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Kazakhstan threads diplomatic needle, gives both Russia and China nuclear deals [1]

['Lana Kokaia']

Date: 2025-06

Kazakhstan has taken the meaning of multi-vector foreign policy into a new dimension: to split atoms, Astana has decided to divide a tender, creating deals to build two nuclear power plants when only one had previously been authorized.

With Kazakhstan’s two powerful neighbors, Russia and China, both vying aggressively to secure the contract to build the planned reactor on the shores of Lake Balkhash, Astana faced a difficult choice. Not wanting to face potential blowback for offending either the Kremlin or Beijing, Kazakh officials got creative, or what many might describe as pragmatic.

Formally, Kazakhstan’s Atomic Energy Agency (KAEA) announced June 14 that Russia’s Rosatom had received the tender to build at the Lake Balkhash site. But at the same time, the agency announced a second nuclear power plant would be constructed at a location to be determined and that China’s National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) had secured that contract.

In addition to Rosatom and CNNC, entities from France and South Korea were in the running to win the tender. KAEA officials maintained the pretense that the awards were based on a fixed set of criteria, including “reactor technologies ... plant safety, technological and financial aspects, international experience, personnel training, level of localization, etc.”

“Working on the issue of attracting state export financing at the expense of the Russian Federation has begun,” adds the KAEA statement, which was posted on Telegram.

Details about the second nuclear plant still need to be finalized, but there’s no doubt the job is CNNC’s, KAEA’s chief, Almasadam Satkaliev, indicated.

“Objectively, there are not so many countries in the world that can master the entire atomic cycle on their own,” the statement quotes him as saying. “China is one of the countries that has all the necessary technologies.”

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[1] Url: https://eurasianet.org/kazakhstan-threads-diplomatic-needle-gives-both-russia-and-china-nuclear-deals

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