Cables From The Diplomatic Frontlines - China is trying to recover its lost leverage in Kazakhstan

China is trying to recover its lost leverage in Kazakhstan

• Last week’s cables outlined the risks and potential gains stemming from Putin’s decision to send troops to Kazakhstan, and it has to be noted that so far, his bet is indeed paying off: Kazakhstan’s President Tokayev announced the phased withdrawal of Russian troops - after number of skirmishes and a death toll of 225, the situation is now under control.

• As the dust settles, certain things are becoming rather clear:

• 1. Putin did indeed secure a stronger leverage over the Kazakh president

• So far, Putin’s involvement in Kazakhstan is going according to the plan - in fact, it is hard to imagine how this deployment could have resulted in a better outcome.

• None of the likely risks (outlined in these cables) have (so far) materialized, and there are no reports of Russian casualties or a hardware loss.

• Russia boosted its image for speedy and decisive power projection.

• Putin confirmed his reliability in protecting fellow kleptocratic autocrats.

• This is one area where authoritarian regimes enjoy an advantage over established democracies like the US: displays of decisiveness and speedy execution are much easier to pull off when one person is making all the decisions and is not held to account/scrutinized by an independent legislative chamber, or free

  media.

• The lack of these ‘‘constraints’’ of democracy puts a ceiling on Russia’s capacity for a long-term, and sustainable economic and political development.

• A sustainable political order and advanced and resilient state institutions aren’t the probable outcomes of Russia’s current governance structure.

• (side note: and here are hypothetical questions/tests to highlight this truth: what would happen today if Putin died in office? How exactly would the succession take place? How smooth would it be?)

• But in the short-term, this is exactly what Putin needs and benefits from.

• And Putin didn’t wait too long to rub his newly-gained leverage in Tokayev’s face.

• During the virtual meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Putin made the following (concerning for Kazakhs) comment:

• ‘‘The measures taken by the CSTO have clearly shown we will not allow the situation to be rocked at home and will not allow so-called 'color revolutions' to take place” [emphasis added].

• By labeling events in Kazakhstan as attempts at color revolutions, Putin highlighted his commitment to protect pro-Kremlin autocrats in Russia’s sphere of influence countries (and he furthermore contradicted Tokayev’s claims that the country was rocked by ‘‘terrorists’’).

• More worryingly (for ordinary patriotic Kazakhs) Putin now considers Kazakhstan as his ‘‘home’’.

• This comment was made first and foremost to crystallize Russia’s leverage over Kazakhstan.

• A not so veiled message to Tokayev about the new state of affairs on the ground - that there is now a new relationship between Putin and Tokayev.

• One of a master and a vassal.

• But Tokayev may not care so much - after all, he secured his own grip on power, and used the opportunity to sideline the former President Nazarbayev (by purging his appointees in the security apparatus - with former KNB (a Kazakh KGB) head Mansimov being the most high-profile target)

• (side note: in light of scant reliable evidence, it is highly speculative to engage in discussions surrounding the potential coup attempts by the former President Nazarbayev and his clan - at this point, one can only observe that regardless of the veracity of the coup claims, Tokayev did get rid of Nazarbayev’s major players. Whether or not there was an actual attempted coup, Tokayev took steps to reduce the likelihood of any future ones taking place).

• 2. The narrative of external terrorists was a complete lie

• It is now crystal clear that Kazakh President Tokayev’s initial assertions that the country was facing a threat from “terrorists” was all, from the very beginning, a complete lie - an excuse to justify invitation for the CSTO troops (that ostensibly, are only to be deployed against external threats - in other words, a Kazakh president couldn’t formally ask the CSTO to come quell a popular uprising of Kazakhs against his autocratic, corrupt regime).

• If Tokayev was right in claiming that vast swathes of Kazakh territories were really occupied and controlled by terrorists from Central Asia, Afghanistan, and the Middle East, creating a ‘‘zone of controlled chaos’’, then how come Russian troops are leaving so soon?

• The Kazakh government admits to detention of around 8,000 individuals, and to the death toll of 225 in confrontations.

• Even if taken at face value, those numbers create another burning question - did the Kazakh government really manage to detain 8,000 terrorists in a territory as big as the entire Western Europe?

• And what is this new breed of terrorists that don’t shoot back, and show little resistance to their detention?

• What now, did Kazakh security forces invent a new way of defeating terrorism that somehow eluded (for decades) both the US and Russian militaries?

• How likely is it, that Russia - a country itself struggling from terrorism for years, and the one that is extremely concerned that the Afghanistan’s new Taliban rules may not keep the terrorists at bay (allowing them to escape into Central Asia, and then onwards to Russia) is now somehow blessed with magical powers of aiding in detention of 8,000 terrorists after merely deploying 3,000 soldiers?

• But even this argument doesn’t hold much water - since there is very little actual evidence that Russian troops got involved beyond their symbolic presence to prop up regime - so then, the anti-terrorism campaign’s success must have been mostly due to the exceptional competence of the Kazakh security forces?

• Obviously all of these are blatant lies - there was no terrorist threat.

• There was a popular uprising - initially against rising fuel prices, that then morphed into wider anti-regime protests.

• Afterwards, the Kazakh president Tokayev, used the opportunity to get rid of Nazarbayev’s faction (that may have been trying to benefit from the ensuing chaos and advancing their own claims on absolute power) in the security apparatus.

• Even though the evidence is scant, the proposition that there may have been an attempted coup, in the midst of, and in addition to the (largely peaceful) popular uprising, is indeed possible.

• But one thing is for sure - the terrorism angle was a complete fabrication.

• 3. China is scrambling to recover its lost lost leverage

• Given that Putin’s gamble has (thus far) largely paid off, he now has increased leverage, and therefore a much stronger grip over the Tokayev government in Kazakhstan.

• In previous cables on the matter, we have outlined how the Kremlin could use this newfound leverage to shape the policy in pro-Moscow fashion.

• Some of these new policies would inevitably trample on Beijing’s interests in Kazakhstan.