Kazakhstan is turning geography into strategy. In an interview on Eastern Express, Bruce Pannier, a board member at the think tank Caspian Policy Center, said the country is rapidly positioning itself as Eurasia’s transit hinge as shippers reroute away from Russia.
“Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine meant that you couldn’t use the so-called northern route… Now you have both China and Europe hugely interested in developing the Middle Corridor,” he said.
That corridor—the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route —runs from China through Kazakhstan, across the Caspian to the South Caucasus and onward to Europe. Pannier argues Kazakhstan’s long, uninterrupted east-west spine gives it a structural edge.
Read the full article on TVP World.
Bruce Pannier is a Senior Fellow at the Turan Research Center.