Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping at a signing ceremony of bilateral documents during the APEC summit in Beijing on Nov. 9. The two big powers are looking separately toward Central Asia to expand trade, economic, and political relations. Credit: Russian Presidential Press Service

By Chris Rickleton
BISHKEK, Nov 20 2014 (EurasiaNet)

There is a good chance that economic jockeying between China and Russia in Central Asia will intensify in the coming months. For Russia, Chinese economic expansion could put a crimp in President Vladimir Putin’s grand plan for the Eurasian Economic Union.

Putin has turned to China in recent months, counting on Beijing to pick up a good portion of the trade slack created by the rapid deterioration of economic and political relations between Russia and the West. Beijing for the most part has obliged Putin, especially when it comes to energy imports. But the simmering economic rivalry in Central Asia could create a quandary for bilateral relations.At the APEC gathering, Xi and Putin were all smiles as they greeted each other, dressed in summit attire that was likened by journalists and observers to Star Trek-style uniforms. Yet, the public bonhomie concealed a “complicated relationship."

Chinese President Xi Jinping elaborated on Beijing’s expansion plans, dubbed the Silk Road Economic Belt initiative, prior to this year’s Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, which concluded Nov. 12.

The plan calls for China to flood Central Asia with tens of billions of dollars in investment with the aim of opening up regional trade. Specifically, Xi announced the creation of a 40-billion-dollar fund to develop infrastructure in neighbouring countries, including the Central Asian states beyond China’s westernmost Xinjiang Province.

An interactive map published on Chinese state media outlet Xinhua shows Central Asia at the core of the proposed Silk Road belt, which beats a path from the Khorgos economic zone on the Chinese-Kazakhstani border, through Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, before snaking into Uzbekistan and Iran. Turkmenistan, already linked to China by a web of pipelines, would not have a hub on the main route.

The fund’s aim is to “break the bottleneck in Asian connectivity by building a financing platform,” Xi told journalists in Beijing on Nov. 8. Such development is badly needed in Central Asia, where decaying Soviet-era infrastructure has hampered trade among Central Asian states, and beyond.

No matter the need, Russia, which is busy promoting a more protectionist economic solution for the region in the form of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), may not share Beijing’s enthusiasm for the Silk Road initiative.

At the APEC gathering, Xi and Putin were all smiles as they greeted each other, dressed in summit attire that was likened by journalists and observers to Star Trek-style uniforms. Yet, the public bonhomie concealed a “complicated relationship,” according to Bobo Lo, an associate fellow at the Russia and Eurasia Program at Chatham House.

The Silk Road Economic Belt is a case in point, explained Lo. The “mega project”, much like the original Silk Road, could eventually encompass several routes and benefit Russia’s own infrastructurally challenged east, he noted. But it might well dilute Russian influence in its traditional backyard of Central Asia.

“If you are sitting in Moscow, you are hoping that Russia will be the main trunk line [of the belt], but it seems likely it will be more of an offshoot,” said Lo. “[The belt’s] main thrust will be through Central and South Asia.”

Chinese leaders are intent on linking their Silk Road initiative to a broader project, the Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP), which they touted during the APEC gathering.

FTAAP and the Silk Road Economic Belt, along with a similar strategic plan called the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, are pro-trade in the broadest sense, seeking to break “all sorts of shackles in the wider Asia-Pacific region to usher in a new round of higher level, deeper level of opening up,” according to Li Lifan, an associate research professor at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.

Under the Chinese vision, its “grand idea” would seek to “absorb the Eurasian economic integration [project] led by Russia,” Li told EurasiaNet.org via email.

In contrast to the expansive Chinese vision for Eurasia, early evidence suggests a Russia-led union, with its tight border controls and levied tariffs, could end up stifling cross-border trade among members and non-members. Under such conditions, Central Asian states could experience a decline in their current level of trade with China. The existing Kremlin-dominated Customs Union is set to evolve into the Eurasian Economic Union on Jan. 1.

At least since the build-up to the 2013 summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a Central Asia-focused security organisation of which China and Russia are both members, Beijing has been very public about wielding its economic might in the region. Back then, Xi jetted across the region speaking of the belt for the first time as he signed deals worth tens of billions of dollars, most notably energy contracts with Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan.

Ever since, discussions of how to turn the belt into a reality have been uncomfortable. Moscow is reportedly steadfastly opposed to the idea of turning the SCO – which also comprises all four Central Asian countries positioned along the proposed belt’s route – into an economic organisation.

Uzbekistan has refused to join the Customs Union, which also excludes China. But the Kremlin expects Kyrgyzstan to join at the beginning of next year and Tajikistan to follow. Currently, the bloc’s only members other than Russia are Kazakhstan and Belarus.

For countries that have already been on the receiving end of Chinese largesse, the prospect of deeper economic integration with Russia may begin to seem like a limitation.

During a Nov. 7 meeting in Beijing ahead of the APEC summit, Xi and Tajik President Emomali Rahmon signed agreements securing Chinese credit for a railway to connect Tajikistan’s north and south, a new power plant and local agricultural projects. They also agreed on investments for the state-owned aluminium smelter Talco, an entity that once enjoyed close ties with the Russian conglomerate RusAl. Bilateral trade for the first eight months of this year increased by 40 percent compared with the same period last year, reaching 1.5 billion dollars.

“If we compare something like the Customs Union to the Silk Road Economic Belt, then of course the belt is preferable for Tajikistan,” Muzaffar Olimov, director of the Sharq analytical centre in Dushanbe, told EurasiaNet.org in a telephone interview. Tajikistan “has not decided” if it wants to join the economic bloc [the EEU], he added.

Editor’s note:  Chris Rickleton is a Bishkek-based journalist. This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Looking for balanced news in Kyrgyzstan. Credit: David Trilling/EurasiaNet

By Chris Rickleton
BISHKEK, Apr 24 2014 (EurasiaNet)

Relative to other Central Asian states, Kyrgyzstan has a fairly free and perennially noisy domestic media scene. Even so, Kyrgyz outlets tend to be no match for Russian state-controlled media when it comes to establishing narratives for current events.

A recently released and annually updated poll funded by USAID and carried out by the Gallup-endorsed SIAR consulting company indicates that the Ukraine crisis is enabling Russian media outlets to expand their reach in Kyrgyzstan, a country where 94 percent of respondents claimed to obtain news about politics from television."We are located at the crossroads of a number of interests – internal and external. Political speculation is profitable and objectivity is expensive." -- Ilim Karypbekov

According to the latest poll, Kremlin-funded Russian Public Television (ORT) is the second most-watched channel in Kyrgyzstan.

It also shows that ORT’s popularity is on the rise, with 20 percent of respondents selecting it as their “most frequent” source of political information and 16 percent as the “most trusted” outlet. Those figures are up from 13 percent and 10 percent respectively in the previous year’s poll.

ORT’s rise is coming at the expense of Kyrgyzstan’s national broadcaster, OTRK, which saw its popularity percentage fall to 34 percent this year from 38 percent in 2013. Likewise, OTRK’s perceived reliability slipped to 29 percent from 32 percent.

The polling data has important implications for Kyrgyzstan’s political future, as Russian media now seems better positioned than ever to influence Kyrgyz public opinion. ORT and other Russian-controlled outlets have an established history of trying to shape its coverage to suit the Kremlin’s interests. Most notably, ORT led a media campaign against former Kyrgyz president Kurmanbek Bakiyev in the run-up to his violent ouster four years ago.

