• Kazakhstan was China’s first Belt and Road Initiative partner, and 13 years later, it remains the programme’s largest recipient and its most important actor. 
• The Belt and Road Initiative has paved the way for a vibrant collaboration beyond infrastructure and development projects. 
• Their partnership shows no signs of faltering as both leaders have the resources and incentives to continue this relationship. 

Why are  Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and Xi Jinping in love?

Answer: Kazakhstan is China’s most receptive partner in cooperating for the development of the Belt and Road Initiative.

Xi Jinping launched the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) thirteen years ago. The BRI began as a development programme focused on improving physical connectivity between East Asia and Europe through the revival of the Silk Road. First announced to the world during Xi’s visit to Kazakhstan in September 2013, the programme has continued under President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.  Despite its expansion to more than 140 countries, Kazakhstan still plays a persistent central role in the New Silk Road (yi dai yi lu /带一路) as the largest territory and economy in Central Asia and the largest recipient of BRI financing. With 2000 years of historic ties spanning from the Mongols to the Yuan dynasty, Kazakhstan is arguably China’s most symbolic BRI partner. 

Since the launch of the programme, the economies of Kazakhstan and China have become substantially intertwined. China has invested over $1.3 trillion into Kazakhstan, primarily in the sectors of real estate, energy, mining, technology, and transport. Yearly investments have thus surged from $2.2 billion in 2013 to $25 billion in 2025. These commitments to Kazakhstan highlight a strong, beneficial partnership and trust between Xi Jinping and Tokayev. Consequently, over this epoch of Chinese involvement, the GDP of Kazakhstan has grown from $174.86 billion to $244.49 billion, credited in large part to 52 new development projects, 50% of which are now completed. 

This economic allegiance has also translated into political cooperation between Tokayev and Xi, with frequent diplomatic meetings between them. Kazakhstan was Xi Jinping’s first foreign destination after the COVID-19 pandemic, and by 2025, he had visited the country six times, the second-highest number of visits to any state since becoming president. Tokayev has similarly prioritised their partnership, travelling to China four times, more frequently than to any country outside Kazakhstan’s immediate region.

The most recent diplomatic meeting was in May 2025 and resulted in renewed investments in nuclear energy, rare earth materials, and train routes. Consequently, this deep diplomatic relationship reflects itself in Kazakhstan’s foreign policy. The Kazakh Ministry of Foreign Affairs under Tokayev has staunchly endorsed the one-China policy, thus associating Taiwan with China’s sovereign territory. This position has been consistently reaffirmed during high-level meetings between Chinese and Kazakh leaders. Tokayev explicitly reiterated Kazakhstan’s support for it upon assuming office in 2019, Taiwan’s 2024 elections, and again in May 2025

What does Tokayev want?

Answer: Tokayev needs Chinese support to consolidate power and counter an expansionist Russia. 

Since he assumed power, Tokayev has tried to approach China and Russia more carefully. China’s position as Kazakhstan’s primary economic and military partner is a contemporary development. Historically, Russian influence overshadowed Kazakhstan and the wider region. Kazakhstan was part of the Russian Empire and later of the Soviet Union for roughly 150 years and remained closely aligned with Moscow after its independence in 1991. As recently as 2023, Bloomberg referred to Kazakhstan as “Putin’s backyard”. However, this categorisation is becoming increasingly outdated as Russia’s influence over Kazakhstan is declining while China’s presence continues to expand. This shift has been accelerated by Tokayev’s diverging interests from Putin, particularly following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

Tokayev has leveraged closer ties with China to support a more balanced foreign policy and strengthen his broader agenda of “de-Nazarbayevization”, aimed at reducing the influence of the political networks associated with his predecessors. Importantly, the war in Ukraine has shifted the balance of power in favour of the Kazakhs; Russia relies on the country for the continued operations of key businesses and the import of foreign goods like mobile phones. With this leverage, Tokayev has greater autonomy to openly distance himself from Russia and align more closely with other powers in the region, such as China. Thereby, the economic ties between Russia and Kazakhstan are weakening, as shown by a noticeable 14% drop in trade between the two nations in the past year, a departure from historic booms peaking at an annual increase of 35% in 2011 alone. In contrast, Kazakh trade with China has increased by 47% in the first quarter of 2026. 

The vacuum left by Russia has been filled by China, which contributed nearly 250 billion dollars more in foreign investment than Russia. Lastly, energy dependency is a concern for Tokayev. Nearly 80% of Kazakhstan’s oil pipelines pass through Russia, establishing a unilateral leverage that Russia has exploited in the past. Hence, Tokayev wants to dampen the impact of Russian divestment and the effects of the war with Ukraine through the diversification of infrastructure and energy. 

What does Xi Jinping want?

Answer: China is pushing the economic partnership with Kazakhstan to gain access to strategic geographical locations and minerals for trade. 

