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Astana, Kazakhstan: Dmitry Medvedev arrived in Kazakhstan yesterday on his first trip abroad as Russia's new president, reaffirming Moscow's push to control the flow of energy from the Central Asian region.
Russia has sought to retain its monopoly on the transit of oil and gas from Kazakhstan and other Central Asian nations, but the West and China have been vying for alternative supply routes.
Global rivalry for the energy assets of Central Asia, which together with the Caspian Sea is believed to contain the world's third-largest reserves of oil and natural gas, has been widely compared to the 19th century "Great Game" race for domination in the region between the British empire and czarist Russia.
Medvedev landed in Kazakhstan on his way to China, a former Cold War rival turned "strategic partner." While Moscow and Beijing have joined efforts in trying to keep the West out of Central Asia, they are rivals in a struggle for control of the region's oil and gas flows.
"Russia is worried by China's quiet expansion in Central Asia," said Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of Russia in Global Affairs magazine.
China already has reached an oil pipeline deal with Kazakhstan.
"China has been actively seeking to secure energy supplies from Central Asia and they have gone quite far," said Alexander Konovalov, head of the Moscow-based Institute for Strategic Assessment.
Last year, Moscow won a key victory when it signed a major deal with Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan for those countries' Caspian Sea gas supplies to flow through Russia. But both Kazakh and Turkmen leaders have also expressed interest in a rival US and EU-backed trans-Caspian gas pipeline.
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