Why China is likely to focus more on Central Asia as US rivalry intensifies

China will step up engagement with Central Asia as part of efforts to stabilise its western border and focus on its strategic rivalry with the US in the Indo-Pacific, observers said.

This came as Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi wrapped up a four-day visit to Kazakhstan, where he met President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and held separate meetings with his counterparts from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, as well as the transport minister of Tajikistan.

He also attended a summit in Kazakh capital Nur-Sultan with ministers from the five Central Asian nations, all former Soviet republics with close ties to Moscow. The meeting ended with pledges of greater cooperation in areas ranging from anti-terrorism, security and humanitarian mediation in neighbouring Afghanistan, energy supplies and transport links, to infrastructure, data security and vaccine production.

The week before, Beijing had suffered a setback in its plans for a sweeping trade and security deal with 10 nations in the South Pacific, with some of them raising objections despite Wang’s whirlwind tour of a region that has increasingly emerged as a front line in the China-US geopolitical rivalry.