Infographic Archives - Voices On Cental Asia

Refugees from Сentral Asia and in Central Asia

voca — Wed, 27 May 2020 14:34:20 +0000

Closed borders around the world due to the outbreak of COVID – 19 have temporarily affected the mobility of people, including both voluntary and forced migration. The precise impact of the pandemic on migration is yet to be assessed, but prior to the pandemic, the forced migration rate has grown rapidly around the world and surpasses voluntary migration in growth percentage. According to the UN, from 2010 to 2017, the average annual growth rate of refugees and asylum seekers exceeded 8%, while between 2010 and 2019 the annual growth rate of other migrants was less than 2%. In 2018 there were 25.9 million refugees in the world, more than half of whom were under 18 years of age. Some 3.5 million more people around the world live in wait of a determination for their asylum request status.

Sadly, Central Asia is no exception of these processes, as military and ethnic-based conflicts, as well as the political strife resulted in a stream of displaced persons and refugees.

In the early nineties, Tajikistan’s civil war forced tens of thousands of Tajiks to flee to neighboring countries—mainly Afghanistan, but also to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Russia. While this was the first exodus from the region in recent history, it was not the last, and the war has not been the only cause for this migration.

The official website of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) collects and provides impressive statistics of refugees by country and year. In countries where the procedures for granting refugee status comply with UN requirements, statistics are counted by an authorized government agency. Prior to 2016 in Central Asia, the UNHCR itself used to directly determine refugee status and kept the records, but since then, the national systems of refugee registration in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan started to function more smoothly, and the states now provide official statistics to the UN.

Fled from independence

The very first asylum request came from a Kazakh national who made the request to Danish authorities in 1992. He was followed by eight citizens from Tajikistan who sought asylum in Sweden that year. In 1993, a Kyrgyz citizen filed an asylum request in Spain, and in 1994 some others from the region fled to the Netherlands, Canada, and Bulgaria. That same year, tens of thousands of Meskhetian Turks, who had previously left Uzbekistan as result of the 1989 pogroms, were recognized as people of concern seeking refuge in Azerbaijan.

In South America in 1995, for the first time, a Kyrgyz citizen sought asylum in Uruguay. In North America that same year, the first Central Asian asylum requests were recorded in the United States: 64 Uzbeks, 17 Kazakhs, 11 Tajiks, 6 Kyrgyz and one Turkmen.

In 1996, nearly 150,000 applications for asylum were filed by in the Russian Federation that came from the citizens of Central Asian countries. Almost 55,000 of them were citizens of Tajikistan.

Today, the Russian Federation is no longer a priority destination for Central Asian asylum seekers. Perhaps this is because many migrant workers can get work permission and simplified citizenship; political refugees do not feel safe there; and more and more people are finding their way to other countries and prefer to stay there.

Kazakhstan

The number of those who leave Kazakhstan to other countries and apply for asylum is growing annually. At the beginning of the 21^st century, more than three thousand Kazakhstanis filed for asylum abroad; in 2018 this number has increased by nearly three times.

It should be clarified that these figures include both asylum seekers (with cases pending) and recognized refugees (and refugee-like situations). The same refugee may be included in the statistics several years in a row until his/her status changes, as he/she may receive other documents (residence permit, citizenship) or may lose refugee status (refusal to renew, returning home, leaving to another country). Also not every asylum request gets approved, as many are believed to be economic migrants.

In 2018, for the first time, South Korea overtook the United States as a top destination for Kazakhs who apply for asylum abroad. The visa-free regime between Kazakhstan and South Korea made the latter the leader of the list of countries where the Kazakhs seek refuge.

Kazakhstan is already a destination country for many migrants from Central Asia as well as other expatriates. In the 1990s and in the beginning of the 21^st century, thousands from Tajikistan and Afghanistan, as well as from the Russian Federation were registered as refugees in Kazakhstan. In 2018, 757 people formally requested and some received asylum in Kazakhstan. This number may be larger, because data for some countries is hidden. Neighbors (China, Uzbekistan) and war fronts far abroad (Afghanistan, Syria) are the main sources of current refugees and asylum seekers in Kazakhstan.

Kyrgyzstan

In the country’s first years of independence, tens of thousands of Kyrgyzstanis were considered as refugees in the Russian Federation. Due to the unstable socio-political and economic situation, many Russians decided to move to Russia right away.

It is noteworthy that neither of the two revolutions that ended up overthrowing the governments became a special trigger of mass exodus from Kyrgyzstan. Even the Osh events did not cause such an exodus: hundreds of thousands on the UN database from 2010, 2011, 2012 are listed as internally displaced persons, 200,000 of them already returning home in 2010.

As all other Central Asian countries, Kyrgyzstan had hosted tens of thousands of Tajiks refugees and hundreds refugees from Afghanistan. After the Osh events from 2010 up through 2012, several thousand citizens of Uzbekistan were considered as refugees in Kyrgyzstan. In 2018, some 414 people lived in under the status of refugee or asylum seeker in Kyrgyzstan. More than half of them were from Afghanistan, and around one hundred were from Syria. Also, as of 2018, three dozen Turkish citizens—and two dozen Ukrainians were on this list. This amount may be larger, as data for some countries is hidden.

It should also be noted that Kyrgyzstan currently has few stateless people; most of them received citizenship in 2019, though, there were some 100,000 people without any citizenship in 2005, when they were first recorded. Kyrgyzstan is the first country in the world to grant citizenship to absolutely all stateless persons.

Tajikistan

A civil war in Tajikistan caused tens of thousands to flee to neighboring countries—primarily to Afghanistan, but also to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the Russian Federation, and Turkmenistan. More than half a million were forced to seek refuge within the country itself.

Years passed, the situation got better, and a majority of refugees returned, especially from Afghanistan. However, many remained in the countries sheltered them, especially in the post-Soviet republics. Refugees quickly returned from Afghanistan, where they had endured harsh and desperate conditions and were in no less danger than at home. Impressive numbers remained in the neighboring republics up to 2005 (data of Tajik refugees in Uzbekistan increased from two-digit to five-digit in 2000). There were around 40,000 Tajik refugees in Uzbekistan and 11,000 refugees in Turkmenistan in 2005. Starting in 2006, data on Tajik refugees in these two republics has no longer been available.

In the end of 2015, the Tajik authorities banned the main opposition party, the Islamic Renaissance Party. Subsequent repression against members of this and other opposition and Islamist groups resulted in increasing number of refugees from Tajikistan. The year of 2016 saw a 50% rise of refugees in comparison to a year earlier.

How many seek asylum in Tajikistan, and where are the requests originating? Primarily, the requests come from thousands of Afghanistan’s citizens, who cross a long border to try to move further to other countries, such as Canada. In 2018 alone, some 2,964 Afghan citizens were listed as refugees in Tajikistan. There are also refugees from Iraq, Iran, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan—though data on them is hidden for 2018, there were a total of nine of them in 2017.

As of April 2020, there were 7,151 stateless persons in Tajikistan. Perhaps this number is larger in reality: at the beginning of 2020, Tajikistan also pardoned stateless persons, mainly former Soviet citizens who are now able to regulate their status without a fine. It was announced that approximately 20,000 stateless persons will be able to take advantage of this amnesty.

Turkmenistan

Over the past decade alone, the number of refugees from Turkmenistan has grown rapidly. If the number of refugees and asylum seekers from Turkmenistan in the 2000s was 323 people, in the 2010s this number increased to 804, and in 2018 doubled to 1680 people.

A lot of Turkmen citizens look for a job in Turkey because it is the only visa-free regime with a job destination country, but just a few hundred out of approximately 500,000 migrant workers asked for asylum there. The United States and Germany, too, are other priority destinations for Turkmen refugees. Top three countries, according to asylum applications of citizens of Turkmenistan, for 2018 are Turkey, USA and Germany.

Are there reverse cases? In the early 1990s, Turkmenistan sheltered thousands of refugees from Tajikistan and Afghanistan, as well as hundreds from Azerbaijan. Over the past decade, the number of those wishing to escape to Turkmenistan has significantly fallen, even from Afghanistan, or they simply have not been allowed in.

