Street protests amid fears of China’s land grab in Kazakhstan pay off

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Spirited street protests, fearing China’s push to grab agricultural land in Kazakhstan, have paid off with the passage of a new national law that bans foreigners from buying land.</p>
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Nikkei Asia is reporting that the law, approved on Thursday, is more restrictive than an earlier proposal that allowed foreigners to lease forests for up to 25 years.</p>
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The handing over of arable land to foreigners is a highly emotive issue in Kazakhstan. It feeds into the collective memory when Tsarist Russia, and later the former Soviet Union took over Kazakh land and destroyed the prevalent nomadic culture that prevailed in the rolling steppes of the region at that time.</p>
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Unsurprisingly the government’s proposal to lease land sparked street protests in 2016. The ferocity of the protests, which led to the arrest of 1,000 people, persuaded the government to impose a 5-year moratorium in the issue. Eventually, the leadership has backed down, with the adoption of the new law earlier this week.</p>
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The 2016 protests were driven in part by a perception that China, Kazakhstan’s giant neighbour, intended to corner Kazakh agricultural land to feed its vast population. Fears of Chinese expansionism, is further fuelling misgivings about Chinese investments in the country, which has a small population, but is the 9th largest in area in the world.  Nearly 75 per cent of Kazakh land is fit for agriculture.</p>
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"Unhappiness with the country's increasing dependence on Beijing has been mounting in Kazakhstan for some time now, not least because the Kazakh authorities (like others in the region) don't know how to talk to people about the balance between problems and opportunities created by relations with China," wrote Temur Umarov, an expert on China and Central Asia, in a commentary for the Carnegie Moscow Center, as quoted by Nikkei.</p>
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Opposition activist Zhanbolat Mamay, leader of the unregistered Democratic Party of Kazakhstan, is leading the charge against Chinese land grab in Kazakhstan.</p>
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"We warn the authorities that the land will never be sold or leased to foreigners. We need to say it not only on social networks, but also on the square," Mamay said in a Facebook post calling for a gathering at Almaty's Republic Square, Kazakhstan's commercial hub.</p>
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"Had we kept silent the other time, the law allowing foreigners to trade land would have been passed," he added.</p>