Kazakh opposition calls for halt to China expansion

* Several hundred activists gather in Almaty

* Opposition fears Chinese resource and land grab

By Robin Paxton

ALMATY, May 28 (Reuters) - Opposition activists in Kazakhstan called on the government on Saturday to stop Chinese investment in the country's natural resources, saying Beijing could be preparing a land grab in Central Asia. Several hundred people gathered in Almaty, the country's largest city, for an officially sanctioned rally against Chinese expansion into Kazakhstan, a vast former Soviet republic holding 3 percent of the world's recoverable oil reserves.

"Chinese relations to resource exploitation have imperialist undertones," said Vladimir Kozlov, leader of the unregistered Alga! opposition party.

China's growing clout in Kazakhstan and other former Soviet republics in Central Asia is underpinned by billions of dollars of investment in the region's oil, gas and metals reserves, including a $10 billion "loan-for-oil" deal agreed in 2009.

Beijing's foray across its 1,530 km (960 mile) border with Kazakhstan represents a challenge to Russia, which sees the country as part of its sphere of influence, as well as to European hopes that it can be a major new supplier of energy.

Opposition leaders, who addressed the crowd in a small park in the outer suburbs of Almaty, said Chinese loans were being used by the billionaire shareholders of oil and mining companies to further their own ambitions.