In the coming weeks and months, analysts of the local press believe that a Russian “information war” will intensify as Kyrgyz officials dither on the issue of joining what is Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s pet project — the Customs Union.

Beyond the government’s hesitation about joining a Kremlin-led economic group — which currently comprises Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia, and which is expected to metamorphose into a Eurasian Economic Union as early as May — public opinion in Kyrgyzstan about the country’s growing fealty to its northern neighbour is growing more skeptical.

Polling data from the latest SIAR survey showed that the number of Kyrgyzstanis “categorically against” Bishkek joining the union has risen from 10 percent in 2013 to 21 percent this year.

Speaking to local media on Apr. 11, Kyrgyz officials involved in accession negotiations said most of the Kyrgyz side’s key demands for concessions had not been met.

The Customs Union — along with the sale of the country’s gas network to Russian state energy giant Gazprom and the mooted sale of a majority stake in the country’s main airport to another Kremlin firm, Rosneft — were all sources of discontent expressed at a recent 1,000-strong protest on Apr. 10 in Bishkek, organized by the nominally anti-Russia National Opposition Movement.

Nargiza Ryskulova, a Bishkek-based journalist who writes for the BBC’s Kyrgyz service, suggests most Russian-speaking Kyrgyz tend to tune in to cash-strapped OTRK for national news and ORT for international news.

“Now people are interested in Ukraine since Russia is interested in Ukraine. But many people lack an alternative to Russian coverage of world events. Internet penetration is only about a fifth of the population,” Ryskulova said.

Other observers are more worried. In a fiery Apr. 8 op-ed for the Kyrgyz news outlet AkiPress, Edil Baisalov, who served as chief of staff to the former interim government, wrote: “I am willing to bet that the average Kyrgyzstani consumes more products of Russian propaganda annually than the average Tatar, Chechen or Yakut.”

The consequence of such viewing habits, he added, can be seen in the national parliament, where lawmakers are considering bills almost identical in substance to those discussed in the Russian state Duma, and among illiberal youth groups that parrot the Kremlin’s homophobic and anti-Western rhetoric at press conferences that receive disproportionate airtime. These trends showed some Kyrgyz have become “tired of independence,” Baisalov asserted.

In print media, traditionally pro-Russian publications have been mirroring ORT’s narrative concerning Ukrainian events (i.e. that Ukrainian fascists are trampling on the rights of Russian speakers) and other topics.

The introduction to an article titled Russophobic Hysteria in the Apr. 9 edition of the Russian language weekly Delo Nomer vented against Washington-funded Radio Free Europe, which earlier had alleged that the Kyrgyz periodical received funding from Moscow.

The remainder of the article featured an interview with “political scientist and ex-diplomat” Bakyt Baketaev, who opined: “let’s speak openly – if there was a referendum on Kyrgyzstan entering the Russian Federation, many Kyrgyz would vote [yes], first and foremost those who remember the Soviet Union.”

Pro-Russian periodicals in Kyrgyzstan offer a heavy dose of anti-Americanism. Another article in same edition of Delo Nomer, for example, raised alarm about the supposed danger posed by “The United States’ Kyrgyz Front.” It linked a recent visit to Bishkek by the U.S. State Department’s Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs, Nisha Biswal, to the April 10 National Opposition Movement protest.

U.S. officials have denied financing such activity. Meanwhile, Dengi i Vlast, another newspaper that leans pro-Russian ran a story in its Apr. 4 edition with a headline that read “Who is this bird Jomart Otorbayev?” The story featured a cartoon of Kyrgyzstan’s new prime minister on a tank with an American flag. Otorbayev’s “great mission” is “to block Kyrgyzstan’s entry into the Customs Union,” it alleged.

Funding sources for Kyrgyz media outlets are notoriously difficult to trace, prompting speculation that Russia is funneling money to local periodicals and broadcasters. It is “completely possible” that Kyrgyz media platforms receive money from Russian and other foreign sources, acknowledges Ilim Karypbekov, the chair of the public advisory board at the Kyrgyz broadcaster OTRK.

But, he adds, the republic’s media woes go deeper than that. Kyrgyz media is generally unprofitable, he says, meaning that “any sharp political confrontations” are “a means to earn money in exchange for coverage of a certain kind.”

What results is less an information war and more an “information vacuum” wherein outlets “attack politicians and each other, but don’t really highlight issues,” Karypbekov told Eurasianet.org.

Given its weak, fledgling democracy and strategic geopolitical location, Kyrgyzstan remains vulnerable to media manipulation, adds Karypbekov. “In our current situation we are located at the crossroads of a number of interests – internal and external — political speculation is profitable and objectivity is expensive,” he said.

Editor’s note: Chris Rickleton is a Bishkek-based journalist. This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

The Year of the Snake has been full of unpleasant surprises for Chinese living in Kyrgyzstan. Against a backdrop of rising economic nationalism and weak law enforcement, Chinese migrants complain they’re being targeted for robberies and extortion, especially by law-enforcement officers who are supposed to protect them.

In December, Chinese state media publicised a “wave” of attacks on Chinese entrepreneurs and students in and around Kyrgyzstan’s capital, Bishkek. The report, published in the Beijing-based Global Times, said many victims feel they’re being ethnically profiled.

It also alleged that Kyrgyz police have been complicit in violent robberies. That same month, the Chinese Embassy in Bishkek took the unusual step of issuing an “emergency safety alert,” warning citizens to be vigilant. Another statement issued by the embassy rebuked Kyrgyz authorities for failing to protect Chinese citizens.

In an interview with EurasiaNet.org, a cautious Bishkek-based Chinese restaurateur described a precarious existence. Criminal gangs, often with police protection, see even small-time Chinese businesses as “cash machines,” the restaurateur said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“We live simply and try to save money like anyone. But the gangs think that because China has money, we have money,” the restaurateur said.

Meanwhile, groups of Chinese labourers, often working on infrastructure projects undertaken by Beijing’s state-owned corporations, are being subjected to impromptu document checks from nationalist groups.

These groups, which depict migration from the Middle Kingdom as a threat to national security, thrive on resentment: many Kyrgyz don’t understand why Chinese are taking precious few jobs and hundreds of thousands of Kyrgyz are forced to work in Russia. One of the groups, Erkin El, claims that up to 300,000 Chinese are already living in Kyrgyzstan, a country of about 5.5 million. The Global Times estimated the figure to be closer to 80,000.

The Coalition of a New Generation is another youth group that acts as a self-appointed inspector of Chinese workers’ documents. The checks, some of which have been videotaped and have been posted online, are similar to ones that Russian nationalist groups carry out on Central Asian migrants.

Coalition representatives did not respond to EurasiaNet.org’s repeated requests for an interview.

Kyrgyz-language media outlets – many of which have a reputation for race-baiting and indulging in nationalist-inspired hyperbole – have helped stoke anti-Chinese sentiment. In July, for example, the newspaper Alibi sought to blame China for Kyrgyzstan’s chronic political instability in a brash article headlined, “Chinese Migrants May Carry Out the Third Revolution.”

Aigul Ryskulova — a former labour minister who heads a working group on migration in President Almazbek Atambayev’s administration — told EurasiaNet.org that Chinese migration is “not as catastrophic” as nationalist groups describe it.

