How little attention the CIS countries pay to each other's experience

For some time now, multinational Kazakhstan, happily avoiding ethnic clashes, has been the target of attacks by a number of leading Russian media, accusing this country of the growth of nationalism and the indifference and sometimes patronage of the authorities to this process. Nothing like this has happened in almost 30 years of relations between the two countries. The events unfolded on August 10 after the publication on the telegram channel of a post by Evgeny Primakov, head of Rossotrudnichestvo, an agency created by the Russian government for the affairs of compatriots living abroad. He accused the Kazakh authorities of "not condemning the actions of the nationalists." Local analysts attribute the media attack to Moscow's position that the changes that have taken place in Afghanistan could push post-Soviet Central Asia into new political and economic alliances to the detriment of Russia. As a result, the region will become a bridge between South Asia and Europe, and Russia will be outside this integration. Thus, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan can become the main economic partners of Afghanistan. Uzbekistan is able to expand the supply of electricity, and Kazakhstan is already providing support by educating Afghans in its universities and providing humanitarian assistance. The US can help the region through the State Department's C5 + 1 project, which is supposed to involve Afghanistan. A stable Afghanistan can be an important bridge between the huge markets of South and Central Asia. ” In this regard, C5 + 1 is an excellent format of cooperation for finding ways to stabilize the situation in Afghanistan. The US relations with each of the Central Asian countries are unique and politically motivated: now relations with Uzbekistan are dynamic as never before, since the US has finally found a partner in Tashkent who is ready to promote ties in a more positive direction; Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are worrying Washington because of unpredictable political events and problems of power succession. Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, according to the United States, are classical dictatorships, so the possibilities of interaction with them are limited. The main goal of the United States in the region is to create a balance between China, Russia and the West.                  

Kazakhstan, which is a kind of patron of the other four countries in the region, in comparison, has closer ties with the West: the EU and the United States account for 2/3 of direct investments in the country.

The severity of the criticism has led some local analysts to believe, recalling recent territorial claims from its northern neighbor, that Moscow is trying not to keep Central Asia in its zone of influence, but to seize the northern part of Kazakhstan. A situation similar to that which was in the republic after the December events of 1986, which entailed the first repressions of the Gorbachev regime, is artificially created, they believe.

Formally, the events were started by video blogger Kuat Ahmetov. Visiting shops and government offices, he demanded that employees speak the state Kazakh language, filming all the scenes on video and posting them on the YouTube channel Til Maydani Online Party. On August 13, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation put K. Ahmetov on the black list, banning him from entering Russia for the next 50 years. The authorities opened an administrative case against Ahmetov, fearing a criminal case and arrest, the video blogger left the country, according to one version, having flown out to Georgia, according to the other - to Ukraine on the night of August 30. His lawyer Abzal Kuspan says that Ahmetov's goal is to make the Kazakh language, according to the Constitution, the state language, so he acted within the law. “How long can you put off the language question, looking back at your neighbors? This situation shows that Kazakhstan cannot get out of the influence of Russia, that our independence, which we received 30 years ago, our Constitution - everything is only on paper”. In this regard, I recall the wave of criticism that passed through the Russian media when Kazakhstan announced the transition to the Latin script.

“There is a national-liberal anti-Russian lobby in the elite of Kazakhstan. Demarches against the Russian language in everyday life and at school - all this looks like events planned by a single center. This group enjoys the support of the West, ”the Russian website lenta.ru informs. On August 19, press secretary of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova announced discrimination against Russian speakers in some Central Asian countries, threatening that "Russia will take measures to prevent this."

According to independent media, Kazakhstan's response was not similar to that of an independent state. Thus, on September 1, President Kassym-Zhomart Tokayev said literally the following from the rostrum of parliament: “According to the Constitution, there is only one state language in Kazakhstan - Kazakh,” he began in Kazakh and, having switched to Russian, added: “Russian has the status of an official language. Its use, according to our legislation, cannot be hindered."

The land border between the two countries, with a length of over seven and a half thousand kilometers, is the longest in the world, and this explains the vulnerability of Kazakhstan. The country is still in the zone of informational influence of Russia, and any propaganda has a very sensitive effect on the state of society. One should also take into account the presence of a significant Russian-speaking diaspora (a quarter of the population) sympathetic to Russian politics. Economic dependence is due to the fact that Kazakhstani exports mainly go through the territory of the Russian Federation.

