Posts Tagged ‘ Khorgos ’

China and Central Asia in 2013

January 19, 2013

By Raffaello Pantucci and Alexandros Petersen

First published in China Brief January 18, 2013.

In the last two years, China has emerged as the most consequential outside actor in Central Asia. As we have described in other writings, China’s ascension to this role has been largely inadvertent [1]. It has more to do with the region’s contemporary circumstances and China’s overall economic momentum than a concerted effort emanating from the Zhongnanhai. The implications for United States and NATO policy are nevertheless profound. Not only have the geopolitics of Eurasia shifted in ways little understood in Washington and Brussels, but the socio-political and physical undergirding of the post-Soviet space from Aktobe to Kandahar is being transformed.

Official Chinese policy in Central Asia is quiet and cautious, focused on developing the region as an economic partner with its western province Xinjiang whilst also looking beyond at what China characterizes as the “Eurasian Land Bridge…connecting east Asia and west Europe” (Xinhua, September 4, 2012). Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are active throughout the region on major infrastructure projects, but it is not clear how much they are being directed as part of some grand strategy as opposed to focusing on obvious profitable opportunities. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the main multilateral vehicle for Chinese regional efforts and reassuring engagement is a powerfully symbolic, but institutionally empty actor. Many smaller Chinese actors—ranging from shuttle traders to small-time entrepreneurs to schoolteachers and students posted to Confucius Institutes throughout the region—are the gradual vanguard of possible long-term Chinese investment and influence. Read more »

China’s Latest Piece of the New Silk Road

January 11, 2013

By Alexandros Petersen

First published in Eurasia Daily Monitor January 10, 2013.

While the concept of a “New Silk Road” of trade, transport and telecommunications connections across Eurasia was formally endorsed by the US State Department, it is Beijing and Chinese companies that have taken the lead in realizing the immense infrastructure projects that will tie the mega-continent together. The latest is the completion of a second railway link between China and Kazakhstan at the burgeoning Khorgos crossing point and Special Economic Zone. This nearly 600-kilometer section is part of a larger project that connects China’s eastern port of Lianyungang with Kazakhstan’s rail system and points west toward Russia and the Caspian region. Chinese officials refer to it as part of the New Eurasian Land Bridge from China’s ports to Western European ports such as Rotterdam (Global Times, December 22, 2012).

Plans call for the railway to handle 20 million tons of freight by 2020, increasing to 30 million by 2030. The 292-km Chinese portion of the project was built for less than $1 billion—relatively inexpensive by global standards. Khorgos is already the key border crossing for the Central Asia–China natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan and a new highway network under construction. According to Kazakhstan’s Minister for Transport and Communications Askar Zhumagaliyev, 800 km of this Western Europe–Western China highway will be completed in 2013, with much of the route running alongside the just-completed railway (Tengrinews, December 20, 2012). Read more »

Khorgos to Become Kazakhstan’s Trans-Eurasian Transport Hub

July 11, 2012

By Alexandros Petersen

First published in Eurasia Daily Monitor July 10, 2012.

On June 28, Kazakhstan’s Senate amended the country’s transport regulations partly to allow for the state railways operator, JSC “NC” Kazakhstan Temir Zholy (KTZ), to develop a transport and logistics company, spearheading the country’s transformation into a Eurasian transport hub (Kazinform, June 28). Exactly how this new state-led company will be organized remains to be seen, but KTZ seems to be preparing for an expansion of its scope and activities. In early July, it placed $800 million in 30-year Eurobonds on the London and Kazakhstan stock exchanges, and KTZ is expected to be a major part of Kazakhstan’s so-called People’s IPO in the coming years, wherein ordinary Kazakhstanis will be able to invest in some of their country’s largest enterprises (IFR, July 7).

But, the focus of KTZ’s activities in the transport area is the burgeoning “land port” at Khorgos on the China-Kazakhstan border, northeast of Almaty. As a result of a number of agreements between Astana and Beijing, the area around Khorgos is set to become a Special Economic Zone (SEZ), with 30-day visa exemptions for businessmen operating in the zone. Plans call for centers for trade, tourism, culture and sports, a number of hotels, as well as an airport and the terminus of a railway to Almaty, which is to connect with the Chinese-funded high-speed railway project planned to run from Almaty to Astana (Tengrinews, May 25, 2011). According to the World Bank, Khorgos is to be a key node on the Western Europe-Western China International Transit Corridor, coordinated by the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) program (World Bank, May 1). An immense new freight terminal has already been built, with bays for six trucks to be inspected simultaneously.

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