China’s economic ventures in the region have often met resistance, but Beijing has softened its approach as bilateral ties deepen.
In a recent interview, Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev offered a revealing account of how essential China has become to the country’s development strategy. “Cooperation with China in digitalization is […] critically important for Kazakhstan,” he told Xinhua, the Chinese state-controlled news agency, arguing that Chinese investment and expertise would play a crucial role in the country’s effort to move beyond its traditional standing as a supplier of raw materials and develop higher-value industrial and technological capacity.
“Our task is to transform the geographical proximity of our countries into sustainable economic connectivity and the enormous potential for cooperation into sustained growth and improved prosperity for our peoples,” Tokayev added. Mutual praise of the relationship between Kazakhstan and China from the upper echelons of power in Astana and Beijing is common. But as China’s role shifts, it is gaining more traction with the broader public too.
Kazakhstan, Central Asia’s largest economy, is leading the way in recalibrating its relationship with China. But the shift is also happening regionally as Beijing seeks to deepen economic, technological, and political ties through a combination of investment, infrastructure, industrial cooperation, and increasingly intensive diplomacy that marks a distinct new phase in its regional strategy.
China’s economic weight in the region has grown dramatically over the past two decades, gradually eroding Russia’s long-standing primacy.
Local Manufacturing on the Rise
Uzbekistan, which has opened its economy significantly to investment since the death of President Islam Karimov a decade ago, is also at the forefront of this transformation. Chinese investments have surged fivefold since 2021 to reach $10.7 billion. These investments have shifted Uzbekistan’s economy into a production hub. For example, in June 2026, two Chinese companies pledged $170 million to open an electric bus plant in the Ferghana Valley. Chinese investments in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan have remained largely focused on mining and energy. But even here, we have seen a shift toward processing, refinement, and production.
China’s economic weight in the region has grown dramatically over the past two decades, gradually eroding Russia’s long-standing primacy. Yet the expansion of Chinese influence has been neither linear nor uncontested. As we document in our recent book Backlash, large infrastructure projects, concerns over debt and sovereignty, the use of Chinese labor, environmental disputes, and Beijing’s policies in Xinjiang have all periodically generated public and political resistance.
Anti-China protests have derailed new laws, such as proposed land reforms that would have allowed foreigners to lease land in Kazakhstan. Backlash has also caused the cancellation of projects including a $275 million logistics hub near the Kyrgyz-China border. These examples illustrate the fragility of China’s influence in the region.
Traditionally, China viewed Central Asia as a bridge to Europe and the Middle East, and as a place for the extraction of energy and resources, feeding into the common local opinion in the region that Beijing was exploitative. However, China’s engagement strategy has shifted since the COVID pandemic, moving from merely viewing the region as a site of extraction and transit to a hub of production and investments that align with local priorities.
One of the clearest changes in China’s economic relationship with Central Asia is the growing emphasis on local production rather than simply trade, resource extraction, and infrastructure construction. In Kazakhstan, the government announced in July that Chinese automakers Li Auto and Chery’s subsidiary Omoda & Jaecoo would localize vehicle production, while a partnership with China’s XCMG is developing domestic production of electric tractor-trailers; Li Auto separately selected the Allur plant in Kostanay, in northern Kazakhstan, as its first production base outside China. The official state news agency, Kazinform, recently reported that the country had produced around 42,000 passenger cars in the first quarter of 2026, as well as 1,100 tractors. Chinese companies have been planning to expand to electronic battery production as well. In June, Kazakhstan and China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL) – the world’s largest electric vehicle battery manufacturer – discussed the opening of the region’s first gigafactory.
Despite positive steps, the sensitivity of the China-Central Asia border remains acute.
Uzbekistan is pursuing a similar strategy. Chinese automaker JAC opened a plant in the Yangi Avlod industrial zone in May 2026. Kyrgyzstan, meanwhile, has been making progress with finished agricultural goods, and manufacturing, the latter of which now accounts for 75 percent of all China’s FDI in the country.
Unbalanced Trade Relations
Yet deeper integration is also increasing Central Asia’s exposure to China. Chinese customs data show that trade with the region rose to $52.94 billion in the first six months of 2026, of which imports made up just $18 billion, producing a trade imbalance of almost two to one. The disparity is particularly stark in Uzbekistan, which imported $7.65 billion from China during the period but exported only $1.22 billion, and in Tajikistan, where Chinese exports exceeded imports by more than four to one. Kazakhstan’s trade is considerably more balanced, while gas-rich Turkmenistan remains the only Central Asian state running a surplus with China.
