Kazakhstan sits in both US and China AI blocs. What the choose-sides letter says

Kazakhstan is the only country known to belong to both the US-led Pax Silica coalition and China's World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization, and Washington has been drafting a letter telling partners they cannot back both. As of the reporting we could open, dated August 2026, the letter had not been sent and no formal demand had been made of Kazakhstan. The question for every government in the middle is whether dual membership is a hedge or a liability.

What the two blocs are

Pax Silica is a US initiative launched in December 2025 to secure supply chains for critical minerals, semiconductors, energy, data centers and computing infrastructure. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty counts 25 signatories, including the European Union, Japan and Singapore. Kazakhstan signed on June 25, 2026, the first Central Asian country to do so, and its large critical-mineral reserves explain Washington's interest.

China's WAICO was established in Shanghai on July 16, 2026. RFE/RL reports 29 countries signed the founding agreement, including China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Indonesia and Brazil. Its stated aims are international cooperation on AI governance, standards and development. The Decoder, citing Reuters and CNBC, adds that China promotes its open-weight models as an alternative to systems from OpenAI and Anthropic. Founding-member counts differ between outlets, 28 in some aggregator summaries and 29 in RFE/RL, and we have used RFE/RL's.

The letter

Reuters reported in August that the State Department drafted a letter warning that countries joining China's rival framework could be excluded from the US coalition. The Decoder quotes the draft: "To be part of everything is to be part of nothing." A US official told Reuters it is hard to see how a country can be a trusted partner in one technology ecosystem while joining an initiative China designed. Syndicated Reuters coverage says the letter goes to the 35 signatories of a US "AI Opportunity Statement" from June, though we could not open the original and treat that detail as reported, not confirmed.

China's embassy in Washington rejected the premise. According to the Decoder, it argued the US plans would slow global AI progress and benefit no one. That is a paraphrase of the embassy's position, not a direct quote.

The caveat matters. RFE/RL says the letter had not been sent when the report was published and that there was no sign Washington had formally demanded Kazakhstan withdraw from either body. We could not open the October 25 Associated Press piece, which aggregator summaries describe as reporting that countries are being pressed to pick sides, so we do not know whether the letter has since gone out. Treat this as a developing story.

Kazakhstan's position

President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev told Xinhua that AI should serve humanity and that countries should have fair access to modern technology, and said: "Our approaches are in line with China's position on this issue," per RFE/RL. Analysts quoted there disagree about the lesson. Wilder Alejandro Sanchez argues Astana did not err by joining both but misjudged that Washington would demand a choice. Ken Moriyasu of the Hudson Institute argues Kazakhstan's flexibility benefits US strategy in Eurasia.

That split is the real policy question. A strict choose-sides rule would protect export-controlled chips and cloud access from leakage. It would also push minerals-rich middle states toward China at the moment Washington wants their supply.

What each side has to offer

The US offers chips, cloud capacity and supply-chain partnership, and in return asks for alignment on export controls. We looked at the other half of that bargain in our explainer on sovereign AI and funded versus announced commitments. China offers open-weight models, training and infrastructure support, and a governance forum where developing countries have a founding voice. China is also drafting its own controls; our report on China's draft export controls on 23 AI technologies shows it is building leverage of its own.

Why this matters beyond Central Asia

For a mid-sized country, the choice is not symbolic. Access to advanced accelerators depends on US licensing, while access to cheap open-weight models and some infrastructure financing is easier through Beijing. Dual membership lets a government keep both doors open, as Kazakhstan has. A hard US line would raise the cost of that hedge.

For companies, it means compliance risk. A cloud provider or model lab operating in a dual-member country may face questions about which side's rules apply to its customers. We would not predict how such a rule would be enforced; the draft reportedly lacks specific enforcement measures or sanctions.

What to watch

• Whether the letter is sent. The State Department has not publicly adopted the position in the draft.
• Whether any member withdraws. No withdrawal from either body has been reported in the sources we opened.
• Enforcement. A letter with no sanctions is a signal; a licensing consequence would be a policy.
• New members. RFE/RL lists Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan among WAICO's founding signatories. Whether any also seeks Pax Silica membership is the next test.

Our take

The reporting supports a modest conclusion: the US wants allies to pick a side, China wants them not to, and the country with the most to lose from choosing is the one that tried to avoid it. We think a hard ultimatum is unlikely while Washington needs Central Asian minerals, and that the practical lever will be chip licensing, not diplomatic letters. Watch the letter and the member lists; both are checkable.