8 - State approaches to non-state interactions: Cross-border flows in Xinjiang and Kazakhstan

Summary

Abstract

The chapter focuses on cross-border relations between the Republic of Kazakhstan and Xinjiang-Uyghur Autonomous Region of China, examining the attempts of respective states to intervene in and/or co-opt long-established traditions of transborder flows. Despite having existed on opposite sides of closely guarded borders for most of the 20th century, the two adjoining regions managed to keep alive long-established traditions of cross-border interactions thanks to shared ethnic, cultural, and linguistic features. The frontier societies there today have lived through multiple challenges – the indiscriminate border policy of the Soviet era on Kazakhstan's side and the tumultuous early years of socialist China engendered exoduses of people across semi-controlled borders. Almost all official interactions stopped until the 1990s when new challenges and opportunities presented themselves and, with them, the revival of informal cross-border exchanges and states’ attempts to co-opt and control them.

Keywords: China-Kazakhstan border, Khorgos, ICBC, frontier society, cross-border exchanges, border control

Introduction

Governmental authorities recognize that unless borders are officially closed, flows will pass through them. Participating in the international community involves acknowledging that, inevitably, people will cross state boundaries unofficially. States do attempt to monitor the unofficial flows of capital, goods, services, people, information, and influence for a variety of reasons, most concerning safety, security, sovereignty, and salient policymaking. The state's attempts to intervene and/or co-opt the long-established tradition of transborder cooperation and flows between the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Xinjiang-Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) of the People's Republic of China is the focus of this article.

Kazakhstan and Xinjiang share a long and complicated history. Kazakhs are an ethnic minority of China (around 1.4 million live in Xinjiang), and there is a substantial Uyghur presence in Kazakhstan (around 300,000). Both XUAR and Kazakhstan play pivotal roles in the Silk Road strategy, or One Belt One Road (OBOR) as it has come to be known. Cross-border interactions, mostly of an economic nature and both official and non-state, are already well-established and likely to increase in intensity, as will government monitoring and participation in the latter.

Governments monitor the flow of goods and services across their borders not only to collect taxes and/or tariffs, but also to inform policy with respect to trade agreements and sectoral support.