Less Western engagement in Central Asia may expose and exacerbate underlying tensions between Russia and China.

When Chinese President Xi Jinping chose Nazarbayev University in Astana in September 2013 to unveil the Silk Road Economic Belt, the land component of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), his decision was more than ceremonial. Xi could have launched his signature foreign policy project in Beijing, Moscow, or any number of major capitals. Instead, he chose Kazakhstan.

Nearly a decade later, Xi returned under equally significant circumstances. In September 2022, Kazakhstan became the destination of his first foreign trip since the COVID-19 pandemic. Standing alongside President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Xi declared that China would “firmly support Kazakhstan in safeguarding its independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.” The timing was striking. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had unsettled assumptions about borders and sovereignty across the former Soviet space, elevating Kazakhstan’s importance in China’s broader vision for Eurasia.

These two visits capture a larger geopolitical reality. Situated between Russia and China and connecting East Asia to Europe, Kazakhstan occupies one of the most consequential positions in Eurasia. Since independence in 1991, its leaders have sought to turn that geography from a liability into an advantage through a foreign policy known as “multi-vectorism,” a strategy of cultivating productive relations with multiple great powers while avoiding excessive dependence on any one of them.

For much of the post-Cold War era, the strategy appeared remarkably successful. Under Nursultan Nazarbayev and later Kassym Jomart Tokayev, Kazakhstan attracted substantial Western investment, expanded trade with China, maintained close ties with Russia, deepened relations with Europe, and cultivated partnerships with Turkey, India, Japan, South Korea, and the Gulf states. The country emerged as Central Asia’s largest economy and one of the region’s most diplomatically active states. Yet the conventional understanding of Kazakhstan’s foreign policy no longer matches the geopolitical landscape in which it operates.

Kazakhstan’s Path from Multi-vectorism to Asymmetric Dependence

The challenge facing Kazakhstan is not primarily diplomatic. It is structural. Multi-vectorism was enabled by a specific international environment: a weakened Russia, a rising but internally focused China, an engaged United States, and a globalized economy that expanded the space for maneuver among great powers. That environment is now fading.

Russia remains the principal security actor across much of the former Soviet space despite the cost of the Ukraine War. China has become the dominant economic force across Eurasia. Sanctions, export controls, strategic competition, and growing fragmentation of international markets increasingly constrain globalization. The room for genuine geopolitical balancing is narrowing.

Kazakhstan still speaks the language of multi-vectorism. Increasingly, however, its foreign policy resembles something different: the management of asymmetric dependence on its two most powerful neighbors.

Understanding this shift requires moving beyond diplomacy to structure. As international relations scholar Kenneth Waltz argued, the distribution of power in the international system constrains state behavior. Harvard professor Stephen Walt later emphasized that states respond not only to relative power but also to threat, proximity, and perception. Walt’s insight helps explain why Kazakhstan did not simply align against either Russia or China after independence. For much of the post-Cold War period, neither was widely perceived in Astana as posing an immediate threat to Kazakhstan’s sovereignty, allowing policymakers to cultivate productive relations with both while simultaneously engaging the United States, Europe, and other partners. 

Yet perceptions can change more rapidly than geography or relative power. Leaders may revise their assessments of another state’s intentions, but they cannot alter the fact of neighboring great powers. In that sense, Walt’s balance-of-threat framework helps explain the success of multi-vectorism, while Waltz’s structural realism helps explain its limits. Multi-vectorism did not eliminate Kazakhstan’s dependence on neighboring great powers. Rather, it represented a particularly successful way of managing that dependence during an unusually permissive international era.

Geography certainly matters. Kazakhstan shares substantial borders with Russia and China, and remains the world’s largest landlocked country. Yet geography alone does not explain either the success of multi-vectorism or the challenges it now faces.

During the 1990s and early 2000s, Kazakhstan’s geographic position was softened by a permissive international environment. Russia was internally preoccupied and economically weak. China remained focused primarily on domestic development and its region to the south and east. The United States enjoyed unparalleled global influence and actively engaged the region. Western capital flowed into Kazakhstan’s energy sector, while the expansion of globalization reduced many traditional geographic constraints.

Under those conditions, Kazakhstan could cultivate ties with Washington, Moscow, Beijing, Brussels, Ankara, and others without being forced into hard alignment. That environment has now changed.

Today, trade routes, energy networks, infrastructure links, and security arrangements increasingly pull Kazakhstan in the same direction: toward Russia and China.

China’s rise best illustrates the shift. What began in the 1990s as a relatively limited commercial relationship has evolved into one of the most comprehensive bilateral partnerships in Eurasia. Since Kazakhstan’s development programs were aligned with China’s connectivity initiatives, the two governments have signed successive agreements covering transportation, logistics, customs modernization, industrial development, digital connectivity, energy cooperation, and trade.

Kazakhstan has become a critical transit state in China’s vision of Eurasian connectivity. Bilateral trade has expanded dramatically, reaching record levels and making China one of Kazakhstan’s most important economic partners. Official statements now describe the relationship as an “eternal comprehensive strategic partnership,” language reserved for some of Beijing’s most important diplomatic relationships.

Russia’s influence rests on different foundations but remains equally significant. Unlike China’s influence, which is rooted primarily in economics and connectivity, Russia’s position derives from geography, institutions, history, diaspora population, and security. Kazakhstan remains a member of both the Eurasian Economic Union and the Collective Security Treaty Organization, institutions that provide Moscow with enduring influence across the post-Soviet space.

Energy exports provide another illustration. For decades, the overwhelming majority of Kazakhstan’s oil exports have been transported via the Caspian Pipeline Consortium route, which terminates at the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. Astana, of late, has invested considerable effort in developing alternatives across the Caspian and toward China, but none matches the scale, efficiency, or capacity of the current system.

