A Chinese state company has bought Rosatom’s shares in a Kazakh uranium mining operation, and plans to acquire others. As the world’s largest uranium producer, Kazakhstan accounts for 43% of global supply. Traditionally, Russia controlled the transport routes for Kazakh uranium to Europe, but sanctions have pushed Astana to seek alternatives. China, the second-largest nuclear energy producer with the fastest-growing civilian reactor fleet, offers both demand and a sanctions-free transit route.
In the vast Kazakh steppes, the power struggle between Moscow and Beijing is far from new. But with Russia diminished, Kazakhstan is choosing China – and the shift looks irreversible.
Historically, as a former Soviet republic, Kazakhstan maintained close economic and security ties with Russia. Cooperation seemed stronger than ever when Russian-led CSTO troops intervened to suppress protests in Kazakhstan in January 2022. However, Russia’s war in Ukraine has drastically altered the balance.
– Sanctions have made Russia’s economy far less competitive, leaving China as the dominant economic partner. Last year, China overtook Russia as Kazakhstan’s largest trading partner, with two-way trade reaching $41 billion. Even Kazakhstan’s brief role as a hub for sanctions avoidance wasn’t enough to bridge the growing economic gap.
– Russia has lost its credibility as a regional security provider. The war exposed Moscow’s military vulnerabilities, and other neighbors have grown wary of aligning too closely with a regime that harbors colonial ambitions. This has made cooperation with China far more appealing.
– The optics reflect this shift. At the recent Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Astana, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev personally welcomed Xi Jinping at the airport—an honor not extended to his long-time CSTO ally, Vladimir Putin. Tokayev, fluent in Chinese and a former diplomat to Beijing, clearly understands where Kazakhstan’s future lies.
– China and Kazakhstan are now expanding cooperation in critical sectors like logistics. Positioned as a key hub for China-Europe trade, Kazakhstan benefits from Beijing’s push to improve transit infrastructure across the region.
The uranium deal underscores the scale of change. Russia’s economic and geopolitical decline has forced it to cede ground to China, potentially in exchange for Beijing’s tacit support of its war effort. Either way, China emerges as the clear winner—strengthening its hold over Central Asia while extracting economic and strategic benefits from Russia’s weakening position.
https://x.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1869074938948116595
Comment: It looks like this decision was made because sanctions against the Russian partners in the uranium firms was making international business difficult. Although Kazakhstan does seem to be drawing closer to China and further from Russia across the board. We’re trying to make inroads, but we pose no threat to China’s continuing influence. It’s a matter of geography.
I do see this as a sign that Xi has a different view of the “friendship without limits” with Russia than Putin does. Russia desperately needs a gas pipeline from her main gas fields to China to supplement the existing Power of Siberia line. So far China is refusing to build or pay for that much larger pipeline. Instead, China is in discussions with Turkmenistan for additional gas supplies. Turkmenistan is already supplying more gas to China than Russia.
TTG
“The three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together.”
― Zbigniew Brzeziński
I wonder if the Russians and the Chinese have read Brzeziński.
Dear Vlad, oh, how I hate to write
Dear Vlad, I must let you know tonight
That my love for you has died away, please don’t get mad
And tonight I wed another, dear Vlad
My apologies to Ms Ollie Imogene Shepard. Godamighty, that lady could sing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMueKWzG0WE
On a more serious note, there are 300,000 Uyghurs in Kazakhstan. Many recent emigres may still hold a grudge and have contacts with al-Qaeda linked Turkistan Islamic Party?
Leith,
The adapted lyrics were clever and almost made me chuckle.
Islam will attack China when the time is right. The Uyghurs will be happy to lend a helping hand, of course. Islam will always be the mortal enemy of everyone else. Sometimes they hide their swords; those times only being when they are conning the infidels so as to get stronger for better jihad in the future.
Eric Newhill,
Not only did TTG’s spooky friends install Al-Qaeda into power in Syria but now the BBC is whitewashing Jolani as some kind of progressive who is going to “show strong support for the ethnic and religious diversity”:
https://x.com/ragipsoylu/status/1869646879106949252
The BBC is able to take advantage of the fact that very few Americans know Assad’s government was a model western government in all respects except elections.
Many Muslims, I would go so far as to say most Muslims, would become just like us if only we afforded them the opportunity to.
James,
TTG’s spooky friends are short sighted/ immediate mission oriented. They take orders and don’t create policy. There are supposed to be long-term/big picture, wise adults in charge on high, but there are not.
We are going to continue to disagree about Muslims. Individually or in small groups, sure, what you say is true. Collectively? The religion has foundational elements that lend it to being readily used for jihad – and those same key aspects cause it to be forever stuck in cycles of jihad whenever there are sufficient numbers of Muslims gathered together. I do not accept the “reactionary victim” narrative that you want to use to excuse them. They have always been aggressors beginning with the prophet himself. Do not forget that they made their way into Spain and Eastern Europe, right to the gates of Vienna and down into India. It wasn’t missionaries. It was swords that got them there. Yes, there are sects, like the Alawis, who are outliers. Outliers are, well, break away oddballs; outside the mean. They should not be held up as examples of the larger Uma. The Sunnis consider them apostates and kill them.
Christianity began the movement out of that morass of low human expression because it contains fundamental elements that are like grease on the wheels of human progress.
your Christmastime view is among the very worst defenses of Christianity I can possibly imagine. “foundational elements”… a charge that indicts all faiths, given all of humanity’s behaviors in God’s name. God: the perfect excuse for sin & hate, killing & war… for any believer in any flavor of His Creation.
ked –
Christmas tree lit up yesterday evening at Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Latakia:
https://x.com/ragipsoylu/status/1869470373190029647
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/261071/one-week-after-the-fall-of-the-assad-regime-syrian-church-bells-ring-out-in-hope
Will it last, who knows? But there’s hope there for a new start.
yes, there’s always hope… else how could humanity ever get this far?
“irreversible”
Says Ukrainian ‘patriot’. Is US support for his own government “irreversible”?
Slava Ukraine doesn’t stand for enslaved by Ukraine does it? They sure act that way.
James,
you are from the 51 state, right? NATO allies the UK and Turkey had a lot to do with the HTS takeover in Syria. Included is both Netanyahu and Obama’s boy Blinken (& Co.). The “Borg” to use Col. Lang’s term. Canada, however, nobody there care(s)d about what Trudeau had to say.
An important geopolitical alliance,
and a difference in priorities:
See the issues that matter to them, and the one they avoid:
“The love-in between Keir Starmer and Lula centers on climate and trade.
Just don’t mention Ukraine.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/post-brexit-britain-new-best-friend-brazil/
“The two governments are far apart over a key foreign policy question —
Vladimir Putin’s aggression in Ukraine.”
Brazil’s ambassador to the UK said:
“It strikes Brazil — and this is a point that President Lula often makes, he made it at the G20 — that
we find it so difficult to raise a level of financial support to combat climate change …
[but] nations around the world applaud when military budgets go up.”
My opinion:
Global warming should be a paramount issue.
Who controls Ukraine is not.
Keith,
Yes global warming should be a paramount issue – for people able to vote. Every country pushing that crap is going broke. UK and Brazil especially.