Uzbekistan

In 1994, nearly 30,000 Meskhetian Turks who were fled to Azerbaijan after the 1989 pogroms were listed as refugees. By 2001 the number of Meskhetian refugees from Uzbekistan in Azerbaijan was reduced to just 7,500; in 2002, down to 2,500 people, and in 2003 there were only 500. The second wave of mass exodus from Uzbekistan drove people to Russia, where in 1996, nearly 34,000 refugees from Uzbekistan were registered. In 2000, there were less Uzbek refugees in Russia (1520) than in the US (nearly 2,000). In general, the list of countries hosting Uzbek refugees included 60 countries in 2018

Regarding current refugees in Uzbekistan, in 2018, only 13 Afghans and presumably 1 person from Azerbaijan were listed as refugees in Uzbekistan. Around 100,000 stateless persons also live in Uzbekistan, and a new law adopted this March will let almost half of them receive an Uzbek passport.

It is noteworthy that in recent years, only a very small number of refugees have returned back to their home countries in Central Asia. Although Central Asia as a whole seems to be welcoming an increasing number of tourists and other foreign guests, the number of Central Asian citizens leaving their countries for non-economic reasons is alarming.

Main photo: source

The post Refugees from Сentral Asia and in Central Asia appeared first on Voices On Cental Asia.

Eurasia on the Move. Interdisciplinary Approaches to a Dynamic Migration Region

voca — Tue, 13 Nov 2018 16:18:59 +0000

Eurasia on the Move. Interdisciplinary approaches to a Dynamic Migration region, published by Nazarbayev University and GW’s Central Asia Program, discusses many aspects of migration flows in Eurasia.

As Caress Schenk (Nazarbayev University) notes in the book’s introduction, Eurasia is marked by some of the freest migration in the world thanks to the free labor zone of the Eurasian Economic Union and the visa-free regime of the Commonwealth of Independent States:

At the same time, however, it faces restrictions in the form of Soviet-era registration procedures, the active use of re-entry bans in Russia, and heavy-handed efforts to regulate emigration in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The volume features chapters from a new cohort of scholars, many of whom were born in the region but educated abroad. As a result of all of these efforts, Eurasian migration studies has increasingly brought together intellectual traditions, theoretical perspectives, and approaches to data that historically separated the English- and Russian-language literatures.

Malika Bahovadinova (Czech Academy of Sciences) and Isaac Scarborough (London School of Economics) investigate the impact that Soviet-era migration programs have had on Post-Soviet Eurasia. They argue that massive labor migration from Tajikistan to Russia has been built directly on the structural and discursive framework created during the final decade of the USSR with the goal of increasing labor market freedom within the Soviet Union:

Due to the Soviet development project, which encouraged immobility in Tajikistan by providing the basics of modern life in the village and promoting cotton harvesting, Tajikistan is unique among Soviet republics in becoming less, rather than more, urbanized over the years. As the number of workers in the Tajik SSR began to increase (hitting 200,000 in the mid-1980s), an increasing number of voices came to advocate directing these workers to employment elsewhere in the USSR. Whereas the Tajik SSR was experiencing “labor excess,” the Russian SFSR and other European republics were experiencing a manpower shortage.

Interestingly, labor migration evolved from providing contract workers (limitchiki) to individual Russian factories to the idea of permanent resettlement in the RSFSR. The Tajik State Committee for Labor, for example, launched an initiative in the mid-1980s that facilitated the resettlement of workers from Tajikistan to Khabarovsk krai in the RSFSR, where it was presumed that they would work in agriculture. With the dismantling of the Soviet system of guarantees and as economic insecurity became ubiquitous, Tajiks’ mobility behavior changed. To a large degree, labor migration to Russia came to be seen as “a lifeline to those sinking in unknown waters.”

Today, an increasing number of migrant workers from Tajikistan take advantage of relocation programs and other methods of moving permanently to the Russian Federation. Initial research in Dushanbe and Russia has shown a growing number of migrant workers using programs such the “resettlement program” (programma pereseleniia) for Russian “compatriots” (sootechestvenniki), and statistics reveal that a significant number of Tajik citizens receive either Russian residency or citizenship each year. In 2016, for example, 23,012 Tajik citizens acquired Russian citizenship, while another 18,882 became permanent residents. Thus, as the authors note, these migration flows demonstrate the force of history: “Soviet-era institutions and bureaucracies have lived on past their official expiration date in 1991, continuing to influence and affect life decades later”.

Galib Bashirov (Florida International University) provides a comparative study of Russian and Turkish approaches to migration from Central Asia:

Russia and Turkey both have deep historical, political, social, and economic ties to Central Asia. They are also the two most important destinations for migrants from Central Asia, primarily in the areas of labor and student migration. However, the two countries have developed distinct approaches to managing legal and illegal migration from Central Asia. “In Russia, nationalist-xenophobic tendencies that attempt to securitize migration from Central Asia clash with an economic rationale that requires cheap imported labor for economic development and a demographic predicament that the influx of migrants goes some way toward addressing. This leads to contradictions in the Russian approach to migration. Turkey, by contrast, has historically had an accommodationist attitude to migration from Central Asia. More recently, however, the influx of Syrian refugees en masse, as well as a growing number of terrorist attacks—some of which were perpetrated by Central Asian nationals—have led to the securitization of Central Asian migration to Turkey, albeit to a lesser extent than in Russia”.

The author finds that the collapse of the Soviet Union, the war in Syria, domestic terrorist attacks, public opinion, and political platforms all support and sustain the securitization of migration in Russia. These conditions, in conjunction with strong and frequent securitizing moves by political agents, create strong securitization mechanisms. In Turkey, on the other hand, the collapse of the Soviet Union, public opinion, and political platforms have largely served to constrain the securitization of migration from Central Asia. The two domestic terror attacks perpetrated by Central Asian nationals triggered securitization, for which the war in Syria had provided background conditions. Nevertheless, given that securitizing moves have been weak and infrequent, attempted mostly by politically marginalized opposition forces, there continues to be weak securitization of Central Asian migrants in Turkey.

Rustamjon Urinboyev (Lund University) explores migrant transnationalism with regard to Central Asian migrants in Russia in view of the growing use of everyday technologies of transnationalism (smartphones and social media) among Central Asian migrants in Russia, which may trigger social changes in both migrant-sending and -receiving societies:

Urinboyev presents the results of extensive multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork undertaken in Moscow, Russia, and Ferghana region, Uzbekistan. Communication technologies (eg., smartphones and social media) have enabled Uzbek migrants to stay in touch with their home societies, as well as create permanent, telephone-based translocal communities in Moscow, usually centered around migrants who hail from the same mahalla or village in Uzbekistan. The existence of this telephone-based transnational environment helps migrants cope with the challenges of musofirchilik (being alien) and avoid or maneuver around structural constraints such as complicated residence registration and work permit rules, social exclusion, racism, and the lack of social security. These migrant communities and networks serve as an alternative integration and adaptation mechanisms, providing access to basic public goods, such as jobs, housing, and physical and economic security. The networks usually revolve around the bonds of kinship, region of origin, or ethnic affiliation, which adapt many “domestic” practices to the conditions of migration and temporary residence. Hence, Uzbek migrants’ transnationalism is not merely an economic activity or cultural practice, but is both a coping strategy and a mode of resistance to the repressive political and socio-legal environment.

Nodira Kholmatova (European University Institute) explores feminization of migration from Tajikistan to Russia, revealing contradictions between the classical sociological trend of women’s empowerment and the constraints of traditional society. Kholmatova argues that female migrants do not see immigration as a means of achieving emancipation and empowerment. “On the contrary, women perceive labor migration as a setback, since they then have to regain their status by readjusting to traditional norms and values in their home society”:

A female migrant faces the competing imperatives to earn money and behave in line with traditional norms that are suspicious of migration. This creates cognitive dissonance because women would prefer not to migrate, given the patriarchal society’s negative attitude toward migration, but feel that they do not have a choice. In order to maintain a transnational lifestyle, women come up with strategies that allow them to perform their traditional gender roles and migrate to earn money. Regardless of how long they had been in Russia, the women studied in the sample were constantly engaged in finding ways to align themselves with traditional social and cultural norms. Beneficial as this behavior is for reintegration and maintaining social status at home, it can create problems, as it impedes women from developing strategies to cope with the uncertainties inherent in migration.

