January 13, 2021
Kazakhstan has scaled up its rhetoric on protecting the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, most probably against Russian and Chinese expansionist threats.
Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has written in a state-run newspaper that “nobody from outside gave Kazakhs this large territory as a gift”.
Written under the headline ‘Independence A Most Precious Thing’ on the 30th anniversary of Kazakhstan’s independence and a few days before the parliamentary elections, the article was a jibe at Russia and China. Both claim Kazakhstan was part of their territories in the past and that it should be integrated with them again.