A Research Note on Central Asian Perspectives on the Rise of China: The Example of Kazakhstan

Using Kazakhstan as an example, this research note seeks to address an empirical gap in the understanding of Central Asian perspectives on the rise of China. Theoretically, this article adheres to the constructivist argument in international relations that, to understand the influence of China's rise on world politics, a pure measurement of China's political, economic, and military power is insufficient. What truly matters is how China views itself in the world order and how other countries perceive and interpret China's global position when forming their foreign policy strategies toward China. Asian Barometer and Afrobarometer contain similar instruments that are used to measure East Asian, South Asian, and African perspectives on China's rise. This research note suggests the adoption of similar survey instruments to explore how China is received in Central Asia. We present the results of a pilot test that was conducted in Kazakhstan, where we found that members of the future elites are generally positive about the rise of China. This pattern is not surprising, because future elites in nondemocratic countries tend to incorporate national interests into their value systems. Given the limited scale of the survey, the findings cannot be regarded as definitive; however, they suggest directions for further research. Finally, the matter of how to improve the survey instruments is discussed in the conclusion.