中國正取代俄羅斯 - 制裁重劃了哈薩克斯坦的貿易 (1/2)

Recently Yahoo News on-line reported the following:

China Edging Out Russia as Sanctions Redraw Kazakhstan Trade (1/2)

Nariman Gizitdinov

Tue, June 6, 2023 at 5:36 a.m. PDT

(Bloomberg) -- An economic seesaw between China and Russia in Central Asia is moving toward a new equilibrium for Kazakhstan, which expects its eastern neighbor to come out on top as international sanctions over the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine transform commerce.

In the over three decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia held on to its spot as the biggest trading partner for Kazakhstan even as China made inroads across much of the region that stretches from the Caspian to Manchuria.

But financial and economic sanctions that have sidelined Russia and diverted trade flows are creating an opening for China. Serik Zhumangarin, Kazakhstan’s deputy prime minister and its minister of trade and integration, said it’s a matter of a few years before China overtakes Russia.

“The growth in trade is happening due to China,” he said in an interview in the capital, Astana. By 2030, Zhumangarin expects volumes with China to eclipse Kazakh trade with the 27-nation European Union as a whole.

For centuries a gateway for China’s trade with Europe and the Middle East, Central Asia is now at the nexus of competing interests spreading from Washington to Moscow and Beijing.

China’s President Xi Jinping last year chose Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan for his first foreign trip since the coronavirus pandemic. The US and the EU have also stepped up their outreach.

But while countries from Italy to Australia rethink their ties with China, the pull of the world’s second-biggest economy may prove hard to resist for the nations of Central Asia, which also include Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.

Trade with China surged by about a third last year to approach $24 billion for Kazakhstan. It still lagged volumes with Russia — which added just over 6% in 2022 — by about $2 billion, according to Kazakhstan’s Bureau of National Statistics.

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, a Mandarin speaker who once worked as a diplomat in China, has refused to side with Russia over the invasion launched just weeks after he needed troops sent by President Vladimir Putin to crush deadly riots in early 2022.

But even as Kazakhstan has said it’s complying with the curbs imposed in punishment for the war, it opposes the US-led campaign of sanctions and has seen trade with Russia grow since the attack on Ukraine in February 2022. Along with countries like Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, Kazakhstan has been under scrutiny by western governments for facilitating shipments of restricted goods.

(to be continued)

Translation

（彭博社） - 中國和俄羅斯在中亞的經濟拉鋸正在朝著哈薩克斯坦的新平衡方向發展，哈薩克斯坦預計，隨著克里姆林宮入侵烏克蘭的國際制裁改變商業活動，其東部鄰國將脫穎而出。

在蘇聯解體後的三十多年裡，俄羅斯一直保持著哈薩克斯坦為最大貿易夥伴的地位，儘管中國在從裏海到滿洲的大部分地區取得了進展。

但使俄羅斯靠邊站並轉移貿易流量的金融和經濟制裁正在為中國創造機會。 哈薩克斯坦副總理兼貿易和一體化部長 Serik Zhumangarin 表示，中國超過俄羅斯會只是幾年的事情。

他在首都Astana 接受采訪時說: “貿易增長得益於中國”。 到 2030 年，Zhumangarin 預計哈薩克斯坦與中國的貿易量, 將超過哈薩克斯坦與整個 27 個歐盟國家的貿易量。

幾個世紀以來，中亞作為中國與歐洲和中東貿易的門戶，現在處於從華盛頓到莫斯科和北京的競爭利益的交匯點。

中國國家主席習近平去年選擇了哈薩克斯坦和烏茲別克斯坦作為自冠狀病毒大流行以來的首次出訪。 美國和歐盟也加強了外聯。

儘管從意大利到澳大利亞的國家正在重新考慮與中國的關係，但對於中亞國家來說, 世界第二大經濟體的拉動引力可能難以抗拒，其中還包括對土庫曼斯坦、塔吉克斯坦和吉爾吉斯斯坦。

去年，哈薩克斯坦與中國的貿易額激增了約三分之一，接近 240 億美元。 根據哈薩克斯坦國家統計局的數據，這仍然落後於與俄羅斯的貿易額 - 俄羅斯在 2022 年的增幅是略高於 6% - 即約 20 億美元。

總統 Kassym-Jomart Tokayev會說普通話，曾在中國擔任外交官，他拒絕站在俄羅斯一邊發動入侵，入侵幾週前, 他需要依靠總統普京派遣軍隊鎮壓 2022 年初的致命騷亂。

但是，儘管哈薩克斯坦表示它正在遵守為懲罰戰爭而實施的限制措施，但它反對以美國為首的制裁運動，並且自 2022 年 2 月烏克蘭遭到襲擊以來，它與俄羅斯的貿易有所增長。與土耳其和亞聯酋等國家一樣 , 哈薩克斯坦因協助受限貨物的運輸而受到西方政府的審視。

（待續）