This paper explores how the New Silk Road Initiative, which is presented as a concept founded on economic rationality, tends to offer an ideological perspective on transport and trade for the Central ...Asian region. The New Silk Road Initiative advocates for more transport infrastructure in Central Asia without tackling the most significant barriers to trade: production patterns, widespread corruption, and poor management practices at borders.
In two decades since independence, Beijing has become one of Central Asian countries main partners. China's growing presence and influence in Central Asia partially structures the domestic orders, ...social changes, and national narratives of the latter. Exactly how China will intensify its presence in Central Asia is going to depend partly on the approaches and attitudes of the Central Asian states themselves. The rise of Sinophilia and Sinophobia will impact the political, geo-strategic, and cultural the situation in the region, working either to speed up or to slow down Chinese expansion in it. The Central Asian states are at once desirous of the growing Chinese presence, wanting to take advantage of its economic dynamism and geo-strategic influence, but also fearful of its potential demographic and cultural clout.
In the course of only a decade, Kazakhstan has become China's second biggest partner behind Russia in the post-Soviet space. Economic relations between Astana and Beijing are characterised by a ...considerable imbalance of power that is of concern in some political and expert circles in Kazakhstan, while the tremendous opportunity for development offered by China's proximity brings hope that the country might be extricated from the crisis that followed the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Kazakhstan's regime functions through a neopatrimonial/patronal system, which is made up of several concentric circles. This article focuses on the first three circles: the family, the oligarchs, and ...the technocrats. It argues that patronal practices linking political elites and business interests are key to interpreting the functioning of the Kazakh political system. PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
This article aims to present the situation of the Russian minority in Kazakhstan and to stress the political, social and identity evolutions in this country since independence in 1991. It develops ...three main points: the non-homogeneous nature of Russians in Kazakhstan; the development of non-ethnic allegiances that could explain the failure of the local Russian political parties; and the difficulties the leaders have in choosing between the defence of the political rights and the cultural rights of the country's first minority. In order to examine these issues, this article focuses on a series of issues: the place of the national question in the Kazakh public debate; the process of linguistic and ethnic Kazakhisation; the political activities of the Russian minority; the Cossack issue and the stakes of autonomist claims; and, finally, the issue of emigration and the narrative of the 'return' to Russia.
...China seeks to exploit market openings in Central Asia for Chinese products, which could open up access to the whole of Russia, Iran, Turkey, and Europe. Formerly the primary trading partner of ...Central Asia, Russia, with volumes reaching 20 billion euros in 2015, is now far behind China, with 29.5 billion.4 In addition, China is increasingly involved in the hydrocarbon sector and has gradually supplanted Moscow in the Central Asian energy game. Since 2014, declining world hydrocarbon prices have drastically reduced Russia's profits from the transit of Central Asian oil and gas through its territory, leading Moscow to decrease imports from this region. ...it helps preserve both countries' share of regional influence and their tacit political agreement to support the authoritarian regimes of the Eurasian states in the name of maintaining political and social stability, as well as resisting interference from the West (the EU and the United States). ...the Kremlin's revised approach to BRI raises questions about the possibility of Sino-Russian cooperation over the long term.
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