China Eyes $2 Billion Uzbek Mining Bet as Central Asia Courtship Accelerates

The head of China’s National Energy Administration, Wang Hongzhi, visited Kazakhstan to participate in the inaugural meeting of the Kazakhstan-China Joint Working Group on Cooperation in Civil Nuclear Energy. Participants approved a protocol that defines future cooperation in the nuclear energy sphere, according to a Kazakh government statement, which offered no further details. Kazakhstan has selected China’s National Nuclear Corp. to build two large-scale reactors in the Central Asian nation. Rosatom, Russia’s nuclear agency,…