Kazakh Prime Minister Karim Masimov continued his five-day visit to China on April 11 and spoke with Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao about the two countries' rapidly developing strategic partnership. The talks take place a day before the Boao Forum for Asia meeting (the Australasian equivalent of the Davos World Economic Forum) begins in China. The tenor of the meeting was optimistic, and concrete developments — especially in economics and trade — lay beneath the diplomatic niceties. For years, Kazakhstan's natural trading partner has been Russia. But new drivers are propelling the Kazakh-Chinese partnership, while Kazakhstan's ties to Russia continue to erode. Kazakhstan's traditional neighborly relationship with Russia began with Czarist Russia and became entrenched when Kazakhstan fell under Soviet rule. The Soviets made the Russian language official, banning Kazakh; meanwhile Russians entered various levels of Kazakh society, and Russian officials were implanted in the Kazakh regional administration. The extensive railroad infrastructure put in place by the czars and then the Soviets connected Kazakh and Russian people with each other and enmeshed their economies. Soviet intelligence operations permeated every level of Kazakh society. Traces of Soviet rule persist in Kazakhstan today. One-third of Kazakhs are ethnic Russians, and a majority can speak Russian. The KGB's successor, the Federal Security Bureau (FSB), maintains a full presence there, and railroads to Russia are still Kazakhstan's primary transportation links to the outside world. Yet the Kazakh-Russian relationship has eroded since the fall of the Soviet Union. One of the primary indications of this change is migration. Large numbers of Kazakh citizens have immigrated to Russia since the early 1990s; most were repatriating Russians, though some were Kazakhs seeking Russian jobs and higher wages. The trend reached a climax in 2003, when almost 5,000 Kazakh citizens entered Russia legally (and untold numbers illegally). In 2005, though the number of immigrants had decreased by half, the percentage of immigrants to Russia from Kazakhstan — 30 percent — was greater than the percentage from any other country. Both the Russian and Kazakh governments have encouraged the separation of their people. Russian President Vladimir Putin initiated a plan in June 2007 to streamline the bureaucratic process for repatriating ethnic Russians, offering cash and social benefits as incentives for them to return. The plan also aims to tighten restrictions on Kazakh immigrants, notably preventing them from owning businesses in Russia, since they typically send large portions of their earnings back to Kazakhstan. Meanwhile, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev has pursued a policy of national self-definition, making the Kazakh language official and encouraging ethnic Kazakhs elsewhere in Central Asia to relocate to Kazakhstan. These pro-Kazakh policies have exacerbated tensions with Russians living in Kazakhstan, who resent the Russian language ban and must compete for jobs with a wave of Kazakh immigrants; these pressures tend to drive the Russians back to Russia. This has led to a loss of educated and specialized workers in several sectors of Kazakhstan's economy, including health, education and technology, since the Russians leaving the country are on average more qualified than their Kazakh neighbors. The Kazakh-Russian relationship shows other signs of slackening even as the two countries' populations part ways. Kazakhstan's large reserves of oil and natural gas have attracted a massive influx of foreign investment from the West, particularly at the Tengiz and Kashagan oil fields on the Caspian Sea. These fields require the most advanced oil extraction technologies and have involved most of the oil supermajors and a host of medium-sized investors. In tandem, a greater sense of independence from Russia has emerged among the Kazakhs as they see the advantage of diversifying their economic portfolio. Along the lines of diversification, the single most effective means by which Astana has wriggled free from Moscow's influence is forging closer ties with Beijing. China has funded infrastructure developments, including a railway from Kazakhstan's Almaty region to the Chinese border town of Korgas and from there to the rest of China's rail network. Kazakhstan's desire to diversify its customers goes hand in hand with China's increasing confidence in pursuing energy assets in Central Asia, even at the cost of irritating Russia. On a more diplomatic level, Masimov speaks Chinese fluently. There are already rumors of Masimov's example spurring a Chinese-language craze among enterprising Kazakhs. The April 11 meeting between Masimov and Chinese leaders highlights their familiarity as they consolidate gains in the strategic partnership established in 2005 and prepare to extend this partnership into new areas. All in all, the meetings reveal that Kazakhstan and China are more eager to cooperate than ever before. Masimov and the Chinese leaders talked of more frequent high-level exchanges, reinforcing each other's sovereignty and stability, and joining forces on security issues, especially through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The real gains from the talks, however, were economic. The two countries agreed on more than 40 economic projects in sectors such as wheat, electricity and Kazakhstan's all-important oil and natural gas deposits, which energy-hungry China is eager to get its hands on. These projects are not based on wishful thinking, either. As China's export trade booms it can give Kazakhstan the money it needs to realize its potential as an energy supplier as soon as possible. For instance, the Export-Import Bank of China has offered $300 million in cheap loans to Kazakhstan's Development Bank to get the projects off to an energetic start. Meanwhile, Kazakhstan and China formalized a plan to build a new cross-border natural gas pipeline and proceed with the second phase in the construction of a crude oil link between them. The natural gas pipeline is expected to be completed by 2011 and will run parallel to the major oil pipeline, which is already partially operational, from the Kashagan oil fields on the Caspian Sea across Kazakhstan into China. Phase Two of the natural gas pipeline construction, will include the eastern portion of the line, from Atasu to the two Chinese cities of Karamay and Dushanzi. China also made it clear that it expects Kazakhstan to accelerate efforts to improve its infrastructure, as presumably China cannot pay for every new road and bridge, and Kazakhstan will find it difficult to meet Chinese demands for non-resource goods otherwise. Nevertheless, China's role in ameliorating Kazakhstan's infrastructure will continue to be prominent, and the two countries will strengthen ties as a result. Better infrastructure for oil and natural gas exports will enable Kazakhstan to redirect its products away from the circuitous route through Russia and Ukraine or Belarus to Europe. Instead, Kazakhstan can vend directly to China and from China's ports its products can reach the global market. This arrangement will boost Kazakhstan's non-energy exports too. Russia is likely to begrudge China for wheeling and dealing in what it considers its backyard. However, with Russia's ties to Kazakhstan gradually weakening, its only remaining tool to prevent China from making too many inroads is the FSB. The FSB could react against Kazakhstan's economic promiscuity by conducting targeted assassinations. But this is not a strategy of first resort, as it risks attracting too much attention. Even without killing people, the FSB can exercise its power over political figures in Kazakhstan to prevent the country from drifting too far out of Russia's orbit. After all, one of Russia's fundamental geopolitical imperatives is retaining Kazakhstan as a buffer state to its south. Of course, Kazakhstan serves the same purpose for China, which explains the tug-of-war going on between Moscow and Beijing over the resource-wealthy Central Asian nation. But at present, the tide seems to be in China's favor.