UK-Central Asian Relations Summit

Excerpt from the UK-Central Asian Relations Summit

Hosted by UCL Kazakh Society

Saturday 22nd March 2025 | 17:00 – 20:00 BSTWilkins Gustave Tuck Lecture Theatre, UCL, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT

On 22nd March 2025, the UCL Kazakh Society proudly hosted the UK-Central Asian Relations Summit, bringing together experts, policymakers, and students to explore the evolving political, economic, and cultural ties between the United Kingdom and Central Asia. The event featured keynote speaker Keith Best, former Member of Parliament for Anglesey and Chair & Chief Executive of the Wyndham Place Charlemagne Trust, who shared valuable insights into the future of bilateral cooperation and regional development.

Nowruz Mubarak to all especially to the UCL Kazakh Society which has organised this event. Mired in mystery most people in this country would not be able to place Kazakhstan on a map yet it is the world’s ninth largest state by land area although with a population of only 20 million and one of the lowest population densities in the world, with fewer than 6 people per square kilometre. Its obscurity in many Western minds, however, should not hide its natural wealth and geopolitical strategic position. An excellent study in December last year, of which no doubt many of you will be aware, was produced by the Henry Jackson Society entitled ”Understanding Kazakhstan’s Strategic Importance: A Middle Power Partner for the UK in Central Asia.” I am indebted to the report for much of my particular knowledge on the subject and quote much of it in my remarks here.

So why should we be concerned about Kazakhstan which critically borders both China and Russia and looks across the Caspian Sea to Europe? It is not just its geographical importance as a bridge but its strategic mineral wealth. It has relations with both its major neighbours and increasingly is taking the line of many middle powers of not aligning with either of the former power blocs but, instead, seeking to carve out its existence without taking traditional sides.  For all these reasons Kazakhstan is of importance to the big three as it is to Europe and countries like the UK that are trying to navigate their way in an increasingly multi-polar but also nationalistic world. 

In March 2024 Kazakhstan and the United Kingdom signed a Roadmap for Cooperation in the field of critical minerals. This initiative aims to strengthen the partnership by establishing joint ventures within Kazakhstan. According to Iran Sharkhan, Kazakhstan’s Vice Minister of Industry and Construction, out of the eighteen critical minerals identified by the British Geological Survey, eight are already produced in Kazakhstan and the other ten can be extracted with necessary technologies and investment. The Strategic Partnership and Cooperation Agreement between the UK and Kazakhstan, signed during former UK Foreign Secretary Lord David Cameron’s April 2024 visit to Central Asia, further illustrates the potential for collaboration on energy security and critical mineral supply chains, which could enhance regional stability and bolster UK national interests.

All this means that a new-found prominence and importance is being gained by such countries. We saw the importance attributed to Afghanistan through the Soviet invasion in 1979 and then, after its withdrawal, the de facto occupation by the USA and its allies. Both learned to their cost (and the British have a rather longer historic experience of this) that the attempt to dominate these countries through military force does not nor cannot succeed. Even in states that have been cobbled together from a heritage of tribal and ethnic different groupings the sense of national sovereignty and independence from foreign involvement is so strong as to motivate resistance even in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. The Russians are finding that to their cost yet again in Ukraine.

The old order and certainties that have dominated most of my life are now dead. After the first bloodletting in Europe in the last century the call was “never again” and that fear of another war and the consequent devastation, as well as the manifest unfairness and vengeance wreaked by the Treaty of Versailles, was a major influence in the rise of Hitler and the failure of other nations to respond. That indifference among so many to the autocrats’ thirst for power and domination backed by unchecked military capacity was paid for by the sacrifice of millions, so many of them civilians. Yet again, as throughout history, appeasement had failed and served only as an encouragement to the reckless ambition of military dictators. The aftermath, however, saw a regeneration of a desire for a global rules-based order and global authority encapsulated in the United Nations.  Indeed, President Roosevelt was so keen that it should succeed where the League of Nations after the First World war had failed that he sacrificed Poland to a generation of repressive communism in order to gain Stalin’s support for the concept. One can only hope that less noble aspirations by another President will not lead to the sacrifice of another European country and still further insecurity.

Although it may have been uncomfortable at least my generation grew up in the Cold War under the chilling doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction – the confrontation of two superpowers armed with an abundance of nuclear weapons each knowing that the initiation of nuclear war by one meant the annihilation of both – alongside most of humanity.

That world has gone or at least is fast disappearing. We now live in a world where not only The United States and Russia flex their muscles but China as well. The most populous democracy in the world, India, refuses to take sides and continues to buy Russian oil in the face of global sanctions. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other states in that region use their wealth to stand aside from allegiance to either East or West and through their oil can still hold much of the world to ransom. On top of that we have the USA seeing foreign affairs not so much as a vehicle for preserving the dream of its founding fathers enshrined in individual liberty and economic freedom throughout the world but in narrow transactional terms as to what is seen to be immediately most advantageous to a nationalist spirit. Internationalism may not be dead but it is on a life-support system. 

