Why China, unlike Russia, won’t be drawn on civil unrest in Central Asia

China has taken a taciturn approach to recent civil unrest in at least three nations in Central Asia, despite huge investment interests there

A hands-off approach allows Chinese projects to weather instability as well as negative public perception, analysts explain

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An Uzbek service member guards a road during a government-organised press visit in Nukus, capital of the northwestern Karakalpakstan region. Photo: Reuters

Published: 6:12pm, 16 Jul 2022Updated: 6:29pm, 16 Jul 2022

A shocked government of Uzbekistan earlier this month rolled back plans to strip its Karakalpakstan autonomous republic of the constitutional right to secede, after violent civil unrest left at least 18 people dead, with thousands of others wounded and some 500 detained.

The protests, which started out peacefully, were the latest example of civil strife in Central Asia, a traditionally stable region.

Deadly protests erupted in Tajikistan in May and also in Kazakhstan in January, the latter settled with the help of Russian troops at the request of Kazakh authorities through the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).

But China’s reaction to recent events in its western neighbourhood has been relatively constrained. Beyond words supporting the governments of the Central Asian nations as they sought to quell social disorder, Beijing has not done much to promote stability, despite deep investment interests in the region, especially under its Belt and Road Initiative.

This geopolitical agnosticism, analysts said, allowed China’s infrastructure projects to weather instability and political change.

“It’s not like China likes political instability: it’s negative for them, it’s negative for their investments, and they would want stability because stability is better to do stuff in,” Raffaello Pantucci, a senior fellow at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said.

“But at the same time, what they’re not going to do is get in, then … bring that stability or force that stability.”