China Replaces Russia: The Economic Impact of the Ukraine War on Central Asia

With the prolonged Russia-Ukraine war that began on February 24, 2022, and the Western sanctions against Russia during this time, a new economic order has emerged in Central Asia. Russia, which for many years was the first and largest economic partner of Central Asia, can no longer continue this role. The main challenge for Central Asia (Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Kyrgyzstan) now was to find a new partner who could satisfy their main regional ally (Russia), align with their economic structures, and have the capability to meet their economic aspirations.
In the United Nations General Assembly resolution ES 11/1 against Russia, which was adopted on March 2, 2022, none of the Central Asian countries voted in favor of it, but none of them voted against it either. Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan abstained, while Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan were absent from the vote.
There are many similarities between Central Asia with China and Russia in terms of governmental structure. The types of regimes, the human rights situation, the disregard for democracy and women's rights, and the restriction of individual and social freedoms, all have contributed to bringing Central Asia closer to the two regional powers, China and Russia.
After Russia invaded Ukraine, these countries naturally began looking for new economic partners. Russia, which was the largest trading partner for the four Central Asian countries—Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan—before the war, can no longer be considered a suitable option for Central Asia due to Western sanctions.

China's Interest in Central Asia:
China's interest in expanding cooperation with Central Asia has both security and economic dimensions. Economically, the abundant energy resources in Central Asia and the region's geographical position, which can help China realize its grand vision of the Belt and Road Initiative, are of great importance. From a security perspective, the Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region, who are members of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, are of Turkic origin and share an ethnic background with the four Central Asian countries. The presence of around one million Uyghurs in Kazakhstan and China's shared border with three Central Asian countries have heightened China's security concerns regarding the potential for convergence between them.
For this reason, China has been seeking to exert influence in Central Asia through soft power in recent years, and Russia's invasion of Ukraine has provided China with even more opportunities. Gradually, Russia also realizes that it cannot economically hold these countries in its grip, but politically and security-wise, it remains a red line for Russia. These five countries must remain political allies for Russia, and any insecurity in one of the Central Asian countries will cause insecurity for Russia. Therefore, Russia is striving to take the necessary political and security measures to maintain its influence in Central Asia.
Since China is currently considered a reliable regional ally for Russia, compared to the West, China is the best option for Russia to maintain an economic presence in Central Asia.
Apart from Turkmenistan, where China has always been its largest foreign trading partner, the total trade of the four Central Asian countries (Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan) with Russia reached $20 billion in 2021, compared to $17 billion with China, showing a 17% advantage in favor of Russia.
Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine and its subsequent failure to comply with the United Nations Security Council's resolution, Western countries began imposing sanctions on Russia. Over the months and years, the scale of these sanctions increased, gradually causing severe damage to Russia's economy. As a result, Russia lost its position as the largest economic partner of Central Asia.
However, following the start of Russia's war with Ukraine in February 2022 and the imposition of Western sanctions against Russia, China's foreign trade with the four Central Asian countries reached $65 billion in 2023, while their trade with Russia in the same year did not exceed $37 billion. This means that before the war, Russia's foreign trade was 17% higher than China's, but two years after the war, this figure dropped to 48% lower than China's. Although the overall trade volume in 2023 increased compared to 2021, a comparison between China and Russia clearly shows that China has entirely overtaken Russia in terms of economic influence in Central Asia.
In the early months of the war, Russia was aware that it might lose many allies in the region and, due to Western sanctions, might no longer remain a good economic partner for many countries. Therefore, Russia focused on maintaining its political and security influence in Central Asia. Since the Russia-Ukraine war began, Putin has traveled to all the Central Asian countries, meeting with their presidents to present a different image of Russia and to demonstrate that, at least politically, it can still remain a reliable partner in the region.

Conclusion:
It is now clear that Russia has lost its economic influence in Central Asia, but this will extend to other areas such as political and security spheres as well. The relationships between countries are primarily based on their national interests, when the political and security interests of Central Asia align with Western values, these countries, just as they quickly found economic partners other than Russia, will also replace Russia in political and security matters with other countries, mostly Western ones.
In this context, existing C5+1 cooperation mechanisms, such as Central Asia + the United States, the European Union, the United Nations, and several other European countries, can play an important role.

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