Nazira Sodatsayrova (University of Tsukuba) writes about educational mobility. Her research takes a qualitative approach, surveying Tajik students in Japan and asking about their educational biographical narratives to understand motivations before and after mobility:

The study revealed that educational mobility and other forms of mobility are connected to multiple factors: quality of education at a particular school (linked to the presence of qualified teachers); opportunities in the specific context; an individual’s interests; where students live; and other economic, political, cultural, and social aspects. The research indicates the desire and willingness of students to seek better education, due in part to the shortage of professional teachers, which impacted the global competitiveness of students in rural areas, but at the same time led to greater student mobility. Despite regional challenges, students were resilient and wanted to go further from home to continue their education. First, the value of education is demonstrated by the fact that students were willing to confront all the issues they faced. Second, students emphasize the importance of resilience in each period: the civil war, the transition, and the time of new opportunities thereafter. Third, students are not content with the opportunities available to them locally; they are continuously in pursuit of new opportunities and possibilities for themselves and their families, even if it means moving abroad. Today, Tajik youth face many challenges as they pursue mobility and which drive mobility: the rural-urban divide, professional or career competition, and responsibility for looking after their siblings and children. Studying educational mobility in context allows for a better understanding of mobility as a whole.

Bolat L. Tatibekov (Suleyman Demirel University) and Reuel R. Hanks (Oklahoma State University) study spatial dynamics of external labor migration in contemporary Kazakhstan:

Kazakhstan has been more open to the introduction of guest workers than other Central Asian countries, primarily due to current or impending labor shortages. Between 2001 and the first half of 2017, the government invited almost half a million foreign workers into the country—a figure that, of course, does not include those who arrived illegally. The authors study this data and apply a gravity model to understand the factors of distance from several countries (including Central Asian countries, Russia, China, and Turkey), cultural affinity, and economic ties.

The majority of Kazakhstan’s foreign labor force comes from two countries: China and Turkey. However, in the earlier period (2001-2009) there were more workers from Turkey than from China, whereas Chinese workers were more numerous than their Turkish counterparts in the later period (2009-2017). For example, spatial analysis showed that in the period of economic growth between 2001 and mid-2009, labor migration in Kazakhstan from Turkey was in line with the gravity model from the perspective of cultural affinity. In China, the gravity model prevailed from the perspective of distance and economic potential in the latter period. It seems that cultural affinity became a less important factor in determining labor migration than economic potential and geographic proximity. The authors can predict that labor migration from China is destined to increase.

Ajar Chekirova (University of Illinois at Chicago) explores the effect of registration documents on the citizenship rights of rural migrants in Kyrgyzstan. She attempts to address the issue of diminished citizenship rights using a case study of post-Soviet urban registration, or propiska, in Kyrgyzstan:

There are an estimated 350,000 internal migrants in Bishkek, the capital city, who together comprise almost 30 percent of the city’s population. These individuals, however, typically lack propiska, or local registration. In order to obtain an urban propiska, an internal migrant needs to prove that he or she owns real estate or has a formal rental agreement in the city, something that is beyond the financial means of many migrants. Instead, they tend to build homes on land obtained illegally, such that their property rights are not recognized by the state. As a result, many unregistered rural migrants in Bishkek have limited access to healthcare, education, social services, the banking system, or formal employment. Moreover, registration requirements have been integrated into other laws and policies concerning issuance of identification documents, property inheritance, criminal justice, welfare, marriage, and elections, thereby socially and politically disenfranchising these migrants. These limitations marginalize rural migrants, making them de jure equal citizens of the state but de facto second-class citizens in the city. The discrepancy between how citizenship is constructed at the national level and how it is interpreted and practiced at the local level opens new arenas of social inquiry.

Farrukh Irnazarov (Central Asian Development Institute) studies the impact of Russian re-entry bans on Central Asian labor migrants’ coping strategies:

In 2013, in spite of high demand for unskilled labor, Russian authorities decided to introduce and enforce a re-entry ban list, on which a migrant could be placed even for such minor administrative violations as a discrepancy between their registration and actual place of residence, a mobile phone bill in arrears, or late payment of fees. As a result, a large number of labor migrants ended up on the list and were banned from re-entering Russia, typically for between three and five years.

In the interim, however, labor migrants who find themselves blacklisted encounter a number of difficulties. First of all, they are usually unaware of the reasons for the ban, its duration, and other peculiarities; typically, when they leave Russia to visit their families back home, no one informs them that they are subject to a re-entry ban and will be unable to return to Russia. Thus, the entire process of banning individuals remains rather opaque. Currently, nine different government agencies can put a migrant on the re-entry ban list without explaining their decision. Moreover, labor migrants’ legal knowledge is typically rather poor, and they often have limited faith in the court system. Under these circumstances, migrants banned from re-entering Russia have to come up with their own coping strategies for dealing with this new reality while beyond Russia’s borders.

The re-entry ban list is separate from deportation, but many labor migrants mistakenly believe that they were deported. Some migrants are familiar with their re-entry ban status and therefore decide to remain in Russia, sometimes attempting to obtain Russian citizenship in order to stay. Others are unfamiliar with the situation: once they leave the country, they are unable to return to Russia. Kazakhstan often serves an alternative destination for those migrants who travel through Kazakhstan but are turned back at the Russian border: there was a 12-fold increase in the number of Tajiks obtaining work permits and a 4-fold increase among their Uzbek counterparts in the period from 2014 to 2016. Those labor migrants who return to their respective countries have to deal with new realities back home. Considering that some of them have spent a significant part—a decade or more—of their working life in Russia, the re-entry ban engenders a number of reintegration problems. All Central Asian governments are working to mobilize their resources to address the issues related to return migrants.

John Round (University of Birmingham) and Irina Kuznetsova (University of Birmingham) write about states of exception facing Central Asian migrants in Moscow:

Central Asian migrants in Russia are demonized by the state and media, thus facilitating the state of exception and the abuses that occur within it. The authors explore how this impacts the mobility of Central Asian migrants in Moscow and show how they endure the actions of the state as they operate outside the country’s legal frameworks. Central Asian migrants are constructed as an illegal group, i.e. they are working in Russia without proper documentation and/or are working for cash in hand and not paying taxes. The vast majority of Russian newspaper reports use “illegal” as shorthand to criticize migrants and the government for failing to regulate the “problem,” while simultaneously failing to discuss the numerous challenges migrants face in attempting to operate formally, even when they have formal work permits. From this base of illegality, migrants are further constructed as criminal and diseased. Labor migrants develop sets of tactics to help alleviate their status as Homo Sacer. Many Central Asian migrants in Moscow have no choice but to live under such conditions, as their potential income back home is simply not enough to provide for their families.

Given the issue’s scale, Central Asians’ need to migrate for work, and the benefits of the everyday state of exception for many state actors (collecting bribes, etc.) and employers (the ability to pay extremely low wages without providing any benefits), there is little reason for optimism about alternative futures for labor migrants. The federal government argues that if migrants could integrate more into Russian society, then the friction between groups would be reduced; as such, it is introducing requirements for those applying for work permits to pass Russian language and culture exams. There is, however, little evidence that this would curb the worst excesses: the above suggests that an exam system will simply become a new site of informality where payments will be expected in return for passing the test. Therefore, until there is a change to Russia’s system of governance and economic structure, there is little chance of the everyday lives of Moscow labor migrants improving. Instead, they will be forced to live in a state of exception where abuse is the norm.

Shoirakhon R. Nurdinova (Anadolu University) explores socio-economic factors affecting Uzbek labor migrants in Turkey:

The numbers of travelers to Turkey from Uzbekistan increased in 2007 after Ankara implemented a visa-free regime. The Immigration Office of Turkey has declared that 18,270 residence permits were given to Uzbek citizens in 2016. Yet the fact that 1,648 illegal migrants from Uzbekistan were caught and fined by the authorities in 2016 supports the hypothesis that the official numbers are just the tip of the iceberg. Among the socio-economic factors that prompt labor migrants from Uzbekistan to come to Turkey, the author names cultural proximity and migrants’ networks as affecting their choice of destination country.

