Opposition activists in Kazakhstan called on the government on Saturday to stop Chinese investment in the country's natural resources, saying Beijing could be preparing a land grab in Central Asia. Several hundred people gathered in Almaty, the country's largest city, for an officially sanctioned rally against Chinese expansion into Kazakhstan, a vast former Soviet republic holding 3 percent of the world's recoverable oil reserves.
"Chinese relations to resource exploitation have imperialist undertones," said Vladimir Kozlov, leader of the unregistered Alga! opposition party. China's growing clout in Kazakhstan and other former Soviet republics in Central Asia is underpinned by billions of dollars of investment in the region's oil, gas and metals reserves, including a $10 billion "loan-for-oil" deal agreed in 2009.
Beijing's foray across its 1,530 km (960 mile) border with Kazakhstan represents a challenge to Russia, which sees the country as part of its sphere of influence, as well as to European hopes that it can be a major new supplier of energy. Opposition leaders, who addressed the crowd in a small park in the outer suburbs of Almaty, said Chinese loans were being used by the billionaire shareholders of oil and mining companies to further their own ambitions.
Activists waved red and white banners bearing slogans such as: 'The fate of our land is the fate of our people'. The government denies that China could grab land. Kazakh law permits foreigners to lease land for agricultural use for a maximum period of 10 years but forbids them from owning land. Kazakhstan, a mainly Muslim country of 16.4 million people, has attracted more than $120 billion in foreign investment since gaining independence in 1991.
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