China’s Digital Diplomacy in Kazakhstan: A Study of Instagram Posts from 2024 to 2025

Introduction

For over a quarter century, China has been forging alternatives to established international systems. The country charted a unique path in its global rise, spearheading initiatives that resulted in a flurry of acronyms—BRICS (which stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa as an alternative to the G7), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (or SCO, in place of NATO), the Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (or CIPS, in place of the Clearing House Interbank Payment System, or CHIPS), and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Belt and Road Initiative (or AIIB and BRI, in place of Western-led development). These projects had always functioned as bypasses around the incumbent world order, though they could not wholly supplant that order. One question, therefore, was whether China could eventually take the helm of established systems—especially since it worked within existing institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) even while building parallels to them (Ikenberry & Lim, 2017).

Since January 2025, rifts in the liberal international order have allowed China to assume an even greater role. More than at any prior point in China’s rise (including the financial crisis and the first Trump administration), U.S. retrenchment in the world has given the People’s Republic an opportunity to dictate the global order, rather than rallying likeminded or pliant nations in opposition to it. Today, on complex matters requiring global coordination, it is China that aims to project competence, leadership, and stability.

This paper examines how China portrays its role in a tumultuous world by analyzing its communications to Kazakhstan, a key partner in Central Asia. China’s border with Kazakhstan is the longest among the Central Asia republics. Substantial volumes of trade between China and Europe pass through Kazakhstan via the Middle Corridor, a major component of the Eurasian trade network. Beyond goods, the two countries have seen decades of movement of their peoples across each other’s borders. Kazakhstan was a founding member of the SCO, and it was in Astana that the BRI was announced in 2013. Even as ambitions for the BRI have been scaled back (Xinhua, 2021), Kazakhstan remains a linchpin of China’s trade, diplomatic, and security strategies.

Here we engage with Instagram postings by the Chinese embassy in Kazakhstan. Social media features prominently in China’s digital diplomacy (Anindita et al., 2023; Thunø & Nielbo, 2024). We chose Instagram because of its popularity among Kazakhstan’s domestic users and its role in the Embassy’s digital outreach. Further, Instagram allows two levels of qualitative analysis: text and images.

From this collaboration, we derive three key findings. First, Chinese digital diplomacy in Kazakhstan underwent a marked shift after Trump’s second inauguration. Instagram postings morphed from simple, straightforward facts and figures on trade and development to increasingly pointed castigation of the U.S. for assailing free trade and fomenting instability. To the extent that the People’s Republic had balanced undermining and commandeering the established international order, the embassy in Kazakhstan quickly pivoted to portraying China as the defender of that order. This dovetails with the second finding—that the embassy was exhibiting greater awareness of international perceptions of China’s role in a rapidly changing world. The postings depict China as the bulwark of multilateralism in an era of fragmentation and inward withdrawal. Rather than a liberal international order led by the U.S., today it is China that leads the charge for prosperity, innovation, and climate resilience—all complex problems demanding worldwide collaboration. As our third finding suggests, cooperation is facilitated by BRI projects, MOUs, and Confucius Center programming—emblems of Chinese soft power—to align interests bilaterally and multilaterally.

 

1. Background

1. The Importance of Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan’s physical proximity to China assures its enduring strategic importance. Over half of China’s total border with Central Asia—more than 1,700 kilometers—is shared with Kazakhstan. As a result, Kazakhstan is not only a neighbor but a consistent focus of China’s zhoubian waijiao, or neighborhood diplomacy. This bilateral proximity is further elevated by Kazakhstan’s border with the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, which occupies a special role in China’s national development and internal security agenda. Given the economic disparity between China’s western provinces and the more developed eastern coastal regions, Xinjiang has been an important focus of the Western Development Strategy (西部大开发), which aims to reduce regional inequality and stimulate economic growth in the West. Unsurprisingly, Xinjiang has been designated as the “core area” of the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB), BRI’s land-based component (The State Council of the PRC, 2015). It is not a coincidence that Astana was chosen by Xi Jinping as the site to announce the SREB in September 2013.

Kazakhstan is the only country that currently provides Xinjiang with functioning international railway links. The Alashankou-Dostyk and Khorgos-Altynkol rail crossings serve as the two existing routes through which freight moves westward from Xinjiang. A third railway connection via the Bakhty checkpoint is under construction, further solidifying Kazakhstan’s logistical role (Rail-news.kz, 2023). More broadly, Kazakhstan plays a central role in what is referred to as the “Middle Corridor,” a key segment of trans-Eurasian overland transport. It offers a direct land bridge between China and Europe via Central Asia and the Caspian Sea. Infrastructure such as the Western Europe-Western China highway corridor, the Khorgos Gateway dry port, and integrated rail logistics systems reinforce Kazakhstan’s role in enabling overland trade. According to recent data, over 80% of land freight from China to Europe transits through Kazakhstan, with cargo volumes along the Middle Corridor reaching 4.5 million tons by the end of 2024, a 60% increase from the previous year (Kaztag.kz, 2025). Moreover, in 2024, trade between China and Kazakhstan made up nearly half of the total China–Central Asia trade volume, which amounted to 95 billion USD (Kaztag.kz, 2025).

The Middle Corridor running through Kazakhstan holds strategic importance for China not only as a transit route but also as a domestic development tool. It has been central to China’s goal of reducing regional inequalities and integrating Xinjiang and other western provinces more closely into the national economy. While Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine has made the route through Kazakhstan even more relevant—as Beijing seeks to reduce reliance on Russian territory for westbound trade—Kazakhstan’s and the Middle Corridor’s strategic significance for China clearly predates the war. Thus, the war has only reinforced existing priorities.

Kazakhstan is also embedded in China’s regional energy architecture. All three branches of the Central Asia–China gas pipeline system pass through Kazakh territory, connecting Turkmenistan’s gas fields to China’s domestic markets. The Atasu (Kazakhstan)–Alashankou (China) oil pipeline, launched in 2006, was China’s first international oil pipeline. While it is not a major source of oil imports for China, its construction marked a symbolic milestone in Beijing’s pursuit of overland energy diversification. One can clearly identify a similar dynamic from the perspective of policymakers in Astana. While EU markets are the main destination for Kazakhstan’s oil exports—which form the backbone of its economy—the pipeline built with China is part of its diversification strategy as well (İpek, 2007).

