China’s role in Kazakhstan’s automotive sector: The complexity and complementarity of multi-vector state-to-state engagement and product diversification

Kazakhstan’s political economy of automobile development is a typical state-backed process to reallocate the resource revenue to diversify the economy. Kazakhstan’s automobile sector has been shaped by its long-term multi-vector approach to engaging foreign capital and technology, including those from China. This paper traces the automobile development in Kazakhstan between 2003 and 2023 and argues that (1) Kazakhstan’s multi-vector state-to-state engagements with Japan, China, and other Western European countries have recently become a crucial strategy to enhance its bargaining power. In addition, China’s recent desire to enhance its connectivity under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has given the Kazakh government more leverage to take part in the automobile’s global value chain; (2) the initial progress made in the automobile development has been complemented by the improving local perception towards China’s investment projects which facilitates more specific industrial policy of localization and capacity building for further industrial upgrading; and (3) the case study of regional automobile development experience and a major Sino-Kazakh automobile joint venture shed light on the importance for Kazakhstan’s automobile sector to adopt multi-vector approach in product diversification.

© The Author(s) 2025