DISINFO: Kazakhstan’s destabilisation attempts to obstruct EEU membership and China’s new Silk Road
SUMMARY
The destabilisation of Kazakhstan from abroad tries to create obstacles to its membership in the Eurasian Economic Union headed by Russia, as well as China’s new Silk Road. Such destabilisation would hit Eurasia in its core, with geopolitical reverberations in Russia, China and all Central Asia, where the embers of the US debacle in Afghanistan persist.
RESPONSE
This is part of a wider disinformation campaign to justify the Russian-led intervention of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation in Kazakhstan.
There is no evidence to support claims about any US or foreign intervention behind the unrest in Kazakhstan, and even less evidence that the actual target would be any Russian or Chinese project. Instead, growing evidence points to an ongoing power struggle in the country as a driving cause in the radicalisation and expansion of the protests, which started peacefully after the government lifted price controls on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), in an already volatile context in the country.
Besides, there are more deep-rooted causes for the protests in a country that suffers from a lack of democracy, corruption and economic difficulties despite being rich in economic resources. For example, Kazakhstan ranks 128 out of 167 countries in the 2020 Democracy Index and also ranks 94 out of 180 countries in the 2020 Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index (CPI).
See also the statement by the EU High Representative here.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives in our database, such as claims that US-sponsored Kazakhstan protests aimed to undermine CIS stability, that the West ordered a terrorist attack in Kazakhstan to create a hotbed at Russia’s border, or that the US seeded chaos in Afghanistan to undermine China and Russia.