Re international relationships
Below is translated post by Marat from the Russian-language blog.
There are several global players in international politics: Anglo-Saxon bloc (USA, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and - sometimes, under certain circumstances - India), European Union, China, Russia, Japan and Islamic world.
What Kazakhstan has are natural resources, geopolitical positioning, population. These are our bargaining chips.
What global players want from us?
1. China wants our natural resources. It has already got enough territory and population.
2. Japan and EU need our natural resources, but not much - they can survive without our minerals. They don’t have too much of geopolitical benefits from Kazakhstan. And they have got population too.
3. The Ismamic world is interested only in our geopolitical situation - it has sufficient amount of resources and people.
4. The Anglo-Saxon bloc sees us as a buffer zone near China, so that Xingjian could be watched. They need us as a small, but - under certain circumstances - necessary partner in the region. Besides, China potentially having access to Kazakhstani uranium can make a difference.
5. Russia wants it all - our population, our geopolitical positioning and our natural resources. Besides, we both have common historic and cultural legacy.
Thus, only Russia and Anglo-Saxon bloc are interested in Kazakhstan as a statehood. They guarantee our security. So, we don’t have more alternatives.
on August 22nd, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Wow.. perhaps it’s the translation, but…
The US and the UK are really that interested in what goes on in Xingjian?
Really?
The conclusion also doesn’t seem to follow from the premises at all. China only wants resources and Russia wants your entire territory back, and the Anglo-Saxons want to use your territory to watch China…
…so your security is protected by Russian and the Anglo-Saxons?
Isn’t the proper conclusion the exact opposite?
China wants a politically stable location from which to produce energy resources for its own domestic use. As you point out, it has no designs on Kazakhstan’s prodigious territory or its nearly negligible (in comparison) population, because it already has enough of both.
In short, China has more of an interest in Kazakhstan maintaining itself as a stable independent state than either Russia or the US/UK. Undermining the state simply isn’t cost-effective.
Of course, it’s hardly cost-effective for the US/UK to be undermining the regime, but then again in this case China is less encumbered by ideology, while in the US it’s always possible that journalists and people will start to look askance at some of the foreign leaders the administration deals with (i.e., Karimov).