This past November, officials at the Ministry of Labour, Migration and Youth told parliament that Chinese nationals accounted for around 70 percent of the 12,990 work permits issued last year.

A major problem, as Ryskulova sees it, is the convoluted nature of Kyrgyzstan’s migration framework. The system could benefit from streamlining, she said.

“Inter-governmental agreements that operate outside the quota system, departmental delays and corruption schemes in the process of prolonging visas” all mean the overall figure for Chinese working in Kyrgyzstan is several times higher than the official annual quota, Ryskulova said.

She went on to say that this gap enables “myths” about the number of Chinese migrants in the country to gain traction, as well as fosters a sense of helplessness among Kyrgyz citizens.

Though the increasing visibility of Chinese workers has certainly fuelled xenophobia, the reasons behind the recent spate of violent attacks may be more calculated, according to Li Lifan at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.

Chinese expatriates, in particular private entrepreneurs, “tend to hoard large amounts of foreign currency, especially dollars” to avoid punitive rates on bank transfers from Kyrgyzstan to China. This, combined with the fact that Chinese “rarely complain,” and often don’t report crime or extortion attempts, makes them “easy targets for local gangs,” Li told EurasiaNet.org.

Diplomats at the Chinese Embassy declined to speak with EurasiaNet.org about the issue.

The Sichuan-born owner of the Chinese restaurant in Bishkek said extortion is nothing new. The downtown Bishkek restaurant, among at least a dozen Chinese-owned restaurants in the capital, has been subject to threats from racketeers. At one point, a group of five men came in and asked for $2,000 in cash, the source said.

“When we said we could not pay, they came the next day, ordered a big meal and left without paying. When we told the police, officers said the group had not committed a crime and that we had shown them our hospitality. It continued twice a week for a month,” the restaurateur said, until the men realised the restaurant wasn’t making much money.

Allegations of police involvement in racketeering and violence are common. And those charges are believable in a country where, according to a 2012 US government-funded survey, the police are the second-least-trusted institution, just after the judiciary.

According to one interviewee cited in the Global Times report, a Bishkek cop emerged as a suspect in at least one attack on a Chinese business in 2012, an incident in which a Chinese citizen died.

The Bishkek restaurateur said the Chinese community was “extremely frightened” last summer by the death of Guan Joon Chan, the owner of a chain of eyeglass stores in the city.

According to various Kyrgyz press reports, Guan was found beaten unconscious late on Jul. 24. He subsequently died in the hospital. Quoting anonymous sources, the Russian-language Vechernii Bishkek published a report on Jul. 30 that alleged Guan had regularly paid protection money to local police, and that he was beaten shortly after a disagreement with a police chief over money.

Currently two men are standing trial in connection with Guan’s murder. One is a senior police officer at the capital’s Sverdlovsk District police department. The other is a former member of a police special forces unit.

Editor’s note:  Chris Rickleton is a Bishkek-based journalist. This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

Almost five years ago, as his village in northern Kyrgyzstan endured daily power outages, rays of light always emitted from Sabyr Kurmanov’s garage. They came from his egg incubator, a 12-volt contraption powered by something he and his neighbours have in abundance – wind.

Kurmanov is no environmentalist. But he knew that he could not rely on the ailing national energy grid for a steady supply of power. “Hatching eggs requires stable light and temperature,” he says. Kurmanov fashioned the turbine himself; parts for the 60-egg incubator setup cost less than 300 dollars.

“Mine was the only business in Kochkor working around the clock,” he jokes.

These days, Kurmanov, a small-time businessman and former engineer, has inspired his neighbours. Each summer, he helps them use solar-powered pumps to get clean water out of the ground. Not far from Kochkor lies an alpine lake, Song-Kul, where shepherds live with their families for a few months a year. Now visitors can enjoy the disorienting experience of waking up in an isolated yurt hearing a shepherd’s favourite brand of techno – the beat powered by the sun.

But while public interest in alternative energy has increased – mainly spurred by an ongoing energy crisis – heavily subsidised domestic electricity, when it works, provides a disincentive for local businesses to invest in off-the-grid options.

Rates in Kyrgyzstan are the cheapest in Central Asia. And mindful of the fate of ex-President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who was chased from power shortly after imposing a steep utility rate hike in 2010, today’s leaders in Bishkek are wary of raising tariffs, despite the World Bank’s prediction of a protracted supply deficit beginning this winter.

Igor Kuon worked for 14 years in the state hydroelectric sector and now leads Inkraft, a company supplying small-capacity hydropower-units and solar panels. He has been well placed to observe the “deterioration of national energy”. When his company started working on renewables in 2003, there wasn’t much demand for their services, he told EurasiaNet.org.

“Energy was plentiful and it was cheap. The [national] grid wasn’t well managed but it had retained some of its former capacity. The equipment was in better condition. Some specialists had left [Kyrgyzstan], but not all,” Kuon explained.

Since then, however, rapid degradation of physical infrastructure and mismanagement has taken a toll.

“By the time Bakiyev came to power [2005] much of the infrastructure was ruined. … A few people began to realise cheap energy is only useful if it exists,” said Kuon.

Industry experts argue that Kyrgyzstan would be ripe for a renewables drive, if only investment was forthcoming. The country enjoys an average of 270 days of sun per year and only Tajikistan and Russia have more significant hydropower potential among former Soviet countries, says Edil Bogombayev, who coordinates a U.N. project that helps build small hydropower stations (between five- and 300-kilowatts) for rural households and communities living close to rivers.

According to Bogombayev, a five-kilowatt hydropower unit can power a small farm, but with construction and installation costing several thousand dollars, such initiatives are mostly donor-funded. Off-grid energy amounts to less than one percent of the total produced and consumed in Kyrgyzstan, he says.

Small, privately financed initiatives such as Kurmanov’s wind-powered incubator and larger commercial operations such as a 500-kilowatt hydro-powered dairy factory based in the western town of Belovodsk remain the exception rather than the rule.

Although unrelenting budget woes mean the government is short on cash for alternative energy, there is hope that amendments to the Law on Renewable Energies last August will stimulate private-sector investment in low-capacity hydropower stations. Mirroring a global trend, the amendments increased the fee energy producers can make by selling excess power to the national grid, a move that could help relieve stress on the system. Regulators are still working out the details.

Bogombayev sees foreign investment in renewables as integral to taming Kyrgyzstan’s energy risk and notes the interest of Toulouse-based MECAMIDI in constructing and renovating mini-hydro stations in the north of the country. He acknowledges, though, that instability in Bishkek remains a deterrent: “investors will react according to the political situation.”

Nevertheless, despite falling prices over the last few years, fully green commercial operations are currently “not realistic”, a hotelier in Cholpon-Ata, a town on the shore of Kyrgyzstan’s main tourist attraction, Lake Issyk-Kul, told EurasiaNet.org. The hotelier, who insisted on anonymity for fear of hurting revenues, estimates her 15-room facility generates under 6,000 dollars a year in utility bills.

“I have six Chinese solar-paneled water heaters that cost 500 dollars each and heat 150 litres of water each. But solar infrastructure to power the whole hotel would cost 25,000 dollars. It would take nearly five years to earn back.”

By contrast, in places where energy is expensive, such as in Scandinavia, solar users are prepared to wait up to seven years for their capital investments to pay off, notes Kuon, the Inkraft director. Kyrgyz reluctance is explained by “a lack of savings capital and the local mentality”, he explains. People are wary of investing long-term in anything because of ongoing political instability.

