China resets terms of engagement in Central Asia

Nursultan Nazarbayev has a way of drawing lines in the sand. The president of Kazakhstan recently told global oil and metal majors that new laws would allow only those foreign investors that cooperate with his industrialization program to tap his nation’s mineral resources.

“We will work only with those who propose projects helping diversification of the economy,” he said at a December 4 investment conference in Astana, the Kazakh capital, which was attended by ArcelorMittal, Chevron, Total, ENRC and other investors. To any unwilling to collaborate, he said: “We will look

for new partners, offer them favorable conditions and resources to fulfill projects.”
For good measure, he added that Beijing has asked Kazakhstan – a country the size of Europe but with just 16 million people – to allow Chinese farmers to use one million hectares of Kazakh land to cultivate crops such as soya and rape seed.

Pro-Western elements in Kazakh politics have since taken to the streets. On December 17, addressing a rally in Almaty, Bolat Abilov, co-chairman of the opposition party Azat [United Social Democratic Party] drew an apocalyptic scenario: “If we tomorrow give, or distribute, one million hectares of land, it would mean 15 people working per hectare. That means 15 million people would be brought from China. If one of those 15 people were to give birth each year, that would be the end. In 50 years, there would be 50 million Chinese [in Kazakhstan].”

A rally was held outside the Chinese consulate in Almaty with placards reading, “Mr Hu Jintao, we will not give up Kazakh land!”

Nazarbayev’s message was direct: Western investors could keep their money if interested only in exploiting Kazakhstan’s mineral wealth. The president was speaking as a momentous event in the history and politics of Central Asia was resetting the terms of engagement for foreigners in the region: the development of an ambitious 7,000 kilometer pipeline to link the region’s gas fields to cities on China’s eastern seaboard.

Ten days after Nazarbayev spoke, Hu arrived on a Central Asian tour for the formal commissioning of the 1,833-kilometer pipeline connecting gas fields in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan (and possibly Russia) to China’s Xinjiang Autonomous Region.

Turkmenistan says it alone can supply 40 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas a year through the pipeline for three decades once it reaches full capacity. That is about half China’s current annual consumption.

Asia Times