Chinese President Xi Jinping attended the second China-Central Asia Summit held in Astana, capital of Kazakhstan on June 17, where leading officials of the six countries agreed to work together to make continuous and new achievements in building a China-Central Asia community with a shared future.
The China-Central Asia summit was established in June 2022 when foreign ministers from China and five Central Asian countries – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan – met for the third time. From May 18 to 19, 2023, China hosted the first summit in Xi’an, Shaanxi Province, where the summit mechanism was officially announced to be held every two years in China and one of the five Central Asian countries in turn.
Wang Yi, a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and foreign minister, said the second summit highlighted what President Xi called the “China Central Asia Spirit,” which signifies four aspects, namely practicing mutual respect and treating each other as equals, seeking to deepen mutual trust and enhancing mutual support, pursuing mutual benefit and win-win cooperation and striving for common development, and helping each other in time of need and standing together through thick and thin.
Agreeing to uphold the spirit, the six countries designated 2025 and 2026 as the “Years of High-Quality Development of China-Central Asia Cooperation.”
More than 100 cooperation outcomes were achieved, Wang revealed, adding that all parties will focus their cooperation on six priority areas of smooth trade, industrial investment, connectivity, green mining, agricultural modernization and personnel exchanges to strive for more tangible outcomes. Meanwhile, Xi announced the establishment of three cooperation centers on poverty reduction, education exchange and desertification prevention and control. China also pledged to provide 3,000 training opportunities to Central Asian countries in the next two years.
The heads of the six countries witnessed the signing of a treaty on eternal good-neighborliness, friend-ship and cooperation and an action plan for high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, Wang said, noting that this is the first time that China has signed Belt and Road cooperation documents with all countries in a neighboring region as a whole.
Trade between China and Central Asian countries hit a record high of 674.15 billion yuan (US$96.3b) in 2024, up by 116 percent compared with 2013.
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