included a reference to the Aral Sea, a disaster Tashkent has sought to capitalize on. Yau, on Twitter, also noted that the statement included “[l]ots of Chinese praises for [the] current Uzbek regime.”

On the other end of the spectrum is Kazakhstan, which has perhaps the most developed relations with China (and the region’s longest border with China). Kazakhstan, if could be said, is first among equals. Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev was the first to arrive in Xi’an for the summit and got his state visit and bilateral meetings in on May 17. More importantly, he seemed to have more sideline events, including the opening of a new consulate in Xi’an. It is Kazakhstan’s third consulate in China, after Hong Kong and Shanghai (Kazakhstan has a visa office in Urumqi, also).

The Kazakhstan statement focused on more advanced economic and geopolitical relations, such as mention of expanding the Astana International Financial Center’s provision of services to Chinese enterprises in the region and references to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), noting Kazakhstan’s 2023-2024 presidency. Interestingly, while the China-Kazakhstan joint statement made reference to “color revolutions,” none of the other statements did. The Kazakhstan statement makes no mention whatsoever of the big elephant in the room: Xinjiang.

The Kyrgyzstan statement, meanwhile, stands out for its several strongly pro-China mentions of Xinjiang, which was studiously avoided in the statement with Kazakhstan. In Kyrgyzstan’s statement Bishkek praises China’s “protecting the cultural diversity and freedom of religious belief of various ethnic groups in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region” and noted Kyrgyzstan’s support for “China's measures to maintain the security, stability and development of Xinjiang.” The Kyrgyz statement also makes mention of the long-awaited China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway (not mentioned in the Uzbek statement). Yau remarked on Twitter, “Compared to others, Kyrgyzstan-China bilateral papers this time are much more focused on security ties and activities.”

The China-Tajikistan bilateral statement is the only one of the four to mention “preferential loans,” underscoring Dushanbe’s deep economic concerns and lack of over avenues for funding. The statement also touched on Tajikistan’s mineral wealth and the willingness of the Chinese side to help with processing minerals to produce “high value-added” goods.

None of the statements mentioned Russia or the war in Ukraine.

The joint statements are, obviously, arrived at jointly. And ultimately that’s what explains these differences. China brought its ingredients to the kitchen and the Central Asian states did too. The final dishes are variations on a theme rather than radically different presentations.

Each Central Asian state has its own priorities. While Beijing may approach each in a similar way, may bring similar options to the table, the differences among the joint statements are a testament to the reality that although approached often as a region, the states of Central Asia have agency and their own agendas to push.