China’s infrastructure push in Central Asia is also entering a new phase. Whereas China’s previous approach involved large, flashy projects, the new phase is aimed at streamlining customs and borders and making it easier to move seamlessly between countries. Kazakh Prime Minister Olzhas Bektenov said in April that the country’s digital customs system had reduced customs-clearance times on the Chinese border from eight hours to around 30 minutes, while Tokayev has called for “smart customs,” synchronized information systems, and automated border procedures as part of an integrated transport network linking Chinese production centers with the Caspian and Europe. Alongside calls to streamline customs, the region has been expanding flight routes from its major cities to the neighboring Xinjiang province in a bid to boost tourism.
Beyond Belt and Road
Despite positive steps, the sensitivity of the China-Central Asia border remains acute. In August, prominent ethnic Kazakh writer Zhengis Reskhan faced a closed-door trial in Xinjiang after months of interrogation and detention, with his family saying he had been accused of “extremist” ideas and of “undermining ethnic unity.” The trial opened just weeks after China’s new law on “promoting ethnic unity” took effect, expanding the legal framework governing ethnic relations and sharpening concerns in Kazakhstan over how Beijing’s policies toward ethnic minorities may affect families and communities with ties across the border.
China is also essential to the green energy revolution occurring in the region.
Farther south, the long-discussed China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway entered active construction in 2026, but its implementation also reflects some of the lessons of the backlash experienced during the first phase of the Belt and Road Initiative, including the need to hire more local labor, improve working conditions, and consider the impact on local communities. Kyrgyz authorities have pressed contractors to employ locals, purchase domestically produced materials, comply with environmental requirements, and improve transparency. The project has already created an education dividend with thousands of Kyrgyz workers undergoing technical training as part of the construction process.
China’s expanding role in Central Asia increasingly extends beyond physical infrastructure into the digital and green technologies that regional governments see as essential to future growth. In Kazakhstan, President Tokayev has proposed a Kazakhstan-China “Digital Bridge” to expand trade and connect the two countries’ digital economies, while calling for greater use of artificial intelligence in manufacturing, energy, agriculture, and water management.
China is also essential to the green energy revolution occurring in the region. Natural gas-rich Uzbekistan has pledged to produce half its energy from renewable sources by 2030, up from 2 percent in 2023. Kazakhstan has targeted a more realistic 15 percent. Uzbekistan is betting on wind and solar. In 2025, China Southern Power Grid invested an estimated $230–$240 million per project to acquire a 35% equity stake in two massive 500 MW wind farms in Bukhara, in south-central Uzbekistan. Sany Renewable Energy is building a $1.2 billion wind farm in Karakalpakstan, located in the remote northwestern part of Uzbekistan. Earlier this year, China and Kazakhstan gave the green light to renewable energy projects worth $2 billion, including two wind farms and solar plants.
China has also expanded its vocational education programs to boost human capital and, in its words, cultivate high-quality and skilled talents for hosting countries. Over the past two years, Beijing has rapidly expanded its network of Luban Workshops across Central Asia. Named after a legendary Chinese craftsman, the program marks a shift in China’s regional outreach toward vocational training in fields such as AI, logistics, electric vehicles, hydropower, and automation. The appeal is practical: the workshops are tailored to host-country development priorities and offer skills that can support industrial upgrading.
Kazakhstan has become a major focus, with three workshops opened since 2023 and two more under development, including programs in AI, electric vehicle systems, and transport and logistics. Tokayev has praised the initiative and called for its expansion. Similar programs are operating in Kyrgyzstan, where training focuses on hydropower and road construction; Uzbekistan, where they support the Digital Uzbekistan 2030 agenda; and Tajikistan, where more than 1,500 students have taken courses since the first regional workshop opened in 2022. A further center is planned in Turkmenistan. The initiative gives Beijing a way to pair economic engagement with a more targeted, soft-power strategy centered on skills, employability, and local development needs.
Central Asia has often proved a difficult environment for China, but it has also taught Beijing an important lesson in great-power statecraft, in how to recalibrate its approach and build deeper local buy-in across constituencies. The result is a relationship that is becoming deeper, more diversified, and, increasingly, shaped by the demands of Central Asian states themselves.
Edward Lemon is research assistant professor at the Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University, in Washington, D.C., and president of the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs.
Bradley Jardine is the managing director of the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs. He is a former fellow at the Wilson Center and served as editor of The Moscow Times (2016−2018) in Russia.
Their book Backlash: China’s Struggle for Influence in Central Asia, was published in 2025.
This article was supported by the Fund for Central & East European Book Projects, Amsterdam.
