Between East and West: Kazakhstan and China’s new Silk Road

This article analyses Kazakhstan’s vision of long-term development and its ambitious goals. After revising the history of the infrastructure projects in the country during the tsarist period and the Soviet era, it sets out the plans of the Kazakh president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, to turn the country into a logistical hub between East and West by 2050. Later, the paper puts Nazarbayev’s vision in the context of the political and economic reality of Kazakhstan, focussing, specifically, on how the government’s multivector foreign policy fluctuates between
Russia’s regional integration projects and the Chinese push westwards to develop Xinjiang province along the new Silk Road. As a conclusion, it identifies the multiple goals that may put the future of this plan in doubt.

Key words: Kazakhstan, infrastructure, foreign policy, Silk Road

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