“While electricity costs [0.015 dollars] per kilowatt-hour, why invest your own money in solar?” he asks. “People will wait for the system to collapse first.”

Editor’s note:  Chris Rickleton is a Bishkek-based journalist. This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

In 2010, Kyrgyzstan tried to promote good governance and reduce corruption by attaching public watchdogs to major ministries and state agencies. Almost three years later, the watchdogs are still functioning, but many express frustration about bureaucratic resistance that hinders their ability to do their jobs.

Observers lauded the September 2010 decree forming Public Advisory Councils (PACs) as a means of giving democratisation a boost in Kyrgyzstan, where a violent uprising in April of that same year ousted an authoritarian-minded president and initiated an experiment in a parliamentary system of government.

Earlier this year, parliament passed a law cementing the PACs’ status. The legislation is now awaiting President Almazbek Atambayev’s signature. But members of the voluntary, unpaid collectives complain that their perennial struggle for acceptance among government officials – regularly rated by transparency indices as among the most corrupt in the world – has kept them from fulfilling their mandate.

Because the councils are free to devise their own work plans – a coordinating body exists but does not control their work – some have yielded better results than others. The PAC overseeing the State Penitentiary Service (GSIN), for example, successfully campaigned for separate cells for female prisoners who were either pregnant or had just given birth. Elsewhere, the Finance Ministry PAC has been instrumental in creating okmot.kg, an online portal where citizens can find information about state tenders and the budget.

“I think we have made steps in terms of transparency,” said Azamat Akeleev, chair of the Finance Ministry PAC. “But there are things that are harder to influence – internal processes, staffing, distribution of the budget, budget policy.”

A number of the watchdogs complain their hands are tied. Jomart Jumabekov, a member of the Ministry of Agriculture’s PAC and the head of a non-profit farming consultancy, echoes a common complaint about access: “The minister thinks he is a god, and has no interest in our council. The [ministry’s] secretary always falls ill whenever we have our meetings. They ignore us,” Jumabekov told EurasiaNet.org.

Galina Davletbaeva, who sits on the PAC of the State Fund for Material Reserves, endured a similar experience before appealing to former president Roza Otunbayeva, who oversaw the creation of the PACs in 2010.

“To begin with, they told us all their documents were secret… I told Roza: ‘Our PAC has nothing to report. We have just been warring [with the State Fund] for the last year-and-a-half.’” After the public dressing down, the leadership of the Fund, which controls Kyrgyzstan’s reserves of foodstuffs and other staples, “began to behave totally differently,” and even provided the council with a room in their building, Davletbaeva said.

Exacerbating their challenges, the watchdogs have not always found easy allies among lawmakers. Although parliament passed a law confirming their status on June 20, several lawmakers spoke out against PACs at a session the day before.

“We don’t need these PACs, because we, the MPs, should be overseeing the work of the ministries,” thundered nationalist lawmaker Jyldyz Joldosheva in comments picked up by the Vechernii Bishkek newspaper.

MP Ismail Isakov, a lieutenant general, said the PACs had “turned the government into a kindergarten” and was especially critical of PACs working on the security structures. He contended that PACs potentially can muddle the chain of command.

Perhaps inevitably, members of the PACs overseeing economically strategic departments such as the Ministry of Energy and the State Agency for Geology and Mineral Resources have been criticised for conflicts of interest; some have faced corruption allegations. Davletbaeva, of the PAC on the State Fund for Material Reserves, says conflicts of interest must be balanced against the need for sector specialists to sit on these boards.

If the watchdog experiment is going to last, it will need stronger support within state structures, members say. The PAC for the Transport Ministry, particularly active in 2011 when it identified a series of tender and labor code violations, was disbanded that December at the request of the ministry. It reemerged in May 2012, but has been quieter since.

The Ministry of Agriculture’s PAC, where Jumabekov works, also hit a wall last year. “We identified [150,000 dollars] that had been written off [by the ministry] for a crop-spraying operation, and demanded they return it to the state budget,” Jumabekov said. “We sent a complaint to the Prosecutors Office, but nothing happened.”

Such incidents have left council members feeling the initiative has lost steam. Timur Shaikhutdinov, who sits on the Interior Ministry oversight board, calls the PAC idea an “ill-fated project.” “It hurts to talk about the PACs. It was a beautiful idea, but it hasn’t worked out,” Shaikhutdinov told EurasiaNet.org.

Editor’s note: Chris Rickleton is a Bishkek-based journalist.This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

With Westerners now leery of investing in Kyrgyzstan, it is perhaps inevitable that officials in Bishkek turn to China as they try to attract capital for infrastructure development.

Beijing professes a desire to help Kyrgyzstan without setting conditions on assistance. Yet, as some Kyrgyz experts note, there are still sovereignty concerns connected to forging closer economic ties to China.

Uncertainty in the mining sector, most notably the government’s continuing efforts to change the terms for foreign investors at the Kumtor gold mine, has dampened enthusiasm among Western companies for investing in Kyrgyzstan.

In the Fund for Peace’s 2013 Failed States Index, Kyrgyzstan fell squarely in the “warning” column, ranking 48th out of the 178 countries surveyed. Only Uzbekistan – ranked 44th in the survey – was deemed to be more unstable among the five countries comprising formerly Soviet Central Asia.

Western wariness was on display during a recent two-day, government-sponsored investment conference in Bishkek on Jul. 10-11.

A joint statement released by representatives of 40 foreign aid agencies and multilateral organisations, issued in response to a government appeal for various infrastructure development projects worth about five billion dollars, noted that donors were willing to earmark almost two billion dollars in “potential resources” to develop Kyrgyzstan’s troubled economy over the next four years.

But it also reminded Kyrgyz policymakers of a need to cultivate “efficient institutions” and trim state expenditures.

China notably did not send a delegation to the investment conference. But on Jul. 15, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Bishkek and offered a glowing appraisal of Kyrgyz-Chinese bilateral relations. Chinese investment – now up to 1.7 billion dollars since Kyrgyzstan gained independence in 1991 – will always be free of “additional conditions” and undertaken on the basis of “equal partnership”, Wang told local journalists.

China’s apparent willingness to extend no-strings-attached assistance is a source of hope for some Kyrgyz. But others suspect China of being more of a loan shark than a friend, and worry that Kyrgyzstan’s sovereignty could be at risk if the country becomes too indebted to Beijing.

“China can offer Kyrgyzstan significantly more investment than all the other donors put together,” said Valentin Bogatyrev, the coordinator of Perspective, a Bishkek-based think tank. He cited strong bilateral relations, mutual membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and geographic proximity as the main reasons for China’s strong position in Kyrgyzstan.

Bogatyrev went on to note that heavy Chinese investment would lead naturally to Kyrgyzstan’s “broader political and economic dependence”, which, in turn, could create risks for the Kyrgyz government. First and foremost, Kyrgyz officials could face localised backlashes against the “uncontrollable shipping in” of Chinese labourers to work on infrastructure projects.

In an illustration of this point, government officials working in tandem with youth organisations recently claimed that up to 970 Chinese were working illegally building a vital oil refinery in the western Kyrgyz town of Kara-Balta.

China’s interest in its small Central Asian neighbour should be primarily seen through the prism of Beijing’s desire to promote stability in its own restive and adjacent Xinjiang province, says Li Lifan, associate research professor at Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. By investing in keystone infrastructure projects in Kyrgyzstan, China “has committed to make its own [internal] development of more benefit to neighboring countries,” Li told Eurasianet.org via email.

