Turan Research Center

For years, Russia was Central Asia’s unquestioned economic anchor. That era is over. China has overtaken Russia in trade, investment, and industrial development in the region. Yet beneath the headline numbers lies a more complicated picture. Beijing now dominates balance sheets, but Moscow still shapes livelihoods and continues to wield significant soft power as a result.

China’s growing economic presence is also driving backlash. Locals are concerned about growing debt burdens, deepening dependence, environmental damage from Chinese-backed projects, and encroachments on sovereignty by the region’s powerful eastern neighbor. But, as higher-value, affordable Chinese consumer goods become more widely available and Beijing increases the returns of its investments to local communities, this picture is starting to shift.

China’s Rising Trade

China’s rise as Central Asia’s dominant external economic actor has been swift. Beijing was a minor economic player in the region during its first decade of independence, but overtook Russia in total trade with the five Central Asian republics in 2009. The divergence has only grown since. In 2025, trade between China and Central Asia exceeded $100 billion for the first time. Trade with Russia was roughly half that at around $51 billion.

The scale of the transformation is hard to overstate. Turkmenistan now sends the bulk of its gas eastward. China–Turkmenistan trade approached $10 billion in 2025 alone, making Beijing by far Ashgabat’s most important commercial partner. Chinese investment stock across Central Asia has reached nearly $36 billion, making it the largest investor in the region. More than 11,000 enterprises with Chinese capital operate across the five states. Chinese firms build highways, operate mines, assemble cars, and increasingly manufacture electric vehicles inside the region.

The transformation is visible in smaller ways too. Walk through a bazaar in Bishkek or Dushanbe and Xiaomi phones line every stall. Chinese brands command over half of the regional smartphone market. The increasingly busy roads of the region are now dominated by Chinese electric vehicles.

Anti-Chinese Sentiments on the Rise

But familiarity can breed contempt. As China’s presence in Central Asian economies has grown, so has anti-Chinese sentiment. Between 2018 and 2021, 70% of protests targeting foreign governments and businesses targeted China, according to data collected for our recent book Backlash. Data from the Central Asia Barometer highlights a significant deterioration in perceptions of China in recent years. Suspicion towards China has especially risen. By 2023, 38 percent of Kazakhstanis, 27 percent of Kyrgyz, and 64 percent of Uzbeks expressed negative opinions of China, up from 16 percent, 23 percent, and 5 percent respectively in 2017.

Several factors are driving rising skepticism towards China’s economic role in the region.

Debt has skyrocketed alongside investment. Tajikistan owes roughly $800 million to China out of $3.2 billion in total external debt. Kyrgyzstan’s obligations to China’s Export-Import Bank amount to about $1.7 billion — more than a third of its foreign debt. Uzbekistan’s liabilities to China approach $3.8 billion. These figures do not necessarily signal imminent crisis, but they do bind governments to Beijing over the long term, and populations have taken notice. By 2023, 80% of Kyrgyz and two-thirds of Uzbeks were concerned about growing debts to China.

Chinese land investments have raised concerns about eroding sovereignty. When Kazakhstan’s government proposed amendments to the Land Code in 2016, which would have allowed foreigners to buy or lease land, the largest protests in the country’s history to that point broke out. Many feared Chinese citizens would purchase land as part of a plan to take over parts of the country. The amendments were quickly scrapped.

Such fears are not wholly unfounded. The border disputes China pursued across Central Asia traced their origins to the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when the Russian Empire absorbed territories Beijing regarded as historically contested. Those claims persisted through the Soviet period, and following the USSR's collapse, China moved to settle them through bilateral negotiations — on terms that consistently favored Beijing. Kazakhstan was the first to yield, ratifying a border treaty in 1999 that ceded roughly 43 percent of the 34,000 square kilometers of territory China had claimed as disputed. Kyrgyzstan's government followed, ratifying a border deal with China in 2002, ceding 1,250 square kilometers, sparking vocal opposition. Tajikistan followed in 2011, relinquishing 1,000 square kilometers — a figure its government presented to the public as a concession, noting it amounted to just five percent of what China had originally sought. In both cases, officials framed the territorial transfers as a pragmatic price for stability, arguing that yielding a portion of the disputed land was preferable to prolonged friction with a far more powerful neighbor.

Pollution linked to Chinese-backed projects has repeatedly triggered local backlash. In Kazakhstan, residents near Chinese-operated oil and chemical facilities in Atyrau and Aktobe provinces have staged demonstrations over air emissions and fears of toxic discharge, accusing authorities of failing to enforce environmental standards. In Kyrgyzstan, protests have erupted around Chinese-run gold mining operations, including at the Solton-Sary site in Naryn province, where local residents blocked roads and clashed with workers over concerns about water contamination and livestock deaths. While not all environmental grievances can be independently verified, and some incidents are amplified by broader geopolitical suspicion, the pattern is clear: as China’s industrial footprint has expanded, so too have anxieties about pollution, transparency, and regulatory oversight.

China is also viewed as fueling corruption. The most striking example came in 2018. Having just undergone a $386 million renovation by Tebian Electric Apparatus Stock Co. Ltd, the Bishkek Thermal Power Plant broke down in the dead of winter, leaving the capital city with no heating or hot water for almost a week. A later investigation uncovered that the Chinese company and Kyrgyz officials had skimmed over $100 million from the project by inflating costs. While Chinese investors and corrupt officials profited, residents suffered.

