In Kazakhstan, the violent protests and their brutal crackdown are undoing what many saw as exemplary, if not ideal. The Central Asian country may have been a dictatorship, but it skillfully maneuvered between Russian, Western and Chinese interests.
First repair work on the burned down townhouse in Almaty.
Distracted by the clouds of Russian war brewing over Ukraine, the West is still trying to make sense of the largest protests in the history of the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan, which has been independent for around thirty years. Kazakh President Kasym-Jomart Tokayev said constitutional order had been restored and the threat to his country had been averted. But his country’s credibility as a western partner remains questionable.
Will Kazakhstan’s long-cherished stability fall victim to a Russo-Chinese struggle for supremacy in Central Asia? Can a modernizing autocracy maintain good relations with the West while clubbing dissenters, jailing key officials on alleged treason charges, and bringing in Russian troops?
Vague caricature
It is not too late for President Tokayev to regain the West’s confidence and restore the country’s reputation as a stable country. To do that, he must guarantee the human rights of all those arrested during this month’s protests – more than 10,000 in all, according to Freedom House – and release those arbitrarily detained. He must also address the causes of the crisis that has escalated so suddenly and carry out crucial reforms that will put the country on the path to democracy and heal old societal wounds.
Against the background of stabilizing measures in Central Asia, Europe and Germany in particular should stand by his side, exerting political pressure if necessary, but also offering support to ensure that the country’s hard-earned progress over the past few years is not undone will.
Nazarbayev managed to bring Russia and the West closer together instead of playing the two sides off against each other. This balance could now be shaken.
The Kazakh authorities blame “armed, foreign-funded extremists” for the deadly clashes that have reportedly killed 225 people and injured at least 4,300. This vague caricature is intentionally misleading as the protests resulted from a soaring fuel price.
The shooting of demonstrators and some of the citizens not involved in the protests, as well as the situation of the numerous detainees, including Karim Masimov, must be investigated. The head of the national security committee and former two-time prime minister was arrested the week before last on suspicion of treason. It is unclear why he was detained, although there is speculation that it could be because of his loyalty to former President Nursultan Nazarbayev, the founder of the modern Kazakh state, or because he refused to order his security forces to target protesters to shoot.
Mazimov played a central role in managing the peaceful transition of power from Nazarbayev to Tokayev in 2019. His arrest was to be of particular interest to both Europe and China, as he was the architect of Nazarbayev’s multi-vector foreign policy, which enabled the regime to strike a balance between friendly relations with the West and powerful neighbors Russia and China.
It was a difficult balancing act, but one that proved successful as it attracted foreign investment from Europe, strengthened economic cooperation with Beijing and positioned Kazakhstan as a world leader in nuclear non-proliferation and also humanitarian aid.
Enormous raw material reserves
With Masimov’s advice, Nazarbayev managed to loosen the Kremlin’s Soviet-era stranglehold while protecting the rights of Russia’s large ethnic minority. Unlike President Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus, Nazarbayev chose to bring the West and Russia closer together rather than playing the two sides off against each other.
This balance could now be shaken. Even if the Russian peacekeeping forces of the Moscow-led security alliance CSTO withdraw completely, political and security dependence on Moscow is likely to remain high. For China, this new power dynamic, combined with the arrest of key ally Masimov, could pose a security problem for its western border.
Europe should also be concerned about this development – not least because Kazakhstan is the largest uranium producer in the world and has enormous copper and zinc reserves at a time of drastically increasing global demand for raw materials. Despite its democratic deficits, Kazakhstan is a member of NATO’s Partnership for Peace program and a member state of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), of which it chaired in 2010. Since the US withdrawal from Afghanistan last summer, Kazakhstan has proven to be a reliable partner in ensuring stability and humanitarian aid in the region. It also houses the world’s largest spaceport, hub for the journey to and from the International Space Station (ISS) for astronauts from the USA, Russia and Germany.
Due to its geographic location, Kazakhstan is an important transit country for the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative and a key trading partner for Europe. If President Tokayev fails to restore stability and strays too far from international values, he risks alienating large European companies with significant sales volumes in the country.
Lots of potential losers
Berlin also has a historic responsibility to help Kazakhstan correct its course. As the home of almost 200,000 Kazakhstan Germans, descendants of the so-called Volga Germans who were forcibly relocated to Siberia and Kazakhstan by Stalin in 1941, Germany should be involved in the region.
It was a tough journey towards an independent state and Kazakhstan’s independent identity, paved by Nazarbayev and Masimov’s fortunes, even if the path to further democratization has yet to be explored. But serious regression is now looming: if President Tokayev slides into even more autocratic rule, if Vladimir Putin tries to bring Kazakhstan back under Russian influence, or if he clumsily tries to exploit the West’s enduring weakness to restore the old Soviet Union, then this will happen not only the people of Kazakhstan will be the losers. It will end up destabilizing all of Eurasia.
Oliver Rolofs is a security expert and was the head of communications at the Munich Security Conference for many years, where he set up the program for energy security.