Chinese President Xi Jinping's upcoming visit to Kazakhstan is highly anticipated to inject new momentum into the development of bilateral relations and to chart the future course for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).[Special coverage]
Xi's four-day tour, starting on Wednesday, includes a state visit to the Central Asian country at the invitation of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, and the attendance of the annual meeting of the SCO's supreme decision-making body, the Council of Heads of State, as well as the opening ceremony of the 2017 World Expo in Astana.
BOOST BILATERAL TIES
The Chinese leader has visited Kazakhstan twice since taking office, respectively in 2013 and 2015, forging a profound friendship with the country and its people.
Xi's visit will, in the first place, further promote the China-Kazakhstan political trust and chart the course for bilateral pragmatic cooperation in future, said Zhang Xiyun, a former Chinese ambassador to Kazakhstan.
The two countries, since establishing diplomatic relations 25 years ago, have "made great strides in their ties both in form and in substance," he said. "Beijing and Astana have remained quite attentive to each other's development needs."
Xi brought up the initiative on the construction of the Silk Road Economic Belt, part of the Belt and Road Initiative, at the Nazarbayev University in September 2013, during a visit to Kazakhstan.
The country has since then made efforts to align its development strategy of "Nurly Zhol," which means "bright path" in the Kazakh language, with the Belt and Road Initiative, and worked together with China to promote productivity.
Zhang noted that Kazakhstan, the most prosperous nation in Central Asia, has made itself a key post in pragmatic cooperation in implementing the Belt and Road Initiative.
"The China-Kazakhstan productivity cooperation has become a typical example of successful bilateral and regional pragmatic cooperation. China has committed to transferring advanced and edge-cutting productivity to Kazakhstan for all these years, a sound proof that the bilateral cooperation is for win-win results and is mutually beneficial in nature," he said.
"Meanwhile, the Chinese city of Lianyungang in east China's Jiangsu Province has become a vital sea port for the products of landlocked Kazakhstan to export to other countries," he said. "The geopolitical position of Kazakhstan also provides Chinese goods and companies a convenient gateway to Europe."
The diplomat added that Xi's visit will also boost security collaboration between Beijing and Astana in fighting terrorism, extremism, separatism, cross-border crimes and drug smuggling, among others.
