Kazakhstan already feels pressured to pick sides in the mounting US-China row over the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, Adil Kaukenov, Director of the Kazakstan-based "China Centre" think tank, said on Thursday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 07th May, 2020) Kazakhstan already feels pressured to pick sides in the mounting US-China row over the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, Adil Kaukenov, Director of the Kazakstan-based "China Centre" think tank, said on Thursday.
"We already have been feeling pressured. I remind that during the visit of US State Secretary Mike Pompeo to Kazakhstan, he was speaking more of not the US-Kazakh relations, but the ties between Washington and Beijing, which itself is very symptomatic," Kaukenov said at an online conference held by Moscow's Valdai Discussion Club.
Maintaining good ties with its traditional partners and neighbors, such as China and Russia, is a geopolitical priority for Kazakhstan, the expert added, noting that it was also important for the country to have friendly ties with the West.
Some marginal elements in the Kazakh society are seeking to use the pandemic as a tool to disrupt the country's historically strong ties with its neighbors, Kaukenov warned.
The US is poised to determine where the coronavirus came from, and according to US President Donald Trump, one of the versions under consideration is that it was developed in a laboratory in Wuhan, the Chinese city in the Hubei province from which the first reports of an abnormal respiratory disease came last December. The US president has threatened China with consequences if it turns out that Beijing deliberately allowed the virus to exit the lab.
China has so far consistently denied the accusations, stressing the transparency and responsibility of its policies throughout the outbreak.
Over the recent weeks, the tensions between Beijing and Washington have escalated as Trump threatened to impose new tariffs on the Asian country, while on Wednesday, the White House described the bilateral relations as frustrating and disappointing.
