When Xi Jinping was appointed general-secretary of the Chinese language Communist Get together in late 2012 and later as president in 2013, China was rising as an essential commerce accomplice for Central Asia with unclear ambitions towards a area historically underneath the affect of Russia.
However knowledge compiled by RFE/RL exhibits how Xi’s tenure as China’s chief has led to a wave of wide-ranging diplomatic engagement that has helped rework Beijing’s function from influential neighbor into Central Asia’s most consequential financial accomplice — a relationship that would reshape the way forward for the area.
RFE/RL’s findings present that Xi has made 15 visits to Central Asia since 2013, essentially the most by any Chinese language chief.
“Underneath Xi Jinping, Central Asia has shifted from being considered primarily as a buffer area on China’s border to changing into a core strategic hall linking China to Eurasia, the Center East, and Europe,” Bradley Jardine, managing director of the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs and co-author of the guide Backlash: China’s Wrestle for Affect in Central Asia, advised RFE/RL. “Xi sees Central Asia as strategically indispensable.”
Map: Xi’s Visits To Central Asia
This era has additionally coincided with 34 bilateral visits over 13 years from the presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan to China.
Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan lead the depend at eight visits every, adopted intently by Tajikistan at seven. On high of that, China and Central Asia have engaged by means of annual summits just like the Shanghai Cooperation Group (SCO) and the China-Central Asia Summit, which launched in 2023 as the primary official gathering between Beijing and the area that did not additionally embody Russia.
Over the course of the Xi period, top-level engagement has been regular, however at instances uneven. China’s chief did not depart the nation and solely held digital and cellphone conferences from 2020 to 2022 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. He broke his worldwide isolation in September 2022 with a state go to to Kazakhstan adopted by the SCO summit held that 12 months in Uzbekistan.
Chart: Central Asian Presidential Visits To China, 2013-2026
A New Kind Of Chinese language Engagement
RFE/RL’s knowledge highlights not solely that diplomatic engagement with Central Asia has expanded underneath Xi however that it has additionally deepened throughout all ranges.
Wang Yi, who was appointed China’s overseas minister in 2013 and held the function since then aside for a quick interval from January to July 2023, has maintained common contact with Central Asian leaders and high officers, with some type of high-level assembly with the area happening yearly from 2013 to 2026.
Chart: International Minister Wang Yi’s Engagement With Central Asia
Xi’s tenure has additionally seen rising engagement between authorities officers and companies from China’s western Xinjiang Province. Xinjiang borders Central Asia and has deep historic connections, which additionally made it a supply of rivalry following Beijing’s crackdown launched in 2017 that led to greater than 1 million Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and different Muslim minorities being put into mass detention camps.
Regardless of backlash amongst native populations in Central Asia, RFE/RL’s dataset exhibits a sustained surge in Xinjiang-level engagement from native officers from 2023 onward, with 17 visits in 2023, 20 in 2024, and at the least 10 in 2025.
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The Xi Period Goes Reside
Xi constructed on the efforts of his predecessors and shortly made Central Asia a precedence.
In 2013, he visited Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, and whereas in Astana throughout his first 12 months in workplace he unveiled the overland part of what would later be known as the Belt and Highway Initiative (BRI), the globe-spanning challenge that opened the door for Chinese language corporations and helped reorient a lot of the financial gravity of Eurasia towards China.
The underpinning of the overseas coverage initiative grew to become an indicator of Xi’s management, however Chinese language policymakers had it within the works for years. In 2012, Wang Jisi, an influential scholar and former dean of the Faculty of Worldwide Research at Peking College, outlined a technique for an enormous financial and diplomatic push westward throughout Central Asia to construct affect in Eurasia. Dubbed “March West,” the technique was a response to US plans to rebalance towards East Asia, and plenty of of its concepts fashioned the inspiration for the BRI.
Chart: Varieties Of Visits By Xi To Central Asia, 2013-2026
The initiative was half grand technique and half opportunistic response to the fact on the bottom.
