Blinken + 5

Antony Blinken kicked off his first visit to Central Asia as US Secretary of State with Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana, on 28 February. The timing of the trip may very well be a coincidence. Yet 4 days after the date marking its onset, thoughts about Russia’s ongoing war with Ukraine likely linger in a region known as part of Moscow’s sphere of influence.
Blinken made the US’s stance regarding the region clear to all Central Asian leaders not only with words about respecting the Central Asian nations’ sovereignty but also with actions. Blinken promised $25 million for the “economic repercussions caused by US Sanctions against Russia” and spoke of the US’s initiative for regional trade routes and export markets’ expansion to $50 million. During his subsequent visit to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Blinken also emphasized that internal regional trade and trade diversification would also facilitate the region’s ability to not be dependent on one source for investment and trade. A clear jab at Moscow.
The US stands as the second-place FDI contributor to Kazakhstan’s economy. Bilateral trade has also increased by 37% and reached $3.05 billion, albeit the former statement does not apply to the other four Central Asian nations. This nonetheless adds weight to Kazakhstan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs saying that Central Asia and the US are Kazakhstan’s priorities. At the same time, he also mentioned that Astana sees no threats stemming from Russia and highlighted Kazakhstan’s pragmatic relationship with Moscow. Other conversations between the US authorities and Central Asian leaders followed the typical dry diplomatic format with scant details.

Other Matters.
Blinken also touched base on the sensitive subject of Afghanistan and promised to help strengthen Tajikistan’s border with Afghanistan. Tajikistan has been subject to open threats from the Taliban and also hosts a Russian military base. Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan have also made their voices heard over the matter of the situation in Afghanistan. Ashgabat and Tashkent enjoy a more stable yet simultaneously shaky relationship with the Taliban leaders.
The unstable situation in Afghanistan has been a point of concern for all of the Central Asian nations. This is due to the potential threat of radicals seeping through borders or inspiring local extremists to become more active. Such conditions lay the foundation for the US’s efforts to “calm the waters” especially considering the region’s traditional security guarantor, Russia, being bogged down in Ukraine.
Yet the Taliban has been seeking to increase economic relations with China and Russia, which may provide Moscow and Beijing with the opportunity to support the Taliban. This may allow the Taliban to eventually somewhat stabilize Afghanistan's current predicament, however, it does not negate the threat that The Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) presents.
C5 + 1 = 8?
The US secretary of state made a clear point that the US is keeping a close eye on sanction compliance during the C5+1 meeting in Astana. These statements run against the backdrop of news about Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan reexporting goods to Russia. The US authorities would later release a statement on March 2, 2023, clarifying that routing purchases through certain transhipment points, such as jurisdictions close to Russia, serves as a red flag for sanction violations.

Blinken also dropped a warning that China and countries that maintain ties with them await “severe consequences” if Beijing, a large economic contributor to Central Asia, chooses to aid Russia in the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine. News about Russia’s exporting enriched uranium to China and experts and US intelligence's concern over it emerged the following day, March 1. Whether or not Beijing will cross the lines drawn in the sand is more or less dependent on how China sees relations progressing with Moscow. Chinese authorities do not seem to be keen on becoming directly involved in Moscow’s war of aggression, but its dragging on is beneficial for the Chinese authorities, as it could strain Western military production.
Show Me The Energy
Russia, bypassing China, has reclaimed their top position in trade with Uzbekistan, while Gazprom head, Alexei Miller, has been visiting Turkmenistan with gas on the mind. Turkmen gas was at one point seen as an option for partial replacement of Russian gas in Europe, thereby explaining Miller’s efforts to pull Ashgabat into Moscow's "energy" fold.
Moscow’s desire to pipeline gas to other Central Asian nations, i.e. Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, further complements this notion. Facing deficits and gas export obligations before China, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan intend to stop exporting gas with growing domestic demand. During record low temperatures in Central Asia, Tashkent endured blackouts and restricted refuelling stations’ work.
Kazakhstan is set to start construction of the third line of the Bukhara-Ural gas pipeline that runs from Kazakhstan through Uzbekistan to Russia. Tashkent has yet to choose the preferred route, while Turkmenistan’s gas remains an option. However, Ashgabat halted gas flows to Uzbekistan during the abnormal frost this past January. The reason was allegedly sensors breaking, but Turkmen.news reports that deep-rooted corruption is the true culprit. Ashgabat also remains heavily dependent on China for exporting Turkmen gas. Turkmenistan, therefore, is unlikely to be anything more than an additional resource for gas.
