March 10, London - China has rapidly expanded its footprint in Central Asia over the last 15 years, most recently emerging as the region's largest trading partner. Through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Beijing has poured billions of dollars into the Central Asian countries, financing infrastructure, renewable energy, agriculture, and digital technologies while presenting itself as a reliable development partner.

China’s interest in the region has also intensified as the Middle Corridor — a trade and transport network linking China to Europe via Central Asia, the South Caucasus, and Türkiye — has emerged as an increasingly attractive alternative to traditional trade routes. Central Asian governments, eager for investment and diversification, have embraced China as a strategic ally in trade and growth.

However, Beijing’s expanding presence in Central Asia has also been met with local resistance. In several countries, concerns over debt, land use, labour practices, and sovereignty have sparked public protests.

These themes were at the heart of a webinar hosted by the London office of the Caspian Policy Centre, “Central Asia and China: Partnership or Dependence?” The discussion brought together regional experts to explore how China’s rise in the region is reshaping Central Asia across geopolitics and security, infrastructure and connectivity, supply chains and natural resources, and bilateral relations.

Rebecca Nadin, Director of Global Risks and Resilience at ODI Global, examined how China views Central Asia as part of its broader Eurasian strategy. “For Beijing, Central Asia is not a marginal subregion, but really a key westward segment of a whole area that underpins China’s development and security strategy. When China talks about Central Asia, it’s actually talking about it in a much broader sense than the C5 sub-region. It is part of a wider continuum linking East Asia, Central and South Asia, the Middle East, and Europe,” she said.

Within this framework, Nadin explained, China views individual countries in the region through a different strategic lens. For example, Beijing views Kazakhstan as a primary energy and transit partner, Uzbekistan as a key partner for China to diversify its economic and security cooperation, Turkmenistan as a key gas supplier, and Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan important for connectivity.

Stability in China’s Xinjiang province also plays a central role in Beijing’s regional thinking. Chinese-funded economic integration, infrastructure investment, and security cooperation, Nadin noted, are designed to reinforce regional stability and protect China’s western frontier.

Reid Standish, China Global Affairs Correspondent at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, focused his remarks on China’s growing role in infrastructure, connectivity, and trade in the region through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

“China has really been spending and looking to build up trust, to buy goodwill as it tries to wire the region into its broader Eurasian vision,” Standish said. “Last year was the first time trade between China and the five Central Asian states topped $100 billion.”

He also noted that, beyond traditional infrastructure, China has also become the region’s dominant supplier of digital technologies and digital infrastructure, from surveillance cameras and telecommunications networks to the hardware and software for AI-powered systems.

Standish also addressed China’s growing interest in the Middle Corridor. “Beijing has been quietly shifting its posture towards the Middle Corridor. It went from being largely indifferent to signing a lot of connectivity agreements with Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. But, with China still moving a lot of its trade by sea, the overland trade through Central Asia is also the strategic hedge for the Chinese. It’s a way to get goods and energy to market when the sea lanes, as we’re seeing now, quickly become very unpredictable.”

While Western policymakers have promoted the corridor as a way to diversify away from Russian transit routes, Standish emphasized that Chinese investment remains central to its viability.

“There is still a capital shortfall for infrastructure and development in Central Asia,” he said. “China is still the most consistent and flexible source of investment and capital, and it’s hard to see that changing in the short or even medium-term future.”

“Without Chinese goods flowing through the corridor, the economics are pretty hard to justify. And without Chinese capital, critical infrastructure in the region, at least for now, simply does not get built,” Standish argued.

Moderating the discussion, James Sharp, CPC Advisory Board Member and former UK Ambassador to Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, also underscored how growing Western investment in the Middle Corridor could benefit China’s own strategic ambitions. “Western countries tend to see it as a way for the region to export more easily to the West, but it may also mean that they can export more easily to China,” Sharp said.

Frank Maracchione, ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow at SOAS University of London, discussed the evolution of China’s economic role in Central Asia and the emergence of new patterns of dependency created by Chinese engagement. “In the last 15 years or so, we have started to see clear patterns of dependency in China’s relations with the Central Asian states,” he said, pointing to countries such as Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan where a majority of trade flows involve China, as well as Turkmenistan, which sells about 70 percent of its gas to China.

However, Maracchione highlighted important differences across the region. In Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, China’s role has been shaped by broader economic reforms and diversification efforts.

“Uzbekistan’s liberalization since 2016 has really changed China’s presence in the region,” he said. “Since then, Chinese firms have started to seriously enter the country and take a leadership role in some production supply chains.”

More than 4,000 companies with Chinese funding operate in Uzbekistan, particularly in emerging sectors such as electric vehicles and green technology. “The majority of China’s energy investments now go toward green infrastructure,” Maracchione said, describing it as a “tidal change” in China’s investment strategy.

Maracchione also noted that growing global competition for critical minerals and rare earth elements is reshaping geopolitical dynamics in the region. “Central Asia has important potential both in terms of rare earths and critical minerals,” he said, warning that intensified competition between China and the United States could increase environmental and social risks if extractive industries expand without adequate regulation.

Joanna Lillis, a Kazakhstan-based journalist and author of Dark Shadows: Inside the Secret World of Kazakhstan and Silk Mirage: Through the Looking Glass in Uzbekistan, examined how China’s expanding presence is perceived within Central Asian societies.

Central Asian governments, she said, often see China as a valuable strategic partner and even a counterweight to Russia. However, public opinion towards China is more mixed. “The fact on the ground is that while the relationship with China is crucial for Central Asian governments, the people don’t always welcome it so much,” she noted.

Lillis identified three main drivers of tension shaping public attitudes toward China: labour disputes, land issues, and concerns about the treatment of Turkic Muslim minorities in China’s Xinjiang region.

Labour tensions have emerged around Chinese infrastructure projects where local workers believe Chinese companies bring in too many foreign workers. Land ownership is another particularly sensitive issue. “Land in the Central Asian countries is generally government-owned and only leased, but it’s a very emotive issue,” she said, recalling protests in Kazakhstan in 2016 over fears that agricultural land might be leased to Chinese investors.

Xinjiang has also become a powerful driver of public concern in some parts of the region. “Xinjiang has been a very emotive issue in Central Asia for more than a decade,” Lillis said, particularly in Kazakhstan where ethnic Kazakhs have family ties across the border.

In the Q&A discussion session, panellists also explored broader geopolitical dynamics shaping China’s engagement in the region. Standish noted that while U.S. President Donald Trump’s approach toward Central Asia appears highly transactional, particularly in terms of securing access to the region’s critical minerals, U.S.

engagement remains closely tied to strategic competition with China. “It is very much about minerals,” he said, “but it’s about minerals because it’s about China.”

Nadin also highlighted the role of regional institutions such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in China’s broader diplomatic strategy. While the SCO has become an important platform for regional cooperation, she noted that Beijing continues to pursue many of its relationships in Central Asia through bilateral engagement. Central Asia, she suggested, has often served as a testing ground for Chinese diplomatic initiatives and regional governance concepts.

Looking ahead, Lillis argued that leadership changes in Central Asia are unlikely to significantly alter the region’s geopolitical orientation in the near and medium-term future. Even as generational transitions occur, she said, Russia and China are likely to remain the region’s most important partners due to geography, economic ties, and existing political relationships.

Panellists also noted that while other actors, including Türkiye and Gulf states, are increasing their engagement with Central Asia, their influence remains limited compared to China’s economic scale and