ASTANA — As competition between the world’s major powers increasingly reshapes trade routes, energy flows and diplomatic alignments, Kazakhstan’s strategic value may lie not in choosing sides, but in remaining able to connect several sides at once, experts said at a policy discussion in Astana.
The discussion on Aug. 21, organized by the CFive Intellectual Platform and the Hudson Institute, brought together perspectives from the US, Kazakhstan and Switzerland on the changing dynamics across Eurasia. Photo credit: cfive.org
The discussion on Aug. 21, organized by the CFive Intellectual Platform and the Hudson Institute, brought together perspectives from the United States, Kazakhstan and Switzerland on the changing dynamics across Eurasia. What made the exchange particularly revealing was that the speakers offered no single interpretation of Kazakhstan’s role. One saw the country as a pivotal swing state in the emerging U.S.-China competition; another warned against viewing Central Asia through the interests of major powers alone; and a third stressed that Kazakhstan’s most valuable asset could ultimately be trust.
Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute Ken Moriyasu, described Kazakhstan as “the most important swing state in the world.” Photo credit: cfive.org
For senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and an expert on Greater Asia, Central Asia and the Caucasus Ken Moriyasu, Kazakhstan is not simply another strategically located middle power. He described it as the “most important swing state in the world,” noting that Central Asia, the Caucasus and Türkiye could become an increasingly important arena in the competition between the U.S. and China. Moriyasu’s argument rests on the view that China is seeking to reduce its vulnerability to maritime chokepoints by expanding alternative routes across the Eurasian landmass, including pipelines and railways connecting China with Central Asia, the Caspian region, Russia and Europe.
“What will happen, I think, is a two-step. First, China will try to establish alternative routes through the Eurasian landmass, so pipelines and railroads. These are insular from the U.S. Navy,” he said.
In his assessment, the more China can secure access to energy and trade through routes that are less vulnerable to maritime disruption or sanctions, the greater its strategic confidence will become. That makes Kazakhstan important not simply because of its size or energy resources, but because of its position at the intersection of several of these routes. Moriyasu went further, saying Washington does not need to replace Russia or China in Central Asia to affect Beijing’s calculations.
“The beauty for the U.S. is that all it has to do is create doubt in China’s mentality. China needs to be absolutely confident, 100% confident, that it can continue its trade with Europe and continue to import energy without being interrupted by the U.S. Navy after a Taiwan invasion. All America has to do is reduce the 100% confidence to 99% confidence, because if it’s 99%, Xi Jinping will not do it,” he said.
It was an intentionally provocative framing of Kazakhstan’s importance: not as a country that would choose between Washington and Beijing, but as one whose infrastructure, geography and foreign-policy choices could indirectly affect the calculations of much larger powers.
But that approach immediately raised another question: is Kazakhstan really a “swing state” in somebody else’s contest, or does that description itself miss what Central Asian states are trying to achieve? Bulat Sarsenbayev, a career diplomat and former Kazakh ambassador to India and Jordan, pushed back against viewing the region primarily through the prism of great-power competition.
“You were talking on behalf of a big power, America, and different interests. And you did not mention about the interests of our countries, Central Asian countries,” Sarsenbayev said.
For Kazakhstan, the logic of connectivity is first of all practical. As a landlocked country bordering two major powers, it cannot afford to isolate itself from either Russia or China while also seeking access to other markets and partners.
“Though we are a landlocked country, but we have two oceans: one is Russia, one is China,” Sarsenbayev said, recalling a phrase he had used in his diplomatic career.
He said Kazakhstan’s geography should not be interpreted solely as a source of strategic leverage for others. It also imposes its own constraints and creates its own incentives: maintaining relations with major neighbors, expanding transport links, keeping trade routes open and preserving diplomatic flexibility.
Sarsenbayev also challenged the suggestion that Central Asian connectivity with India should be dismissed because of geography. The Himalayas may make modern infrastructure difficult, he said, but they did not prevent centuries of trade between Central Asia, China and India along the historical Silk Road and caravan routes. He pointed to existing transport links through the Caspian and Iran as another reminder that connectivity is often less a question of whether a route is geographically possible than whether political conditions allow it to function effectively.
“The problem is the political problem,” he said, referring to sanctions on Iran, while stressing that the infrastructure itself exists.
That distinction between connectivity as a geopolitical weapon and connectivity as an economic necessity ran through much of the discussion.
A third perspective came from Muise Wahabdeen, a Swiss human rights advocate, journalist and editor-in-chief of The Geneva Times, who shifted the conversation away from the map itself.
Muise Wahabdeen, editor-in-chief of The Geneva Times, said Kazakhstan’s perhaps the most important strength is trust.
“Kazakhstan has many strengths. Its geography, its natural resources, its location, its economic potential. But I believe there is another strength, perhaps an even more important one. That is trust,” Wahabdeen said.
His question was not where Kazakhstan stands, but what it can connect.
“Not simply to stand between interests, but connect these interests: to connect economies, markets, institutions, to connect people, and perhaps most importantly, to connect dialogue,” he said.
That idea offers perhaps a third way of understanding Kazakhstan’s role. Rather than becoming a country that belongs to one geopolitical camp, Kazakhstan could seek influence by remaining useful to several of them at the same time.
Wahabdeen compared it to Geneva, where countries with competing interests continue to use diplomacy and dialogue to manage disagreements. Kazakhstan, he suggested, could develop a similar role in Eurasia, building on President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s own experience in Geneva and on the country’s broader efforts to position itself as a venue for international dialogue. But he also placed a condition on that ambition.
“Strategic autonomy must create strategic credibility, and credibility is not built by words alone. It’s built through institutions, through predictability, through education, through human capital, through openness and through international cooperation,” he said.
That may be the harder part of Kazakhstan’s proposition. Geography cannot be changed, and its value as a bridge between major markets is obvious. But being strategically useful to several competing powers requires more than simply occupying the space between them. It requires the ability to remain predictable enough that different partners continue to trust the country’s commitments.
The discussion therefore pointed beyond the familiar description of Kazakhstan as a transit corridor linking China with Europe. Transport and energy infrastructure remain fundamental to the country’s strategic importance, but the more ambitious vision is to turn connectivity itself into a broader form of influence. Kazakhstan, Wahabdeen said, should think beyond being a transit hub and become “a “knowledge, diplomatic, investment hub, a place for international dialogue, a place where different sides can meet.”
The competing arguments presented in Astana ultimately suggest that Kazakhstan’s strategic relevance may be growing precisely because the world around it is becoming harder to navigate. For Washington, it can be a pivotal state in a wider Eurasian contest. For Kazakhstan itself, it is a country pursuing its own economic and political interests while maintaining relations with multiple powers. And for observers looking from Geneva, its potential strength lies in becoming a place where those interests can still meet.
Those roles are not necessarily contradictory, but they point to a delicate balance. Kazakhstan cannot compete with China, Russia, the U.S. or the European Union in scale. Its potential influence comes from something else: remaining connected to all of them without becoming dependent on any single one. In a world where major powers increasingly ask smaller and middle-sized states where they stand, Kazakhstan’s more consequential question may be the one raised during the discussion: what can it connect?
