A visitor who recently dropped in on Karim Massimov found Kazakhstan's prime minister with his feet on his desk reading a book about Chinese philosophy.
Educated in Beijing and Hunan, Mr Massimov is an expert on China. And that is important these days. This year alone, his government has won $15bn (€10bn £9bn) of financial assistance from China, promising Kazakh oil, metals and food supplies in return.
But the loans, coming as China overtakes Russia as Kazakhstan's biggest trading partner, have come at a political price and stoked fears in some circles of a creeping Chinese colonisation in the oil-rich central Asian country.
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