BEIJING/ASTANA, July 2 (Xinhua) -- A soaring eagle carrying the Sun adorns the Order of the Golden Eagle, the highest honor of Kazakhstan.
When Chinese President Xi Jinping received this accolade from President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in 2022, Xi envisioned a future where China-Kazakhstan relations would soar high like a golden eagle towards a bright horizon.
"A genuine great leader," Tokayev commented while bestowing the Order, highlighting Xi's historic role in consolidating the friendship between the two countries.
As Xi started a state visit to Kazakhstan on Tuesday, he is poised to build on this legacy of bilateral friendship and drive China-Kazakhstan relations to soar to even greater heights.
During his state visit to Kazakhstan in September 2013, Xi, for the first time, proposed building a Silk Road Economic Belt, a key part of the Belt and Road Initiative.
Xi's first trip since resuming international travel after the COVID-19 pandemic was also to Kazakhstan. Xi told Tokayev, "I chose Kazakhstan. This highlights the high level and unique nature of China-Kazakhstan relations and reflects our deep friendship."
"Incomparable." This is how Xi characterized bilateral ties. Decades after China and Kazakhstan established diplomatic relations in 1992, they advanced their relationship to a permanent comprehensive strategic partnership in 2019 during Tokayev's state visit to China. Both leaders committed to building a China-Kazakhstan community with a shared future in their vis-a-vis talks in 2022 and 2023.
"The level of strategic mutual trust and mutual understanding between China and Kazakhstan is at its highest," said Yang Bo, a professor of the School of Russian and Eurasian Studies at Shanghai International Studies University.
"This is precisely why, in 2013, President Xi chose Kazakhstan as the location to announce the Silk Road Economic Belt to the world, and facts have proven that this choice was very correct," Yang said.
Bilateral cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative has been highly effective. Through industrial collaboration, Kazakhstan has secured a logistics base in Lianyungang, a coastal city on China's Yellow Sea. The Western Europe-Western China Highway, successfully links the Asia-Pacific and Western European markets, spanning 8,445 km from Lianyungang across Kazakhstan to the Baltic Sea at St. Petersburg in Russia.
Trade between China and Kazakhstan hit a record of 41 billion U.S. dollars in 2023. Capacity and investment cooperation has generated a project list with a total value exceeding 21.2 billion dollars and continues to expand into the low-carbon sector with key outcomes including Zhanatas wind farm, the Turgusun hydropower plant and the Almaty solar power plant.
"Many cooperation aspects are groundbreaking," said Yang, "thanks to the high level of strategic trust between the two sides led by head-of-state diplomacy."■
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