Even as Kazakhstan’s budget deficit of $976 billion continues to grow, the country’s leadership stages discussion with Beijing to host major infrastructure and transport projects as part of China’s BRI
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New Delhi: Invigorating its efforts to make Kazakhstan a part of its massive Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China has started high-level discussions on various transport projects with the Nur-sultan leadership.
The reports of the Chinese projects come as COVID-19 continues to mount a serious toll on Central Asia’s largest economy. The country has recorded more than 73,000 infected cases in a population of around 19 million people, with around 600 deaths since March. While the sharp drop in oil prices staggered the country’s oil industry, harsh restrictions halted most economic activities in Kazakhstan, causing many people to lose their jobs. Since 2020, Kazakhstan’s gross domestic product has shriveled by 1.8 percent. According to the Kazakh Finance Ministry, the country’s budget deficit grew to $976 billion as of the first quarter of 2020.
While even with an inclining deficit, last week, the chairman of the Kazakh Railways National Company’s board, Sauat Mynbayev; and the chairman of China Railway’s Board of Directors, Lu Dongfu, held a working meeting via video-conferencing. The meeting noted that there was a positive dynamic in freight traffic between the two countries.
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“In the past eight months, the volume of freight traffic via border checkpoints between China and Kazakhstan stood at 14.2 million tonnes, which is 30 percent more than the same period last year,” Lu Dongfu said.
By the end of 2020, both sides expect the volume of freight traffic via border checkpoints between China and Kazakhstan to reach 21 million tonnes.
During the meeting, the sides noted that special attention was being paid to ensuring an increase in freight traffic via the border crossing points Dostyk-Alashankou and Altynkol-Khorgos. Thus, taking into account the importance of developing the country’s transit capabilities, the Kazakh Railways National Company is implementing a project to develop and modernize the infrastructure of the Dostyk station.
The talks also discussed existing time restrictions on the movement of vehicles at border checkpoints between Kazakhstan and China. Taking into account the current circumstances, a proposal was made that piggyback transportation be actively used.
On the sidelines, the two nations also sides discussed strategic cooperation in areas where Kazakhstan’s Nurly zhol Bright path program and China’s BRI could complement each other. They expressed confidence that resolving all issues together and further implementing agreements reached would make it possible to develop ongoing projects more efficiently and dynamically and also create new products and services in the sphere of transport and logistics.
Expert state China would turn Kazakhstan into a desert
Meanwhile, as Kazakhstan continues to canvass a roadmap inviting China to develop projects, several experts and analysts have issued warnings that Beijing would turn the flora-rich lands of Nur-sultan into a desert.
According to Mukhtar Asanov, an expert at the Centre of International Relations Research, Lake Balkhash will repeat the fate of the Aral Sea and the Ili and Irtysh rivers will no longer be sources of freshwater.
“Kazakhstan will face all these if China continues to forcibly take water resources from Central Asia. Considering this situation, let us start with the fact that Beijing has signed no international legal documents on trans-border water facilities that provide for the development and protection of an international watercourse in a fair and reasonable manner,” Asanov said while adding that therefore, the Chinese authorities do not hesitate and take the lion’s share of water from the Ili and Irtysh rivers. Almost 80 percent of the rivers’ water is formed in China.
Responding to the question as to why does China need Central Asia’s water resources? The expert cited that “Everything is simple. They are taken to Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region that is developing actively, and it is impossible to develop this semi-desert land without water.”
He added that Beijing is also taking a large volume of water from Balkhash. The fact that the area of the lake has decreased by almost 2,000 square meters over the past 50 years shows this. In this regard, Balkhash can repeat the fate of the Aral Sea, which, naturally, will lead to serious and indefinite consequences for a third of our country’s territory.
“We would also like to note the situation with the Kapshagay reservoir, which is one of the largest reservoirs in Kazakhstan. Specifically, because of the Chinese side, the volume of water in the Kapshagay reservoir has decreased by 2 billion cubic meters compared with 2019,” Asanov pointed.
He concluded by highlighting that taking all these aspects into account if China continues to seize Kazakhstan’s water resources, it will lead to desertification of the territories and deprives the agriculture sector of the moisture it needs. Such a policy means death for nature and fauna and also puts the country on the brink of disaster.
