Scarcely two years after protesters redefined the political landscape in Kyrgyzstan, the country’s giant northern neighbour – Kazakhstan – has witnessed a series of uprisings that started in the Western city of Zhanaozen and soon spread to other Southern cities and, most importantly, the former capital of Almaty. Other scholars and journalists have written on the complexities of the protests’ motivations and their potential impact on the country’s President Kasym-Jomart Tokaev, now in his third year in power. Kazakhstan’s 2019 political transition, once lauded internationally in terms of stability vis-à-vis Uzbekistan’s, is now under scrutiny. China, in particular, looks with concern at the protests in Kazakhstan – even more so than it did the 2020 coup in Bishkek – in light of the close relationship the two countries have shared since the launch of the Silk Road Economic Belt in 2013 and the proximity of protesters to the border with Xinjiang.
China’s Understanding of the Kazakh Protests
Two frames can be primarily detected in China’s reaction to the Kazakh protests. On the one hand, Beijing has accepted the Kazakh leadership’s framing of protesters as terrorists (e.g., 恐怖分子 kongbu fenzi). On the other, the protests have been understood as an attempt at a colour revolution (颜色革命 yanse geming).
Others will open debates on the conceptual validity of using these terms to define the Kazakh protests. At this point, what is interesting to discuss is the context within which the terms have emerged, as they both display a substantial Chinese imprint.
Linking protests to terrorism is an established practice in China. Recent examples include the 2019 Hong Kong protests and the 2021 Myanmar coup, which Beijing formally identified as terrorist events. Finding a comprehensive application after the launch of the Global War on Terror, China’s protest-terrorism nexus has primarily been transposed to Central Asia through the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). At the same time, the term “colour revolution” had a similar development process, as China has habitually interpreted Central Asian affairs through this prism,[1] especially since the 2005 Tulip revolution in Kyrgyzstan, which has remained at the centre of China’s concerns for future spillovers in other Central Asian countries. Such conceptualisation has actually been shared by China and Russia at the international level on numerous occasions.
China’s Attitude to Russia-led Peacekeepers in Kazakhstan
Tokayev’s decision to ask for Vladimir Putin’s support in handling protesters and the deployment of Russia-led peacekeepers from the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) have inspired inflated reactions from Western media, especially in terms of drawing connections with the 2014 Russo-Ukrainian conflict.
Some observers have asked for China to be galled by Russia’s intervention and, more generally, Kazakhstan’s decision to rely on Moscow to be evidence of a Russian sphere of influence, capable of trumping China’s engagement with its western neighbours. Although there might be some truth to these interpretations, an oversimplification of the China-Russia-Kazakhstan relation is risky because it does not consider the extensive concessions Beijing made in its dogmatic foreign policy since pursuing a more active role in the international system.
One should first take into account the regional context in which Kazakhstan’s protests unfolded, which still reflects China’s non-intervention in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of US troops. Despite expectations from Central Asian countries that Beijing (and potentially the SCO) would assume a more active role in regional security, China made its non-interventionist position crystal-clear. The military outpost financed in Tajikistan, for instance, is managed by China’s military police and not the army, signalling Beijing’s interest in internal rather than regional security. Consequently, Kazakhstan’s quest for support has been rationally directed elsewhere.
Second, despite China’s limited ability to compromise on its core foreign policy principles, the country has been known for making concessions on peacekeeping. Therefore, the government could easily tolerate the involvement of Kazakhstan-requested CSTO peacekeepers in the country. For example, Beijing’s government-related media reiterated the use of the term “peacekeeping” (维和 weihe), justifying China’s recent offer to support Kazakhstan in terms of law enforcement and security as the situation in Kazakhstan stabilises.
In Support of China-Russia’s Economy-Security Division of Labour in Central Asia
China’s approach to the Kazakh protests and Russia’s CSTO peacekeeping intervention confirms a trend in Beijing’s relations with Central Asia: a preference for limited military presence, especially outside formal UN peacekeeping missions. This attitude also bolsters the case for a functioning Russia-China division of labour in Central Asia, successfully perpetuating a model originally designed to ensure that China’s regional activities would not be perceived as conflictual by Russia. A model that – at least from Beijing’s perspective – is still valid and worthy of being pursued.
[1] This tendency is clearly detectable in the documents released after China’s annual academic conference on the relations with Central Asia.
