The investments are not only limited to the oil and gas sectors, general trade has increased. China has granted several Central Asian states loans in Renminbi to buy Chinese goods. This has been especially important in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation and the Yalian China Commercial and Trade Center have established commercial centers in several cities in Central Asia with the specific purpose to increase trade between China and the Central Asian states. Russia has very few possibilities to meet his onslaught of Chinese investments and trade since Russia itself have severe economic problems and can not assemble the billions of dollars it would need to compete with China.
China is also a heavy investor in the transport sector, which Russia traditionally controlled.
China has initiated the building of a second European rail link through Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, parts of Middle East and ending up in Rotterdam on top of the overall improvement of the transport sector. China and Iran have moreover initiated talks to construct a pipeline network that could carry oil from the Gulf to the coast of China. Interestingly, all these initiated and proposed cooperation attempts exclude both Russia and the United States. The effects of these Chinese activities in Central Asia in the long term undermine the Russian position in the region, and to some extent this could lead to the initiation of a Russian retreat in the 'Great Game'. The drawback for Central Asia is that if China continues to increase its investments and the U.S. fails to meet the challenge, Central Asia could eventually end up exchanging one overlord, Russia, for a new one, China.