Foreign aid, designed not just philanthropically to lift other human beings out of poverty but also to create markets, peace and lessen a desire for migration, is seen as a legitimate alternative source for increased military spending and further fostering the divide between rich and poor which results in conflict and tension. It is not s much an isolationism but an antagonism towards other countries driven by narrow nationalism which, historically, has always ended in tears and bloodshed. Beyond that in so many countries and not just in democracies, although that is where it can be most documented and apparent, populations are becoming fractured and, in a period of uncertainty and fear in both the economy and security, are turning to the demagogues and populists who seem to have easy answers to complex problems but, in reality, are all snake-oil merchants with their false promises of free passes to paradise.

Into that vacuum the middle power nations such as Kazakhstan are finding opportunities to flex their muscles and increase their influence thereby adding to even more potential power-points around the world.

As our fractured and ever increasingly multi-polar world develops so the middle ranking powers are finding their own sense of identity and finding that other states, even large ones, must respect their integrity and deal with them as major players and not just potential client states.

On the break-up of the Soviet Union Kazakhstan was the last of the former Soviet states to declare independence in 1991. Yet even before that time it consisted of many different elements. It should be remembered that after gaining independence, Kazakhstan voluntarily relinquished its nuclear weapons (as, indeed, did Ukraine) and, building on this legacy, Kazakhstan has actively promoted nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation from which we can learn. In 2015, Kazakhstan successfully tabled a resolution at the UN, “The Universal Declaration on the Achievement of a Nuclear-Free World”, which received widespread support. It has emerged as a global advocate for biological safety, driven by the recognition that pandemics and other biosafety threats require collective action, and was the first Central Asian country to sign the Paris Agreement in 2016, demonstrating its commitment to addressing climate change. There is so much more to this country of which we know so little.

It has learned to avoid the disastrous period of attempted development that bedevilled both the Soviet Union under Stalin and China under Mao Zedong of collectivisation, agrarian reform denying local ownership and improvement as well as killing all sense of entrepreneurialism and pride in building a business. 3-4 million Ukrainians died under Stalin’s measures, called the Holodomor, and we all saw what happened to China before Deng Xiaoping enabled more private enterprise – it seems that under Xi Jinping China economically is having to learn that hard lesson all over again. Kazakhstan, instead, resisted that temptation of a country’s newly found independence or control by a strong leader and its economic reforms including diversifying its economy through the reduction of reliance on imports, promoting job creation and supporting small and medium-sized enterprises helped stimulate its economic strength alongside the significant political reforms including a single seven-year presidential term, enhanced parliamentary powers and improved democratic participation. 

Moreover, I hope that Kazakhstan can learn from history that the most secure political systems are based on the consent and support of the people expressed democratically at the lowest possible level thereby engaging the people directly with a vested interest in local decisions with power reserved to higher levels commensurate with the scope of those decisions. This is the bottom-up approach of federal systems that stand the test of time better than those with centralised power which may or may not devolve some authority to lower tiers of government.

Despite these positive attributes I do not want to paint a picture as though everything is rosy and perfect. Like so many adjoining and other countries Kazakhstan is no exception to having to look carefully at corruption, tribal and ethnic dominance and potential abuse of political power. These problems, which in many cases are only just below the surface, create a crisis in individual human rights as well as collective ones whether it is the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, the Rohingya in Myanmar or a host of other sad examples worldwide. 

For those of us who still believe in the universality of human rights and the global application of the rule of law we have a fight on our hands. The major powers are now far less squeamish over these issues than in the past. The Chinese have advanced their trade in Africa not least because they have not carried their economic offerings with one hand and lectured on and demanded adherence to human rights with the other. Marco Rubio, a proponent of human rights, before becoming Secretary of State, set the new scene ““We are now in an era of global affairs where responsible American foreign policy must be based not on idealistic fantasies but on pragmatic decisions that prioritize the core national interest of the United States above all else.” Increasingly we shall see all countries following suit by biting their tongue when doing advantageous commercial deals with states that are oppressing their populations. It was, after all, the enormous commercial interest that delayed the abolition of slavery for so long.

That is why, despite this pessimistic but, I believe, realistic outlook I am encouraged by the growth in prominence of middle powers such a Kazakhstan. They can be relied on to bring new perspectives to global diplomacy.  By developing cross-fertilisation of trade and tourism we all can be enriched by a greater understanding of humanity throughout the world and learn that perhaps no system or group has a monopoly of wisdom or truth about how we can co-exist in peace and prosperity but that each has its part to play by learning from each other and adopting and adapting accordingly. In that way, although it may not be by a prescribed or predictable route, we may uncover the gem of freedom, peace and hope.

Keith Best TD, MA is a former Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Anglesey/Ynys Môn and served as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Wales. Major in airborne and commando (artillery) forces, practising barrister, liveryman (Loriner), and Freeman of the City of London, Keith was named one of the 100 most influential people in public services in the UK by Society Guardian. Keith has made significant contributions to international refugee and human rights initiatives, including serving as Vice Chair of the European Council on Refugees and Exiles and as a member of the Foreign Secretary’s Advisory Panel on Torture Prevention. He is the Chair & CEO of the Wyndham Place Charlemagne Trust, Chair of the Universal Peace Federation (UK), patron of TEAM Global, and a trustee of several national and international organisations. 

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