Sino-Kazakhstan transboundary water allocation cooperation study: analysis of willingness and policy implementation

ABSTRACT

During the process of bridging conflicting water interests, cooperation and conflict tend to co-exist. The main aim of this research is to identify the reason behind the intensified water relationship between China and Kazakhstan. In this regard, the main research question is: what are the barriers hindering the implementation of Sino-Kazakhstan water allocation cooperation? In order to answer this question, the research applies a qualitative analysis approach to assemble the crucial descriptors that allow the main barriers to be categorized, such as appreciation of water, initial willingness, institutional conflict resolution, and bureaucratic system constraints. This is intended to provide an assessment of the motivation, organization, and implementation of Sino-Kazakhstan transboundary water management, based on interdisciplinary literature on water management and international law. This research ultimately finds that the opposite interests, reluctance, ambiguity in the legal framework, and poor intra-governmental coordination negatively impact the implementation of Sino-Kazakhstan water allocation cooperation.

KEYWORDS:

• Water management
• willingness of cooperation
• policy implementation
• transboundary water allocation
• international water law

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Marleen van Rijswick, Otto Spijkers, Herman Kasper Gilissen, Liping Dai and Raymond Yu Wang for their valuable suggestion on earlier versions of this article. At the same time, I would like to thank the editors and anonymous reviewers for their detailed and valuable comments.

Notes

1. As stated by Wang Yi, China’s Foreign Minister during his official visit to Kazakhstan on 19–20 August 2013: ‘If we talk about the transboundary waters, China is not doing anything to the detriment of the interests of Kazakhstan. I am convinced that by further efforts of both sides, we will find a deserved solution to this problem, and transboundary rivers between the two countries will be the ties that will closely connect our peoples.’ (IBP, 2009).

2. The Sino-Kazakh Boundary Management Agreement in December 2006 and the Joint Declaration on Further Deepening the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between China and Kazakhstan in September 2013 complement and improve the basic framework of the aforementioned agreements, such as the maintenance of border corridors and joint border inspection.

3. Transactional agreements, including the Agreement on the Emergency Notification of Natural Disasters in Transboundary Rivers, the Agreement on the Exchange of Hydrological and Water Quality Information at Border Hydrological Stations in Major Transboundary Rivers, and the Agreement on Scientific Research Cooperation in Transboundary Rivers, have been reached by the two sides. Both China and Kazakhstan have also achieved on phase of an agreement focused on diverting the water from the Horgos River: Completion and Operation of the Friendship Joint Diversion Project of the Horgos River between China and Kazakhstan.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by China Scholarship Council, grant number 201806270086.