Kazakhstan is quickly racking up debt to China and Astana’s obligations to Beijing appear poised to keep growing in the coming years. The trend of aggressive borrowing from China started in 2025, when Kazakhstan obtained over $3.5bn in credit, increasing the country’s total debt to the PRC to $12.87bn. Over the previous three years, the debt total barely budged, standing at $9.29bn at the end of 2024, $9.25bn in 2023 and $9bn in 2022. [...]