China’s interests in the Tian Shan: a 49-year lease?

In one of my previous posts, I told you about a Chinese study in the Tian Shan Mountains and wondered whether the PRC intends to be among the first to change the protected-area system or whether it has territorial interests. Now residents of Kyrgyzstan are writing to me — this is the country located in the most strategically important part of the Tian Shan mountain ranges, controlling the main water reserves of all Central Asia. They say that China is actively advancing projects and that a story about leasing territories for 49 years is gaining momentum.

Something similar has happened in our country and continues to expand. For example, let us recall Zabaykalsky Krai, where the authorities signed a memorandum of intent years ago with the Chinese company Huae Xingbang. The plan was to lease about 115,000 hectares of agricultural land for 49 years, with the possibility of subsequently expanding the project to approximately 200,000 hectares. The project was estimated at around 24 billion rubles in investment. At the same time, publications and television reports mentioned a figure of up to 2 million hectares in the Tarbagatay District of Buryatia, claiming that the possibility of leasing land to China for 49 years was being considered.

And now China is conducting research in the Tian Shan, while residents of Kyrgyzstan write that there are supposedly discussions underway about upcoming projects to transfer land to the Celestial Empire for 49 years. They also say that bots have begun massively amplifying this topic on social media. That is, if everything is confirmed, they apparently want to take control of large territories for half a century at once. And considering that conflicts over clean water and the general decline of water reserves are forecast precisely within this time horizon, even more questions arise about the role China may play here.

But I also know that in Kazakhstan, for example, the United States and China are currently dividing up territories, actively crushing everything under their control. They are doing quite well — raw-material colonialism.

I have not yet studied all of this thoroughly, so these are simply thoughts out loud. Let us find the time: we are already studying the Tian Shan Mountains, so we will review all the latest scientific papers and try to connect everything into a single picture — what China is strategically surveying and what plans it is defining for itself. This also needs to be overlaid on a map of infrastructure projects in the CIS countries in which the Celestial Empire is involved.