Notably, the Atasu-Alashankou pipeline has also been used by Russia to deliver oil to China. In 2024, Russia exported 10.2 million tons of oil through this route and is currently planning to increase deliveries by an additional 2.5 million tons per year (Mamyshev, 2025), a move that carries particular importance for the Russian economy amid international sanctions. This dynamic highlights the complex triangular relationship between Kazakhstan and its two great power neighbors. While Sino-Russian interaction in Central Asia is often portrayed as competitive, such a conception captures only one layer of a more intricate reality—one in which overlapping interests and pragmatic cooperation also shape the region’s political landscape. Kazakhstan illustrates well this multifaceted engagement. Overall, these overlapping infrastructural ties have made its role as both an energy supplier and a transit corridor a structural element in China’s external energy planning.

Moreover, the recent announcement by the Kazakh government that its first nuclear power plant will be constructed by Russia and the second by China is particularly noteworthy (World Nuclear News, 2025). This decision underscores China’s dual function in Kazakhstan’s strategic calculus. On the one hand, China is regarded as a pragmatic economic partner—especially in light of uncertainties surrounding Russia’s capacity to deliver complex infrastructure projects under the current sanctions regime. Although Rosatom, Russia’s national nuclear corporation, is not itself under direct sanctions, several of its subsidiaries have been affected by sanctions and restrictions, and the challenges observed at the Russia-built Akkuyu nuclear power plant in Türkiye have further contributed to concerns (TASS, 2025). On the other hand, China is also viewed as a geopolitical counterweight to Russia. In the context of Moscow’s aggressive foreign policy and its disregard for the sovereignty of CIS states, China’s presence is perceived by some in Kazakhstan as a stabilizing factor and a form of strategic reassurance.

Importantly, Kazakhstan has not been a passive recipient of China’s policies. It is a founding member of the SCO, actively participating in shaping the early regional security agenda alongside China. Moreover, Kazakhstan has taken initiative in aligning its domestic development program, Nurly Zhol, with the BRI. The two governments have institutionalized this coordination through joint planning mechanisms, leading to dozens of projects in infrastructure, industry, and logistics. Kazakhstan’s effort to synchronize its national priorities with the BRI has allowed it to retain a degree of agency in what is otherwise a structurally asymmetric relationship.

Given these layers of cooperation—in border management, trade and logistics, energy, regional security, and development planning—it is not surprising that Kazakhstan occupies a distinct place in China’s foreign policy. In Chinese diplomatic vocabulary, Kazakhstan is referred to as a “permanent comprehensive strategic partner,” underscoring its role as a unique type of strategic partner (Xiang, 2023). This designation reflects not only the breadth of bilateral engagement, but also Beijing’s perception of Kazakhstan as a stable, long-term counterpart in advancing China’s goals both at home and abroad.

 

1. Digital Diplomacy

In the context of China’s increasingly multifaceted relationship with Kazakhstan and its expanding foreign policy objectives in Central Asia and beyond, one would expect Beijing to move beyond diplomacy directed solely at government and business circles and to also engage more directly with the general public in order to communicate its messages, shape its image, and ideally win hearts and minds. Such efforts are commonly conceptualized under the umbrella term “public diplomacy” (PD), broadly defined as a foreign policy instrument aimed at communicating with foreign audiences to advance diplomatic objectives (Cull, 2008). In today’s digitalized world, one prominent modality of public diplomacy is digital diplomacy, also referred to as “public diplomacy 2.0” (Cull, 2013) or “digitalized diplomacy” (Manor, 2019), among other terms. This is the focus of the present study.

Digital diplomacy encompasses the use of digital tools and platforms, particularly social media, to conduct diplomacy in ways that complement or even transform traditional statecraft. While conventional PD typically involves government communication with foreign publics through broadcast media, cultural exchanges, and other offline instruments, digital diplomacy introduces these elements into a rapidly evolving online environment. It represents an evolution of public diplomacy—not only through the projection of a state’s image and values, but also by expanding the range of actors involved (including both state and non-state players) and by facilitating engagement within a dynamic, networked information space that enables faster, more visible, and potentially more interactive forms of communication. Indeed, when discussing digital diplomacy—or more broadly, 21st-century public diplomacy, in contrast to its 20th-century predecessor—two-way or dialogic engagement (Pamment, 2013; Taylor & Kent, 2014), as opposed to one-way, asymmetric messaging, has become a central emphasis.

In this respect, social networking services or social media, such as Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, Weibo, and others, appear to offer an ideal ground for two-way engagement, as they are inherently designed to facilitate social interaction between content creators and their audiences. Yet it is important to note that not all actors have been able—or willing—to leverage these platforms for dialogic communication. Paradoxically, or perhaps not, a nascent body of scholarship examining the use of social media by ministries of foreign affairs and embassies suggest that meaningful dialogic engagement with their followers remains limited (Bjola & Jiang, 2015; Kampf et al., 2015; Manor, 2016, 2017; Manor & Segev, 2015; Metzgar, 2012). In practice, these platforms are more often used for broadcasting official messages and advancing nation branding than for facilitating genuine two-way communication.

Given the novelty of digital diplomacy—largely a 21st-century phenomenon—research on China’s approach in this domain is still emerging (Zhang & Ma, 2022). More broadly, Beijing’s conception and practice of PD also remain relatively understudied in foreign scholarship (J. Wang, 2011; Zhao, 2015). Like other states, the PRC’s PD has often been analyzed through the lens of international communication studies, particularly at the intersection of informational statecraft and international propaganda (Nip & Sun, 2022). This is unsurprising, given the historical evolution of PD during the Cold War, when the boundary between these practices was frequently blurred. In addition, PD is often examined through the prism of cultural diplomacy and soft power, or a combination of the two (Wang, 2008). A notable example is the study of Confucius Institutes abroad as instruments of China’s engagement with foreign publics (Hartig, 2015). Moreover, the advancement of soft power and informational statecraft often coexist in China’s PD and are sometimes difficult to disentangle.

