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Page added on January 30, 2010

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Kazakhs protest government's burgeoning ties with Beijing

ALMATY: Kazakh protesters scuffled with police yesterday at a rally against their government’s burgeoning ties with neighboring China. Many in Kazakhstan, a vast but thinly populated nation, are suspicious of China’s growing influence in resource-rich Central Asia and accuse the government of selling out oil riches to their giant, energy-hungry neighbor. President Nursultan Nazarbayev said last month China had proposed renting a million hectares of Kazakh land to grow soya and other crops. The government later denied any plans to lease land to China.

Shouting “Down with Nazarbayev!” and carrying banners depicting China as a threatening dragon, hundreds of people gathered in the biggest city Almaty. “Handing over land to foreigners should be forbidden,” opposition activist Marzhan Aspandiyarova told the rally. Dozens of people tried to stage a march across Almaty and clashed briefly with police who blocked their way. Police detained one protester and broke up the crowd.

Nazarbayev has been in power since 1989 and enjoys sweeping powers in the former Soviet republic. He tolerates little dissent and public criticism of the veteran leader is taboo. Analysts say China now controls nearly a quarter of Kazakhstan’s annual oil output of 75 million tons. Kazakh oil is shipped to China via a pipeline with capacity of 10 million tons a year and there are plans to expand it. In 2009, China invested more than $10 billion in projects in Kazakhstan. “They (the government) borrowed $13
billion from China and now they want to pay it back with our land,” Bolat Abilov, a leader of the opposition party Azat, said at the rally.

Kuwait Times



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