Russia, on the other hand, may find the Uzbek gas market of interest if the pricing is comparable to other markets and Uzbekistan remains a link onwards to the Chinese market. Much of the same can be claimed about Kazakhstan. Yet this is only superficial. According to Gazeta.uz, the project requires large capital investments and the construction of compressor stations on certain sections of the pipeline for the supply of Russian gas in reverse through Kazakhstan.
At the end of November 2022, Russia proposed establishing a “gas union” with Tashkent and Astana. Despite the gas union idea being publicly kiboshed, Astana, Tashkent, and Moscow signed a road map on work in the gas industry in January 2023. According to expert Temur Umarov, China will serve as a counterbalance to Russia in these nations’ gas sector, as the sections of gas pipelines in China passing through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan are controlled by joint companies with a Chinese stake (CNPC). This explains the reasoning behind Astana and Tashkent’s decision to move forward with Russian gas. Meanwhile, The Tashkent Khokimiyat offered cooperation on the city’s infrastructure to the Rosatom Design Bureau on February 28, 2023.
Behind The Scenes.
According to Ozodlik, Gazprom together with Uzbek oligarchs has a tight grip on key oil and gas fields of Uzbekistan through a network of offshore companies. There is also reason to believe that some of the oil Kazakhstan intends to send to Germany may be partially Russian due to blending. Kazakhstan could also swap oil with Russia so freed up Kazakhstani oil will flow west and Russian - eastward to China. Nonetheless, the amount pales in comparison to what Russia had been exporting. What’s more, Astana’s new oil export to Germany travels through Russia, thus providing another leverage point for Moscow.
The Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), another pipeline that runs through Russian territory, remains Astana’s main outlet for oil export. The pipeline faced a series of shutdowns after the onset of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and some claimed Russia had had their hand in it.
Such interference gives reason to the recent announcement of the Kazakh Minister of Energy, Bulat Akchulakov, about Astana’s plans to build a pipeline to export oil across the Caspian at CERAWeek. The construction of the pipeline, according to Akchulakov, will take up to 5 years and a new tanker fleet will be needed. Not much was said about the actual sources for financing.
“Other” Options
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have also been working towards deepening ties. Astana and Tashkent agreed to construct an industrial cooperation centre in the area of the international checkpoints "Atameken" and “Gulistan" on February 27. UzKazTrade LLC foreign trade company came into existence. The company is designed for the increase of mutual trade between the two countries.

On March 3, an informal meeting between the Presidents of Uzbekistan, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, and Kazakhstan, Qasym-Jomart Toqayev, took place in Shymkent, Kazakhstan, where:
"Special attention was paid to the promotion of priority cooperation projects of leading enterprises of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan".
Putin would later contact both leaders on March 6, 2023. The Russian president discussed:
"Issues of maintaining the dynamics of trade turnover growth, promoting investment projects and expanding industrial cooperation in various sectors of the economy with the participation of leading companies and enterprises of the two countries”
with his Uzbek counter part, while discussing:
“The current state and prospects for further strengthening of bilateral relations in the context of the implementation of previously reached agreements at the highest level,” .
with Toqayev
The Russian and Kazakh president paid “particular attention” to the expansion of transit and transport routes and trade and economic ties. Kazakhstan plans to build five border hubs by 2025. The "Khorgos Junction border complex" on the border with China, as well as hubs on the border with Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Russia and near the Caspian Sea, are among them. Astana will also likely seek to utilize the "North-South" corridor, a route seen as strategically important for Moscow.
Kazakhstan also intends to sign an agreement with China on the development of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, the alternative to traditional ones via Russia. The transit route via Kazakhstan’s section has reportedly halved: 12-6 days. The goal is to bring the amount of time down to 5 days by 2023. The route’s overall delivery time has dropped from 38-53 to 19-23 days with ambitions to reach 14-18 days.
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of China to Kazakhstan, Zhang Xiao, also expressed interest to Kazakh Prime Minister, Alikhan Smailov, in having Kazakhstani companies enter the Chinese market on March 2, 2023. The parties also discussed the reopening of the dry port on the Kazakh-Chinese border, Khorgos while their countries’ trade increased by 34.1% over the past year.