Another thorny issue for the Kyrgyz government – which already is over-committed on annual budget revenues of roughly two billion dollars – is how to repay China. Li raised the possibility of barter arrangements in which repayment comes in the form of mineral concessions and options to purchase Kyrgyz agricultural produce. Such arrangements would fit in with Beijing’s “global economic model”, Li noted.

Such deals would be sure to give many pause in Kyrgyzstan, where mineral wealth is modest, but jealously guarded. Chinese firms already have grappled with localised mob violence, as well as sniping from Kyrgyz-language media outlets.

For instance, some media outlets have portrayed Ishtamberdy, a Chinese-operated gold deposit in the south of the country, as a knockdown concession for Chinese infrastructural assistance carried out in 2006. In 2011, ex- Kyrgyz Prime Minister Omurbek Babanov came under fire for suggesting mineral concessions as a means of paying for the Kyrgyz section of a controversial railway link seeking to connect China to neighbouring Uzbekistan via Kyrgyzstan.

In a novel example of Chinese collection methods, the Kyrgyz news agency Kloop.kg reported on Jul. 15 that the Kyrgyz State Prosecutor’s Office was opposing a deal struck between Beijing Construction Engineering Group International (BCEG) and the Kyrgyz Ministry of Interior.

The Chinese state-owned firm was set to install speed cameras along sections of the roads connecting Bishkek to the southern city of Osh and the northeastern town of Karakol. The two sides agreed that BCEG would collect speeding fines from motorists caught via the cameras until it recouped its investment.

“Collecting fines is the exclusive competence of the state organs,” the State Prosecutor’s Office complained in the Jul. 15 statement, adding it had recommended the government annul the contract.

As long as Western investors remain cautious about Kyrgyzstan – where, according to Economy Minister Temir Sariyev, the budget loses 700 million dollars annually through corruption – Bishkek appears to have little choice but increase its reliance on China for investment.

“It isn’t that there is no investment out there, it is that conditions in the country don’t allow for its attraction and effective use,” Bogatyrev said.

Editor’s note: Chris Rickleton is a Bishkek-based journalist. This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

China is financing the construction of Kyrgyzstan’s first major oil refinery, and excitement is building in Bishkek that the facility could enable the Central Asian nation to break Russia’s fuel-supply monopoly.

At the same time, some observers express concern that the project may stoke local resentment, or become enmeshed in political infighting.

The refinery in Kara-Balta, about two hours west of Bishkek, is expected to produce 600,000 tonnes of fuel annually, enough to end Kyrgyzstan’s dependency on Russian imports, currently pegged at 1,150,000 tonnes a year, according to the State Statistics Committee.

Slated to receive crude piped from Chinese-run fields in Kazakhstan, the project, operated by a smallish Chinese state-run entity called Junda, has already witnessed regular environmental protests and labour disputes, which one lawmaker claims are backed by opposition politicians bent on using the facility as a weapon in a political struggle against the government.

Since gaining independence, Kyrgyzstan has been almost totally dependent on Russian fuel.  Sebastien Peyrouse, a Central Asia watcher at the George Washington University, said the new refinery signals Beijing’s efforts to “win influence” over Central Asian hydrocarbon markets, a sector now defined by “growing tensions” between Russia and China.

Jumakadyr Akeneev, head of Kyrgyzstan’s Oil Traders Association, a lobbying group, agrees the facility is “good news” for a country whose only domestic refining facility produces 70,000 tonnes of low-quality petrol and diesel a year.

Prices in Kyrgyzstan are “determined by one powerful player – Gazprom Neft Asia,” he said, referring to the local subsidiary of Russia’s state-owned energy giant, which is also responsible for around 80 percent of domestic distribution. Gazprom ships the bulk of Kyrgyzstan-bound fuels from its refinery in Omsk.

Kyrgyzstan imports this fuel duty-free. But in the past Russia has used its market dominance to turn the screws on Bishkek when it has suited Kremlin interests. For example, many commentators assert that a sudden fuel duty introduced on Apr. 1, 2010, was a significant factor in the overthrow of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev’s administration six days later.

Kyrgyzstan needs “a diverse, uninterrupted supply of affordable fuel to grow,” Akeneev says, adding that Junda’s petrol “should be cheaper than the Russian’s” because it need not travel as far. “The journey [from Russia] reflects a third of the price.”

Whether the refinery will serve its intended purpose is a separate question, according to Peyrouse, co-author of “The Chinese Question in Central Asia.” He noted that “Sinophobia” is increasing in Kyrgyzstan along with Beijing’s growing economic footprint.

Already the relationship between Chinese executives and local residents in and around Kara-Balta is fraught with tension. The refinery has faced strikes and a demand for pay hikes from local workers. Residents living nearby are unhappy with Junda’s offers of environmental compensation. And local officials complain the plant’s leadership is uncommunicative.

How well the Chinese understand Kyrgyzstan’s chaotic local politics is unclear. “Chinese companies often fail to connect with their host communities, preferring to concentrate on developing relationships with power brokers in the capitals or, as need be, at the local level,” noted a report from the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think-tank, last month.

“Rising nationalism, ingrained suspicions about Chinese expansionism, few tangible grassroots benefits and a sense that the companies respect only those who can assist their commercial ventures at the highest level have left many disinclined to view China as a beneficial force.”

In an interview with 24.kg on Jan. 18, Junda’s director, Chu Chan, attributed construction delays to “misunderstandings” that had caused the wrong equipment to be delivered to the site. He promised the refinery would be operational by August, almost 12 months behind schedule. The plant is expected to provide over 2,000 local jobs.

Lawmaker Azamat Arapbayev, a member of parliament’s Energy and Fuel Committee, said he would welcome “10 such refineries” from “any foreign investor” in order to temper Kyrgyzstan’s “dependence on external factors”. Disturbances at the refinery, he maintained, are the work of a “certain circle” of politicians that use local environmental fears to “earn political dividends”.

Observers say the same thing about unrest facing the country’s largest investor, the Canadian-run Kumtor gold mine. Over the past two years, Kumtor has faced protests and roadblocks, calls for nationalisation, and four government inquiries led by politicians of every stripe. The trouble has frightened off international investors.

While Arapbayev refused to name names, one group that has opposed the refinery, as well as “Chinese expansion” in general, is a small gathering of nationalists calling themselves “The Movement for the Salvation of Kyrgyzstan.”

On Mar. 13, the group held a small rally in central Bishkek, where its leader, Mukar Cholponbayev, warned that Beijing was trying to turn Kyrgyzstan into a Chinese tenant, and demanded the release of three opposition figures jailed last autumn for attempting to storm parliament amid calls to nationalise Kumtor.

While these local politics have helped paralyse foreign investment, many observers will continue to view the refinery as a reflection of a bigger, quieter struggle between Russia and China in the region.

For the moment, the clashing interests “could have benefits” for Kyrgyzstan, argues Arapbayev, the MP. The refinery will reduce Moscow’s ability to bully Bishkek, he says, and open up the oil wealth of Kazakhstan, which has heretofore been more profitable for Astana to export further afield.

“China is our close neighbour, a dynamic and rapidly developing country,” Arapbayev told EurasiaNet.org, musing on the dilemmas that geopolitical competition pose for local policymakers. “But then we also have older, more traditional relations with Russia. Those relations are still operational.”

