How China can tighten its Belt and Road Initiative in Central Asia
- China should veer away from large-scale, top-down investments and seek to work with local companies to build sustainable projects that benefit Central Asians and minimise government corruption
This February, hundreds of residents of At-Bashy, a mountain town in Kyrgyzstan, gathered to protest against the construction of a new Chinese-funded logistics centre in the area. Holding signs reading “No Kyrgyz Land To China!”, the protesters argued that locals would see few benefits from the US$275 million project, designed to handle trade coming from the Chinese border some 140 kilometres away.
Tension over the new centre had been brewing for months, with at least three previous protests. Bowing to popular pressure, the Kyrgyz government cancelled the project.
A recent database of protests in the region collected by the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs records 98 anti-China protests since 2018, with all but one (in Tajikistan) taking place in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.