The second China-Central Asia Summit will be held in Astana from 16 to 18 June 2025. The leaders of China and five Central Asian republics - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan - will meet in Astana. The Astana summit follows the inaugural China-Central Asia Summit in May 2023, held in Xi'an, the capital of China's Shaanxi province. President Xi will deliver a keynote speech at the summit, exchanging views on the achievements of the China-Central Asia mechanism, mutually beneficial cooperation under the framework, and international and regional hotspot issues, according to a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman.
The summit follows high-level meetings, including several foreign ministers' meetings and the December 2024 meeting in Chengdu (Chengdu), where infrastructure, trade and security dominated the agenda. China has taken significant steps to institutionalize its regional role, creating a China-Central Asia Secretariat in early 2024. This streamlines cooperation and ensures continuity between summits. The summit also has great symbolism: it is the first time that five Central Asian states are hosting a summit in the region with the leader of another country. This raises many questions, two of which the paper will try to answer: what is the significance of the China-Central Asia Summit in the current geopolitical situation? Is China fighting with the United States and Russia for influence in the region?
A short history of the Summit
The United States first initiated the concept of such a summit with the five Central Asian countries in 2015 during the Obama presidency. At that time, the meeting was held at the level of foreign ministers. John Kerry led the first meeting in September 2015 on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. In January 2022, Indian Prime Minister Modi hosted a virtual summit and then invited Central Asian leaders to India for a follow-up conclave in June 2025. Meanwhile, in 2023, President Xi hosted the leaders in Xi'an. Four months later, President Biden hosted C5 heads of state on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. It was the first time a U.S. president met with Central Asian heads of state in this setting.
The current President Trump's tariff policy may derail Washington's earlier efforts. Why? Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan have been saddled with tariffs of 10 percent, while President Trump initially imposed a 27 percent tariff on imports from Kazakhstan, the region's largest economy, though, as in all other countries, the U.S. president suspended those tariffs and temporarily capped the duties at 10 percent.
China therefore and logically invokes these tariffs to present itself as a more reliable partner of Central Asia than the US. At a meeting with the region's foreign ministers in April, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi criticized unilateralism, trade protectionism and the anti-globalization trend that has seriously affected the free trade system. The United States, Wang said, is undermining the rules-based multilateral trading system and destabilizing the global economy.
Summit in geopolitical context
Given the current trends and conflicts in the world, Europe and Eurasia, including the Israeli-Iranian conflict, the summit will no doubt provide an opportunity to gain insights on how China and the Central Asian republics could work together to manage the current crises. Therefore, the second China-Central Asia Summit will emphasize Beijing's regional foreign policy in light of the current Israeli-Iranian conflict. As the importance of the Central Asian region in the geopolitical context will continue to grow, already because of China's assigned role as the enemy and the United States' biggest competitor, we can expect an increase in the number of summits and economic forums driven by the interests of foreign powers.
I recall the recent high-level interactions, the changing economic conditions including the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the emerging European engagement, including the treaty between Kazakhstan and the UK, with its implications for regional stability, the rivalry between the security services of different states, and the impact of migration on the situation in Russia and in individual Eurasian states.
In the context of the above is China's strategic influence in Central Asia through the Belt and Road Initiative and the newly launched Tianfu cross-border transport route linking Sichuan with Central Asia. The laying of the foundation stone is scheduled for July 2025. When completed in 2030 (!), transport times between China, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan will be reduced to 12-18 days and trade between China and the region, which has grown from US$460 million at the start of the cooperation to US$89 billion in 2023, will further strengthen in 2025 and especially after the Tianfu route is completed.
With the aforementioned and other soft power and cultural action projects not mentioned in the paper, including CGTN-UzA, which highlights joint ventures in Uzbekistan, the Central Asian republics are becoming geopolitical footholds in the implacable struggle between local and international powers in the old-new geopolitical game. The EU is also trying to play an important role in this game, which the author of this article is familiar with from his time as head of the EU-TACIS office and as advisor to two prime ministers. The EU's strategic action is aimed at balancing Chinese and Russian influence. The Samarkand Summit Joint Declaration reaffirmed commitments on international law, regional security including Afghanistan, connectivity and energy. European investment and EPCA trade agreements with Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan demonstrate the EU's commitment. The latter is likely, bordering on certainty, to threaten to put human rights on the strategic agenda, regardless of the realities of the wars in Gaza, Iran and Ukraine, the risks of digital technologies and the rule of law.
Dependence of Central Asian states on China
According to publicly available information, Kazakhstan imported $18.7 billion worth of goods from China in 2023 and exported $15 billion worth of goods. This represents 30 percent of total imports and 16 percent of exports. Tajikistan in 2023 imported goods worth $3.68 billion and exported goods worth $250 million, accounting for 56 percent of its total imports and 16 percent of its exports. Kyrgyzstan imported $3.68 billion worth of goods and exported $887 million worth of goods in 2023, accounting for 29 percent of its total imports and 26 percent of its exports. Uzbekistan in 2023 imported goods worth $12.7 billion and exported goods worth $1.82 billion - accounting for 32 percent of its total imports and 6 percent of its exports.
In 2023, Turkmenistan imported $957 million worth of goods and exported $9.63 billion worth of goods - 20 percent of its total imports and 62 percent of its exports. In addition to the above, China is also increasing its investments in the region. It has committed to investments of about $26 billion in Kazakhstan. No small thing for the EU or the UK.
