Umar Juraev
For a century, Moscow looked at Central Asia and saw its own backyard; today, Beijing looks at the same map and sees its economic highway to the world. Central Asia’s economic future is increasingly shaped by China’s strategic and economic outreach, bringing growth opportunities and structural risks. China established diplomatic relations with all five Central Asian states soon after the Soviet Union’s collapse in the early 1990s.
China’s relations with Central Asia emerged from a position of long-standing restraint rather than rivalry. For more than a century, Beijing treated Central Asia as part of Russia’s imperial and later Soviet sphere of influence, avoiding any direct challenge to Moscow’s dominance.
This approach changed only after the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, which forced China to confront the sudden emergence of five independent states along its western border. In the early 1990s, China adopted a cautious, low-profile strategy toward the region. Facing domestic reforms, international isolation after the 1989 Tiananmen events, and concerns over separatism in Xinjiang, Beijing prioritized border stability and security cooperation over economic expansion.
China was among the first to recognize Central Asian independence, establishing diplomatic relations with all five states in early 1992, while deliberately avoiding involvement in their internal political and economic transitions. A gradual shift occurred in the mid-to-late 1990s as China reassessed its global position and security environment.
Central Asia began to acquire greater strategic value due to rising transnational threats, energy considerations, and China’s western development needs. This transition was institutionalized through the Shanghai Five mechanism, later transformed into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, embedding China as a legitimate regional actor.
By the early 2000s, these foundations enabled China to move from cautious engagement toward sustained political and economic presence in Central Asia. By now, China is the largest trade partner of all Central Asian countries, achieving it by surpassing Russia in Tajikistan in 2025.
China’s geopolitical role in Central Asia has expanded rapidly in the post-Cold War era, driven by relative shifts in global power and the strategic recalibrations of regional actors. Historically, Russia dominated Central Asia through deep political, military, and institutional ties rooted in the Soviet legacy.
That influence is now contested. As U.S. engagement in the region waned following global strategic retrenchments, and Russia’s attention has been absorbed by its conflict in Ukraine, China has steadily leveraged economic tools to build geopolitical heft across the region.
China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) serves not merely as an infrastructure program but as a geopolitical instrument. Its expansion into transport, energy, and logistics corridors effectively integrates Central Asian economies with Beijing’s markets and priorities, enhancing China’s leverage. Trade between China and Central Asia has grown sharply, surpassing $89 billion in 2023, with China emerging as the region’s principal economic partner.
This deepening economic footprint enables China to exert influence that extends into political and security domains. By fostering bilateral strategic partnerships (e.g., with Uzbekistan) and hosting regional summits, Beijing signals a broader strategic interest in shaping regional governance frameworks.
Central Asian governments, while welcoming economic engagement, are navigating a more complex geopolitical landscape, balancing China’s ascent with residual Russian influence and intermittent Western interest. This realignment marks a significant shift in the balance of power across Eurasia.
China’s Belt and Road Initiative has shifted from a long-term concept to a concrete mechanism shaping global economic geography. According to Financial Times reporting on a recent Griffith University and Green Finance & Development Center study, China’s BRI investment and construction activity across partner countries reached a record $124 billion in the first half of 2025, surpassing the total value of contracts and investments for the entire year of 2024.
This figure includes 176 new deals, many of them megaprojects exceeding $10 billion, and confirms China’s commitment to deepening economic integration with Belt and Road partners amid shifting global trade conditions. Since its launch in 2013, the cumulative value of Chinese investment and construction contracts under the BRI has grown to about $1.3 trillion, encompassing roughly $775 billion in construction and $533 billion in non-financial investments.
The increase emphasizes not only the initiative’s scale but also its evolving strategic emphasis, with energy and infrastructure sectors dominating engagement. Central Asia was a notable recipient, attracting approximately $25 billion in engagement in the period covered. This surge underlines the BRI’s role in expanding China’s economic footprint and connectivity strategy across Eurasia, including vital land routes and energy corridors that enhance China-Central Asia economic ties.
China’s expanding economic footprint in Central Asia has come with rising concerns over debt dependency. Loans tied to infrastructure projects under the Belt and Road Initiative have pushed some smaller economies toward high external obligations.
In Kyrgyzstan, China’s credits for road and rail construction account for roughly 42 % of the country’s external debt, illustrating how large infrastructure financing can quickly translate into structural vulnerability. Uzbekistan, while larger in scale, still owes Chinese lenders $3.8 billion, about 12 % of its total debt and roughly 4% of GDP; Kazakhstan’s external liabilities to China stand at $9.2 billion. Such figures signal that Beijing’s capital is not merely financing development but shaping long-term economic profiles.
This dynamic feeds into asymmetric power relations. Chinese loans are typically tied to government guarantees and state-to-state arrangements, making it difficult for recipient governments to disentangle financial obligations from policy leverage. As domestic experts note, when Chinese creditors require minimal reporting or oversight compared with grant-based aid, local elites often prefer loans for their flexibility even though this can mask growing dependency that enhances Beijing’s leverage in bilateral negotiations.
Central Asian states are simultaneously navigating a complex strategic balance. Russia’s traditional regional influence has been weakened by its focus on Ukraine, creating space for China’s economic diplomacy. At the same time, the European Union and the United States are seeking alternative engagement models, such as support for the “Middle Corridor” linking Central Asia to Europe, precisely to provide options that reduce the region’s dependence on China and Russia.
Economic growth tied to Chinese finance thus does not automatically translate into political or strategic autonomy. Central Asian governments must manage the opportunities of connectivity and investment alongside the risks of dependency and leverage that could constrain their policy choices in the medium and long term.
The most realistic future for Central Asia lies not in resisting China’s economic presence, nor in uncritical dependence on it, but in managed multipolar balancing. China will remain the region’s most influential economic actor for the foreseeable future, particularly in infrastructure, energy, and transit. The question is not whether Central Asia engages with China, but on what terms.
A sustainable strategy requires maintaining access to Chinese capital while actively diversifying economic and political partnerships. Engagement with the European Union, Gulf states, Türkiye, South Korea, and multilateral development banks can strengthen bargaining power and reduce over-reliance on any single external partner. Initiatives such as the Trans-Caspian “Middle Corridor” should be treated as complements to Chinese connectivity projects rather than as substitutes.
China has become a central force shaping Central Asia’s economic trajectory through trade, infrastructure, and connectivity. While this engagement offers growth opportunities, it also introduces risks of dependency, asymmetric leverage, and reduced policy autonomy. The key challenge for Central Asian states is not whether to engage with China, but how to do so strategically.
Sustainable outcomes will depend on careful debt management, greater transparency, and the diversification of economic and political partnerships beyond China alone. By coordinating regionally and pursuing complementary links with the EU and other partners, Central Asia can strengthen its bargaining position and mitigate long-term vulnerabilities.Ultimately, China’s presence can serve as either a catalyst for development or a constraint on autonomy. The outcome will be determined less by Beijing’s ambitions than by Central Asia’s capacity to manage engagement on its own terms.
The author is a International Relations scholar at Webster University in Tashkent and associated with a policy think tank. His academic work focuses on geopolitics, environmental security, and regional political and economic dynamics in Central Asia, with particular attention to connectivity, governance challenges, and development outcomes in landlocked regions.
