Name? Wang Yi
Westphalian identity? Chinese
Age? 68
Why is he in the news? After his mildly-successful trip to the Indo-Pacific, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi spent four days in Kazakhstan where he not only met with Kazakh President Tokayev, but also with his counterparts from Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and the transport minister of Tajikistan. Wang’s trip ended with pledges for greater cooperation between China and the C5 countries on topics such as anti-terrorism, security, the BRI, and humanitarian mediation in neighbouring Afghanistan.
Why do we care? We’re pretty interested to see how Wang plans to move forward on these topics with his C5 counterparts when supposedly, “China has never sought geopolitical interests in Central Asia…”.
Why should you care? China is currently preparing for a cold war scenario in which two major blocks are competing against each other. Since Xi is siding with Putin against the US over the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Wang is on his mission to push countries to show which side they are on. Therefore, you should care 6/10 about the geopolitics of Central Asia!
Who else cares? Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi cares as Wang’s trip could potentially derail India’s alternative to China’s BRI: the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC). As Modi aims to challenge and delegitimize China’s BRI in the resource-rich region that is Central Asia, he will come up against Wang’s efforts for China to become the main partner for the C5 nations, effectively limiting Modi’s regional influence.
Any further comments? India is hardly the only other power interested in Central Asia as the C5 countries are all former Soviet republics with close ties to Moscow; especially Kazakhstan’s President Tokayev. It seems like Wang is simply taking advantage of global attention towards Ukraine in order to push Washington out of Central Asia. Especially since China vowed to “never allow non-regional forces to stir up trouble” in their own backyard.
