Kazakhstan calls in Chinese envoy to protest web article

NUR-SULTAN, Kazakhstan: Kazakhstan on Tuesday called in China’s ambassador over a Chinese web article that said Kazakhstan would "return" to its giant neighbour.

In a statement on its website, the Kazakh foreign ministry said it informed Zhang Xiao, the ambassador, that the article "does not correspond to the spirit" of the pair’s strategic partnership.

The article that appeared on the Sohu.com news site argued that Kazakhstan was historically part of China’s territory and that there were still descendants of Han Chinese living in the country.

It was authored by the Elephant Media blog, which appears to have no links to official Chinese media and mostly republishes sensationalist content. The foreign ministry release said the two countries agreed to "cooperate closely in the field of mass media and information distribution" during the meeting.

Ex-Soviet Kazakhstan and China settled outstanding territorial disputes in 1998 and Kazakhstan has since emerged as Beijing’s most important partner in resource-rich Central Asia. But China’s economic expansion in the country and treatment of ethnic Kazakhs in its Xinjiang region which borders Kazakhstan has sparked protests there in recent months.