Together, these relationships create overlapping networks of trade, transportation, energy, security cooperation, and political consultation that bind Kazakhstan more closely to Russia and China than to any other external actors.

The Constraints on Kazakhstan’s Diplomacy

This does not mean Kazakhstan has become a client state of either power. Nor does it suggest that Astana lacks agency. Kazakhstan’s leaders have consistently sought to preserve room for maneuver and have often done so with considerable skill. But autonomy now operates within narrower structural bounds.

Two events over the last few years exposed those constraints with unusual clarity. 

The first was the unrest that swept Kazakhstan in January 2022—triggered by fuel-price protests but rapidly escalating into broader political violence. The crisis represented the most serious challenge to the country’s stability since independence. Faced with deteriorating security conditions, Tokayev requested assistance from the Collective Security Treaty Organization. The deployment was brief. But it revealed where Kazakhstan ultimately turns when domestic stability is threatened.

The second event was Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Few governments have navigated the consequences of the war more carefully than Kazakhstan’s. Astana has consistently defended principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity while avoiding confrontation with Moscow. The most notable moment came at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in June 2022. Appearing alongside Russian President Putin, Tokayev indicated that Kazakhstan would not recognize the quasi-state entities created in eastern Ukraine. 

Yet the significance of the episode lies less in what was said than in what followed. Kazakhstan neither joined Western sanctions against Russia nor downgraded its institutional commitments to Moscow. Instead, it sought to maintain a careful hedge between affirming sovereignty and preserving its relationship with a crucial security partner.

Some observers point to the growing importance of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, better known as the Middle Corridor, as evidence that Kazakhstan retains significant room for maneuver. Running from China through Kazakhstan, across the Caspian Sea, through the South Caucasus, and onward to Europe, the corridor has attracted increased attention since the Ukraine War disrupted traditional trade routes through Russia. 

The corridor is significant. It strengthens Kazakhstan’s role as a transit hub, provides an alternative to Russian routes, and expands access to global markets. But it does not alter the underlying structure. Much of its commercial value still derives from China’s role as the principal source of east-west trade across Eurasia. The corridor diversifies Kazakhstan’s options. It does not change its strategic geography.

The same pattern appears in Kazakhstan’s broader external relationships.

The European Union remains Kazakhstan’s largest source of foreign investment and one of its most important export markets. Turkey has expanded its political and cultural presence across Central Asia, while India, Japan, South Korea, and the Gulf states have all sought deeper engagement with the region.

These relationships are real and valuable, yet additive rather than substitutive. Europe lacks direct geographic presence in Central Asia. Turkey’s influence is constrained by distance and economic scale. India also faces geographic obstacles. None can match the structural weight of Kazakhstan’s two giant neighbors. These partnerships expand Kazakhstan’s options. They do not alter its center of gravity.

The persistence of multi-vector rhetoric reflects genuine diplomatic sophistication. But it does not imply structural balance. Increasingly, Kazakhstan’s strategy reflects an effort to manage dependence through diversification at the margins.

Russia remains the dominant security actor across much of the former Soviet space. China has become the region’s dominant economic force. The United States remains influential but geographically distant, while Europe’s economic significance exceeds its strategic reach. The result is not a return to nineteenth-century spheres of influence. It is a regional order in which genuine equidistance is increasingly difficult to maintain.

Kazakhstan’s central question is not whether to maintain multi-vectorism. It is whether the system that made multi-vectorism possible still exists; it does not. What appears to be emerging is not an entirely new strategy but a more explicit form of managed dependence.

This does not mean Kazakhstan has lost agency or abandoned diversification. Rather, it reflects a growing recognition that some relationships will inevitably matter more than others. Multi-vectorism was itself a way of managing dependence under favorable international conditions. As those conditions fade, Kazakhstan’s objective is to preserve autonomy within a more challenging environment.

Seen from this perspective, many of Kazakhstan’s recent policies become easier to understand. Expanding the Middle Corridor, attracting Western investment, deepening cooperation with Turkey, strengthening ties with the Gulf states, and engaging India are not alternatives to dependence on Russia and China. They are instruments for managing it.

How to Recalibrate the US Approach to Kazakhstan

For the United States, the implications are significant. For much of the post-Cold War period, American policy toward Central Asia rested on an implicit assumption: that deeper engagement would expand the autonomy of regional states and dilute the influence of neighboring powers. More recently, similar expectations have often been attached to competition with China.

There is logic to this approach. American engagement has contributed to Kazakhstan’s development and international integration. Washington remains a valued, though remote, partner, and Kazakhstan is likely to continue welcoming engagement with the United States. Yet expectations should be calibrated to geopolitical realities. Geography, infrastructure, trade flows, energy networks, and security institutions bind Kazakhstan more closely to Russia and China than to any other outside power. External engagement can shape how Kazakhstan navigates these realities. It cannot eliminate them. Kazakhstan is no longer balancing among competing centers of influence. It is managing dependence.

If that assessment is correct, then the policy debate in Washington may be misframed. The central question is not whether more or less American engagement can pull Kazakhstan away from Russia or China. It is whether a reduced Western presence in Central Asia might, paradoxically, increase friction between Moscow and Beijing. Their interests in the region overlap, but they are not identical. A thinner Western role may not simplify Eurasian geopolitics so much as expose tensions that have long existed beneath the surface.

About the Author: David Merkel

David A. Merkel is a visiting distinguished fellow at the College of Charleston and an associate at LSE IDEAS. Previously, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and director on the National Security Council. He has provided expertise to multiple organizations, including the United Nations, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the National Democratic Institute, and the International Republican Institute.

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