Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has made his position clear: his country must remain sovereign, and activities to exert foreign influence should be closely monitored. The message from Astana is that cultural impositions from abroad are not welcome. Tokayev’s longstanding view that Kazakhstan’s democracy should evolve on its own terms has gained new traction with the return of U.S. President Donald Trump to the White House. Washington’s avoidance of values-based diplomacy in favor of a hard-nosed, transactional model reinforces Astana’s instincts and creates an opening for a new kind of engagement between the two.
“The so-called democratic moral values,” Tokayev said, “have been imposed on many countries for decades.” Moreover, “under this guise, open interference in the internal affairs of states through international non-governmental organizations and foundations has become widespread. Its ultimate goal,” he concluded, “is only theft, that is, pocketing billions of dollars in budgets.”
For decades, the U.S. policy in Central Asia was fixated on democratic governance, press freedoms, and minority rights, seeking to advance these objectives through NGO funding and media support. In principle, these directions align with Kazakhstan’s own institutional reforms. In practice, however, they became points of friction. Astana has pursued decentralization and anti-corruption measures on its own terms, so any tension with Washington did not concern governance itself. It was, rather, about Washington’s insistence on deeper cultural and political shifts.
The unease was not hypothetical. It was spelled out in statements by U.S. officials visiting Kazakhstan. They “were glad to discuss key human rights issues including the freedoms of expression and peaceful assembly, and respect for the rights of disabled persons, members of the LGBTQI+ community, and political prisoners.”
Moreover, these issues were framed as non-negotiable pillars of engagement, without reference to the cultural context of Kazakhstan’s legal and political traditions. In some cases, the “political prisoners” were propped up by NGOs funded by the U.S. Government. From Washington’s perspective, these were essential democratic norms; from Astana’s, they were foreign expectations imposed from outside.
In truth, Kazakhstan had seen this dynamic before. Its wariness of Western-backed NGOs was informed by patterns of events. In Astana’s view, some so-called civil society initiatives weren’t merely fostering grassroots activism. They were vehicles for political engineering.
For instance, Mukhtar Ablyazov, who remains accused of embezzling $10 billion from Kazakhstan’s BTA Bank, fled to Britain in the mid-2000s before escaping criminal charges to France, where he was granted asylum until being ordered to leave in 2023. Despite his history of corruption, he rebranded himself as a political opposition figure and human rights leader, cultivating a network of international NGOs and earning significant support within the European Union. As recently as February 2025, he and his NGO allies received backing from members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
A similar strategy has been employed by public figures like Bergey Ryskaliyev, Akezhan Kazhegeldin, and Karim Massimov. These individuals, despite facing criminal allegations, have amassed significant wealth that appears to have been used to fund lobbyists, NGOs, media and other public-relations campaigns, or a combination of these tactics.
These cases illustrate how well-connected exiles can exploit Western institutions, using advocacy groups to further their personal agendas. They reinforce Kazakhstan’s belief that some foreign-funded activities serve as political tools rather than address genuine civil society concerns. Under the cover of NGOs, kleptocrats have been rebranded as human-rights victims, leveraging democratic rhetoric and destabilizing Kazakhstan’s political order.
Rightly or wrongly, Astana perceived American (and European) support for selected opposition figures inside and outside Kazakhstan as an attempt to maintain leverage over the country’s policy choices. Tokayev’s government has increasingly resisted such a strategy, seeking to distinguish between legitimate civic activism and foreign-backed political interventions. For Astana, the question was not whether NGOs were inherently bad. It was whether some of them had evolved into informal tools of foreign influence, used to shape Kazakhstan’s internal discourse and policy.
Under the new Trump Administration, Washington is now explicitly calling out U.S.-funded NGO operations abroad as a form of political manipulation. This stance tracks closely with Kazakhstan’s own long-standing concerns, and it opens new possibilities for Kazakhstan to engage Washington on its own terms. These terms would prioritize economic cooperation and security partnerships over ideological alignment. They would allow Tokayev’s administration to advance its reform agenda without external oversight that, from Astana’s perspective, had increasingly veered into paternalism.
Of course, sovereignty comes with trade-offs. Less external scrutiny means fewer constraints on how reforms are implemented. That is good for efficiency in governance, but it also invites questions about civil society’s ability to operate freely. Striking the right balance — asserting national autonomy while avoiding accusations of democratic backsliding — will be one of Tokayev’s key challenges.
Kazakhstan’s grievances are not entirely unique in Central Asia. Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan have faced similar dilemmas over the tension between Western engagement and national sovereignty. If Astana succeeds in establishing this new approach, it could set a precedent for other Central Asian states looking to redefine their relationships with Western institutions.
More broadly, the shift is not just about Kazakhstan. It signals an inflection in the global trajectory of governance and diplomacy. The current international system is moving away from universalist prescriptions toward a more fragmented, sovereignty-first order. Kazakhstan’s redefinition of its relations with Washington are a microcosm of this broader transformation.
As Tokayev put it, “The work of the American administration led by President Trump, aimed at identifying cases of mass abuse of power, exposing the political hypocrisy inherent in the concept of the ‘deep state’, and restoring traditional moral values, deserves support.” The days of liberal interventionism shaping global engagement are fading.
What comes next is a new phase of the current international system: states will continue to acquire still greater autonomy to chart their own paths, and without necessary reference to ideological alignment. In this emerging reality, Kazakhstan’s experience merits watching.
