At present, China and Central Asian countries have achieved "three full coverage" — — Full coverage of comprehensive strategic partnership, full coverage of the community of human destiny at the bilateral level, and full coverage of signing and building the "Belt and Road" cooperation document.
China and Central Asian countries agree that each country has the right to choose its own development path and governance model, firmly support each other’s chosen development path and governance model, and oppose any form of "double standards" and interference in other countries’ internal affairs under any pretext.
China has provided a strong backing for Central Asian countries to resist the infiltration of "three forces". Central Asian countries have become an important barrier for China to maintain security and stability in the west, and together they have formed an increasingly close community of security interests.
China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan Railway signed a memorandum of understanding in 2022, and the feasibility study will be completed in the middle of this year, which is expected to enter the implementation stage this year.
China and Central Asian countries have a history of friendly exchanges for thousands of years, and together they have written magnificent poems about the ancient Silk Road connecting east and west. Crossing the long river of history, China and Central Asian countries have explored a path of mutual benefit and win-win in line with their respective national conditions in the face of changes in the world, times and history, and have become common practitioners of the important concept of the community of human destiny.
Over the past 30 years, China and Central Asian countries have deepened their strategic mutual trust, enriched their cooperation mechanisms and deepened their mutual friendship on the basis of mutual respect and good neighborliness. At present, both China and Central Asian countries truly feel that their cooperation is ushering in a historic new opportunity.
From May 18th to 19th this year, the China-Central Asia Summit will be held in Xi ‘an, Shaanxi Province. China and the five Central Asian countries will firmly grasp the new opportunities brought by this summit, promote mutually beneficial cooperation to achieve more tangible results, and build a closer China-Central Asia destiny community.
The "10th Anniversary of Yiwu-Five Central Asian Countries" with 100 TEU cargo set off at Yiwu West Railway Station and went to five Central Asian countries (photo taken on April 23, 2023). Photo by Hu Xiaofei/This magazine.
Be calm and treat each other as priority partners.
Over the past 30 years, profound and complicated changes have taken place in the world. However, no matter how the international situation changes, China and Central Asian countries always regard each other as the diplomatic priority, and their relations have gradually upgraded from the initial good-neighborly and friendly relations to strategic partnerships.
After the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic, the Chairman of the Supreme Leader chose Central Asian countries for his first visit from September 14 to 16, 2022, which showed that China attached great importance to developing relations with Central Asian countries. During the visit, Kazakh President Tokayev awarded the Golden Eagle Medal, the highest honor of Kazakhstan, to the Supreme Leader Chairman. Uzbek President Mirziyoyev awarded the Supreme Leader Chairman the Medal of "Supreme Friendship", which was awarded for the first time since its establishment. Awarding honours is not only an affirmation of the personal contribution of the Chairman of the Supreme Leader, but also an affirmation of the development achievements of China-Kazakhstan relations and China-Ukraine relations over the past 30 years.
Under the top-level design, since 2011, China has successively established strategic partnerships with Central Asian countries and signed treaties of friendship and cooperation.
At present, China and Central Asian countries have achieved "three full coverage" — — Full coverage of comprehensive strategic partnership, full coverage of the community of human destiny at the bilateral level, and full coverage of signing and building the "Belt and Road" cooperation document. This reflects high-level political mutual trust and lays a solid foundation for the next "golden 30 years" of China-Central Asia relations.
Mutual trust and assistance to build a China-Central Asia destiny community.
On January 25, 2022, the Chairman of the Supreme Leader said at the video summit of the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and five Central Asian countries: "No matter how the international situation changes and how developed China is in the future, China will always be a good neighbor, good partner, good friend and good brother that Central Asian countries can trust and rely on."
During the many emergencies in Central Asian countries in 2022, China repeatedly expressed its support for the governments of Central Asian countries to maintain stability and stop violence, and firmly supported Central Asia in maintaining independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity. On issues concerning China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, Central Asian countries did not hesitate to give China firm support. On the issue of development path, China and Central Asian countries agree that each country has the right to choose its own development path and governance model, firmly support each other’s chosen development path and governance model, and oppose any form of "double standards" and interference in other countries’ internal affairs under any pretext. Ku Berdymukhamedov, former president of Turkmenistan and speaker of the upper house of parliament, once wrote that the wisdom and foresight of the Communist Party of China (CPC)’s leaders have enabled the country to unswervingly embark on the road of national rejuvenation in a stable and confident environment.
Based on the principle of equal consultation, mutual understanding and mutual accommodation, China and Central Asian countries have successfully solved sensitive and complicated border issues, turning the common border of more than 3,300 kilometers into a bond of friendship and a bridge of cooperation, which not only lays a solid foundation for cooperation, but also provides a model for solving similar problems in other parts of the world.
In combating the "three forces" that endanger regional security and stability, China and Central Asian countries have continuously deepened security cooperation, established an inter-departmental and inter-regional security dialogue mechanism, and maintained close communication and exchanges on responding to regional security challenges; Vigorously improve the institutionalized level of law enforcement and security cooperation, and regularly hold multi-bilateral joint exercises and joint border patrols, which have squeezed the activity space of the "three forces" to the maximum extent and blocked their escaping channels. In view of the Afghan issue, China and Central Asian countries have joined hands to promote the process of national reconciliation and peace in Afghanistan and jointly crack down on drug trafficking and cross-border crimes. China has provided a strong backing for Central Asian countries to resist the infiltration of "three forces", and Central Asian countries have become an important barrier for China to maintain security and stability in the west, and together they have formed an increasingly close community of security interests.