Azizbek Abdurakhimov (National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow) raises the question of an emigration trap due to the remittance-dependence of certain Central Asia economies:

Migration is very important for the Kyrgyz economy as a tool to overcome the population’s unemployment and poverty. The share of emigrants in the labor force has remained more or less static, at between 27 and 30 percent of the total.

Tajikistan is the poorest country in the region. The number of emigrants declined gradually between 1990 and 2000, and then started to grow again, reaching 587,000 in 2015. Between 15 and 25 percent of the economically active population worked abroad between 1995 and 2015, 77-80 percent of whom were employed in the Russian Federation.

Uzbekistan, a country of about 32 million people, reputedly has very high economic potential but still faces problems related to unemployment, weak economic and legal infrastructure, corruption, and a poor banking system. The number of migrants increased between 1990 and 2015, from 1.4 million to about 2 million. About 60 percent of all migrants work in Russia, and Uzbek nationals comprise 5-11 percent of Russia’s migrant population.

The results of the author’s analysis show that Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan are sufficiently dependent on migration to be considered “in” the emigration trap, as their macroeconomic situations are explained by external indicators related to remittances and the macroeconomic situation in recipient countries. For instance, the governments of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan may face macroeconomic crises if Russia imposes restrictions on immigration.

Gulnaz Atabaeva (Alatoo International University) further explores the link between remittances and economic growth in Kyrgyzstan:

In Kyrgyzstan’s small, open economy, significant external inflows of money have the potential to affect virtually all economic variables. Remittances sent by migrant workers have played an important role in promoting economic development. They have minimized the problems that result from a shortage of foreign exchange reserves. They also cover a large proportion of Kyrgyzstan’s substantial trade deficit (the country imports three times more than it exports). It is undeniable that in the early stages of development, a poor country like Kyrgyzstan needs foreign exchange to pay for the imports it needs. Remittances also have an impact on poverty. Recent empirical research on Kyrgyzstan found that international remittances largely alleviate poverty by increasing household expenditure. Between 2000 and 2015, remittances in Kyrgyzstan increased by an average of 55.4 percent annually; household final consumption expenditure grew by an average of 13.2 percent annually.

But there are potentially adverse effects of remittances: they support private consumption of imported goods instead of financing investment, which can erode competitiveness and increase trade deficits. Kyrgyzstan should therefore focus more heavily on importing new technologies and capital goods instead of consumer goods, the author argues. Government policies should encourage individuals to “channel” remittances into productive investment, because it matters how this hard-earned money is being used.

Gulnaz Atabaeva

In Uzbekistan, remittances may serve as a source of finance for entrepreneurship, argues Jakhongir Kakhkharov (Griffith University):

But data on the use of remittances from relatively large-scale surveys show that only a small number of recipient households in Uzbekistan invest in entrepreneurship. This may be due to the fact that the remittances Uzbek households receive are small and are mainly used to address immediate consumption needs. As the size of remittance income increases, households exhibit a greater desire to invest. Remittances, therefore, have the potential to become a vital investment source for MSMEs (micro, small, and medium enterprises) if augmented with a bank credit and/or an increase in the amount of remittances. Moreover, even if households do not invest remittances in entrepreneurship, Uzbekistan’s financial sector appears to be benefiting from this inflow of funds. A small part of remittances may even be turning into the bank loans that private enterprises need to grow. To increase the positive effect of remittances, policymakers should consider strategies to reform the banking sector so as to boost its role in financing micro- and small businesses; encourage migrants’ families to invest remittances into MSMEs by educating migrants on how to run a business; and improve the business environment.

Zhengizkhan Zhanaltay (Eurasian Research Institute) studies social remittances:

Migration 5
Infogram

The term, coined by Levitt, indicates that labor migrants not only remit money, but also transfer ideas, know-how, practices, and skills, thereby influencing the development process of their countries of origin. In the Central Asian case, it could be said that migrants’ reason for transferring social remittances is more economic, as it is oriented toward improving living standards by accumulating social and economic capital abroad, and using this capital to start a new business or find a job with a decent salary at home. The migrant-exporting Central Asian countries have great social capital potential but use only a fraction of it. Therefore, government officials, labor organizations, and diaspora representatives need to work together to find ways to use migrants’ social capital more efficiently, with the goal of transferring their knowledge, skills, and expertise to underdeveloped sectors and industries that have high potential to benefit from social remittance transfers. For instance, encouraging entrepreneurial activity at home by introducing new support programs and informing people about existing structures would allow Central Asian countries to capitalize on the positive potential of SME development and thus benefit from migrants’ accumulated social and economic capital.

The post Eurasia on the Move. Interdisciplinary Approaches to a Dynamic Migration Region appeared first on Voices On Cental Asia.

Three Reasons Why the EU Matters to Central Asia

Aitolkyn Kourmanova — Tue, 13 Mar 2018 14:50:21 +0000

The European Union (EU) can play a positive role in Central Asia by offering an alternative to Russia and China; helping countries build their societies and diversify their economies; and supporting regional cooperation.

Author

Jos Boonstra

Jos Boonstra is senior researcher at the Centre for European Security Studies (CESS) and coordinator of the Europe-Central Asia Monitoring (EUCAM) program.

www.eucentralasia.eu

Relations between the European Union and the republics of Central Asia date back to the first years of independence of the five “stans”. But it was only after the development of an EU Strategy for Central Asia in 2007 that Central Asia appeared more clearly on the European foreign policy radar. The EU opened delegations in Central Asia, initiated projects, boosted funding, and established several formats of bilateral and regional cooperation. More recently, the EU has concluded a more extensive Enhanced Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (EPCA) with Kazakhstan and begun negotiating a similar agreement with Kyrgyzstan.

Author

Riccardo Panella

Riccardo Panella is a student of International Relations at the University of Groningen and an intern at CESS-EUCAM.

The EU’s initial interest in Central Asia was based to a large degree on energy security issues. In the 2007–2010 period, the EU hoped that it could open up the Caspian and Central Asia to gas imports to Europe (via the Nabucco pipeline, for instance). Azerbaijan, Iran, and—especially—Turkmenistan would deliver gas to Europe, possibly at the expense of sales to Russia. This interest in Caspian energy projects slowly evaporated, even as China built pipelines to import gas from Turkmenistan; the 2011–2013 EU Strategy for Central Asia was instead geared toward ensuring that instability in Afghanistan as a result of NATO withdrawal did not spill over to the Central Asian states. Increasingly, debates focused on security and on linking Europe’s Central Asia and Afghanistan policies. More recently, from 2014 onwards, the EU has seen Central Asia in the light of tensions between Russia and Europe.

The region also sometimes receives negative news coverage as an exporter of radicalism, since some of the terrorist attacks perpetrated in Europe in recent years were carried out by Central Asian citizens.

Thus far, the EU’s Central Asia policy has been able to navigate international trends and crises by picking salient issues—be it energy, trade, human rights, or education—from a menu of options. Nevertheless, an updated strategy is in order. This would allow the EU to cement processes and practices that work well while cutting or transforming aspects that have underperformed. Last year, the EU decided to embark on the process of renewing the EU-Central Asia strategy by 2019. In part, this will be an internal evaluation and drafting process, but the EU encourages input by many other stakeholders, chiefly Central Asian states but also civil society organizations.

At the Europe-Central Asia Monitoring (EUCAM) initiative (www.eucentralasia.eu), we have approached research and advocacy mostly from a European point of view. Why is Central Asia important for Europe? What are our interests in this region? By starting up a fellowship program at EUCAM designed for Central Asian academics and civil society actors, we hope to increasingly take on board the views of Central Asians. Why would they be interested in Europe? Here are three broad reasons that could be regarded a starting point for such interests.

Why is Central Asia important for Europe? What are our interests in this region? Why would Central Asians be interested in Europe? Here are three broad reasons that could be regarded a starting point for such interests.