Although China officially adopted the foreign term “public diplomacy” (gonggong waijiao) in 2004 with the establishment of the Mass Diplomacy Division within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, related practices—initially termed duiwai xuanchuan (external propaganda) and later renmin waijiao (people-to-people diplomacy)—date back to as early as the 1930s. In 2009, PD gained greater prominence when leaders including Hu Jintao and Yang Jiechi endorsed it as part of China’s foreign policy, emphasizing coordinated messaging to both domestic and international audiences (Chang & Lin, 2014; Nip & Sun, 2022; Zhao, 2015). This timing was not coincidental, as it followed the consolidation of China’s status as a global power, bolstered by the success of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and its resilience during the global financial crisis. In this context, Beijing saw the need to intensify its public diplomacy efforts to mitigate growing international concerns about the implications of China’s rise.

But it was nearly a decade later, during the COVID-19 pandemic, that China’s digital diplomacy—or, more specifically, the extensive use of social media platforms by Chinese diplomats—came to global attention. Researchers began to observe a growing presence of Chinese diplomatic actors on platforms such as Twitter, where they adopted more assertive, and at times confrontational, messaging strategies (Anindita et al., 2023; Thunø & Nielbo, 2024). This marked a departure from the traditionally cautious and low-profile communication style associated with Chinese diplomacy, giving rise to what was later described as “Wolf Warrior” diplomacy, a term borrowed from a popular Chinese action film (Chen, 2023; Huang, 2022). These online interventions were not merely reactive but increasingly assertive or even combative in tone, leading some to characterize them as a form of “digital nationalism” (Chen, 2023). The COVID-19 period thus served as a catalyst for the visibility of China’s digital diplomacy and opened new analytical ground for understanding the interplay between image-building, strategic messaging, and information control.

Beyond the pandemic, scholars have also examined China’s digital communication strategies on platforms like Twitter in relation to issues such as the South China Sea (Nip & Sun, 2022), the U.S.–China trade war (Huang & Wang, 2021), the BRI (Vila Seoane, 2023) , and the 2022 Beijing Olympics (Niu, 2022). Yet Central Asia has remained largely absent from these discussions. This is somewhat paradoxical given the region’s physical proximity to China and its strategic importance, particularly as a key overland corridor for the BRI and a site of sustained diplomatic and economic engagement. While Chinese digital diplomacy in more distant regions, like the continent of Africa has received increasing attention (Madrid-Morales, 2017; Repnikova & Chen, 2023; Xu et al., 2024), little has been said about how China communicates its messages next door. It is this gap, both geographic and analytical, that motivates the present study.

 

1. China’s Projection of Soft Power

Soft power provides a means for powerful nations to assert their dominance without the use of military force. As J. S. Nye noted in his widely-referenced 1990 piece simply titled “Soft Power,” the end of the Cold War rendered military force, or hard power, costly and generally unacceptable. The timing of Nye’s original piece is important because it was produced in a world being remade in the shadow of Cold War, where the long-assured positions and alliances of the United States and the Soviet Union were unraveling and being reconfigured. It is in the context of the post-1989 “end of history” moment that the soft power of nations and how they might exercise that power became increasingly important in a context of global uncertainty. At the time it seemed impossible that China would become a contender in the fight for global and regional influence. In fact, the only Asian country Nye addressed as exercising global influence was Japan. Perhaps the possibility of an Asian superpower was unimaginable, given the well-configured and historically entrenched mechanics of Euro-American hegemony. However, as Beeson and Crawford note, “it is the first credible candidate to become a non-Western hegemonic power” (2023, 46). Chinese soft power has been realized through the activities of Confucius Institutes, and cultural engagement and connections forged among countries benefitting from bilateral BRI-related agreements, MOUs, and projects. However, China has demonstrated that the means of soft power do not necessarily need to be constructed in the same way to produce similar or related effects.

China’s so-called “vaccine and mask diplomacy” in 2020 publicly forecasted the role and nature of Chinese soft power in ways that had not been broadly grasped previously (Subotić, 2021). COVID-19 presented an important context for the Chinese government to do what other countries would or could not do—provide necessary resources for populations deeply affected by a novel virus killing thousands of people daily. China emerged as a competent and consistent resource during calamitous and unclear times. It also became apparent to a number of observers that China wielded great power in the world and had vast resources at its disposal. Prior to vaccine diplomacy, however, the country seemed to lack the means to influence other nations—a hallmark feature of soft power. Yet vaccine diplomacy and other forms of support (namely, infrastructure loans and projects) provided precisely a means for China to realize what it had been lacking. Less measurable, but nonetheless just as important, was the increased attention and scrutiny that the country and its leaders began to receive as external actors acknowledged the scope and reach of Chinese power as well as the means the country had to shape its growth.

Xi Jinping’s unveiling of the One Belt One Road Initiative in Astana demonstrated the symbolism and importance of Kazakhstan to the historical Silk Road as well as the potential role that the Central Asian countries could serve in the network’s 21st century rendering. In Astana, Xi articulated his vision to develop a modern version of the Silk Road, with China facilitating economic development and cooperation among nations historically integrated along the route. This initiative signaled a new and vital phase of Chinese engagement in the world. What is now most colloquially known as the BRI, is a Chinese-led global initiative meant to connect China to the world through overland and maritime routes. The vision was based on the historical Silk Road, a trade route that cultivated the exchange of spices, textiles, peoples, traditions, and cultures among China, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. The plan included five objectives: “policy coordination, better road connections, unimpeded trade, monetary cooperation and people to people bonds” (Jojić, 2017, p. 9).

A rich body of scholarship now exists on the BRI and its impact on various regions around the world. What this scholarship also demonstrates is the role that the BRI has played and continues to play in China’s centralized role in creating infrastructure projects (roads, hospitals, high speed railways, broadband and surveillance networks, etc.) around the world. This global engagement demonstrates how deeply Chinese funds are connected to the development and maintenance of the Global South. 

