Chinese President Xi Jinping and leaders from the five Central Asian states at the 2023 China-Central Asia Summit in Xi'an, China. Image license CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

This article was submitted as part of the Global Voices Climate Justice fellowship, which pairs journalists from Sinophone and Global Majority countries to investigate the effects of Chinese development projects abroad. Find more stories here.

Over the last twenty years, China has become an increasingly important diplomatic, trade, and political player in Central Asia. As the former soviet bloc nations struggle to grow economically and politically, China is investing in a range of industries within the region, including EV production and manufacturing, waste processing, renewable energy, mining, and more.

Global Voices talked with Elzbieta Pron, an Assistant Professor at the University of Silesia in Katowice (Poland) with an MA in Chinese Studies (from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland), a second MA in National Development from National Taiwan University, and a PhD in Contemporary Chinese Studies from the University of Nottingham, about China’s evolving role in the region. Elzbieta researches China-Central Asian relations through the lens of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and later through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China’s international connectivity and development project. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

GV: What was the initial driver for China’s push toward Central Asia as part of BRI? How does Central Asia differ compared to other regions?

Elzbieta Pron (EP): The most immediate answer to this question would be that Central Asia has commonly been assessed as a “testing ground” for various Chinese strategies and projects. Central Asia is close enough in terms of geography to develop various initiatives, in which geographical proximity matters (security cooperation, transportation, etc), yet distant enough in political, cultural, and ethnic terms to pose a diplomatic challenge to China. If China manages to make it in Central Asia, it should manage to reach its goals elsewhere as well.

A map of Central Asia and China. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

In 2013, China could have counted on the initiative being welcomed and
awaited in Central Asia. Although Central Asia was very reluctant towards the greater economic presence of China in the region in the 1990s and 2000s, in 2013, its perspective was different. The decisive factor for it was the establishment of the Russian Customs Union in 2010 (in 2015 institutionalized as the Eurasian Economic Union), which had given citizens of its member states facilitated entry to the Russian market and provided a number of trade facilitations, yet — importantly — making trade with China much more complicated and tying the entire CA region closer to Russia. This was not what Central Asian governments planned and intended for, as their foreign and economic policies were all about “opening up” to all directions. And that is where global infrastructure and connectivity projects such as BRI fit perfectly. It was just the right timing for such an initiative.

Most governments of Central Asia (save for Kyrgyzstan) were relatively
predictable, stable, and long-term authoritarian governments, the type of ideal partners for China to develop big, costly, and sometimes lengthy projects. Despite relatively widespread Sinophobic sentiments in the region, these popular voices had had a very limited impact on foreign policy-making between the CA governments and China.

And finally, Central Asia, especially Kazakhstan, has had very attractive geographical
features for China to promote and develop infrastructure connectivity. Not only does it share a long border with the most urbanized parts of China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, but it also stretches all the way to the Caucasus, not far from Ukraine.

GV: What are notable differences between the way that BRI played out within Central Asia? Is this a factor of the differing relationships between such countries and Russia?

EP: From the perspective of Central Asia, the BRI has had several features that have made it particularly valuable and in line with Central Asian policies. All Central Asian countries (with the exception of Turkmenistan, which had long adhered to the so-called political neutrality) have framed their foreign policies around a multi-vectoral outlook and connectivity. Kazakhstan, due to its location between geographical Asia and Europe, has been additionally driven by “Eurasianism” as its guiding principle.

What is more, all five Central Asian landlocked states were particularly focused on turning the limitations of being “landlocked” into advantages of being “landlinked”; to be an inseparable part of global connectivity networks and beneficiaries of them.

In that context, the cross-regional connectivity projects, like BRI, played out very well.
Although clearly orchestrated, administered, and funded by China, the BRI was intended and developed as a global project, opening its partner states to other regions, not tying them to China. Central Asian governments seemed convinced that engagement in the BRI would help them reach their own policy priorities. By giving as little as necessary, with China’s money and projects, they will achieve as much as possible.

GV: How has the approach to renewable energy shifted in the past decade? What does renewable energy play in the overall Chinese priorities?

Elzbieta: There are two interrelated yet different aspects of this question. The first is China’s overall approach to renewable energy, and the second is its approach to cooperation on renewable energy with external partners.

