Page 12 - AsiaElec Week 49 2022

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China wind water dispute

with Kazakhstan

CHINA KAZAKHSTAN has given up trying to stop is its largest trading partner. Astana has even
China from using so much water upstream on written the BRI into its own Nurly Zhol national
transboundary rivers. development plan. And there are other benefits
That is among the conclusions of a recent to keeping tight with Beijing: As Russian public
paper placing Sino-Kazakh water disputes figures were threatening Kazakhstan this year, Xi
within the wider context of the Belt and Road flew in and offered his support for the country’s
Initiative (BRI), China’s global infrastruc- territorial integrity.
ture spending spree. Clearly, given the power Water negotiations are not entirely zero-sum.
asymmetry, China has an upper hand in the The two sides share some interests in ensuring
relationship. water in the rivers is used economically. Before
Two major rivers flow from Chinese Xinjiang the pandemic, Chinese food imports from
into Kazakhstan: The Ili, in the south, feeds the Kazakhstan were rising. On November 29, the
country’s largest lake, Balkhash; the Irtysh runs prime ministers discussed increasing Kazakh
through Kazakhstan’s northern industrial heart- agricultural exports to China.
land before continuing into Siberia. China uses Transport infrastructure that China is build-
up to half the water in each, a source of peren- ing as part of the BRI could help Kazakh farmers
nial frustration among Kazakhs who fear that ship higher-value perishables to market faster,
Balkhash could go the way of the disappeared offering an incentive to abandon low-value
Aral Sea. water-intensive crops such as animal fodder and
Kazakhstan has failed for decades to force begin growing higher-value fruits and vegeta-
binding limits on upstream withdrawals, while bles. Chinese investments in Kazakhstan “could
China has refused to sign the United Nations increase efficiency and improve water security
Watercourse Convention. for Kazakhstan, placing less pressure on its
But lately Astana says little about the prob- transboundary water resources,” the researchers
lem in public, careful not to anger Beijing. When write.
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in Octo- They also find that some local grumbling
ber described his concern over the shrinking about China’s water use ignores domestic waste.
Balkhash, for example, he studiously avoided Kazakhstan taps both rivers to channel water
mentioning China. through leaky, ageing canal networks. A lack of
This, say the paper’s authors – of the Univer- regulation has led polluters to harm fisheries and
sity of Oxford and Al-Farabi Kazakh National farms. When Tokayev mentioned the shrinking
University in Almaty – is evidence of what some Balkhash, he pointed specifically to outdated
political theorists call a “sanctioned discourse”: infrastructure – something the Kazakhs can
The way Tokayev is holding his tongue may seem address, unlike China’s water withdrawals, when
irrational to Kazakh interests, but he is subordi- seeking Chinese aid.
nating an emotive issue to areas he feels are of Ultimately, however, we don’t know much
greater importance to bilateral cooperation. about the water negotiations. Little leaks out,
Over the last decade or more, and especially including hydrological data from either side.
since Chinese leader Xi Jinping unveiled the BRI “The continued opacity and securitized
in 2013, Kazakh officials have only spoken pos- nature of the actual negotiations and infrastruc-
itively in public about water negotiations with tural development upstream in Xinjiang contin-
China, acceding to China’s “hydro-hegemony,” ues to place limits on the conclusions that can
the authors argue in their review of research and be drawn from studies on this topic,” the Oxford
media in Kazakh, Chinese, Russian and English: and Al-Farabi team writes.
“Kazakhstan approaches these transboundary For Beijing, that’s a feature, not a bug, of its
negotiations from a position of pragmatism, water ties with neighbours. Perhaps, with time,
with an acceptance that they are unlikely to lead Kazakhstan’s public silence about its environ-
to a change in water allocation but will also not mental needs will become standard practice on
jeopardize wider economic and political rela- the BRI. ™
tions with China.”
Kazakhstan likes to call itself the “buckle” This article was originally published on
on the Belt and Road, and hosts dozens of Chi- Eurasianet.
nese projects worth billions of dollars. China

P12 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 49 06•December•2022