Political and territorial settlement in Kazakhstan-China relations: from border delimitation to cross-border cooperation

The relevance of the study is determined by the challenges of institutionalizing the state borders of the former Soviet republics following the dissolution of the USSR. Of particular significance is the negotiation process undertaken by Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Russia to settle their territorial issues with the People’s Republic of China. The aim of this work is to provide a comprehensive analysis of the political-territorial settlement process in Kazakhstan-China relations. The source base of the study comprises international treaties and agreements, normative acts of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the PRC, as well as scholarly publications by Russian, Kazakh, and Chinese researchers. The study employs comparative-historical and historical-genetic methods, along with legal document analysis, and adopts an institutional approach. It is established that the contemporary Kazakhstan-China border is the result of a prolonged process encompassing the agreements of the Russian and Qing Empires, the Sino-Soviet confrontation, and post-Soviet negotiations. It is demonstrated that during the delimitation of 1994–1998, Kazakhstan ceded a significant amount of disputed territory to the PRC, which, however, constituted only a small fraction of the land originally claimed by China. It is revealed that cross-border economic cooperation is implemented through the alignment of the “Nurly Zhol” and “Belt and Road” initiatives. An important indicator of the partnership has been the establishment of the Khorgos International Center for Border Cooperation (ICBC “Khorgos”). It is determined that the issue of dual citizenship among Kazakh repatriates (oralman) and the potential for irredentist sentiments in border areas pose risks to the stability of bilateral relations.