The other key aspect of Chinese soft power is Confucius Institutes. While the origin of the first Confucius Institute is “somewhat vague,” Hartig notes that the first pilot institute to open its doors was in Tashkent, Uzbekistan in 2004 (2016). Confucius Institutes have become synonymous with Chinese diplomacy and an extension of the country’s soft power in its ability to foster the very “people to people” bonds central to the expansion of BRI initiatives. The Chinese Confucius Institutes function similarly to the language learning centers that emerged during the rebuilding after World War II, such as American Corners, Goethe Centers, British Councils, and Cervantes Institutes, which teach their relevant language and regularly host culturally themed events. Chinese Confucius Institutes provide spaces, typically in universities, where locals can learn Mandarin Chinese, cultural traditions of (majority) culture, meet, interact, and collaborate with others who have similar interests. Confucius Institutes also provide opportunities for students to study in China through generous, and competitive scholarships that the institutes offer. There are multiple Confucius Centers throughout Kazakhstan. Relatedly, there are a number of Chinese universities with local branches in Kazakhstan, demonstrating a model that likewise bears resemblance to similar higher education constellations, namely colleges and universities bearing the title “American University” as well as branch campuses of American universities that exist throughout the world. 

 Currently, Chinese Confucius Institutes and BRI-connected projects are now entrenched as dominant features of Chinese global soft power. These projects exemplify the increasing cultural currency and reach of Chinese power, Mandarin language, and reach of China’s global partners. Given the relative newness and expanse of these programs, it is possible to document the emergence of these entities and measure their development, growth, and impact on the ways that the image and place of China are viewed by those whose lives are affected by the consistent presence and increased footprint of Chinese power. In this regard, Mehmood Khan notes that there is a correlation in perception and influence of Chinese power, perhaps predictably, to align with regional relationships and preferences (2025). His findings also reveal that while China's cultural diplomacy has been effective in regions such as Africa, Asia, and Latin America, it faces considerable challenges in Western nations where there appears little room for power sharing as well as a disconnect, and even disregard, for Chinese culture, cultural practices, and politics. Interestingly, and perhaps relatedly, nations who seem to have increased interconnectivity with China have and continue to adopt a multipolar approach to diplomacy, a legacy with roots in the 1955 Asia-Africa conference that took place in Bandung, Indonesia (Liu, 2021).

The broad reach of these mechanisms of soft power demonstrates the ways that China has utilized familiar and acceptable ways to exercise soft power globally. As such, their engagement with US-based social media platforms should be considered within this broader constellation of actions. This projection and actual exercise of power is able to capture and sustain engagement from both those at home and abroad as China engages with widely recognized frameworks and methods including infrastructure investment, language trailing, and, in the contemporary setting, social media.

 

1. Methodology

1. Why Instagram?

As discussed above, most existing studies on digital diplomacy have concentrated on X, formerly Twitter, which even came to be known as “Twitter diplomacy” or “Twiplomacy” (Dumčiuvienė, 2016). In contrast, the present study focuses on Instagram. This decision is informed by both platform-specific factors and the social media environment in Kazakhstan.

The official website of the Chinese embassy in Kazakhstan lists its social media presence across four platforms: Instagram, Facebook, VKontakte, and X. TikTok is not among the listed platforms, despite being the most widely used platform in Kazakhstan in early 2025, with 15.7 million users aged 18 and above (Kemp, 2025). According to Meta’s advertising resources, Instagram followed with 12.4 million users (59.8 percent of the population), ahead of Facebook with 2.60 million users. X had only 369,000 users in Kazakhstan during the same period, making it a niche platform (Kemp, 2025). VKontakte, according to local media, had around 3.3 million users, ranking below Instagram and TikTok but slightly ahead of Facebook (Nasha Gazeta, 2025).

A comparative review of the Chinese embassy’s Instagram and Facebook accounts revealed that the content is nearly identical across the two platforms, with posts appearing slightly earlier on Facebook (some Instagram entries include links to corresponding Facebook posts). Since the substance of the content is consistent across both, Instagram was chosen as the focus of this study based on its broader national user base and larger follower count. As of late July 2025, the Chinese embassy’s Instagram account had 3,379 followers, exceeding its follower numbers on Facebook (736), VKontakte (356), and slightly surpassing X (3,368). While X has a comparable follower count, its limited user base in Kazakhstan suggests that a smaller proportion of followers are likely to be from the local audience.

In light of Instagram’s relative popularity, its reach among Kazakhstan’s domestic users, and its role as a central platform in the embassy’s digital outreach, it offers a particularly appropriate and context-specific lens through which to examine China’s digital diplomacy in Kazakhstan.

 

1. Sample Selection and Procedure

We manually collected all posts published between January 2, 2024 and April 7, 2025, on the Instagram page of the Chinese Embassy in Kazakhstan, creating a dataset of 1,426 posts.  This total includes a small number of duplicate posts that were published more than once. We selected this timeframe because it was broad enough to capture both recent digital diplomacy activity and possible adaptations in response to the U.S. presidential transition from Biden to Trump.

The posts, which are typically accompanied by images or videos, are primarily in Russian. There are a few exceptions: four posts are bi- or multilingual (three in both Russian and Kazakh, and one in Kazakh, Russian, and Chinese), and another four are solely in Kazakh. We used a ChatGPT-powered bot specifically designed for academic English-Russian translation to translate the significant portion of posts into English. After translation, we manually categorized the posts by both broad categories and specific topics. We divided them into broad topical categories such as diplomacy, politics, security and military, economy, culture, and technology. In terms of dimensions, the posts can be further grouped into four broad categories: Domestic – news about China’s internal matters; Bilateral – matters related to China-Kazakhstan relations; Global – broader international engagement; Other – posts that do not clearly fit into the previous three categories. The posts were further tagged using relevant keywords including: “trade,” “tariffs,” “infrastructure,” “border,” “aid,” “development,” “technology,” “AI,” “security,” “culture,” and “tourism.” Where the postings were lengthy or covered discrete themes, we added more specific subcategories such as “domestic” (within the economy topic); “infrastructure” (within the tech and trade topics); “Taiwan,” “Tibet,” and “Xinjiang” (within the border and security topics); and “Global South” (within the multilateral dimension topics). These classifications allow us to quickly assess the substance of the posts. We also used Russian-language keywords to search the dataset and locate original post content.

 

1. Methods

As noted by Bjola and Jiang (2015), social media facilitates three central functions in public diplomacy: (a) digital agenda-setting, defined as the “ability [of the new media] to influence the salience of topics on public agenda” (McCombs & Reynolds, 2002); (b) digital presence-expansion, or the use of social media to increase an actor’s visibility in the digital public sphere as a prerequisite for effective public diplomacy; and (c) digital conversation-generating, or the use of social media foster two-way communication between message senders and their audiences, enabling dialogue, feedback, and mutual understanding. In other words, each of these functions corresponds to a distinct facet of influence: namely, the substance of the message, the breadth of its dissemination, and the manner of engaging with audiences.