Russia and China
Chief among the global changes is the irreversible decline of Western Europe's position in world affairs and, by extension, Central Asia. Although the region remains geographically and symbolically important - given its proximity to Russia, China and its links to the United States and the United Kingdom - it has lost its ability to act as an independent player in global politics. The real visible players today are China, India and Russia. Their behaviour and actions are driving global development. For Russia, this transformation is both a strategic opportunity and a conceptual challenge. For China, it is a great historical opportunity. For the West, a complex challenge for many reasons that will not be discussed in this commentary.
At the same time, developments in the world and the region are freeing Moscow from the old and often futile task of seeking allies in the West. On the other hand, it is forcing Russia to rethink the nature of its role in the world. This is already because, historically, Russia's strategic position has not been animated by ideological expansion even at the height of its imperial power. The reason lies not in a lack of capacity but in a fundamentally different orientation: Russia has always been more interested in preserving its internal sovereignty and strategic autonomy than in exporting its model.
At this point, a comparison with China is suggested. I only remind that China has not waged expansionist colonial wars, is trying to free itself from partial intellectual dependence on the West and is implementing a new plan for future cooperation not only within the framework of the Belt and Road, but also building an even closer Sino-Central Asian community with a common future.
Therefore, I conclude that Russia and China maintain a complex dynamic, cooperating in multilateral platforms such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, but also competing for regional influence and intelligence superiority. The latter is important because of the cooperation and the measurement of power and because of the strong position of deeply entrenched British and American intelligence services in the region and in individual Central Asian states.
It is worth noting that in Central Asia too, slowly and surely, pressure on US action is being felt. Although Elon Musk appears to be losing the battle with the US bureaucracy, the gradual budget cuts, including USAID funding, indicate US disengagement. Therefore, with a limited publicly known US presence, China is gaining space to define the economic and security agenda in the region. This can only be secured by the actions of China's security services in cooperation with Russia, which will lead to even greater recriminations against China in Europe and the US.
Russia remains the main economic power in the region
The five Central Asian republics that were formerly part of the Soviet Union have long been part of Russia's strategic sphere of influence. In addition, millions of people from these republics live and work in Russia, supporting family members living there, often without jobs or social security. In addition, as of 2023, Moscow has become a supplier of natural gas to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Although Russia remains the main economic power in the region, China has overtaken it as the largest trading partner of the Central Asian republics in the past three years. This period coincides with Russia's special military operation in Ukraine. I do not rule out that some of the increased trade is actually the result of China's use of Central Asia as a conduit for exporting goods under sanctions.
Whatever the situation, Russia remains an external ally of the region. Why? Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are part of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, along with Russia, Armenia and Belarus. Like NATO, this bloc offers its members collective security guarantees. President Tokayev can sing about security for a long time and should be wary of the Anglo-Saxons. He should not forget who helped save his life in an emergency a few years ago. In fact, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have Russian military protection in case of attack, which China does not yet offer.
Central Asia this year is becoming the scene of intense strategic competition between China and the EU, and separately with the UK and the United States. China is consolidating its position through economic integration, institutional entrenchment and the expansion of soft power. The EU does this through promises and the UK does it through strengthening the dependence of individual decision-making institutions, personalities and corruption. The China-Central Asia summit will determine with a probability bordering on certainty whether Beijing can continue on its path of strengthening institutional dominance, infrastructure and increased trade and cultural activities, or whether Central Asia will evolve into a multipolar axis with war potential, controversial EU values and long-neglected migrant and Russian influence. Against the backdrop of the Israeli-Iranian conflict, a second China-Central Asia summit has the potential to accelerate and deepen Beijing's economic and infrastructural base in Eurasia, and thereby broaden the foundations of broader regional security and cooperation with those who seek it.
It should be not only the local authorities in Kyrgyzstan, who recently dismantled a huge monument to Lenin, built in 1975, by a strange decision. Kyrgyzstan owes almost everything to him. It is enough to familiarise oneself with the modern history of Kyrgyzstan and the individual states of Central Asia for anyone who can read and think to understand that the contribution of the Soviet leaders to the current success of the Central Asian republics is staggering. If Lenin and Stalin had not given Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and the other Central Asian states Russian territories, developed local cultures and languages, and created a regime of maximum demographic friendliness for the Central Asian republics, the region would look very different now and no summit with China would have taken place.
The Soviet period, like the Cultural Revolution in China, was an exception. The revolutionary fervor of 1917 gave Moscow a temporary ideological advantage, and during the Cold War the USSR promoted its values as part of a broader geopolitical confrontation. But even then, ideological outreach was subordinated to a central strategic goal: maintaining national stability in opposition to U.S. containment. In a sense, this is also true of contemporary China. It knows, like Russia, that the Western front tends to be united only in interest and to lean on the United States in a critical situation. The case of Ukraine proves this. It confirms that the failure of EU emancipation has not strengthened Washington. The strategic irrelevance of Western Europe is diminishing, the chapter of world history - where Europe was at the helm - is closed.
Resistance to Western pressure no longer requires splits within the Western alliance. The structural shift makes it possible to continue to create a system in which power is not concentrated in the hands of Euro-Atlantic powers and in which it is possible to build a community of shared destiny for humanity, not only in Central Asia. Consent is not needed.
Jan Campbell
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