1. Europe as a Values-Driven Alternative to Russia and China

Central Asia is squashed in between two major powers: Russia and China. Its “central” location and history have made it a popular object of geopolitical strategizing. Although Chinese investment and Russian security cooperation are often welcomed in Central Asia, there is a high demand for alternatives. This makes the EU a welcome partner, for several reasons.

Firstly, the EU is seen as fairly neutral, without substantial geopolitical interest in the region. Secondly, it has become clear to Central Asian states that the EU plans to remain engaged in the region for the long haul, with a modest but steady level of investment and engagement. Thirdly, Central Asian countries are young states that seek to harness their independence and develop their identity. They want to be recognized as attractive destinations (as in the case of Kyrgyzstan) or as regional actors (an example being Kazakhstan). Informally, the EU can offer this recognition through the agreements it concludes with Central Asian states, as well as the visits of high-level Central Asian officials to Brussels and other European capitals, and vice versa.

With this European interest and engagement, however, comes a values-driven component: the EU expects Central Asian states to meet international human rights requirements and get serious about the rule of law and good governance. In a world where democratic systems are increasingly placed under stress and where traditional democracy promoters are becoming less vocal in their approach, the EU remains one of the few actors actively promoting good governance, the rule of law, and human rights (at the same time as addressing a backlash against democracy in some member states). The EU can only offer Central Asia assistance with democratization, but it is stricter when it comes to human rights. It has been able to hold regular Human Rights Dialogues (HRD) with the Central Asian states, in which both longer-term judicial reforms and concrete cases of human rights offenses have been discussed. The process needs constant nurturing to avoid becoming a box-ticking exercise; it will need to be deepened in order to have a tangible effect.

Central Asian states have often been averse to political reform, but some states have expressed interest in working with the EU on these issues. These include Kyrgyzstan, the most open country in the region; Kazakhstan, which is considering and implementing minor reforms; and Uzbekistan, which has taken a sudden interest in political and economic reforms.

With the exception of Kazakhstan, Europe is not an essential destination for Central Asian exports. Nor are Central Asian states large importers of European goods or beneficiaries of large European investments (again with the exception of Kazakhstan). The table clearly shows that Kazakhstan far surpasses the other four Central Asian states combined in both its trade volume with the EU and its Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). This does not mean, however, that Europe is irrelevant to Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Programs like Central Asia Invest are intended to boost small businesses. More broadly economic cooperation with the EU can also help diversify the economies of the Central Asian states, which are either heavily dependent on energy exports or affected by mass labor migration.

Since the EU does not see the Central Asian region as a trade and investment priority, it is inclined to link its economic engagement to development aid programming. In that sense, the EU can be a useful partner for Central Asian countries in terms of job creation with a view to lessening labour migration or in helping to increase local cross-border trade.

But the most valuable contribution Europe can make to Central Asia’s development probably lies in the sphere of education. The EU is active on higher education through the worldwide Erasmus+ program. There is also an EU regional education initiative specific to Central Asia, and education is considered a priority sector in development cooperation with Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. The focus should not be on higher education alone, but also on elementary and vocational education. This is clearly a two-way street: Europe can have a lasting impact on Central Asia through educational reforms and programs, while Central Asian states probably have a keen interest in preparing their growing and ever-younger populations for the future.

3. Promoting Cooperation

The EU is a substantial donor to Central Asia. Most funding goes to Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and regional initiatives. Even though these two countries are to a degree dependent on international development aid, its efficiency is seriously hampered by endemic corruption. Turkmenistan has received minor funding, while Kazakhstan—which is assessed as an upper-middle-income country—only receives funding through regional projects and EU global instruments. Support to Uzbekistan has been modest so far, but could see a boost in the coming years if it follows through on its recent plans for political and economic reform.

Central Asian interest in the EU’s regional initiatives has a mixed record. As the EU is itself a grand experiment in regional integration, it looks to promote regional cooperation in its foreign policy and sees the world in different coherent regions. The EU seeks to rally the Western Balkans around EU integration and has also developed extensive programming for “Eastern Partners” in its “neighbourhood”. In Central Asia, several regional initiatives have been developed to address concrete issues of mutual interest, though these projects are far more modest than those in regions closer to the EU. Central Asian states have, however, been hesitant to participate wholeheartedly in these initiatives, instead preferring to develop bilateral ties with the EU and its member states. This is exemplified by Central Asian governments’ interest in talking security with Brussels despite taking only a modest interest in the regional High-Level Security Dialogues that the EU holds every year.

But there are grounds to suspect that the EU can enhance its role as a facilitator of regional cooperation in the coming years. Uzbekistan’s strides toward better relations with its neighbors could offer an opening for such engagement, although the country has thus far initiated new cooperation only on a bilateral basis. The development of a new EU approach is an opportunity for Central Asian states to work with an experienced and relatively neutral partner to bring their countries together to address concrete subjects, ranging from water management to border management. Still, Central Asian states will want to avoid being pushed into “group therapy sessions” led by Brussels. As almost all regional cooperation initiatives in Central Asia are externally driven by Russia, China and the US, Brussels will need to carefully assess what is of interest to a group of Central Asian states and if other countries adjacent to the region (Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Mongolia) might also want to take part.

Conclusion

Central Asia does take an interest in working with Europe. The latter will need to closely listen to what Central Asians want. This goes beyond agreements with governments to include listening to civil society organizations and other voices from society. Meanwhile, Europe will also need to get its own civil society engaged in cooperation with its Central Asian counterparts.

Central Asians need to be engaged—through their governments, parliaments, academics, activists, and so on—in formulating the new EU Strategy by 2019

The interests of Europe and Central Asia may not always align, but there are grounds for considering that the two regions could develop a mutually valuable partnership. This could be based on Europe as an alternative to Russia and China; European investment in Central Asian societies; and making a realistic new attempt to bring Central Asia and the EU together in regional formats. For this to work, Central Asians need to be engaged—through their governments, parliaments, academics, activists, and so on—in formulating the new EU Strategy by 2019.

All infographics by Nicolas Journoud

The post Three Reasons Why the EU Matters to Central Asia appeared first on Voices On Cental Asia.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative and its Impact in Central Asia

Aitolkyn Kourmanova — Fri, 19 Jan 2018 21:12:07 +0000

The NAC-NU Central Asia Studies Program, in partnership with GW’s Central Asia Program, has published a book on China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and its impact in Central Asia.

Marlene Laruelle (Director, GW’s Central Asia Program, Washington, D.C.) writes in the introduction that BRI is not simply the sum of individual projects centered around the idea of connecting China to the rest of the world via new continental and maritime infrastructure. Rather, it is a metadiscourse on the Silk Road and a new manifestation of China’s soft power, of its “peaceful” and “multilateral” rise.

Through BRI, China is and will certainly remain the largest investor in Central Asia. It is the only country that can mobilize huge investment in the region, far beyond what Western countries and Russia can offer. However, the success of this connectivity is relative: in practice, some of the money committed is lost to corruption and administrative dysfunction, while projects are not held to higher sustainability standards and are primarily assessed on their profitability. In addition—and this is a critical issue—it seems that the Chinese projects have trouble achieving the kind of higher economic impact that could translate into more local jobs and transfer of knowledge. Yet whatever its outcomes, China’s growing involvement in Central Asia is a long-term phenomenon and a turning point in Central Asia’s post-Soviet history and economic development.

A spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Commerce noted in April 2017 that since 2013, the year in which President Xi Jinping announced the land-based Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) at Nazarbayev University, US$304.9 billion in contracts have been signed between China and the economies along the route.

Sarah Lain (Royal United Services Institute, London) writes that “connectivity” is the buzzword of BRI. The Chinese leadership explicitly links connectivity with economic development and, by extension, security and stability.

But are there also risks of over-connectivity with China?

For BRI to be successful in the way China suggests, it must both stimulate industry that channels more trade to China and allow for the diversification of trade away from China. Over-reliance on China as a market and foreign investor creates significant risks of which the Central Asian states are already aware, some more than others.

Over-dependence on China as a buyer of commodities is a particular risk. Turkmenistan is currently feeling the pressure: China has been the sole foreign importer of Turkmen gas since Russia halted gas imports from Turkmenistan in 2016.

