China Is Winning Over Central Asia — But Its Growing Influence Could Fuel a Backlash

Beijing has made vast inroads while Russia and the US are distracted, but must play the long game.

- Lim Min Zhang

BEIJING — While some Western countries have viewed Chinese electric vehicles (EVs) as threats to their domestic industries and put up tariffs on these Chinese exports, Central Asia has welcomed them.

Brands from Zeekr and Chery ply the streets of Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, where all taxis must be electric by September 2025. Kazakhstan saw a 36-fold rise in the sale of Chinese EVs in 2024, from 2023. BYD's first plant in Central Asia, in Uzbekistan, began production in January 2024.

Beyond EVs, China is widely seen to have overtaken Russia as the predominant power in Central Asia. It is the region's largest trading partner, with trade reaching a record high of US$94.8 billion (S$121.8 billion) in 2024.

A key driver has been Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a massive infrastructure and connectivity project which President Xi Jinping announced in a speech at Nazarbayev University in Astana, Kazakhstan, in September 2013.

Earlier this week, Mr Xi was back in Astana to cement the partnership. In another upgrade of ties, Mr Xi and the five Central Asian leaders signed a treaty of "permanent good neighbourliness" and friendly cooperation.

"This is a new milestone in the history of relations between the six countries and a pioneering undertaking of China's neighbourhood diplomacy," Mr Xi declared at the second China-Central Asia Summit, a top-level meeting held once in two years.

Yet, even as ties grow closer, China is not the only game in town.

Central Asian states believe that their interests are better served by working with multiple powers to maximise autonomy and extract economic gains.

This instinct to hedge limits the extent of China's inroads, no matter how often Beijing cites good neighbourliness and non-interference as pillars of its diplomacy.