Central Asia is increasingly the focus of intense international attention because of its geopolitical and economic importance as well as its unsettled transition processes. Due to the institutional weaknesses documented in the literature, the objective of this paper is to elaborate the need for a secure politico-institutional foundation of economic transition and to explore a way of how to achieve such a foundation for the Central Asian countries. Considering similar political side conditions, high-performing China is taken as a model of orientation for Central Asian countries in this essay; the more so as most governments in the region have recently begun to place a stronger emphasis on improving relations with China.