Infrastructure projects are nothing new in Beijing’s playbook and have become a hallmark of its global influence in the 21st century. A traditional Chinese proverb says, “If you want to get rich, first build a road” (要想富，先修路).
In 2024, two major railway projects were announced in Central Asia, marking a shift in the region’s China-Russia power balance:
- a tripartite China-Russia-Kazakhstan (CRK) terminal outside of Moscow is planned to serve the increasingly important CRK international logistics corridor;
- the new China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan (CKU) railway will link China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region to Central Asia’s densely populated Fergana Valley.
Both developments reflect Russia’s trade reliance on China yet have led to different outcomes. The first outcome, in the case of the CRK corridor, is Sino-Russian cooperation to facilitate said trade. But the second outcome, the new China-led Russia-exclusionary CKU railway previously blocked by Moscow, shows Beijing’s instrumentalisation of Moscow’s trade reliance as leverage in their regional competition. This analysis examines Central Asia’s new railways and what they reveal about Sino-Russian dynamics in the region.
In Central Asia, Beijing and Moscow compete to control transnational flows, despite bilateral rhetoric emphasising cooperation. While the CRK corridor has mutually beneficial aspects for Beijing and Moscow, the CKU railway does not. Both powers continue to “maintain strategic autonomy backed by their own geopolitical calculus.” Sino-Russian claims of mutually beneficial cooperation may, therefore, be overstated.
The CRK international logistics corridor and the CKU railway are two distinct projects with different implications for regional geopolitics, yet both have been enabled by the same geopolitical event — Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. While the increasing agency of Central Asian countries themselves cannot be neglected, the changing influence of China and Russia in the region is, nevertheless, a geopolitical reality.
Both new railways present various risks for Russia. These range from Moscow’s general loss of regional influence and Beijing’s military and economic gains to the ability of Central Asian states to conduct a multi-vector foreign policy that decreases their reliance on Russia. Moscow understands these risks, yet there is little the Kremlin can do owing to its post-war reliance on China.
While China and Russia have successfully managed their competition and cooperation in Central Asia, there is no guarantee that it will continue. If their relationship were to break down, China’s economic and military gains in Central Asia derived from new rail infrastructure could seriously threaten Russia’s regional interests. Whether Beijing’s expanding rail connectivity and strengthened geopolitical standing in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan will reach a breaking point for Moscow remains to be seen.
Download and read: Central Asia’s New Railways: Russia’s Pain, China’s Gain (PDF)