Kazakhstan is a country of great strategic importance to Xi Jinping, given its richness of key natural resources, its position as a gateway to Central Asia and Europe, and its historical ties to China. Amongst Kazakhstan’s vital resource reserves, its abundance of strategically significant minerals is of particular interest to Xi Jinping. China’s ambitions in Kazakhstan go beyond the extraction of aluminium and copper. Chinese firms have increasingly expressed interest in the country’s untapped reserves of lithium, tungsten, Zinc, lead, and nickel deposits. Kazakhstan is estimated to possess around 5,000 deposits, with a value reaching as much as $46 trillion, much of which remains untouched. A

As these resources are essential for renewable energy, electric vehicles, electronic products, and microchips, their growing importance worldwide has rapidly accelerated Chinese investment in Kazakhstan (see Graph 1).  Currently, China dominates the global market for minerals, therefore, Astana’s untapped potential is crucial to China’s dominance in the industry. Beyond resource wealth, China views Kazakhstan as the crown jewel of the New Silk Road. The large land mass of the country, nestled between China, Russia, and the Caspian Sea, makes it the core state of the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) land corridors, which seek to improve the efficiency of overland transport between China and Europe. 

Graph 1: Kazakhstan-China Industrial Projects

What is Tokayev doing?

Answer: Tokayev has renewed his investment programme in order to ensure a smoother cooperation with China on the BRI.

To ensure the smooth operation of the Chinese and Kazakh partnership, Tokayev renewed the  “Nurly Zhol” (bright path) programme for the second time, which saw investments of  $9 billion between 2020 and 2025 in roads, networks, rails, and other connectivity projects. Both states used a two-pronged approach to reach mutually beneficial goals of increased bilateral trade, communication, and economic cooperation. 

The rapid modernization of infrastructure under the Nurly Zhol has served to further integrate Kazakhstan into the Belt and Road Framework by providing the technological ecosystem it needs to maximise BRI benefits. In 2020, Tokayev financed 9.8 thousand kilometers of public roads for reconstruction and transportation networks under the BRI programme. Therefore, Tokayev is aiming to pursue synergies with the Belt and Road initiative through its focus on macro regions such as Shymkent, Aktobe, Almaty and Nur-Sultan.

However, despite efforts to accommodate the BRI initiative, Tokayev still faces a degree of domestic skepticism. Public attitude towards China has become more mixed since the launch of the BRI. Since its implementation, roughly 30% of the Kazakh population shows signs of frustration towards Chinese immigrants, mostly due to the fact that BRI projects exclusively involve Chinese labourers. At the same time, low labour mobility is enhancing the uneven distribution of BRI exports and GDP growth. These factors undermine the execution of BRI projects and labour efficiency. Therefore, without specific reforms in this area, it is likely that long-term asymmetries may lead to an erosion of their current mutually beneficial relationship. 

What is Xi Jinping doing?

Answer: Xi Jinping’s investments in Kazakhstan go beyond BRI, with private sector investment aimed at fortifying his relationship with Kazakhstan. 

In order to improve the efficiency of the BRI in Kazakhstan, Xi Jinping is investing beyond solely development projects. During his visit to Astana in 2025, he laid the groundwork for the ratification of investment protection frameworks between the two countries. These measures effectively modernised a 1992 bilateral agreement to align with the emerging interests of the two leaders. These commitments are expected to encourage employment, reinforce export growth, and ensure parity between investors. 

To further cultivate industrial development within Kazakhstan, the Bank of China has agreed to finance nearly $5 billion through Baiterek Holding, a state-owned Kazakh investment company. This comes in the wake of the 8th meeting of the Kazakhstan-China Business Council and Tokayev’s official visit to China, in which a series of talks with key Chinese financial institutions welcomed Chinese investment into secondary and tertiary sectors of the economy. This means that in addition to the 6,000 state-linked Chinese enterprises, the Kazakh government will introduce a National Digital Investment platform, a visa-free regime, and new investment headquarters to accommodate Chinese investments. 

Furthermore, additional financial support came from the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), which extended a new 500 million yuan loan and opened the possibility of Panda or Dimsum Bonds worth 5 billion yuan in 2026. Together, these measures highlight Beijing’s commitment to deepening its financial footprint in Kazakhstan and facilitating long-term economic cooperation.

Who is winning?

Answer: While there is no winner in this scenario, their affair is not symmetrical. 

Overall, China is politically beneficial for Tokayev on a personal level, and while Xi Jinping is relatively detached from political concerns, the economic opportunities provided by the SREB help solidify China as one of the most important actors on the world stage through sheer economic significance. Hence, their partnership, for the most part, is extremely interdependent, China needs a politically stable, willing, and cooperative partner to safely and most profitably establish a direct pathway to Europe, while Kazakhstan needs the intellectual and monetary engagement provided by the Chinese.

From a strategic standpoint, Kazakhstan is indispensable to China, and without its cooperation, the New Silk Road would not be possible. This has provided much needed leverage to Kazakhstan to equalise a partnership that had the potential to be exploitative. Therefore, it can be argued that neither Kazakhstan nor China is a concrete winner in their relationship, however, China has the potential to gain more from the BRI and subsequent investment than Kazakhstan.  

To conclude, both Tokayev and Xi Jinping have the resources, economic returns, and motivation to engender and facilitate a mutually beneficial relationship between their states, a partnership that may be one of the most vibrant and profitable in the region and world at large.