In the present study, we employ the framework of agenda-setting for several reasons. First and foremost, our aim is to investigate what is important for the message sender: in other words, what kind of image of China the Chinese Embassy seeks to construct for the audience in Kazakhstan by “directing the latter’s attention to certain topics while downplaying others through well-selected news” (Bjola & Jiang, 2015). Second, it is difficult to assess the effectiveness of China’s digital presence-expansion, as this dimension is typically evaluated from the perspective of message receivers. A quick glance suggests that the Embassy’s content is not widely disseminated (e.g., a relatively small number of followers and minimal engagement through likes, comments or reposts). However, it remains unclear how visible or “present” Chinese messaging is within Kazakhstan’s Instagram space, due to technical (algorithmic) and privacy-related limitations: it is hard to know who sees the content without interacting with it. Moreover, the Embassy posts almost exclusively in Russian, thereby excluding or limiting access for Kazakh-speaking users. Finally, the conversation-generating function appears limited and largely ineffective. Genuine two-way interaction is virtually absent, as the message sender seems uninterested in fostering dialogue. For instance, rare questions and comments left by followers or other users under posts typically go unanswered. This suggests that the Chinese Embassy in Kazakhstan is more focused on image-building through monologue rather than engaging in meaningful dialogue with the local audience.

As we aim to answer the question of what kind of image China seeks to project to a Kazakh audience – particularly in terms of its positioning within bilateral relations and broader international engagement – the following sections are structured accordingly. First, we present our findings on Chinese messaging related to its bilateral relationship with Kazakhstan and its wider international engagement, with a focus on content posted during the first quarters of 2024 and 2025. We then discuss how China interprets its relationship with, and its perception of, the incumbent world order. To analyze this material, we employ both content analysis and discourse analysis. Content analysis allows us to identify recurring themes, patterns, and frequencies across the Embassy’s posts, while discourse analysis helps reveal how China frames its narratives and constructs meaning for its target audience. Together, these methods provide a more nuanced understanding of the strategic messaging practices employed in China’s digital diplomacy toward Kazakhstan.

 

1. Discussion

The Chinese Embassy published 1,111 posts between January and December 2024, 267 posts in January–March 2024, and 282 posts in January–March 2025 (see Table 1). Based on these figures, the Embassy publishes approximately three posts per day on average. The content typically informs the audience about current developments and functions primarily as a news outlet. Entertaining or visually engaging content is almost entirely absent. Videos, when included, are often excerpts from recorded news coverage. Even on special occasions, such as the Chinese New Year or the Central Asian holiday of Nauryz, the posts consist of formal greetings with little to no creative or personalized content. This contrasts with the social media output of other diplomatic missions, such as the U.S. Embassy or European diplomatic missions in Kazakhstan, which often produces customized and engaging content specifically for such events.

 

Table 1. Instagram Posts by the Chinese Embassy in Kazakhstan, First Quarter (January–March)

	2024	2025
Total	267	282
Bilateral engagemtn	28	50
Multilateral sturctures	14	21
Referencing Central Asia	3	4
USA	17	21
The War in Gaza	29	3
Russo-Ukriane War	3	2

 

 

1. China and Kazakhstan: A Bilateral Dimension

As shown in Table 2, of the 267 posts published between January and March 2024, 28 focused on bilateral engagement. In the same period in 2025, 50 out of 282 posts addressed bilateral topics. It is not surprising that the most frequently featured content relates to official visits and statements, as these are part of the routine work of diplomatic missions. The high volume of such posts in the first quarter of 2025 is likely linked to the recent appointment of the current Chinese ambassador. Other frequently covered topics include transport and logistics, as well as tourism. This focus is understandable given the strategic importance and active operation of the China–Europe transit corridor and the strong cooperation between China and Kazakhstan in this sphere. The prominence of tourism-related posts is also expected, as 2024 was officially designated the Year of Kazakh Tourism in China, and 2025 the Year of Chinese Tourism in Kazakhstan. Additionally, sports appeared in three posts in early 2025 in connection with the Asian Winter Games held in Harbin.

 

Table 2. Instagram Posts by the Chinese Embassy in Kazakhstan on Bilateral Engagement, by topical category, First Quarter (January–March)

	2024	2025
Official statements, visits, interviews (sometimes with no clear topical reference)	9	23
Transport and logistics	8	6
Trade	1
Energy		1
Agriculture	1	1
Education	1	5
Medicine		2
Tourism and cross-border human flow	3	7
Sports		3
Other	3	2

 

1. China and the World

In reviewing the Embassy’s posts, we specifically focused on the following categories: the United States, multilateral structures, references to Central Asia, and ongoing international conflicts (see Table 3). A close reading of posts related to international news reveals China’s explicit and implicit discontent with the United States. The degree of attention devoted to the U.S. was one of the more unexpected findings. It is striking how prominently the U.S. features, both directly and indirectly, in content aimed at a Kazakh audience. While some posts openly criticize U.S. statements or actions, others offer more subtle expressions of disapproval toward the global hegemon.

The only topic mentioned more frequently in the first half of 2024 was the war in Gaza. Although the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza naturally draws global attention, it is nonetheless notable that the war in Ukraine received significantly less coverage in the Embassy’s Instagram content. The focus on Gaza may also serve as indirect criticism of the United States, a key ally of Israel. In contrast, the war in Ukraine, despite being a matter of considerable public interest in Kazakhstan due to its geographic proximity and complex relationship with Russia, was granted limited visibility.

Among multilateral organizations, it is unsurprising that the SCO was the most frequently mentioned, given that both China and Kazakhstan are founding members. The Munich Security Conference was also referenced – three times in the first quarter of 2024 and twice between January and March 2025 – which aligns with the timing of its annual convening.

Although the term Belt and Road Initiative (Пояс и Путь) appeared less frequently than one might expect, numerous posts addressed the Middle Corridor, a key component of the BRI in the context of Kazakh–Chinese cooperation. This suggests a more localized and strategic framing of the initiative within region-specific narratives. References to Central Asia more broadly were also relatively infrequent, though such mentions may increase going forward, particularly as China expands its regional engagement through the emerging Central Asia+China multilateral framework.