The success of China’s SREB project may also present a further challenge to the competitiveness of Central Asian exports. If economic development in Xinjiang is successful, the Central Asian states may find themselves competing with Xinjiang to sell their products to eastern China. This threat is particularly acute because Xinjiang is seeking to grow its mineral, energy, food, and textile industries, all of which are key sectors for Central Asian states.

Paulo Duarte (Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa, Lisbon) argues that BRI expresses China’s desire to securitize its access to energy and mineral resources. In addition, BRI aims to achieve military, political, and cultural objectives by increasing China’s capacity to project influence in the regional and global sphere. It is a holistic securitization, since the various Chinese provinces (metaphorically, “the constituent parts of the whole”) are called on to contribute, in their individual ways, to the attainment of a higher goal. This higher goal is a project that begins internally, extends to China’s periphery, and gradually expands to other corners of the world. The revival of the East–West corridors thus aims to achieve multiple securitizations in the spheres of politics, economics, military might, and soft power.

The Eurasian Heartland could emerge, little by little, from its isolation, affecting the future position of the United States in a world where more people would travel across Eurasia by rail than would fly across the Atlantic to America.

Hao Tian (Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.) examines the mechanisms of allocating and receiving Chinese foreign aid.

Chinese aid often falls between development loans and foreign investment, especially when aid provides access to natural resources or contract packages in recipient countries. Hence, Chinese aid differs from Western equivalents in both the content and the norms of aid practice.

China’s assistance often comes in packages that mix aid, concessional loans, trade agreements, and investment deals; these packages frequently include certain kinds of Chinese requirements, or implicit conditionality. Сonditions are either embedded in Chinese project financing requirements or expressed as broad political “bottom lines” for diplomatic relations, such as China’s territorial integrity and other areas Beijing considers its “core interests.” First and foremost, recipient countries are expected to support the One China policy and affirm that the People’s Republic of China is the legitimate government of all of China.

Another type of conditionality with high relevance to Central Asia is embedded conditionality. Also known as “tied aid,” it means that money from China comes in packages that are linked to the interests of Chinese firms. Concessional loans for infrastructure and technical assistance projects stipulate that no less than half of the materials, equipment, technology, and services procured under the contract should come from China. Another key condition of soft loan provision is the participation of Chinese companies, which enables China’s state-linked enterprises to expand abroad, gaining overseas contracts and resources. Many believe that this policy is designed to allow Chinese companies to compete with their Western counterparts, which have already established dominance in many foreign markets. Given the “terms and complexities” of Chinese investment packages, Chinese “tied aid,” one U.S. official noted, makes it hard for others to compete.

The Central Asian republics’ economic difficulties and isolated geographic locations make them unusually receptive—or vulnerable—to Chinese embedded conditionality. In 2006, China proposed providing Kyrgyzstan with US$1.2 billion in preferential credits to build a railway in return for access to mineral resources. And in 2009, China provided US$4 billion to Turkmenistan in exchange for the right to exploit the South Yolotan, one of the largest natural gas fields in the world, which is located near the border with Afghanistan. The loan, part of a 30-year agreement, provides China with about 40 billion cubic meters of gas per year.

Takaaki Kobayashi noted, “Chinese aid follows the win-win principle and is given in ‘exchange’ for ‘something’ that contributes to its national interest. This ‘something’ may change in different times and with different countries.”

Safovudin Jaborov (Tajik National University, Dushanbe) applies to the term “predatory lending,” which refers, among other situations, to “a bilateral credit deal between two countries that, in addition to the paying back of principal and interests, pushes a borrower country to make statements that are promissory in nature and/or ensure economic/political concessions in favor of a lender country or its agent/business company/representative.”

Although Chinese credit increases economic activity and facilitates trade growth in Central Asia, the region runs the risk of becoming addicted to—and dependent on—Chinese investment to maintain and develop infrastructure constructed under BRI. Another concern is that in a context of facilitated trade, Chinese companies’ comparative advantages might destroy the competitiveness of local companies and create more demand for Chinese imports to Central Asia.

All in all, the current China–Central Asia relationship parallels the Soviet economic system, where the southern republics mainly supplied energy resources and raw materials to the more industrialized regions of the Soviet Union. Today, China, like the Soviet Union, is primarily interested in importing raw materials, energy, and mining resources from the region and exporting its finished products to Central Asia. China’s lending policy thus matches the definition of “predatory aid” given in the introduction to the chapter.

Alexander Wolters (OSCE Academy, Bishkek) notes that while some analysts argue that BRI is designed as a way for the parties involved to stake claims and build legitimacy, this vision is turned upside down on the ground. China is progressing unimpeded toward uncontested economic and, as might be expected, political hegemony.

The cases of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan provide different examples of how the Chinese BRI initiative is being presented and discussed by state and society. They also exhibit differences in the ways officials lay claim to BRI to call for or legitimize action. In Tajikistan, the state simply imposes a narrative that almost seems to welcome emerging dependency on Chinese investment. Meanwhile, in Kyrgyzstan, informal bargaining results in fruitless attempts to achieve more investment, causing experts to call for more concerted action vis-à-vis Chinese opportunities. And while Tajikistan sees a heavy influx of Chinese investment in all spheres of the economy, to the point where Chinese money looks set to finance the construction of entire cities, Kyrgyzstan’s dependency is less pronounced and more contested. The set of actors involved, public controversies regarding Chinese investment, and the integration of Kyrgyzstan into the Eurasian Economic Union have made its relationship with China and the potential for Chinese investment much more complicated. In the end, all difference in actors and discourses aside, Chinese investment practices have not changed since Xi Jinping announced the One Belt, One Road initiative. The Chinese continue to distinguish themselves by means of direct state-to-state contacts, they avoid cooperation with other donors present on the ground, and they can rest assured that their economic expansion will continue undisturbed as long as no other relevant source of funding or form of development emerges in the region.

Madina Bizhanova (Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.) notes that while the Kazakhstani state is looking forward to the inflow of transit fees, Chinese contributions to the improvement of its transport infrastructure, and the general inflow of Chinese investment into the national economy, the government does not seem to have a clear strategy for using SREB to develop its non-energy sectors. She proposes one possible approach: focusing on exporting agricultural products along the routes developed by SREB and investing in transport infrastructure in the rural areas around Kazakhstan’s major cities.

Since the mid-2000s, Kazakhstan has become a net importer of agro-food products, even the most basic ones, leading to concerns that Kazakhstan is increasingly incapable of ensuring its own food security

In May 2016, Gulmira Isayeva, Kazakhstan’s deputy agriculture minister, announced that Chinese companies were in talks to invest US$1.9 billion in 19 agricultural projects as part of the BRI, though the announcement emphasized that Chinese companies would not be allowed to own Kazakh land. More recently, on July 11, 2017, Kazakhstan and China signed seven agreements worth a total of US$160 million at the Kazakh-Chinese Agriculture Investment Forum in Astana.

Source: PwC, “Repaving the Ancient Silk Routes”

Marek Jochec (Nazarbayev University, Astana) and Jenny Jenish Kyzy (J-Invest Consulting, Bishkek) write about a case study in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in which they surveyed some 300 respondents from within the two countries’ young, educated elite.

The overall opinion of this educated class on Chinese foreign investment is quite liberal. They almost unanimously agree that foreign investment is good for their country (96 percent agree or strongly agree).

The most feared negative impact is the influx of Chinese immigrants: about 80 percent of respondents tend to agree that this constitutes a risk. Next comes pollution and environmental damage (70 percent), followed by Chinese management practices (65 percent in Kazakhstan and 52 percent in Kyrgyzstan). By contrast, only 25 percent of respondents think that Chinese investment would upset Russia, and 30–40 percent that it would disrupt the geopolitical balance of power. Some 59 percent of Kazakhstani respondents, and 44 percent of those in Kyrgyzstan, tend to agree that Chinese investment constitutes a threat to their country’s independence; only 6 percent would allow Chinese workers to be physically present in their country.

