02:57
He studied in Beiijng in the 1980s. He lived in China for almost eight years, once the real China hand in the Soviet delegation during Gorbachev's 1989 China visit. He is among the very few world leaders who speaks fluent Mandarin Chinese. A Chinese food lover, a fan of late Chinese writer Lu Xun and a passionate player of table tennis... While looking back and enjoying his early ages in China, Kazakh President Tokayev feels the importance of people-to-people engagement. "We must do everything in order to promote these kinds of exchanges, to bring our peoples together, because we share the common destiny, historic destiny."