Kazakhstan is the main supplier of this mineral, with 40% of world production. Historically, Russia has always been the main outlet for this raw material, but today the demand from China and the West is growing. Which makes Central Asia a key region for the balance of tomorrow’s world.
Astana () – The demand for Kazakh uranium is increasing tensions in Eurasia, due to the consequences of the conflict in Ukraine and the sanctions against Russia, which – as many local and international agencies point out – is increasingly at odds with China over this precious mineral. Some Russian political scientists agree that “Moscow and Beijing are divided by Kazakhstan, on the banks of the Embe River,” the region where uranium mines are located.
Kazakhstan is the leading supplier of uranium, with 40% of world production, most of which has always been destined for Russia. Now the United States and China are increasing their purchases, which creates a very strong geopolitical competition worldwide. Indeed, Astana cannot increase exports in one direction without reducing them in the other in a short time, and some recent decisions by the Kazakh government have further exacerbated tensions.
First, the main Budenovsk uranium mine recently came under the control of Russia’s Rosatom, Moscow’s nuclear power agency. On the other hand, Astana has signed agreements to sell Beijing 30 tons of uranium for Chinese nuclear power plants, an agreement that will allow the Chinese to transform combustion plants into nuclear ones by mid-2030. To this end, Kazakhstan pledged to increase the uranium production by 50%.
Therefore, a direct confrontation between Moscow and Beijing is looming, which is not limited to uranium but includes several aspects. In fact, China has many interests in Central Asia and not just related to the infrastructure to complete the trade corridor to Europe. In addition to uranium, it is interested in the regional export of its own products, Central Asian water resources and other valuable minerals from the area. According to experts, Russia should be more concerned about China’s mercantile activism in Central Asia than about the routes that dodge its territory to Western markets.
All these reasons increase the importance of the role that Central Asia, starting with Kazakhstan, can play in the coming years as a consequence of the great changes that are taking place, thanks precisely to the wealth of its natural resources, which had made Russia’s fortune. in Putin’s first decade. Not only the great powers and neighboring countries, but also in much more distant parts of the world, are increasingly looking in this direction, which until now has always been largely ignored.
Obviously, in economic and political disputes, the position regarding the ongoing war is very important, not only on the part of the leaders but also of the populations. In Kazakhstan, even more than in the other countries of the region, the tendency to get rid of the Russian influence of Soviet origin is reinforced, especially due to the concerns of the northern regions, which Russia considers “naturally Russian territories”. The political ideal of a “new Kazakh nation” that President Kasym-Žomart Tokaev tries to interpret pushes towards an increasingly negative judgment of the Kremlin’s decisions, especially military ones.
On the other hand, the Kazakh nationalists also criticize the “too rigid” position of the Ukrainians, who should take Astana’s “multi-vector” and multicultural line as an example to defend all ethnic minorities, historically stifled by Russian-Soviet imperialism. That is why we must undoubtedly defend independence and territorial integrity, but without a spirit of revenge and reciprocal destruction. Kazakhstan is proposed to “represent the place of mediation between East and West”, as the Kazakh political scientist Akhas Tazhutov has observed, precisely pointing to the Embe river and the uranium lands as the true “corridor of universal peace” for the future.
Photo: Kazatomprom