Win-win cooperation and common development and prosperity
The economic, trade and investment cooperation between China and Central Asian countries has achieved leapfrog development. China is the largest or main trading partner of Central Asian countries and the largest or main export market of commodities of Central Asian countries. China is also the largest source of investment and financing for Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The trade volume between China and Central Asian countries jumped from the initial several hundred million dollars to 70.2 billion dollars in 2022, an increase of more than 100 times; China’s investment in Central Asian countries has also increased from almost blank to nearly $40 billion.
At the same time, the cooperation mechanism between China and Central Asian countries is becoming more and more abundant. China has established intergovernmental cooperation committees with all Central Asian countries, and China and Kazakhstan have also established a mechanism for regular meetings between prime ministers. According to the demands of different countries, China has also established more targeted cooperation mechanisms with relevant countries, such as China-Tajikistan Agricultural Cooperation Committee and China-Uzbekistan Poverty Reduction Cooperation Mechanism. These different levels of dialogue and cooperation mechanisms not only help to enhance political mutual trust, but also remove obstacles to cooperation in time.
China has a complete range of industries, forming a unique production capacity in the world, which is suitable for the economic development stage of Central Asian countries. In the process of building the "Belt and Road", a large number of cooperation projects have taken root in Central Asian countries. At present, China and Central Asian countries have identified dozens of key projects for capacity cooperation, covering automobile, energy, metallurgy, chemical industry, medicine and many other fields, with a total investment of more than 20 billion US dollars. The above-mentioned projects will effectively alleviate the urgent problems faced by Central Asian countries in the development process and help countries in the process of industrialization and modernization.
The level of connectivity between China and Central Asian countries has reached an unprecedented height. China is connected with Central Asian countries by mountains and rivers, and has the natural geographical convenience of cooperation. At present, China and Central Asian countries are working hard to build an omni-directional and three-dimensional communication network covering roads, railways, aviation and oil and gas pipelines. The China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan Railway signed a memorandum of understanding in 2022, and the feasibility study will be completed in the middle of this year, which is expected to enter the implementation stage this year. China-Kazakhstan Lianyungang Logistics Cooperation Base provides a sea port for Central Asian products to sail from the Pacific Ocean. More than 80% of Central European trains passing through Central Asia have become the convenient and efficient "artery" of East-West logistics across Europe and Asia, and played a lifeline role during the COVID-19 epidemic.
China and Central Asian countries are focusing on green development and looking to the future. While expanding cooperation in the fields of economy, trade, production capacity, interconnection, anti-epidemic, energy and food security, the two sides will expand innovative cooperation in digital finance, cross-border e-commerce and green infrastructure, foster new growth points such as artificial intelligence, big data and renewable energy, strive to recreate a number of high-standard, sustainable and quality projects that benefit people’s livelihood, push mutual cooperation to a higher level, push global development initiatives to the ground and make new contributions to boosting world economic recovery.
Knowing each other and dating each other, consolidating the foundation of friendly relations and public opinion
In more than 30 years of friendly exchanges, the people’s cognition of China in Central Asian countries has undergone earth-shaking changes. Despite the constant agitation of external forces, good-neighborliness and friendship have always been the mainstream voice of Central Asian countries to China, and mutually beneficial cooperation has always been an unchangeable trend in mutual relations.
China-Central Asia people-to-people cooperation mechanism has been continuously improved. China and five Central Asian countries have signed cultural cooperation agreements and implemented annual cultural cooperation plans. Local governments, universities, think tanks, media and literary and art groups have close exchanges, and cooperation in science and technology, medical care and tourism is in the ascendant. The touching story of China musician Xian Xinghai and Kazakh musician Baikadamov was put on the screen. In the near future, China-Kyrgyzstan, China-Tajikistan and China-Turkey will promote the mutual establishment of cultural centers to further improve the level of humanities cooperation.
Language is an important carrier of people’s hearts. At the beginning of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Central Asian countries, there were almost no universities teaching languages of Central Asian countries in China. At present, nearly 10 universities in China have offered languages courses of Central Asian countries, among which 4 universities in China have set up Kazakhstan Research Centers and 2 universities have set up Kazakh language majors. In Central Asia, "China fever" and "Chinese fever" are heating up all over the world. There are 13 Confucius Institutes and 24 Confucius Classrooms, and there are more than 20,000 students studying in China from Central Asian countries.
The level of facilitation of non-governmental exchanges has also gradually improved. At present, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan grant visa-free treatment to China tourists for 14 days and 10 days respectively. In the future, China and Kazakhstan are expected to reach a visa-free agreement, and the two countries also plan to set up consulates general in Xi ‘an and Aktobe respectively. Personnel exchanges between China and Central Asian countries are accelerating, and China-Central Asia tourism cooperation will usher in spring. (Jing Xiaoyu, special researcher of Wenwen Supreme Leader’s Diplomatic Thought Research Center, assistant researcher of Li Ziguo China Institute of International Studies)