"Beijing believes that the bases are to be used not only for fighting terror but also for the purposes of reining in an expansionist and politically ambitious China," she said.
Dosym Satpayev, who heads the privately run Assessment Risk Group in Almaty and has written a book on Chinese-Kazakh relations, says Washington's presence has been a disappointment to the post-Soviet strongmen ruling the Central Asian republics. Having initially welcomed the Americans, they now see Washington's preoccupation with human rights and democracy as a threat to their survival, and find China's policy of non-interference appealing, he said.
"The Kazakhstan government really worries that US influence will bring political change to our country," Galyamova said.
Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev is thought capable of winning a fair presidential election, expected to be held in December, but he is a nervous ruler. He recently approved laws that punish Kazakhs who participate in unregistered political or religious organizations. They also punish foreign organizations that help them -- a move aimed at Western groups working to spread democracy.
China woos Kazakhstan
Last month, Nazarbayev and Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) formally affirmed their "strategic partnership," signed several trade deals and agreed to study building a railroad from Kazakhstan's portion of the oil-rich Caspian Sea to western China. A 988km pipeline to carry Kazakh oil to China is due for completion in December. Kazakh-Chinese trade, which totaled US$4.5 billion last year, is growing.
China's inroads into this country four times the size of Texas take many forms, says Rashid Dyusembaev, editor-in-chief of Kazakh Monitor, an independent English-language newspaper.
For instance, he said, Chinese farmers are taking long-term leases on farmland. Also, he said, "China has the headwaters of the two main rivers that supply water to Kazakhstan and has been diverting the water channel and can hold the water hostage."
China's interest in Central Asia isn't just economic. It has its own restive Muslim population, the Uighurs, in its far west, bordering on Central Asia. Beijing claims Uighur militants are part of an international Islamic terrorist network.
So with China facing a separatist threat, the US running bases in two Central Asian countries and Russia maintaining forces in two Central Asian states, the superpowers have "military forces cheek by jowl in a sensitive region of the world," the Economist Intelligence Unit's 2005-06 country profile of China observes.
Satpayev adds: "It is clear that China has taken a page from the American method of influence. First comes the investment, next comes the influence and next comes the soldiers."
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