Stefan Antić is a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for International Relations and Sustainable Development (CIRSD), the Managing Editor of Horizons, and a Teaching Assistant at Sciences Po’s Paris School of International Affairs.
As the history of humanity repeatedly demonstrates, being blessed with geography alone is no guarantee of long-term survival, let alone tangible influence. Instead, one’s ability to use geography as leverage for far-reaching strategy is what separates the survivors from those that stay on the margins. Uniquely positioned in the very heart of the Eurasian landmass, Kazakhstan has since the earliest days of independence acted as a disciplined practitioner of pragmatic foreign policy and a logistics hub, linking diverse geographies and bridging rival blocs.
With Russia and China to its north and east (both enormously promising markets) and the Caspian Sea to the west, the Central Asian country is an obvious go-to transit state for both maritime and land transport. But such geography only becomes a meaningful tool if utilized with the right strategic choices and foresight. Kazakhstan’s own infrastructure investments, primarily in the dry port of Khorgos on the border with China, as well as the Kuryk and Aktau ports linking the country to Azerbaijan and the South Caucasus, are but one testament to the fact that strategic thinking runs deep in the halls of the Akorda.
Moreover, infrastructure investment has been picking up pace. By doing its part to modernize its portion of the corridor between Europe and East Asia, Kazakhstan has been able to reduce transport times by approximately 67 percent. At the same time, technologically upgrading the border crossings has already yielded results, increasing daily processing capacities from 1,000 to 8,400 vehicles.
The Middle Corridor, known also as the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR), is arguably Kazakhstan’s mist indispensable geopolitical instrument. Hard data only confirms this. For instance, the corridor saw a total of 2.3 million tons of cargo pass through it in the first half of 2025, which is a 7 percent increase relative to the same period recorded in 2024. But as many analysts would remind us, the corridor’s greatest advantage isn’t the speed but its reliability. The maritime connection to the Caspian and the railway network continuing through the Caucasus and Türkiye ensures that the route isn’t exposed to the sorts of disruptions that have significantly affected the Northern Corridor since 2022. On the speed and efficiency side of the equation, the World Bank projects that carefully measured infrastructure investment could cut existing transit times in half while tripling freight flows by 2030.
Kazakhstan stands to benefit on multiple fronts. In addition to collecting fees and providing logistical services, this position allows Kazakhstan to continue building on its role as a trusted mediator between opposing geopolitical visions for Eurasia. It is a unique prerogative of Astana to look for and proactively offer avenues of complementarity between the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the EU’s Global Gateway: two infrastructure mega projects otherwise seen as rivals.
Never has this prospect been more relevant, as both China and the EU continue to make headways in Central Asia. The EU’s latest push, whose investments in Kazakhstan now surpass $200 billion, involved signing agreements with Astana aimed at deepening cooperation within the Global Gateway framework in March 2025. This includes a €200 million loan provided by the European Investment Bank for the purposes of developing sustainable transport and renewable energy, as well as a smaller contract worth €3.3 million “to boost cooperation between the EU and Central Asia in critical raw materials.” China, for its part, is now Kazakhstan’s single largest trading partner, having surpassed Russia in 2023 with bilateral trade reaching $41 billion.
As a neutral ground, Astana could reconcile European and Chinese standards, ensuring BRI projects meet European requirements whilst linking Global Gateway to Chinese financing. Having already established itself as a crucial transit state, Kazakhstan has the strategic wherewithal to become a political convergence point as well, capable of reconciling rival projects on its own terms. Still, reconciling geopolitical opponents takes much more than getting the economics right. In Kazakhstan’s case, this also requires a nuanced approach to Russia. Here too, Kazakhstan has played a constructive role. As ties have severed between Western capitals and Moscow, Astana has kept much-needed communication lines open.
What many analysts would describe as balancing act is in fact what makes Kazakhstan a credible intermediary. In crises that emerged over the past decades, Astana hosted peace talks on Syria and led the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA), while its pragmatic diplomacy (partially rooted in Turkic wisdom) has kept tensions from spiraling out of control. This function remains highly valuable and universally recognized, especially in a multipolar world poised to produce more competition.
Building on this tradition, Kazakhstan will host the Astana Think Tank Forum on 15-16 October 2025, bringing together thought leaders and policymakers under the theme “From Polarization to Partnership: Rebuilding Trust in the International System.” The forum represents yet another effort by Astana to provide a neutral platform for dialogue at a time when global institutions struggle with deepening fault lines and eroding multilateral cooperation.
Kazakhstan’s value as a bridge-builder carries significant regional implications. A reliable and investment-attractive Kazakhstan means both stable supply chains and lower costs of doing business and transport across Central Asia. Moreover, such a country exudes resilience, which is a staple prerequisite of any society looking to prepare for the future in which the face of the global economy will be radically transformed by galloping technological advancements.
A clear signal that Kazakhstan places future-proof strategies at the top of its agenda is the prioritization of artificial intelligence. Last month, President Tokayev issued a decree establishing the Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development, with former General Manager of Binance Kazakhstan Zhaslan Madiyev appointed as its head. The overarching goal to ensure accelerated implementation of AI in government agencies, industry, and education, is a further testament to Kazakhstan’s deep understanding of both its geopolitical environment and present times.
None of this is just about technology. For Kazakhstan, it is both a generational and strategic shift. Having once been a country that simply made the best of what was available due to its geography, Kazakhstan is stepping up to take charge of its future in all aspects imaginable. The country already enjoys the status of an indispensable trade bridge. The geopolitics of the multipolar world will only favor the expansion of this role into other spheres as well.