*Editor’s note: Chris Rickleton is a Bishkek-based journalist.

This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

A surge of economic nationalism is making life uncomfortable for Chinese companies working in Kyrgyzstan.

Faced with obstacles to trade and investment in the restive republic, Beijing is looking for ways to mitigate risk. Kyrgyzstan, Chinese officials know, is not the only place in Central Asia eager for business.

Case in point: Early this month, Kyrgyzstan’s parliament voted to ban Chinese trucks from entering the country. Accused of damaging roads and monopolising trucking routes, the giant lorries, typically the HOWO make, are the same types of trucks that have been plying the domestic market with cheap consumer goods and fuelling Kyrgyzstan’s re-export trade for years.

Ironically, Chinese companies paid with Chinese credit are repaving many of the highways the lorries may be forbidden from traversing.

That’s not lost on proponents of the ban, who, in addition to insisting they are protecting some 60,000 domestic truck drivers and loaders, also perceive their giant neighbour as a threat to Kyrgyz sovereignty. Temirbek Shabdanaliev, head of the Association of Kyrgyz Carriers, a lobby group that pushed for the ban, says that “parliamentary deputies showed their patriotism” with the vote.

As it stands now, the legislation has no legal force until President Almazbek Atambayev signs it. Yet such a motion would have been unlikely prior to the country’s 2010 uprising, which ushered in a more pluralistic and capricious political system, say observers.

Under ousted President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, Kyrgyzstan’s economy became hooked to re-exporting Chinese goods to other Central Asian countries. Kyrgyzstan surpassed Kazakhstan as Central Asia’s leading importer of Chinese goods in 2009, its low tariffs effectively promoting Beijing’s trade interests in the region.

Bakiyev was no great negotiator, says Shabdanaliev. According to the trucker association head, Bakiyev’s administration signed a bilateral agreement with China in 2007 that permitted Chinese lorries to weigh up to 55 tonnes, including cargo. That marginalised local drivers who often operate smaller trucks.

At the start of this year, officials cut the upper limit to 48.5 tonnes, although corrupt border officials often overlook regulations, Shabdanaliev says.

“China’s wealth is good for us. It can enrich the country,” Shabdanaliev told EurasiaNet.org. “But in bilateral negotiations we must defend our national interests. If we let our guard down time and again, there won’t be a national interest to defend.”

Parliament’s Nov. 1 action, initiated by the nationalist former speaker, Akmatbek Keldibekov of the opposition Ata-Jurt party, came just days after a brawl between Chinese workers and local residents at the Chinese-operated Taldy-Bulak Levoberezhnyi gold field. The incident forced workers to abandon the site.

Writing in the Chinese press, the head of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Kyrgyzstan blamed “opposition parties” for creating “an unstable and risky situation” for foreign investors. He implied politicians were stoking fear of China to further their own business interests. The Chinese Embassy in Bishkek refused EurasiaNet.org’s request for comment.

These types of disruptions have not gone unnoticed in Beijing, where officials know they have other export options, says Alexandros Petersen, a China expert and author of The World Island: Eurasian Geopolitics and the Fate of the West. Beijing is investing in road infrastructure across the region.

Petersen argues that Chinese decision makers are “hedging their bets, building the Khorgos Special Economic Zone in Kazakhstan and opening new customs houses at the Kulma Pass to Tajikistan” to diversify its trade routes into Central Asia.

Moreover, while Kyrgyzstan’s liberal trade regime and WTO membership made it a convenient entry point for goods heading toward richer and larger markets, the country remains a small market in and of itself.

Recent events may force China’s trade chiefs to wonder whether Kyrgyzstan is worth the trouble, a pertinent question in light of the two-billion-dollar-plus proposed railway linking its western Xinjiang province with Uzbekistan via Kyrgyzstan. Many in Kyrgyzstan have loudly denounced that project, too.

As the current cargo row demonstrates, China’s economic might has not translated into political leverage in Bishkek’s halls of power. But on the streets, Beijing has friends: market traders and every day consumers.

Damira Doolotalieva – head of Kyrgyzstan’s Union of Traders, which represents entrepreneurs working out of two of Central Asia’s largest markets, Dordoi and Kara-Suu – has urged Atambayev not to sign the lorry law, warning of a potential backlash: Kyrgyz trucks carry only a third as much as their Chinese counterparts can haul.

Chinese carriers are thus cheaper, she says, and the extra expense of using Kyrgyz trucks will be passed onto local consumers. “Parliament has … taken a decision that will fall on the shoulders of regular entrepreneurs and simple people,” she said.

*Editor’s note: Chris Rickleton is a Bishkek-based journalist.

This story originally appeared on Eurasianet.org.

One morning last year in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Dilnoza awoke to find her brand-new Toyota Corolla missing. She knew immediately whom to call, and it wasn’t her local police precinct.

Dilnoza sought the help of a private security agency. And after six days of searching, the firm’s operatives finally tracked down and recovered Dilnoza’s car, which was found in a village outside the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek. Asked why she didn’t go to the police, she provided a practical answer.

“I paid the company, so they had an incentive to find it. The police did not,” Dilnoza, 33, explained.

Over the past eight years, Kyrgyzstan has seen two presidents chased from office amid violent street protests and widespread looting. As a result, and thanks to widespread corruption, public trust in the police has plummeted. It’s not surprising, then, that a rising number of individuals and businesses are placing their faith in private security agencies to protect property and investigate crimes.

According to figures confirmed by an Interior Ministry official, there are now over 400 private agencies licensed to carry weapons and provide security services in Kyrgyzstan; roughly 30 are operational year-round.

Many, including the firm hired by Dilnoza, who describes herself as “economically comfortable”, refuse to discuss their activities. At the agency’s insistence Dilnoza declined to give her surname for this EurasiaNet.org story.

Of the active Bishkek-based companies, 13 are members of the Union of Security Agencies, a forum that meets regularly with police officials to discuss security-related issues. But while officers from the Interior Ministry attend meetings, says Vladimir Bessarabov, the CEO of Barracuda, a private security and detective agency, cooperation among private and public security structures is rare. “Police see us as their competition,” Bessarabov told EurasiaNet.org.

This is logical, adds Bessarabov, whose firm has grown from 30 employees when it was founded in 2004 to one with 200 staff today, catering both to private individuals and corporate concerns, including the local Coca-Cola bottler. The police also provide guard-for-hire services in exchange for cash, he says. But the private forces are better-paid and more professional.

Union of Security Agencies members send employees to a course – run by Dordoi Securities, one of the largest private firms with about 800 employees – where employees undergo psychological testing and training in first aid and weapons handling.

Kyrgyzstan’s police academy, on the other hand, has a reputation for being a den of graft. A reported brawl at the academy’s graduation party last summer also dented its reputation for professionalism.

“We try not to hire from the ranks of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, because police here are full of bad habits,” Bessarabov continued. “The force is corrupt, and their definition of service doesn’t correspond to the level of work I demand from my guys.”

Many Bishkek residents simply feel that police officers are more interested in using their positions for their personal benefit, rather than promoting public safety.

Omurbek Suvanaliyev, a career police officer who once served briefly as interior minister under ousted president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, admits that a demoralised police force has lost credibility in the eyes of the public.

“People understand that the security structures exist to defend the head of state and other high ranking politicians,” he told EurasiaNet.org. “They (police) have lost their civil functions.”