Kyrgyzstan seems to be more open to closer cooperation with China. Between 65 percent and 75 percent of people support some form of customs union, free movement of goods, and free movement of capital with China (in Kazakhstan, support for such measures is 35–50 percent). Some 43 percent of respondents in Kyrgyzstan would also support free movement of people, compared to 23 percent in Kazakhstan.

Kemel Toktomushev (University of Central Asia, Bishkek) attempts to assess the threats of rent-seeking behavior for the successful implementation of the Silk Road Economic Belt project in Central Asia. He seeks not only to expose illicit practices within the domestic politics of Central Asian states, but also to demonstrate that Chinese modes of foreign investment often do not comply with the norms of responsible development, instead exacerbating the problems of political accountability and economic governance in Central Asia.

The era of confrontation between the Chinese empire and the nomadic tribes of Central Asia is long gone. Nevertheless, in Central Asia, China is still viewed through the prism of distrust and fear. Local public opinion and political discourses often attribute Beijing’s bilateral and multilateral initiatives in Central Asia to a secret, imperialist Chinese agenda of establishing regional and global hegemony. As Sebastien Peyrouse noted, views of China in the region have not evolved from Soviet clichés that cast China as an enemy, and these perceptions continue to portray Beijing’s actions as soft expansionism and civilizational differences.

The March 2016 unrest in Kazakhstan revealed that even this country, which aspires to become one of the world’s top 30 developed economies by 2050, may be struggling to curb local people’s growing Sinophobia. To dampen protesters’ revolutionary fervor, Kazakhstani President Nursultan Nazarbayev was forced to fire his national economy and agriculture ministers, place a moratorium on land reform, and create a special committee on the issue.

While the subject of land reform is politically explosive by nature, a broader picture reveals that anti-Chinese sentiment is still deeply rooted in the region. Chinese engagement there is inevitably a target of conspiracy theories: some suggest that infrastructure projects seek to obscure China’s goal of turning Central Asia into its personal source of raw materials and natural resources, while others propose that China aims to use Central Asian land to address its overpopulation problem. Fears that China’s plan is to co-opt the Central Asian states and turn them into clientelist states dominate public and political discourses. Another question to explore is how China’s peculiar and non-transparent modes of foreign investment, along with its indigenous social practices (such as guanxi), will evolve in the graft-prone region of Central Asia. Not only can such a way of doing business jeopardize the deliverables and reputation of BRI, but it can also antagonize national communities and feed rapidly growing Sinophobia in Central Asia.

Selected Worldwide Governance Indicators: China vs. Central Asia

Source: “Worldwide Governance Indicators,” World Bank, http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/#reports

Sobir Kurbanov (ECCCA, World Bank, Washington D.C.) writes that the investment, trade, and transit barriers imposed by Central Asian border, customs, and regulatory authorities often disqualify the region as a destination for doing business or scaling up trade and investment activity, not to mention the BRI project. If these barriers are not removed, Central Asian countries will reap the benefits of BRI only as transit countries, not as destinations for much larger investments. Even highly risk-tolerant Chinese investors find it difficult to trade and invest in Central Asia.

A close neighbor is more valuable than a distant relative – Chinese proverb

Bhavna Dave (University of London, London) writes that BRI has spurred a flurry of public diplomacy to engage the various stakeholders within society and reinforce high diplomacy—the handshakes between the leaders of China and Central Asian states serve as affirmations of friendship, a common vision, and the convergence of goals and priorities.

As China invests vast amounts in enormous infrastructural projects and agriculture in parts of Africa and Asia, the ruling authorities are becoming sensitized to local resistance to China’s growing influence in the economic, business, and sociocultural spheres. China has embarked on a concerted public diplomacy drive, emphasizing people-to-people contacts in order to transform the way it is perceived in the region and engaging with a broader array of societal actors and stakeholders in order to alter the prevailing stereotypes.

The Chinese political establishment is taking determined steps to alter notions about it held in the West that have become hegemonic and been widely shared around the world. China wants to be seen as a reliable economic partner interested in the mutually beneficial pursuit of shared objectives, but without any political goals. Chinese soft power strategy promotes an image of Beijing as a reliable and pragmatic economic alternative to the West and Russia.

Emphasizing people-to-people contacts while unveiling the Silk Road Economic Belt strategy, Xi announced that 30,000 government scholarships would be awarded to students of SCO member states. He also mentioned plans to invite a further 10,000 teachers and students from Confucius Institutes in these countries to visit China for study tours. Xi extended an invitation to 200 faculty members and students from Nazarbayev University to go to China the following year for summer camps. In addition, there are Chinese Government Scholarships, the Chinese Government Chinese Government Special Scholarship Scheme–University Postgraduate Program in designated universities, the Distinguished International Students Scholarship Scheme, the Chinese Culture Research Fellowship Scheme, and short-term scholarships for Chinese language studies. There are major centers for teaching Chinese language to students from SCO states at Lanzhou University in Gansu province, which is on the list of China’s top 100 universities, and at Xinjiang Pedagogical University in Urumqi.

Yelena Sadovskaya (International Consultant on International Migration and Migration Policies for Kazakhstan and Central Asia, Almaty) and Leah Utyasheva (Institute on Migration Policy, Berlin) focus on the human element and the social benefits that the countries involved could achieve from the increased cooperation and ties encouraged by the BRI.

The analysis starts with the petty traders who pioneered people-to-people interactions along the Silk Road at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s. Trade has been the most prominent sphere of economic interaction between China and Central Asian countries, dominated by Chinese petty traders, individual entrepreneurs, and local shuttle traders. Uyghur traders and entrepreneurs from Xinjiang initially leaned primarily on the local (Kazakh and Kyrgyz) Uyghur communities that provided migrant reception areas through organizations promoting trade and small business development.

The beginning of the 2000s saw the emergence of labor and business migration, which intensified as economic cooperation between China and Сentral Asia grew. Kazakhstan has been and remains a leader in attracting a labor force that now ranges from CEOs and professionals to skilled workers and entrepreneurs.

Chinese education is gaining in popularity thanks to increased cooperation in the educational sector. This includes scholarships, the facilitation of academic exchanges, and the establishment of Confucius Institutes to promote Chinese language and culture abroad.

In 2006–2007, only 1,200 students from Kazakhstan studied in China, by 2014–2015, this number had increased to 11,200 students.

In 1993 and 2005, only 265 students from Tajikistan studied at Chinese universities. In 2006-2011, this number had increased to 3,677 students.

There is also a modest flow of Chinese students to Central Asian universities, consisting mainly of people interested in studying Russian and local languages.

The tourism industry has an indisputable impact on human capital development. Many Central Asian tourists go to the neighboring Xinjiang region—in 2007, tourists from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan comprised 17 percent of all tourists visiting the region (70,900 people).

if("undefined"==typeof window.datawrapper)window.datawrapper={};window.datawrapper["mtpvf"]={},window.datawrapper["mtpvf"].embedDeltas={"100":309,"200":234,"300":184,"400":184,"500":184,"700":159,"800":159,"900":159,"1000":159},window.datawrapper["mtpvf"].iframe=document.getElementById("datawrapper-chart-mtpvf"),window.datawrapper["mtpvf"].iframe.style.height=window.datawrapper["mtpvf"].embedDeltas[Math.min(1e3,Math.max(100*Math.floor(window.datawrapper["mtpvf"].iframe.offsetWidth/100),100))]+"px",window.addEventListener("message",function(a){if("undefined"!=typeof a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var b in a.data["datawrapper-height"])if("mtpvf"==b)window.datawrapper["mtpvf"].iframe.style.height=a.data["datawrapper-height"][b]+"px"});">

Sources: Official data from the governmental bodies of Kazakhstan (Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of the Population); Kyrgyzstan (State Migration Service under the Government of Kyrgyz Republic); Tajikistan (Migration Service of the Tajik Ministry of Labor, Migration and Employment) and expert interviews with the governmental officials, 2009–2017

Vera Exnerova (Oriental Institute, The Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague) surveys the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) efforts to influence society in Central Asia within the framework of its ambitious BRI. China has, among other things, invested considerable effort in improving perceptions of the PRC among local public opinion in Central Asian countries and addressing latent Sinophobia and fears of Chinese expansionism. PRC representatives have actively sought to involve local actors from different segments of society (elites, intellectuals, public organizations, civil society, etc.) in reinterpreting shared history and legitimizing the BRI project in the region.