Table 3. Instagram Posts by the Chinese Embassy in Kazakhstan on China’s International Engagement, First Quarter (January–March)

		2024	2025
United States		17	21
Multilateral structures	UN	1	4
	SCO	4	8
	ASEAN	2
	BRICS	1	1
	BRI	1	2
	Forums, conferences	5	6
Central Asia		3	4
International conflicts	War in Gaza	29	3
	War in Ukraine	3	2

 

1. Embrace of Incumbent Multilateralism

To the extent that China’s rise encompasses both an insurgent model and an incumbent model (Druzin, 2025; Ikenberry & Lim, 2017), the second inauguration of Donald Trump heralded a remarkable transformation in how the country projected that balance. Over a short period (the end of January to the beginning of April 2025), China settled squarely into the role of defender of the incumbent world order—especially multilateralism in trade, the environment, and other global issues. This transition was compressed but hardly orderly; the embassy’s Instagram postings sometimes came at a rapid clip and spanned multiple topics. Often the postings relapsed back to their pre-2025 tone and topic: terse, straightforward factoids that were more unilateral or bilateral in substance. Yet by the beginning of the second quarter (which coincided with a spate of tariff increases levied by the U.S.), China had abandoned uncontroversial communications in favor of a more combative, polemical approach. Here the unifying message was that China had emerged to uphold the institutions and frameworks of the post-World War II international order.

 

1. From upstart to incumbent

Prior to January 20, 2025, the Chinese embassy posts consisted primarily of short, prosaic facts about recent Chinese milestones. For instance, on January 13, 2025, the embassy noted that the launch in Qingdao of the world’s first metro train with carbon fiber carriages heralded “new horizons for the commercial application of carbon fiber-based composite materials for metro trains in China and worldwide.” If they covered Kazakhstan at all, the posts touted mainly trade figures, followed by border crossings statistics and occasional blurbs about social or cultural activities (e.g., trade turnover between Kazakhstan and China reaching a record 36.5 billion U.S. dollars or crossings between the Jimunai border checkpoint in the Xinjiang exceeding 100,000) (Chinese embassy, Dec. 2 & 11, 2024). It would be easy, though misleading, to characterize this vision of diplomacy as “bilateral.” To be sure, the posts tended to give a one-dimensional assessment of the two countries’ relations, emphasizing the “strong ties of friendship and good neighborliness” binding them (Dec. 3, 2024). Yet the most significant changes came from the embassy’s portrayal of global institutions over time. On this front, in 2024, the posts were both spare and sparse, eclipsed by the frequency and depth of trade figures and professed commitments to development.

During this period, the embassy tended to refer to global institutions through the insurgent framework, dominated by the SCO and BRI. Examples include a quote from Zhang Ming, Secretary-General of the SCO, praising the establishment of the organization as a “visionary decision” that embodies the “strength and vitality” of “the Shanghai Spirit,” as well as a statement on the BRI and China’s Global Development Initiative Action Plan that concludes as with China’s leadership in deploying renewable energy in partner countries (Chinese embassy, Dec. 5 & 13, 2024). Even in discussing trade, the posts frequently measured output either bilaterally or through the parallel organizations created by the People’s Republic such as the BRI. This is an interesting choice; although scholars and commentators now depict the BRI as a multilateral institution (Nanwani, 2020; Zhou & Esteban, 2020), it was created and is maintained through negotiations with China on investment, debt restructuring, and other matters.

Championing the Global South is also a consistent sentiment. For instance, in a rare post about one of the headiest problems of the last half decade, the war in Ukraine, the Chinese embassy defers to the Friends of Peace Group, which purports to represent the interests of Global South countries. Importantly, this group recently “reaffirmed the principles of respect for national sovereignty and territorial integrity, respect for the legitimate concerns of various countries, and the peaceful settlement of international conflicts” (Chinese embassy, Dec. 24, 2024). This message follows the insurgent model by reminding audiences of the importance of non-Western interests; concomitantly, it is a cautious form of multilateralism that affirms the primacy of sovereignty and territorial integrity, which permeates Chinese diplomacy.

Starting in late January 2025, the tone and content of these posts changed. January 2025, of course, is when Trump’s second inauguration occurred, and April 2025, which marks the end of our dataset, corresponds to the announcement of a series of escalatory tariffs on Chinese products. Between January and April, as the U.S. struggled to articulate coherence on its tariff policy, the Chinese embassy in Kazakhstan fired off Instagram posts that alternated between the traditional insurgent style, which is circumspect in its criticism of the liberal Western order, and the incumbent style, which defends the established order in a direct and increasingly confrontational voice. On one hand, the embassy declared in March 2025 that China would continue to “strive for mutually beneficial cooperation in the construction” in the BRI (March 7, 2025) and “fulfill its role as a stabilizing force in the multilateral international system, speaking out for justice on behalf of the Global South” (March 11, 2025). On the other hand, it also began more forcefully criticizing U.S. policy as follows:

Recently, the United States, under various pretexts, has imposed customs duties against all its trading partners, including China. This move seriously infringes upon the legitimate rights and interests of all countries, grossly violates the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO), causes significant damage to the rules-based multilateral trading system, and substantially undermines the stability of the global economic order. (April 6, 2025).

 

The impression is of a Chinese embassy scrambling to strike the right tone, mirroring the frenetic and schizophrenic pace of the U.S. The alternating styles culminated in a concatenation of sharp, urgent rebukes of U.S. trade policy for harming the largest economies in the Asia-Pacific region and possibly provoking a global recession (April 7, 2025). Curiously, during this period the embassy also stepped up the frequency of announcements about Chinese–Kazakhstani cooperation. For example, Instagram posts noted that Kazakhstan and China’s Shaanxi province had held a meeting on trade and economic cooperation (April 5, 2025), that the SCO’s Secretariat in Beijing had hosted a reception in honor of Nowruz, celebrated in the Central Asian republics (April 2, 2025), and that the Chinese Embassy in Kazakhstan had organized an exhibition on the SCO at Eurasian National University (April 4, 2025). Altogether, these invocations to bilateralism and the fraying trade system seem calculated to appeal to not only to Kazakhstan’s sense of regional solidarity (with Asia, which stands to lose most from erratic U.S. behavior) but also its solidarity with the rest of the world (in support of prosperity and stability).