Nevertheless, Suvanaliyev argues, the rise of private security and detective firms that don’t answer to a centralised chain of command carries risks. Such security agencies can provide cover for criminal activity, he asserted.

“We refused to grant licenses to people we considered a threat to public safety,” says Suvanaliyev, who was twice Bishkek’s police chief and now styles himself an opposition politician. “But later, the Bakiyev family started giving security firm licenses away to everybody, (including) their criminal connections and drug runners.”

Customers like Dilnoza face a choice between potential criminality in the private agencies and open demands for kickbacks by police officers. “The police are thieves, we see this every day,” she said.

As an ethnic minority Uighur without connections in the force, she also feels police are less likely to respond to any request for help. “It is about what you can afford and who will protect your interests better,” she said.

*Editor’s note: Chris Rickleton is a Bishkek-based journalist.

This story was originally published on Eurasianet.org.

When nationalist MP Kamchybek Tashiev led his supporters over a fence surrounding parliament in early October, both foreign and local executives working in Kyrgyzstan’s mining industry braced for the worst.

Throughout the year, the sector has been cloaked in uncertainty, with foreign investors confronting regulatory hassles and nationalisation threats.

Tashiev, the leader of the opposition Ata-Jurt faction in parliament, succeeded in scaling the wrought-iron barrier – but, amid calls to nationalise Kumtor, a part-Canadian-owned gold mine – his alleged attempt to seize control of the government failed. With Tashiev and two confederates now behind bars, representatives of the extractive industry are breathing a little easier. But the sector will never enjoy peace, they say, as long as mines are entangled in political power plays.

The events of Oct. 3 may turn out to be the climax in what had been an escalating confrontation between miners and mobs. Just days prior to the episode, the new prime minister had announced “with authority” that Kumtor, whose operations accounted for roughly 12 percent of Kyrgyzstan’s GDP in 2011, would not be nationalised, and that mineral extraction would be a core economic priority for his newly formed government.

Mining firms were quick to applaud the premier’s vow to fill the State Agency for Geology and Mineral Resources (responsible for overseeing licenses) with sector specialists, rather than patronage appointees, as had been the tendency under previous governments.

Prime Minister Jantoro Satybaldiyev’s statements were meant to end a challenge to Kumtor’s legal status, initiated on ostensibly environmental grounds by a Tashiev ally, Sadyr Japarov, earlier this summer. In June, a commission led by Japarov failed to convince the legislature that the gold giant’s alleged ecological transgressions warranted expropriation.

With corruption cases looming against both Tashiev and Japarov, the duo subsequently decided to take the debate into the streets.

Orozbek Duisheyev, president of the Association of Miners and Geologists, a non-profit that liaises between mining companies and the government, criticised the pair’s ecological arguments. “(Tashiev and Japarov) are members of the legislative branch – lawmakers – and they create this kind of chaos? These people aren’t environmentalists, they are agents provocateurs. This behaviour must be severely punished,” Duisheyev told EurasiaNet.org.

If Japarov and Tashiev were playing a mining card to defend their personal interests, they were doing so because it is one of the most effective in Kyrgyzstan’s political deck. Since President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was ousted in April 2010, conflicts between mining companies and rural communities have been a regular feature of Kyrgyzstan’s political life. While supposed environmental violations are often cited during rallies, miners suspect the protesters are pawns in conflicts between marginalised elites and the central government in Bishkek.

“Mining companies certainly have a responsibility to abide by domestic and international environmental standards,” said a manager of a gold and copper mining firm, an expatriate with many years’ experience in Kyrgyzstan, who discussed the topic on condition of anonymity. “But to plan for, and anticipate shifts in clan politics – that shouldn’t really be part of our job.”

Centerra Gold, Kumtor’s parent company, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Kumtor is not alone in facing operational threats; there is scarcely a mine in Kyrgyzstan untouched by scandal.

In August, locals threatened to burn down the mine of Asia Gold Enterprises – a Chinese-owned firm working in the southern region of Chon-Alai – over concerns about river pollution. The company responded by offering villagers one percent of its operational profits. Villagers agreed and backed off. Earlier this year, the company was also accused of illegally exporting ore.

And in the western province of Talas, after parliament voted in June to suspend the license of Australia’s Kentor Gold on environmental grounds, the firm submitted itself to a rigorous environmental audit that has found little reason for concern.

The long-term prospects for these and other operations may depend less on environmental concerns and more on the government’s ability to enforce order in the countryside – especially in regions where hostile rivals wield influence.

Compared with Kumtor, these mines are small. Kentor Gold believes their Andash field will yield only 10-15 percent of the gold coming out of Kumtor. But the smaller mines are far more vulnerable to protesters. Attempts to nationalise Kumtor in 2003 and 2007 failed, while licenses for smaller outfits have been repeatedly revoked in the past.

Miners are not the only ones concerned by the nationalist opposition’s behaviour. According to Emil Shukurov, head of the ecological non-profit Aleyne and the editor of Kyrgyzstan’s Red Book of endangered species, Kyrgyzstan has “more serious environmental problems” than Kumtor.

Though he believes the mine commits “minor” environmental violations, “this goes with the territory (of mining),” Shukurov said. He complains that opposition rabble-rousing distracts from other important ecological debates, such as protecting biodiversity. Politicians pick and choose their environmental hang-ups, Shukurov added: “Ecology should not be a subject for political speculation.”

*Editor’s note: Chris Rickleton is a Bishkek-based journalist.

This story originally appeared on Eurasianet.org.

Legislation designed to discourage the controversial practice of bride kidnapping fizzled recently in Kyrgyzstan’s parliament.

The bill lost support because a key provision could also be used to crack down on the ostensibly illegal, yet quietly tolerated practice of polygamy, according to a member of parliament.

The bill would have authorised fines for Islamic clerics who bless marriages that are not already registered with the state. Mullahs play an important social role in villages by providing a religious veneer to customs that the state deems taboo, especially bride kidnapping, a traditional practice that survived the Soviet era and has continued in independent Kyrgyzstan.

Because bride kidnapping is illegal, most resulting marriages are not initially registered with the state. But mullahs, via the Islamic “nikaah” marriage ceremony, often help affirm a forced union in the eyes of local communities.

Having multiple wives is also forbidden by Kyrgyzstan’s civil code and carries a penalty of two years in prison. But polygamy is believed to be common among men who can afford to have more than one wife. A mullah can also endorse a polygamous union with a nikaah ceremony.

The failure of the bride-kidnapping bill to make headway in the legislature when it came up for debate on Jan. 26 has poisoned relationships between male legislators and their female counterparts. At least one female MP asserts some of the 94 men in the 120-strong legislature are intent on protecting polygamy.

Asiya Sasykbayeva, a parliamentary deputy from the Ata-Meken party, insists that political will to curtail bride kidnapping “exists” in Bishkek. To buttress her point, Sasykbayeva cited legislation passed in 2011 that raised the legal age for marriage from 16 to 17. That bill’s backers cited the need to protect school-age girls from early marriage, particularly in rural areas where bride kidnapping is most common.

“I was surprised when I found out that many (male) MPs whom I thought more progressive voted against the (Jan. 26 nikaah bill). But it is well known that unofficial polygamy exists in Kyrgyzstan. I think many deputies voted to defend their private interests,” Sasykbayeva told EurasiaNet.org.