Chinese companies have been accused of unsafe work conditions, poor pay, and preferential treatment of Chinese workers. There are widespread perceptions that Chinese investments take jobs from locals rather than creating them. This is particularly acute in Kyrgyzstan, where job shortages force many to migrate abroad. In November 2025, a mass brawlbroke out between locals and Chinese workers from Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) in Chui province after a dispute over access to a quarry. President Sadyr Japarov was quick to downplay the incident, saying, “such everyday conflicts should not be elevated to the level of interstate problems.” Foreign Minister Jeenbek Kulubaev dismissed claims that Chinese laborers are “flooding” Kyrgyzstan and stealing local jobs.

Russian Resilience

Despite impressive gains by China, Russia remains the primary bill payer for a significant share of the region’s population. Remittances are the most powerful reminder. In 2024, Tajik labor migrants in Russia sent home $5.8 billion — roughly 45 percent of Tajikistan’s GDP. Between one and 1.2 million Tajiks continue to work in Russia. Kyrgyzstan received roughly $3.5 billion in remittances in 2025, about 15 percent of its GDP, overwhelmingly from Russia. Uzbekistan-bound remittances reached nearly $19 billion in 2025, $15 billion of which came from Russia — around 12 percent of Tashkent’s GDP.

Russia’s popularity has suffered from its invasion of Ukraine and a generational shift, as younger Central Asians carry no memory of the Soviet Union. By 2023, negative views of Russia and China in Kazakhstan were roughly level. One-fifth of Kazakhstan’s population is ethnically Russian, concentrated in the country’s north near its long border with Russia. Russian nationalists have claimed these areas to be historically Russian territory, leading to concerns about a potential invasion. In 2014, shortly after annexing Crimea, President Putin claimed Kazakhstan "never had any statehood" before 1991. Following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, former President Dmitry Medvedev called Kazakhstan an “artificial state,” arguing the north of the country is made up of “former Russian territories.” More recently, TV host Vladimir Solovyov called for “Special Military Operations” in the South Caucasus and Central Asia. Such moves have sparked anger in the region, especially in Kazakhstan. But elsewhere, Russia remains more popular: just 15 percent of Kyrgyz and 36 percent of Uzbeks hold negative attitudes toward Moscow, roughly half the number opposed to China.

Despite experiencing xenophobia and harsh working conditions in Russia, migration remains a lifeline. Strong personal connections to Russia mean that, although declining, at least a basic grasp of the Russian language remains essential for many Central Asians. Coupled with the ongoing influence of Russian media, this keeps perceptions of Russia largely positive across the region.

China cannot match Russia in this regard. Migration levels to Russia dwarf anything Beijing offers. Remittances from China are negligible, with almost no Central Asian labor migrants working in the country. Most Central Asian citizens residing in China are among the roughly 35,000 students.

How China is Trying to Make Itself More Attractive

Beijing is working to improve its image with a series of initiatives aimed at boosting human capital and delivering higher-value projects. China opened its first Luban Workshop, a vocational training center, in Tajikistan in 2022. Further centers have since opened in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, focusing on practical local needs hydropower in Kyrgyzstan, land surveying in Tajikistan, information technology and logistics in Uzbekistan, and artificial intelligence in Kazakhstan. Such programs help China frame its role as providing real value to the local population.

As the region seeks to harness AI to drive growth and enhance governance, Beijing is a willing partner. Kazakhstan’s Academy of Sciences received $143 million from Zhejiang University of Technology to establish the Laboratory of Spatio-Temporal Artificial Intelligence and Sustainable Development, a project aimed at developing AI capacity and boosting computing speeds. Chinese tech company LinkWise is partnering with Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Digital Technologies to build a Modular Intelligent Computing Center and plans to open two data centers in the country. These moves address local needs and move China beyond extraction towards more valuable investments.

China is also increasingly partnering with local companies to produce goods in Central Asia. In Uzbekistan, Chinese-backed automobile and electric vehicle plants are no longer proposals — they are production lines. The first car manufactured by Chinese EV giant BYD rolled off a new $160 million facility in 2024. Kazakhstan has seen a similar rise in Chinese-funded factories. Three Chinese automakers — Great Wall Motor, Changan, and Chery — are planning to open car factories there.

Where infrastructure cannot be owned, China is exporting high-quality consumer technologies. Cars account for about 10 percent of all Chinese exports to Central Asia. By 2024, almost half of all cars sold in Kazakhstan were Chinese brands. China is also coming to dominate Uzbekistan, the region’s largest market, where it accounts for 80 percent of car imports. Chinese smartphone manufacturers hold over half the regional market, offering an affordable alternative to Apple and Samsung.

Combined, these shifts are helping China blunt some of the criticisms directed at it. But the effort remains a work in progress. Local backlash has forced Beijing to adapt its approach, and China’s footing in Central Asia is far from assured. The deeper challenge is structural: until China can offer the kind of direct livelihood connections that Russia provides through migration and remittances, its social acceptance will continue to lag behind its economic dominance.

Edward Lemon is President of the Oxus Society and Research Assistant Professor at the Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University, Washington DC.

Bradley Jardine is a political risk analyst and managing director of the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs.