In 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping launched the titanic New Silk Roads project, officially called the Belt and Road Initiative. Ten years later, The duty visited Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, two countries at the heart of these new trade routes. Fourth in a series of eight travel journals.
On the platform of Almaty station, apple sellers, pushing their wooden carts, crowd near the train doors. The travelers, walking quickly, rush into the carriages one after the other. Then look for their bunks, where they spread their sheets, through acrobatics, in the suffocating heat. At around 11 p.m., the train finally begins its slow journey across the steppes of Kazakhstan. For us, the destination will be Chimkent, 14 hours away, home to one of the country’s three oil refineries.
With its significant deposits of natural gas, oil, uranium, iron, coal and many other raw materials, Kazakhstan’s lucrative natural resources sector makes the country rich, but also arouses the desire of its neighbors, including China. With its ever-growing energy needs, the Middle Kingdom has carved out a place for itself in the Kazakh energy sector since 1997.
The National Oil Company of China then purchased shares in the AktobeMunaiGas company, a Kazakh energy company which exploits hydrocarbon deposits in the Aktobe region, near the Caspian Sea. Since this first incursion, multiple others have followed, to the point where more than half of Chinese investments made in Kazakhstan are today linked to the energy sector.
Anti-Chinese sentiment
Thanks to the speed the train is taking, a filament of fresh air – so beneficial – finally enters through its windows. Behind the closed doors of the compartments, plots of life quietly take shape. After plunging our cabin made up of two bunk beds into darkness, an old lady quickly falls asleep. Next door, families, sometimes settling in for a two-day trip, take out their provisions from mantis (large ravioli), samosas (triangular donuts), naan bread and tea, forming a true feast with aromas of the Orient. And the conversations become lively.
Nesibeli, 65, is going to a school reunion in Chimkent, with her husband and a friend. According to her, the Chinese presence in Kazakhstan is becoming too invasive. “It scares me, the interest that the Chinese have in our country,” she says. Our ancestors gave us this land, we must preserve it and not give it away. I’m afraid the Chinese will come here in droves. »
Fears that came to light in 2016, when major anti-Chinese demonstrations were held following an agrarian reform proposed by the government of former President Nazarbayev, which would potentially have allowed Chinese investors to get their hands on Kazakh agricultural land. The protest, fueled according to some by disinformation, finally got the better of the reform, which was abandoned, but which did not calm down Sinophobia – on this train as elsewhere.
Necessary investments
After a night lulled by the movement of the train, the sun slowly begins to reflect on the steppe, with, always in the background, the captivating snow-capped range of the Tian Shan (“heavenly mountains” in Mandarin) which follows us all the way. along our route. A few compartments away, Yerbol and his wife, Tanar, were pulled from their bunks by their one- and four-year-old children. “They barely slept all night. They wanted to move all the time and they were hungry all the time! » says with humor the young father, who takes a more open look at China.
“Chinese investments can be used to stimulate the economic development of Kazakhstan,” he believes. An argument that will be taken up by several experts during our trip: Central Asia needs foreign investors, particularly to exploit its natural resources.
Continuing towards the west, we notice, on the station platforms, at each stop, large numbers of passengers going out to smoke or buy some food before getting back on board. In the dining car, some order pirojkis for lunch, while others are already drinking beers and vodkas.
Fast lane to China
In the afternoon, we reach Chimkent, the historic trade center of the ancient Silk Roads, today the third city in the country with its million inhabitants. And we go to the site of the refinery operated by PetroKazakhstan Oil Products, owned equally by KazMunaiGas and the National Petroleum Company of China. Under its ten white and red chimneys, some six million tonnes of oil are refined there annually.
A quantity that the President of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, announced he wanted to double during the Central Asia-China summit held last May. At the same time, he also announced his desire to increase the capacity of the Kazakhstan-China pipeline, owned equally by KazTransOil and the National Oil Company of China.
The construction of a second gas pipeline on the Beyneu-Bozoi-Chymkent line — transporting natural gas to southern Kazakhstan and China — a project also owned equally by Kazakh and Chinese interests, is also on the table . “We hope that our Chinese friends will continue to help us promote these important projects on a regional scale,” President Tokayev said bluntly.
According to Rasul Rysmambetov, a financier from Almaty, “20 to 25% of the Kazakh oil industry is owned by Chinese interests”, although a certain opacity surrounds the exact Chinese involvement. A part that Kassymkhan Kapparov, dean of the school of economics and finance at the Almaty Management University, considers “suitable”, specifying that China has not made “aggressive gestures” to increase its participation in the sector. “But they want to make sure they have a stable supply. » Kazakhstan also exports its natural resources to other countries, notably Greece, Germany and France.
Difficult access for the agri-food industry
However, not all raw materials benefit from the same fast route to China. The agri-food company AsiaAgroFood, which has a production capacity of 400 tonnes of wheat flour and 200 tonnes of corn per day, would also like to increase its exports to the Middle Kingdom.
“But it’s very difficult to access the Chinese market. They have small quotas for imports,” says Ekaterina Khalikova, marketing director, who points out that the company, which employs 600 workers, is nevertheless on the coveted list of suppliers authorized by the Chinese government.
“We currently send 5,200 tonnes of corn per month to China, but we want to increase this quantity to 10,000 tonnes. And we hope to be able to start supplying it with wheat flour in the coming months at a rate of 3,000 tonnes per month. »
Already, the company, located in the village of Jibek Joly, which, comically, means “Silk Road” in Kazakh, has developed new, more colorful packaging, designed specifically to appeal to Chinese customers and arouse an appetite for Kazakh products. “I hope that the Belt and Road Initiative will make this cooperation easier and smoother,” she said.
With Naubet Bisenov
This report was financed with support from the International Journalism Fund
Deckchair- The duty.
Tomorrow: In Uzbekistan, is a revolution from above a revolution?