The discussion of the problem of language was preceded by the territorial claims of Russian politicians, which were also actively covered in the media. In December 2020, Russian State Duma deputies Vyacheslav Nikonov and Yevgeny Fedorov called the northern lands of Kazakhstan a “great gift” to Russia and the Soviet Union. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan sent a note of protest, after months of silence, official Moscow reacted to the scandalous statements with a response from Lavrov (05.15.21), who characterized the authors of provocative statements as politicians who “chase after some kind of sensation” in order to attract attention. "No statements from those persons who determine the policy of the Russian Federation in relation to Kazakhstan have ever sounded or will sound ... we fully respect each other's sovereignty, territorial integrity, and political independence." The American publication Diplomat believes that this belated response demonstrates the ambiguity, inconsistency and unpredictability of Russian policy towards Kazakhstan and the Russian community living there. “Given Nikonov’s position in power and his proximity to Russia's top leadership, it’s difficult to ignore his statements as irrelevant and irrelevant,” the newspaper writes, noting two significant factors. The first is the complex ethnic composition of the population of Kazakhstan, where more than 3 million Russians live. The second is Russia's foreign policy in the post-Soviet space, Moscow's "military maneuvers" in Georgia and Ukraine, and statements by President V. Putin about the lands "donated" to the former Soviet republics. The publication believes that if Putin's authoritarian regime is preserved, such information attacks are inevitable, recalling that several years ago Putin said that "Kazakhstan did not have statehood." After the annexation of Crimea, the Kremlin became convinced that this "trick" works. Moscow views the situation as a desire to turn Kazakhstan into a "second" Ukraine or Georgia, since the United States and Europe, which left Afghanistan, seek to reduce the influence of China and Russia in Central Asia and are looking for allies in the person of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

While maintaining military bases in Central Asia, Russia defends its interests in the region well, while China intends to use Afghanistan as a trade gateway to the Middle East, Central Asia and Europe through the One Belt - One Road project, in which Kazakhstan is called the “buckle of this belt ". It is not for nothing that among geopoliticians there is an opinion that the country that controls the Heartland (a large region that includes Central Asia) controls the world.

The main problem of vulnerability is the ruling leaders of the CIS, who view Russia as an external force capable of protecting against coups and providing refuge during a critical period. Authoritarianism remains the main problem of the Central Asian countries, weakening the states both politically and economically. A false idea is being formed that a competitive economy can be built without democratizing the political system. American expert Simon Commander writes in an article on the Diplomat website: “In almost all of these countries (CIS), autocracy has been established, associated with individuals or institutions dating back to the Soviet era. Today, two-thirds of the countries of the former USSR are authoritarian. Despite the peculiarities, these countries also have common features. For example, the concentration of power "around certain individuals, their families and close associates, in some cases even the presence of a dynastic component." Due to these characteristics, these regimes are vulnerable in terms of continuity and “inclusion of viable players”, as a result of which they have a “mediocre political balance”. A common feature of such regimes is "economic autocracy", built on a direct connection with the authorities in the interests of a narrow influential elite, consisting mainly of members of the autocrat's family, his colleagues and other confidants. The autocrat acts first as an arbiter, allocating assets and resources, and then as a referee, limiting competition between the interests of elites.

In the conditions of unlimited and selfish use of power, it is very difficult to introduce institutions and rules favorable to the market. Unlimited power allows you to unlimitedly increase your presence in the country's economy. The ability to control different sectors of the economy and at the same time use the state to patronize their economic activities has led to the fact that competition does not develop in Kazakhstan, independent analysts say.

What has changed in Kazakhstan after the election of Kassym-Zhomart Tokayev to the presidency? The process of the change of power in Kazakhstan is called "an experiment that has not yet been tested anywhere in the post-Soviet space" and "an attempt to bring a chosen successor to power during his lifetime." Rumor has it that Nazarbayev wants his daughter Dariga, chairman of the Senate, to eventually become president. Therefore, Tokayev's ability to carry out reforms is limited by the decision of Nazarbayev, who is not interested in destroying the system he has built. The influential Economist quotes Tokayev's tweet promising modernization: “Old problems - new solutions” - and the answer to it by economist Kasymkhan Kapparov: “Old problems are old people who create them” ...