From a theoretical perspective, the chapter utilizes the concept of “transnational societal spaces” instead of automatically referring the research to a nation-state. The concept addresses the sustained ties to networks and organizations across national borders. Unlike other studies, which approach PRC initiatives as monocentric, center–periphery endeavors, the chapter proposes to study China’s BRI and its social and cultural aspects as a polycentric effort.

Gaukhar Nursha (Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Almaty) writes that Chinese culture and the Chinese educational system are attractive to youth worldwide, as well as to Central Asians, who hope a Chinese diploma will give them an economic advantage when they return home. But difficulties with mastering the language itself, a comparatively low number of jobs where Chinese is a must, and stronger soft power attraction to the West make China’s efforts to popularize itself less effective than the Chinese authorities would like them to be.

To date, we cannot assume that Confucius Institutes are helpful in constructing a positive image of China, for a number of reasons. Confucius Institutes’ low representation in the region, along with poor networking among their alumni, mean that this social capital goes neglected and unused. While many academics state that Confucius Institutes play a sizable role in reinforcing Chinese political and economic partnerships with other countries, the scope of what they have achieved in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan over the last decade remains questionable.

Is China attractive? Yes. Is this attraction soft power? Definitely not, at least according to Nye’s concept. First, Confucius Institutes are not authentic tools of soft power, as they were created by the government and remain tightly controlled by it. They are more public diplomacy and propaganda instruments than effective tools for creating a positive image and influencing local decision-makers.

Second, soft power is the ability to change someone’s behavior, which does not seem to happen in Central Asia. China has more of a “sticky power,” created by its financial support. Central Asians do not admire China; they are afraid of and want to be closer to their blatantly ambitious neighbor, which they see as a “cash cow.”

Azad Garibov (Khazar University, Baku) writes about negative perceptions of Chinese labor migrants among local populations. After the announcement of BRI, the number of Chinese migrants in Central Asia grew rapidly due to increased Chinese investment. Some countries have witnessed a rise in alarmist attitudes toward China and a surge in incidents against Chinese migrants. In Kyrgyzstan and, to some degree, Tajikistan, anti-Chinese sentiment has led to protests. In Kazakhstan, which has long been considered the bastion of regional stability, news of the possibility of renting the country’s farmland to China sparked the largest protests in two decades. Uzbek and Turkmen authorities have tightened migration controls and introduced strict limits on the number of Chinese workers who can be employed locally, with the goal of preventing the spread of such incidents to their countries.

Many nations that border China, particularly sparsely populated regions such as Central Asia and Russia’s Far East, are wary of the massive influx of Chinese migrants. In Central Asia, a region with a population of only 68 million that borders the largest exporter of migrant workers in the world, media and populist politics exacerbate these fears, due to the significance of China’s demographic power. In 2015, 16.6 million people were born in China, a number that is almost equal to the total population of Kazakhstan. And as one local newspaper wrote, Kyrgyz people were deeply suspicious that “the enormous difference in the size of the two countries and peoples would mean that the Kyrgyz would soon drown in a Chinese sea.”

There is also a belief that migrants increase competition in the local job market, depriving locals of the employment opportunities created by Chinese investment. According to David Lewis, Chinese investments “do not always give people local jobs and employ local specialists.” Thus, in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, Chinese migrants are seen as competitors: hardworking, entrepreneurial, and willing to live and work in poor conditions. There are fears that “they could take up a share of the already scarce labor market and even gain control over some sectors of the national economy.”

Still more factors feed anti-Chinese sentiments in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Among these are internal political dynamics—including attempts by politicians/elite groups to benefit from anti-Chinese grievances—and a lack of knowledge of China, its culture, language, and habits. The latter prevents the development of interpersonal relations and communication between locals and Chinese migrants and employers. An additional factor is the failure of Chinese companies to effectively address the concerns of locals and to use Corporate Social Responsibility tactics to manage problematic relationships with local employees.

Aziz Burkhanov (National University of Singapore, Singapore) explores and discusses the political implications of the BRI initiative and its impact on the socio-cultural perception of China and Chinese in contemporary Kazakhstani and broader Central Asian media discourse.

Most Central Asian countries have certain societal prejudices toward China, primarily due to history and popular stereotypes. The legacy of the Sino–Soviet border conflicts of the 1960s and 1970s, an imbalanced demographic situation, and the lack of academic and scholarly expertise on contemporary China have all contributed to a stereotyped and alarmist view of China.

Current literature demonstrates that ordinary Central Asians, including Kazakhstanis, do not necessarily agree with their leaders’ assessment that gradually improving relations with China is in the country’s national interest. Survey analysis and expert observations indicate the presence of various phobias and prejudice-based myths in Kazakhstani citizens’ perception of China and the Chinese people. In part, this negative perception is rooted in existing problems, including poor treatment of local workers employed by Chinese companies operating in Central Asia, who experience poor labor conditions, lower wages, and a lack of medical care. Local manufacturers perceive the influx of Chinese goods into Kazakhstan as a threat, since they cannot compete with Chinese companies.

There are dual perceptions of Chinese involvement by Kazakhstani public opinion. In terms of the state-to-state relationship, political and economic cooperation between China and Central Asia is developing well and is well promoted by ruling elites. However, any expansion of Chinese involvement in Kazakhstan’s economy also triggers pushback and enhances the negative perception of China in local public discourse.

In particular, there are questions about the role Xinjiang will play in Kazakhstan–China relations and what approach Kazakhstan’s leadership should take in its policy toward Xinjiang: supporting the ethnically and culturally close Uyghur population of Xinjiang or developing good relations with China?

The Demographic Annual Report of Kazakhstan, published in 2008, estimates the Uyghur population of Kazakhstan at 241,946, or 1.53 percent of the country’s population.

The Chinese authorities try to improve the perception of their country by expanding contacts and exchanges with Central Asia. BRI, which aims to enhance economic cooperation between China and the Central Asian region, ultimately building trust and improving Kazakhstanis’ perception of China, has great potential—but it appears that to this point, its impact on Central Asian identity issues has been limited and even sparked some cultural resistance.

The post China’s Belt and Road Initiative and its Impact in Central Asia appeared first on Voices On Cental Asia.

A Year of Economic Reforms with President Mirziyoyev

Aitolkyn Kourmanova — Thu, 28 Dec 2017 20:33:22 +0000

The President of Uzbekistan, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, has concluded the year with a historic first address to the parliament.

On December 22, in a four-hour speech broadcast live across Uzbekistan, Mirziyoyev spoke about the outcomes of government policies implemented in 2017.

The full text of the speech is available here

Ўзбекистон Республикаси Президентининг Парламетнга мурожаати
Posted by Шавкат Мирзиёев – Shavkat Mirziyoyev on Thursday, December 21, 2017

In 2017, Mirziyoyev instituted direct “dialogue” with the people, opening an online platform for dealing with individuals’ appeals that has reportedly been used by more than 1.5 million citizens.

The president also reported on the launch of 161 large industrial projects, as well as the opening of 12 free economic zones and 45 industrial zones. (The opening of an additional 50 industrial zones is planned for the near future.) He indicated that over 336,000 new jobs were created in 2017 thanks to these new industrial development measures and support for small businesses.

Mirziyoyev said that the economy grew at a rate of 5.5 percent, while Uzbekistan’s export volume increased by 15 percent. The positive balance in foreign trade (the amount by which exports exceed imports) has increased, and now stands at USD$854 million. The president added that the authorities are committed to improving statistics reporting and making it transparent, trustworthy and accessible.

We counted more than 40 initiatives undertaken by President Mirziyoyev in 2017, or approximately 3.5 initiatives per month. Of these, 16 were measures to improve the business climate, 5 belonged to the realm of taxation, and 5 were customs-related reforms.

Here is the list of reforms:

The post A Year of Economic Reforms with President Mirziyoyev appeared first on Voices On Cental Asia.