William Fierman, a professor emeritus of Central Asian studies at Indiana University, said that Beijing also faces deep-seated public concern in Central Asia that China may use its huge population and migration to overwhelm the sparsely populated region. Soviet authorities fanned those suspicions for decades, and even a younger generation that did not grow up under Soviet rule now appears to share these concerns, he said.
In Astana, the elephant in the room is likely to be the war in Ukraine. Few experts expect much public discussion of the war at a forum dominated by Beijing, given its indirect support for the Russian war effort.
Mr. Xi will also use his visit to push his vision of building better transportation links across the region, said Wu Xinbo, the dean of the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai. After the summit, Mr. Xi is scheduled to make a state visit to Tajikistan, where the U.S. State Department recently estimated that over 99 percent of foreign investment comes from China.
Many of China’s investments in Central Asia are in infrastructure. China concluded an agreement with Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan last month to build a new rail line across both countries. The rail line will give China a shortcut for overland trade with Iran, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan, and beyond them to the Mideast and Europe. China has tried for the past 12 years to expand rail traffic across Russia to carry its exports to Europe, but now wants to add a southerly route.
