Nursultan Nazarbayev and Hu Jintao reaffirmed that the construction of the Atasu-Alashankou oil pipeline from Western Kazakhstan to China would be completed in December this year. Concluding the ambitious agreement on the construction of the pipeline, Kazakhstan was counting on Russia’s Siberian oil to operate it at full transportation capacity. Minister of Energy and Mineral resources Vladimir Shkolnik and deputy minister Lyazat Kiynov have assured that Russian oil would be pumped through Atasu-Alahsankou. But the recent statement of the president of the Russian Transneft Company Semyon Wainshtok who said that Transneft could not supply that amount of oil needed threw cold water on this calculation. Further, the president of Transneft added that Atasu-Alashankou would be too costly an undertaking for Russia which would preferably ship East Siberian oil to Russian Pacific seaports to reach South East Asian markets. At the same time, the agreement signed between Russia’s major Rosneft oil company and China National Petroleum Company on July 1 indicates some common ground in Russian-Chinese oil cooperation. On the other hand, the shift of Russian interests from the Caspian sector to Siberian oil and gas reserves enhances Kazakhstan’s chances to play a dominant role in the Caspian. The envisaged joint construction of the Trans-Kazakhstan railway from the western coast of the Caspian to China makes this ambitious goal more real. The $4 billion railway with a 70-kilometer stretch to pass through Iran, as estimated, will take 15 years to build. Another important joint project is the gas pipeline from Kazakhstan to China.

Hu and Nazarbayev signed eight agreements including cooperation in areas of transport communication, trade, scientific and humanitarian partnership, and information exchange on cross-border rivers. The sides also stressed the need to implement the 2004 agreement on the Khorgos cross-border trade area covering 300 hectares of Chinese land and 200 hectares allotted by Kazakhstan. According to the Chinese customs office, bilateral trade reached $4,489 million last year. This volume will increase to $5 billion, as stated at the press-conference in Astana. At the same time, travelers to the neighboring Chinese town of Urumchi are surprised to see exclusively Chinese goods in local marketplaces there. Among the banned imports from Kazakhstan and Russia are not only cigarettes and alcoholic beverages but virtually everything manufactured outside China. Meanwhile, Kazakh markets in every city have turned into dumping sites for cheap Chinese goods of inferior quality. Russian-made vans in Kazakhstan are gradually being squeezed out by Chinese-made minivans.

Far more alarming than the Chinese commodities expansion is the demographic threat posed by accelerated development of the neighboring Xingjian-Uighur Autonomous Region. The migration process in border areas is irreversible and uncontrollable. Statistics Agency figures say that while the Russian population in the northern regions have decreased by 1.2% as of January 1, 2005, the number of Uighurs in the densely populated south has risen by 1.6%. This number will predictably grow as long as China sticks to its discriminatory policy towards ethnic Uighurs. Hu Jintao reiterated his “anti-terrorism” call in Astana and found strong support from Nazarbayev, who even before the Chinese leader’s visit to Astana told the Euronews TV channel on June 30 that as long as superpowers such as the U.S., Russia and China do not lose political and economic interests in Kazakhstan, the country’s security is guaranteed. A senior researcher at the Kazakh Institute for Strategic Studies, Murat Laumulin, holds the view, like many others, that growing Chinese nationalism and China’s influence on world oil markets suggest that China is to play a leading role in the region.

For China, the most significant part of the joint declaration on strategic partnership signed on July 4 is undoubtedly the statement of Nursultan Nazarbayev that Kazakhstan opposes any international recognition of Taiwan and firmly supports the “one China” policy. Many analysts believe that China succeeded through diplomatic pressure on Kazakhstan to reduce the threat from Uighur separatists in Xinjiang. Nazarbayev, on visits to China, called on the 1.3 million ethnic Kazakhs in China to contribute to stability and peace. Political scientist Azimbay Galym notes the slackening support from Chinese Kazakhs to the East Turkistan liberation movement. To win Chinese confidence, Kazakh authorities detained and handed over Uighur refugees to China.

Former Ambassador of Kazakhstan to China Murat Auezov thinks that for China, Nazarbayev’s Central Asian integration idea is not a lesser evil than the rose revolutions in the region. But even integrated Central Asian states are not likely to resist effectively Chinese economic, cultural expansion. At the summit of Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Astana, Hu Jintao said that the Central Asian states should determine their policy without outside interference. China will try to use the Shanghai group, now strengthened by new observer states India, Pakistan and Iran, to its best advantage in China’s advance into Central Asia.