Significantly, April 2025 coincides with the Trump administration’s “liberation day” tariffs. From this point onward, even though the tariff rate ebbed and flowed and the two sides worked on compromises, Washington had at least made its position clear. On trade, the U.S. would prioritize protectionism, and on the global stage, the U.S. either signaled or explicitly announced its withdrawal. As for China’s communications of its role, henceforth the incumbent style would begin to predominate. From trade to innovation to the environment, the embassy cited more regularly to established international frameworks and claimed to represent the interests of broader sets of nations. Noting China’s continuous efforts at “green development,” the embassy quoted Guo Jiakun, official spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in affirming the country’s commitment to addressing climate change, as demonstrated by its inaugural participation in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement (Jan. 17, 2025). As for innovation, the embassy cited to China’s cooperation with Brazil, South Africa, and the African Union on the Initiative on International Cooperation in Open Science and, more broadly, an inclusive approach to building technological capacity in the Global South, “ensuring that no one is left behind” (March 12, 2025).

 

1. Security and sovereignty

One feature confounding the general pattern of the posts after 2025 is the consistency of announcements relating to Xinjiang and declarations about Taiwan. On Xinjiang, for example, the embassy posted about a platform for trading raw materials for traditional Chinese medicine launched in the Xinjiang that would facilitate import–export channels with the Central Asian republics and enhance cooperation in this area along the BRI (March 20, 2025). More assertively, on Taiwan, another post proclaimed that “[t]he complete reunification of China is an unstoppable trend, and the pursuit of ‘Taiwan independence’ through reliance on foreign support is a dead end” (March 18, 2025).

These posts, which we classify into a broader pattern of “security and sovereignty,” continued unabated even after Trump returned to the U.S. presidency. If anything, security and sovereignty posts became more frequent as the embassy settled into its incumbent mode. The message to audiences is clear: evolve as the world order might, China will not compromise on territorial integrity.

 

1. Sensitivity Toward International Perceptions

The various ways that China has articulated its position in the world can offer insights into how China has been participating in preexisting and/or related global networks that help countries to accumulate and disburse power. Most of the means and methods are familiar, save that similar manifestations were the result of Western hegemonic power. For example, the BRI bears a close relationship to the US-based Marshall Plan that sought to rebuild Europe in the aftermath of World War II (Beenson and Crawford, 2022, ). However, unlike the Marshall Plan that provided restructuring funds in the form of aid, China’s funding comes in the form of loans that recipients are expected to repay (Wong, 2020). Also, as noted above, the Confucius Institutes also bear close resemblance to similar Western institutions that create spaces for the instruction of their languages internationally. In these ways China is charting a well-trodden path toward global integration using their soft power, but with a very different vision of who will constitute their allies and partners as well as the need for those countries to accord to one particular vision of the world. 

In contrast to more familiar Western paths, China positions itself as a non-Western, member of the Global South. This positioning has allowed the country’s leadership and representatives to achieve such a broad global presence and exercise the levers of soft power in a multitude of ways. This posture insinuates that its path to power has much more in common with the nations it now supports, rather than with Euro-American, or Western, global powers. This is not the first time that China has asserted such a fraternal stance toward Global South nations, however. As Hong Liu notes, China’s favorable stance toward and connection with Global South nations emerged in 1955 at the Afro-Asian conference in Bandung, Indonesia. The conference  was the first meeting where formerly colonized nations met outside of a European metropole and set a path forward for South-South cooperation and knowledge transfer (2021). In addition, during the 1960s, Chinese leaders encouraged governments and people of African, Asian, and Latin American nations to resist aligning their political interests with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe based on racial solidarities and Russia’s history as a former empire (Mark & Betts, 237). During the Cold War period, China’s belonging to the Third World was offered as a critical stance against both the policies and imperial past of the West. It was a means to demonstrate why China was different and Maoist principles could comfortably reside within the ranks of Black and brown leaders of recently decolonized nations, in part because China was not Western and it was not white. In the contemporary setting, this delineation is not so clear. 

China has shown sensitivity with how it is perceived externally both contemporarily and historically. During the Cold War period, for example, a similar message of solidarity came in tandem with an assertion of what it shared with the project of the Third World, especially as it related to racialization. In the contemporary period, China has rearticulated a similar stance, clearly and firmly, that it is a member of the Global South. This is reflected in both statements from government officials as well as in the Instagram posts analyzed for this project. China’s positioning as a member of the Global South provides stark contrast for a new frame of reference for power construction that seems incongruent with general understandings of the post-World War II world order. In this way, China shows that the idea of the Global South is, perhaps, more pliable than imagined. It is akin to a project that should be defined beyond simply its counter distinction to Euro-American and Western (developed) countries and apart from any coherent geography. It is rather a means to construct an alternative modernity (Liu, 13).

Despite the limited number of Instagram Posts that we used for this project, there were a few examples that convey this projection of China’s connection to the Global South. See, for example, these three posts:

Китай будет работать с другими членами группы "Друзья мира" над урегулированием украинского кризиса, чтобы внести активный вклад в скорейшее достижение мира, заявила 23 декабря официальный представитель МИД КНР Мао Нин. Китай вместе с Бразилией, Алжиром и другими странами Глобального Юга основали группу "Друзья мира" по украинскому кризису в сентябре этого года. На заседании этой группы, которое на днях состоялось в Нью-Йорке, присутствовали представители из 17 стран Глобального Юга, сообщила Мао Нин на очередной ведомственной пресс-конференции. Группа подтвердила принципы уважения национального суверенитета и территориальной целостности, уважения целесообразных озабоченностей различных стран и мирного урегулирования международных конфликтов. Группа также высказалась за достижение всеобъемлющего и долгосрочного политического урегулирования украинского кризиса дипломатическим путем на основе устава ООН и международного права, а также за конструктивную роль стран.