China managed to climate the 2008 international monetary disaster higher than most nations however emerged dealing with overcapacity points for a lot of of its industries and needing entry to new markets. Furthermore, as China overtook Japan in 2010 because the world’s second-largest economic system, many nations throughout Eurasia have been keen to draw funding and had restricted entry from the West or Russia.
“China has actually upped their recreation and their picture throughout the board in all 5 Central Asian nations, and I imagine that has been a thought-about coverage underneath Xi Jinping,” George Krol, who served as US ambassador to Uzbekistan from 2011-2014 and to Kazakhstan from 2015-2018, advised RFE/RL.
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When the Soviet Union collapsed, China was grappling with learn how to view its Central Asian neighbors as they navigated extreme financial hardships and waves of crises from civil struggle to succession struggles.
Beijing moved cautiously within the Nineteen Nineties, specializing in its financial growth at dwelling whereas slowly rising its function in Central Asia, largely resulting from Beijing’s worries over how an insecure post-Soviet Russia would react.
Chart: Central Asia Visits By Xi Jinping Vs. Hu Jintao
“There was clearly an effort throughout the board to deliver this adjoining territory inside a sphere of Chinese language affect, albeit with out making an attempt to hassle or to annoy the Russians,” Krol mentioned.
Over the following decade, Chinese language policymakers started to see Central Asia increasingly as a strategic and resource-rich space very important to its personal safety positioned alongside Afghanistan and Xinjiang.
Hu Jintao, Xi’s predecessor as Chinese language chief, visited Central Asia on 13 state visits throughout his tenure from 2003 to 2012, based on RFE/RL’s findings. Seven of Hu’s regional visits have been to Kazakhstan, and the nation has continued to be a dominant a part of Chinese language engagement with Central Asia underneath Xi.
Extra Than Simply High-Stage Engagement
Whereas the launch of the BRI helped characterize an period of rising Chinese language affect and enterprise footprint underneath Xi, one other hallmark is the rising function of Xinjiang in diplomatic engagement with Central Asia.
“Xinjiang is now not merely a frontier area in Chinese language overseas coverage. It more and more features as a diplomatic and logistical hub for China’s engagement with Central Asia,” mentioned Jardine. “Beijing is utilizing Xinjiang as a platform for commerce integration, border administration, infrastructure connectivity, and more and more political coordination with neighboring states.”
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Official delegations of Communist Get together officers from Xinjiang started in 2015 however have been sluggish to develop towards the backdrop of the increasing internment camp system and the COVID-19 pandemic.
However RFE/RL knowledge exhibits a gentle enlargement from 2023 onward after COVID-era restrictions have been eased inside China and Chinese language companies have been desperate to deepen their market share overseas. Linking Xinjiang with Central Asia has been a broader Chinese language coverage purpose for years and has elevated following the enlargement of commerce hyperlinks and Chinese language funding because the launch of the BRI.
Chart: Central Asia Engagement By High Xinjiang Officers
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the area’s two largest markets who even have the most important ethnic Kazakh and Uzbek diaspora communities linked to Xinjiang, have been the first locations for delegations from Xinjiang’s high get together and authorities management. This represents a definite channel of subnational Chinese language engagement working in parallel with Beijing’s central diplomatic equipment, with a selected deal with border administration, commerce ties, and safety cooperation.
“After years of worldwide scrutiny over Xinjiang, Beijing seems to be shifting from a section dominated by securitization and internment towards one centered on regional normalization and reintegration,” Jardine mentioned. “Elevated Xinjiang diplomacy with Central Asia is a part of that effort.”
Engagement throughout Xi’s tenure continues to develop. This 12 months has already seen visits to China by Turkmen chief Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov and Tajik President Emomali Rahmon. Xi can also be set to go to Kyrgyzstan in August, when it hosts this 12 months’s annual SCO summit.
How Xi Reshaped China’s Central Asia Ties — By The Numbers
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