Bridging East and West: Kazakhstan’s Changing Foreign Policy in the 2020s
In the wake of significant geopolitical and social change, Kazakhstan has been noticeably reassessing its official and economic relations with foreign powers. Formerly a part of the USSR, Kazakhstan has positioned itself since the collapse of the bloc in 1991 as a country with a triangulated approach to foreign relations. This means that it attempts to maintain cordial relationships with both of its powerful neighbors, Russia and China, whilst also improving relations with countries in the West. Now, this multi-vector foreign policy appears to be shifting as Kazakhstan re-evaluates its priorities in a world that has seen both a global pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia Kazakhstan is allied with Russia in the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), but this relationship was put under strain even prior to Russia’s war in Ukraine. In a memorable speech from September 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his view that “Kazakhs never had any statehood,” and that their desire to align themselves more closely with Russia was “profound.” These statements caused Nursultan Nazarbayev, then President of Kazakhstan, to threaten to remove his country from the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), a bloc largely dominated by Russia. This threat was not acted upon, however, and Kazakhstan remains a member to this day. Nonetheless, it was an indication of cooling relations long before the current global state of affairs, and a precursor to a shift in how Astana sees Kazakhstan being positioned on the world stage in future. Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24th February 2022, Kazakhstan’s foreign relations have taken an ever more decisive turn. While Astana does not officially support international sanctions against Russia, citing the knock-on effects these sanctions create for Kazakhstani businesses - Russia remains a strong trade partner and a key part of Kazakhstan’s supply chain for land-based trade due to their long, shared border - it has nevertheless complied with them. This purely economic reasoning for not officially supporting international sanctions places Kazakhstan at odds with Belarus, which is an example of a former Soviet state that remains allied to Russia and whose leader, Aleksandr Lukashenko, derided by many as a dictator, has been vocal in his support of Russia’s political actions, allowing Belarusian territory to be used to further Russia’s strategic goals in the war against Ukraine. In sharp contrast, Astana has made it clear that it will not allow Russia to use Kazakh territory in an attempt to circumvent international sanctions. In an effort to avoid incurring secondary international sanctions due to its ties with Russia, Kazakhstan has invested in an electronic monitoring system, launched in spring 2023, for goods purchased from Western countries passing through its territory for re-export to the EAEU. This system tracks goods until they reach their final destination, thus aiming to prevent foreign players who wish to help Russia evade international sanctions through this method, known as “parallel imports”. In October 2023, Kazakhstan also halted the export of over 100 products to Russia (including drones, military equipment,...