When it comes to China’s approach to renewable energy in general, China has been very supportive of it. The first reason for this is China’s overall energy policy, which has always sought diversification of energy resources, mainly due to China’s limited domestic potential in energy. While China possesses large (yet limited) coal supplies, its potential in other energy resources is modest, perhaps with the exception of abundant hydropower, which now makes about 15 percent of China’s energy portfolio.  Secondly, due to its vast size and natural features, renewable energy — as exemplified by hydropower — has had a huge potential in China, although we should remember that China’s energy needs are also immense. And finally, China has constantly strived for its international status and image of a responsible member of the international community.

When we look at cooperation on renewable energy, we should, however, also look at it
through the lens of China’s overall foreign policy, especially towards countries striving for innovation and international status. In such cases, China is often not a direct beneficiary of cooperation on green energy, yet such cooperation (e.g., photovoltaic plants or wind farms built by Chinese firms) is more of a political tool. It demonstrates China’s commitment to the much-praised “harmonious development of the world” [as stated by Chinese President Xi Jinping], its serious approach to smaller and poorer states, which are treated as partners in modern and innovative technologies, and where China is a bearer of such technologies (often for an exchange of certain goods or benefits).

GV: Has the reception of renewable energy projects changed in the past decade? Among specific countries in Central Asia?

EP: In short — yes. This is especially true for Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, which both have significant amounts of natural gas (Uzbekistan) and crude oil (Kazakhstan). In the past five to six years, however, both countries have become very interested in developing renewable energy. This approach has been driven by several factors. First, both gas and oil resources are limited, and a responsible state should have a more far-reaching energy policy.  Second, despite the amount of these traditional resources, neither Uzbekistan nor Kazakhstan is able to provide full energy security to its
citizens. While both governments used to enjoy revenue from the sale of oil and gas, the very citizens of both states have experienced energy shortages and frequent blackouts, which eventually also caused protests and complaints against the government policies.

The situation looks very different for Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, two early birds to
renewable energy. Both states are mountainous with virtually no oil, gas, or even major coal assets, yet both have abundant hydropower potential. While both Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan had sought opportunities to develop renewable energy projects since the early 1990s, they had not managed to utilize the full potential of their rivers. The primary reason for it is the underdevelopment of economies of both states, lack of funds, but also the inability to provide a basic security for foreign companies working in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, especially in remote areas where such hydropower plants would be located. Another reason was political and economic pressure from Uzbekistan, especially in the 1990s and 2000s, which warned both smaller neighbors not to engineer the streams of its rivers too much due to potential droughts it could cause in an already water-scarce Uzbekistan. Ironically, as of 2025, Uzbekistan is one of the most active Central Asian states in hydropower energy along the Pskem River.

GV: Going forward into an age some have characterized as the new Cold War, what do you expect the future of BRI in Central Asia to look like? Has there been an increasing pushback against China’s environmental policy there?

EP: I do anticipate that China will continue to be an active promoter of all BRI projects in the region, and that the region will continue to be its main partner. This is primarily because there is a great sense of close, long-term, and beneficial political cooperation between the Chinese and Central Asian governments, all authoritarian, and all with expectedly long leaderships. Even Turkmenistan, which had long stayed away from Chinese initiatives in the region, is increasingly involved in cooperation with China.

But there are two deep cracks in this picture. First, despite very thorough political cooperation between all six governments, Central Asian governments are clear that they are after connectivity and “landlinking” and not after tying themselves to China. Additionally, Central Asian governments (especially Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan) act in a very pragmatic, opportunistic manner, and seem to be willing to cooperate with China on BRI and elsewhere as long as it is profitable to them. This also applies to environmental policies and renewable energy, in which China is an important partner.

The second is a more horizontal crack between Central Asian governments and
its populaces, which are often deeply unhappy about state policies. They view these policies as against national interests, while seeing China as a predatory state with unclear intentions. Although China abstains from meddling in these internal matters of Central Asian domestic policy, it does experience a backlash while local populations manage to successfully press on local governments to revoke pro-Chinese policy changes, land leases, or parts of agreements that were supposed to remain undisclosed to the public.