The Foreign Ministers of Uzbekistan and China Bakhtiyor Saidov and Qin Gang held a telephone conversation on January 19, 2023, according to the press service of the Uzbek ministry. They discussed "the schedule and various aspects of planned events in bilateral and multilateral formats". They also considered proposals to activate trade and economic ties and accelerate the implementation of projects in the transport and communication sphere. This may have concerned the China – Kyrgyzstan – Uzbekistan Railway project, the construction of which will reportedly reduce the distance of cargo transportation by 1500-2000 km. Meanwhile, Uzbekistan, according to Chinese customs, increased trade turnover with China by 21.8% to $9.78 billion in 2022.
China’s trade with other Central Asian countries is also on the rise, though the numbers should be even higher. Statistics between the countries’ customs services vary, hinting at the presence of contraband and corruption according to Eurasia.net.
Central Asia’s trade with Russia is also increasing:
- Kyrgyzstan - According to the results of 11 months of 2022, the trade turnover of Kyrgyzstan with Russia increased by 1.5x compared to the same period in 2021. China is Bishkek’s main trading partner. The country's share in the total volume of trade turnover is 34.8%. Russia is in second place (28.2%) and Kazakhstan is in third (10.2%).
- Tajikistan - By the end of 2022, the trade turnover between Tajikistan and Russia increased by 23% compared to a year earlier. Trade turnover between Tajikistan and China in 2022 increased by 44.2%
- Turkmenistan - The trade turnover between Turkmenistan and Russia in the first quarter of 2022 increased by more than 45% compared to the same period last year. The trade turnover between Turkmenistan and China exceeded $10.12 billion in the period of January to November 2022, a 53.2% jump.
It’s Just Not That Simple
Blinken’s visit is an attempt at the US to maintain a presence in the Central Asian Region, but the Kremlin also made Russia's stance clear.
"We have our own bilateral relations with Central Asian countries, we have our own formats of interaction, with a number of them we are united by the integration processes of the Eurasian Economic Union, which is what we are guided by, what we are interested in and what we consider our main foreign policy priority,"
the Kremlin representative, Dmitry Peskov, said.
Post Blinken’s visit, Russia’s prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, paid a visit to Dushanbe, Tajikistan, on March 2, 2023, to hold talks with Tajik authorities the following day. This further evidences the Kremlin’s ability to reach out to Central Asian leaders with ease. Mishustin signed 20 agreements with Tajikistan, but it remains unclear how Moscow will drum up money for long-term investments.
Moscow’s influence in tandem with China's continuing presence in the region will nonetheless serve as an obstacle for the US’s attempts to gain ground in Central Asia. Moscow also maintains other levers of influence such as the flow of migrant workers from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan to Russia.
- Uzbek migrant workers transferred a record $14.5 billion from Russia to Uzbekistan in 2022 (2.6x more than in 2021).
- More than 97% of money transfers to Kyrgyzstan are from Russia — $2 billion 780.2 million.
- The number of Tajik citizens who left for work in Russia increased by 51.8% (+336.7 thousand people), while 173 thousand 634 citizens of Tajikistan received Russian citizenship in 2022. This indicator has increased by 6.5x in the last 7 years.
CSTO Secretary General and Kazakh politician and diplomat, Imangali Tasmagambetov, calling for CSTO members to produce military equipment together during his meeting with the Minister of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation, Chairman of the interstate commission on CSTO military-economic cooperation, Denis Manturov, undoubtedly raises eyebrows. The voting on the most recent resolution on stopping the war in Ukraine along with Kazakstan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs supporting China’s peace plan for the Ukraine war is also telling.
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan were among the 32 countries that abstained from voting on the adopted resolution, while 141 countries voted in favor, and seven countries, including China, Belarus and Russia, voted against. Turkmenistan did not vote at all. This voting tendency has been relatively consistent since Russia’s invasion began.
Although the Central Asian Nations will seek to branch out, increase regional trade, and likely see Blinken’s statements as sincere, both Russian and Chinese influence will remain in the region not only due to geographical proximity but also due to the factors mentioned above. Indeed, Beijing and Moscow are more likely to cooperate as opposed to competing with one another until their relationship is no longer mutually beneficial. On the other hand, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan will continue to seek increasing ties with each other, while using their positions on an international level to break out as regional leaders. Both nations will also look to capitalize on green transitions which will also allow them to rake in future foreign investments. (See also)
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