Kazakhstan is a former Soviet state in Central Asia, independent since the USSR collapsed. Some 95% of Kazakhstan's oil exports and 95% of its internet traffic pass through Russia. Russia is set to build Kazakhstan's first atomic power plant.
Cumulative direct Chinese investments in Kazakhstan are roughly half of China's $18bn invested in Russia.
Kazakhstan has a security pact with the Kremlin. The country is led by Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.
After civil unrest in 2022 Kazakhstan blanketed the streets of Almaty, its largest city, with thousands of Chinese-made cameras. Its security agencies may be learning from Chinese systems across the border in Xinjiang, which use AI to identify and impose extra restrictions on potentially troublesome individuals even if they have not committed any crimes. In June 2025 an anti-corruption activist named Sanzhar Bokayev was stopped at the Almaty airport after his face set off an alert in a police database of "wanted people".
China is the largest trade partner, investor and creditor in Central Asia. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are all heavily reliant on economic partnerships with China, which demands loyalty in return—especially silence on the treatment of Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, where Kazakhs are the second-largest Muslim group after Uyghurs. China expects Central Asian leaders to follow the party line over Xinjiang.
In November 2025 a group of Chinese-born ethnic Kazakhs staged a peaceful protest near the Sino-Kazakh border, demanding freedom for Alimnur Turganbay, a Chinese-born Kazakh citizen detained on a visit to Xinjiang. They also criticised abuses in Xinjiang and burned Chinese flags and a portrait of Xi Jinping. China urged Kazakhstan to take "appropriate measures". On April 13th 2026 a Kazakh court jailed 11 of the protesters for five years; eight more received non-custodial sentences, found guilty of inciting racial strife against the Chinese people.
Nagyz Atajurt, a Kazakhstan-based group which documents abuses in Xinjiang, has long been a thorn in China's side. In 2019 Kazakh police arrested its leader, Serikzhan Bilash, on charges of inciting racial strife; he escaped prison with a plea bargain before fleeing into exile. Bekzat Maksutkan, the group's co-leader, was jailed over the 2026 protest.
Central Asian states have been shedding their colonial past and asserting national identity since independence 34 years ago. Last year the renaming of some railway stations in Kazakhstan with Kazakh names prompted outbursts from Russian commentators.
Please help keep the world clean: others may wish to use it.