 

China will work with other members of the "Friends of Peace" group to help resolve the Ukraine crisis and actively contribute to the early realization of peace, said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning on December 23. China, together with Brazil, Algeria, and other countries of the Global South, established the "Friends of Peace" group on the Ukraine crisis in September this year. Representatives from 17 Global South countries attended a recent meeting of the group in New York, Mao Ning said at a regular press conference. The group reaffirmed the principles of respect for national sovereignty and territorial integrity, respect for the legitimate concerns of various countries, and the peaceful settlement of international conflicts. It also voiced support for achieving a comprehensive and lasting political resolution of the Ukraine crisis through diplomatic means based on the UN Charter and international law, and emphasized the constructive role of countries.

 

Chinese Embassy, Dec. 24, 2024

 

 

Ван И подчеркнул, что как постоянный член Совбеза ООН, Китай прекрасно понимает взятые на себя международные обязательства, будет незыблемо отстаивать центральную роль ООН и достойно выполнять роль стабилизирующего фактора в многосторонней международной системе, высказываться за справедливость от имени Глобального Юга. Готовы вместе с международными партнерами оживить в памяти идеалы отцов-основателей ООН, строго стоять на страже целей и принципов Устава ООН, построить более справедливую и разумную систему глобального управления.

 

Wang Yi emphasized that, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, China fully understands the international responsibilities it has undertaken, will firmly uphold the central role of the United Nations, and will faithfully fulfill its role as a stabilizing force in the multilateral international system, speaking out for justice on behalf of the Global South. We are ready, together with international partners, to recall the ideals of the founding fathers of the United Nations, to firmly uphold the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, and to build a more just and reasonable system of global governance.

 

Mar. 11, 2025

 

and

Ван И подчеркнул, что в ноябре 2024 года Председатель Си Цзиньпин объявил 8 действий Китая в области глобального развития, что послужило дополнительным толчком для ускоренного развития Глобального Юга. Следует ставить задачу развития в центр глобальной повестки, культивировать драйверы роста, укреплять потенциал развития, плечом к плечу двигаться по 

пути модернизации. Китай естественно является частью Глобального Юга, где все страны объединяет не только общая историческая память о борьбе против колониализма и гегемонизма, но и совпадающая миссия национального возрождения. Как бы ни изменился мир, Китай всегда будет заботиться о Глобальном Юге, непоколебимо оставаться в нем, стоять рядом с другими партнерами во имя открытия новой главы в летописи развития человечества.

 

Wang Yi emphasized that in November 2024, President Xi Jinping announced eight actions by China in the field of global development, which provided an additional impetus for the accelerated development of the Global South. It is necessary to place development at the center of the global agenda, to cultivate growth drivers, to strengthen development capacity, and to move forward side by side on the path of modernization. China is naturally a part of the Global South, where all countries are united not only by a shared historical memory of the struggle against colonialism and hegemonism but also by a common mission of national rejuvenation. No matter how the world changes, China will always care for the Global South, will unwaveringly remain part of it, and will stand together with other partners to open a new chapter in the annals of human development.

 

Mar. 11, 2025

 

These three posts demonstrate China’s liminality in projecting itself image as both insider among global networks. This bifurcated positioning allows them to project a vision of brotherhood in their engagement with other emerging markets, proclaiming “China is naturally a part of the Global South,” while claiming their space in forming a new global power and economic dynamic inclusive of China, or even possibly with China at the helm. 

Interestingly, however, in the post below, which dates from the next day, March 12, seems to take a different stance toward China’s affiliation with the Global South. Instead of saying directly that they are a member (of the Global South), the country presents itself as working in the interest of the “Global South,” but not necessarily as a member of the coalition:

Ван И подчеркнул, что Наука и технология должны служить не железному занавесу, а общечеловеческим благам. Во имя совместного развития человечества, китайская сторона, неукоснительно реализуя выдвинутую Председателем Си Цзиньпином «Глобальную инициативу по управлению искусственным интеллектом», опубликовала «Инклюзивную программу наращивания потенциала ИИ», выступила со инициатором с Бразилией, ЮАР и Африканским союзом по продвижению Инициативы по международному сотрудничеству в области открытой науки, призывает уделять больше внимания наращиванию технологичного потенциала Глобального Юга, не обходить никого вниманием. Мы готовы делиться инновационными достижениями с большими странами мира и совместно гоняться за высшей целью человечества. 

 

Wang Yi emphasized that science and technology should serve not as an iron curtain, but as benefits for all humankind. For the sake of the common development of humanity, China, faithfully implementing the "Global Initiative on AI Governance" proposed by President Xi Jinping, has published the "Inclusive AI Capacity Building Program," jointly initiated with Brazil, South Africa, and the African Union the Initiative on International Cooperation in Open Science, and calls for greater attention to building technological capacity in the Global South, ensuring that no one is left behind. We are ready to share innovative achievements with the major countries of the world and pursue together the highest goals of humanity.

 

 China’s place in transnational structures and institutions is assured, but it appears that the belonging that China claims for itself is flexible. When putting the historical and contemporary frames of Chinese belonging to the global community in dialogue, it is possible to see how China’s belonging to and position in the Global South, even if it is factual, is instrumentalized and set in opposition to the West and an older, now seemingly diminishing Euro-American order.  Instagram posts analyzed for this article, demonstrate the ways that China moves in and out of articulating membership in the Global South depending on the situation and its need to assert its belonging, either as a member or global leader.

 

Conclusion

We assessed the evolution of China’s digital diplomacy to Kazakhstan during a period of momentous change, the transition from Presidents Biden to Trump in 2024 and 2025. In analyzing nearly 1,500 posts from this time, we found that China embraced more direct and confrontational language when referring to the U.S. while positioning itself as the defender of established global frameworks and institutions. Because the established international order was traditionally associated with Western liberal nations, we call this an “incumbent” form of multilateralism—as opposed to an “insurgent” or “upstart” mode that relies on building parallel institutions serving mainly the Global South.

For Kazakhstan, the significance of this evolution is that the Chinese Embassy has moved from appeals to regional solidarity toward a more global framing of shared values—in prosperity, stability, and liberal movement of goods and people. Simultaneously, however, the recurrence of posts about Xinjiang and Taiwan conveys China’s unwavering prioritization of sovereignty and territorial integrity. In a region that has experienced border disputes with China, the message may be that sovereignty and security may determine the limits of China’s bilateral and multilateral engagement.

On the cultural side, we found that Chinese digital diplomacy became more nuanced during this time, demonstrating a throughline connecting past and present with China drawing solidarities with the Global South as both a member and its protector.

 

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