Debates over polygamy are not new in Kyrgyzstan. A leaked U.S. State Department cable from April 2007 recalls that a legislative attempt to legalise the practice only narrowly failed in the mid-1990s.

At the time the cable was written, polygamy had reemerged as a “topic of discussion in society because many prominent government officials… possibly including President (Kurmanbek) Bakiyev and former Prime Minister (Felix) Kulov are rumored to have more than one wife,” claimed the diplomatic cable.

Kulov, who now heads the Ar-Namys party in parliament, voted against the Jan. 26 nikaah bill; Bakiyev was ousted amid bloody street riots in 2010.

For non-governmental organisations campaigning against bride kidnapping, the nikaah bill’s failure was a blow. Current legislation punishes the “abduction of a person with the aim of entering marriage” with up to three years in prison. But the law has done little to stop bride kidnapping.

An October 2011 study by the Kyz-Korgon Institute, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that seeks to raise awareness about bride kidnapping, showed that 45 percent of women married in the provincial town of Karakol in 2010 and 2011 had been non-consensually kidnapped. The nikaah legislation would have fined the clerics who bless such marriages.

Munara Beknazarova of Open Line, a Bishkek-based NGO that offers support to bride-kidnapping victims, said many village mullahs are aware that abducting a bride is “against Islamic principles”, but still bless marriages if the bride says she has consented to the union.

“By the time the mullah arrives, (the bride) has often been physically intimidated, occasionally raped, and threatened with social exclusion,” said Beknazarova. “Of course she consents.”

Beknazarova maintained that an unregistered union denies a woman, and, ultimately, her children, of her civil rights because she has no legal right to alimony or protection if she leaves an unofficial marriage. This helps cement the practice of bride kidnapping as normal in rural Kyrgyzstan.

The bulk of MPs are village-born and remain sensitive to rural concerns, Beknazarova said. But they have other priorities, she added. “Last summer (deputies) passed a law increasing criminal responsibility for stealing livestock,” she said. “Naturally, women’s organisations took offence. We understand the importance of livestock to farmers, but why isn’t there the same urgency when it (concerns) stealing daughters?”

A breakdown of the voting on the nikaah bill vote underscores Beknazarova’s concern that parliament as a whole does not take bride kidnapping seriously: Only 73 of 120 MPs cast votes on the bill. Of the 43 that voted to adopt the bill, 17 (out of 26 women holding seats in parliament) were women; three women were among the 30 that voted against. Of 47 MPs who did not attend the session, 41 were male.

For Dastan Bekeshev, the only man who was among the nine sponsors of the nikaah bill, the voting pattern indicates that “extremely conservative outlooks” among deputies block gender-sensitive legislation.

“Many (MPs) say it is too soon to pass these kinds of laws. But we have had 20 years to deal with these problems, so I don’t agree,” Bekeshev told EurasiaNet.org.

Editor’s note: Chris Rickleton is a Bishkek-based journalist.

*This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

Among its Central Asian neighbours, China these days is more often feared than loved. This attitude is perhaps most apparent in Kyrgyzstan, where despite an overwhelming dependence on Chinese imports, Chinese-owned malls and mining pits have been the subject of attacks in recent years; nationalist editorials in the local press play on fears of the Middle Kingdom.

But all the negative press isn’t deterring Beijing’s efforts to win friends and promote Chinese culture in the region.

A cornerstone of China’s cultural diplomacy is Confucius Institutes at both Bishkek Humanities University and the Kyrgyz National University. Established in 2007 and 2008 respectively, the Beijing- funded institutes have infused their host universities with a Chinese flavour, paying for instructors and tailor-made course books that help some 3,000 local students grapple with the tonal challenges of the Chinese language.

Wang Zhe, director of the Confucius Institute at the National University, claims there are now 38 native Mandarin-speakers teaching in schools and universities across the country.

Increasingly, the students are looking to China when they graduate. Many don’t come back, says Vladimir Lu, dean of the Kyrgyz-Chinese Faculty at Bishkek Humanities University, who estimates 100 of his graduates head to China every year, either to perfect their language skills or pursue graduate degrees.

“They stay there, make contacts and find work for themselves in international firms. Some of them speak four languages, so they understand their market value. Working in Beijing, Shanghai or Guangzhou they can earn 10 times as much as a dean does here,” said Lu, who is ethnically Korean-Chinese from eastern Russia.

According to Wang at the National University, the opportunities for his students are not limited to China. In an increasing number of cases, local students with a strong command of Mandarin find work in third countries. Wang cites Ilyas Sabirov, the faculty’s star graduate this year, who found work at a Kazakhstan-based steel firm trading between China and Russia.

“He knew over 4,000 (Chinese) characters. Considering that I know only 6,000, that isn’t bad,” said Wang, who is from Urumchi in China’s western Xinjiang Province.

With fluent Russian and Mandarin, Ilyas was able to command over 1,000 dollars a month, more than five times the average monthly salary in Kyrgyzstan. Last year, several gradates used their language skills to find jobs in the United Arab Emirates, where Chinese businesses are rapidly expanding.

While this is a trickle compared to the hundreds of thousands of Kyrgyz nationals working in Russia, Lu says China is looking for quality, not quantity, providing spots for the smartest, as well as those who can pay their own way.

Beijing funds two travel programmes – through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and Kyrgyzstan’s president’s office – offering approximately 50 talented Mandarin-speaking Kyrgyz students a fully paid year abroad studying in China. To earn a place, students must score well on a Chinese proficiency test, as well as examinations in mathematics and other fields.

Other students with no knowledge of Mandarin, mainly children of wealthy Kyrgyz, can pay up to 9,000 dollars for the same opportunity, says Lu. The two Confucius Institutes in Kyrgyzstan help arrange suitable placements.

For Mandarin speakers and Sinologists who do wish to return home, high-ranking government jobs await. Jyldyz Satieva, who graduated from the Bishkek Humanities University in 2006 and subsequently earned a masters degree from Jilin University in Changchun, in China’s northeast, now works as an international affairs consultant in the president’s office.

When Satieva first began her studies, Bishkek Humanities University was the only higher education institution in Kyrgyzstan where native speakers of Chinese taught classes. Now native speakers, funded by China, can be found teaching at smaller institutions in provincial towns such as Jalal-Abad and Karakol.

Kyrgyz society remains more inclined toward Russia, Satieva acknowledged. But she believes anti-Chinese sentiment in the Central Asian country is easing.

“This (anti-Chinese feeling) will change with time as more people start learning Chinese, and information about Chinese culture becomes more widespread. Chinese firms are opening up here, and there are jobs for people who understand the country and speak the language,” she said.

Rafaello Pantucci, a China scholar at the European Council on Foreign Relations, says China is in no hurry to leave its cultural and economic imprint on the region. Beijing is playing a “slow game” as it increases its appeal to Central Asians. While still a less- prestigious destination than Europe, North America, or even Russia for Kyrgyz elites to send their children, “China is increasingly attractive to locals,” he told EurasiaNet.org.

And while Sinophobia presents a potential hurdle in China’s attempt to make friends, over the longer term, Central Asian leaders will do better to squash the phenomenon than foster it, Pantucci contended.

“The key point is that for these countries, China is their huge neighbour with lots of money and a keen interest in their good development, so they will have to, and want to, work with it,” Pantucci said.

Editor’s note: Chris Rickleton is a Bishkek-based journalist.

*This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.