In recent years, China has been actively trying to expand its influence in Kazakhstan and the Central Asian region as a whole. Beijing is allocating money for technical and economic cooperation, laying routes to the west through the region and increasing the number of soft power projects. The success of PRC educational projects is particularly evident. However, experts say that there are a number of factors that reduce the effectiveness of China’s soft power tools.
China’s foreign policy is based on the fact that the country declares noninterference in the domestic politics of other countries and offers an alternative center of economic and political development. The Chinese authorities promote their values through culture, medicine and the media. China’s educational projects play a particularly important role. The dynamics of the interest of Kazakhstani people to get education in China is impressive: from 2003 to 2020 the number of students from RK in PRC has increased 750 times.
Begai Erikova, a Kyrgyz-Chinese graduate, studied in China on a grant basis for six months after graduating from her Confucius courses. She said she was provided with housing, received a decent stipend, and had a wonderful semester.
“Before the trip, I couldn’t put together the stories of friends who had already been there. When I went on my own, I realized that China is huge, and depending on where you study, those are the memories you’ll make,” she said.
Begay said she had been interested in Korean, Japanese and Chinese cultures since childhood, which is why she chose Chinese.
“My memories of China are nothing but great because you are provided for: they give you housing, they give you a stipend, there are no problems. We had the highest grant, we didn’t deny ourselves anything,” says Begai.
Ermek Tuktenov, 21, from Almaty, took a one-year Chinese language course in Nanjing.
“I was planning to go abroad, and China was the most favorable price. The scholarship was there. My parents had no preconceived notions about China, they themselves offered to enroll there,” Tuketenov said.
According to him, he had positive impressions of his studies in China.
“I have a positive attitude [toward China]. I had a very good time. It’s a beautiful city, good studies and teachers,” he said.
What is the reason for the cautious attitude toward China?
Central Asia has a long border with China and centuries of history. However, in local communities, including in Kazakhstan, China is not as welcomed as, for example, Russia.
China’s investments and loans have in some cases aroused suspicion in local societies, where rising public debts and fears of debt traps have fueled anti-Chinese sentiment. Fears that China would seize land or natural resources in exchange for its loans have contributed to protests in recent years.
As early as 2009 and 2016, there were widespread protests in Kazakhstan over reports that the government was going to allow China to lease land for agricultural purposes. To some extent, the events of 2011 in Zhanaozen, which resulted in several deaths, were due to discontent towards the Chinese investor who had purchased the main city-forming enterprise in the city of Aktau.
September 2019 saw major new anti-China protests in Kazakhstan, following the government’s announcement that 55 Chinese factories would be transferred to Kazakhstan.
Protesters were concerned about the environmental impact of these factories, as well as the potential loss of Kazakh jobs to Chinese workers.
The government eventually abandoned plans to move the factories, but the protests underscored growing concerns about China’s influence in Kazakhstan.
For example, between January and June 2021 alone, Kazakhstan’s Oxus Society protest tracking system recorded twenty-three unique protests linked to China.
According to political scientist Nurlan Aliyev, the suspicion and fear of China on the part of the elites and society of the Central Asian republics is also related to the fact that Soviet propaganda promoted a negative image of China from the 1960s to the 1980s.
In addition, the “counter-extremist centers” or “re-education camps” in Xinjiang, where Muslim communities, including Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and Uighurs, are imprisoned, are causing a strong wave of discontent.
Public sentiment was also affected by limited knowledge of Chinese culture and linguistic and religious differences.
China’s soft power tools
In an effort to improve China’s global image, Beijing launched several soft power projects in the early 2000s. The main project in Central Asia, as well as in other regions, was the Confucius Institutes.
There are five such institutes in Kazakhstan, four in Kyrgyzstan, and two each in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. In each Confucius Institute, students study the Chinese language, history and Chinese spiritual and cultural values. In this way, Beijing seeks to increase China’s attractiveness and to eliminate prejudices, hostility and perceptions of threats that were allegedly cultivated during the Soviet period.
In addition, China organizes cultural and humanitarian events, information tours for journalists and media representatives, and offers affordable treatment with Chinese traditional medicine.
But China’s most effective instrument of soft power is still education. The country offers scholarship programs for students from Central Asia, and the Chinese language is becoming increasingly popular among young people.
Chinese education and its impact on Kazakhstan
Zhanibek Arynov, an associate professor at Nazarbayev University’s Graduate School of Public Administration, conducted a study on the impact of Chinese education on Kazakhstan. He told CABAR.asia that people who have studied and worked in China for some time have a positive attitude toward the country.
“Once they arrive, they know more about China, they don’t have one-sided stereotypical perceptions that China is a threat, that you have to distance yourself from it, fence yourself off. These students have a more comprehensive perception of China, and that’s a good thing,” the political scientist said.
Kazakhstan is one of the ten countries that send the largest number of students to China – now there are about 15,000 students from Kazakhstan.
Confucius Institutes and scholarships at Chinese universities are a strong tool of China’s soft power, but not long-term, Arynov said.
“All these students come back to Kazakhstan and work in Chinese companies, it’s hard for them to find a job afterwards. I’m not quite sure that a Chinese education is a ladder to a career,” Arynov said.
In the mid-2000s and early 2010s, he said, there was a need for specialists who knew the Chinese language and had the skills to work with China.
“But now the market is already crowded, so I don’t think China has a long-term influence in education,” Arynov said.
The expert also noted that many students chose Chinese universities only because of the scholarships.
“If Western countries gave the same scholarships, they would prefer these countries,” Arynov said.
The expert also noted that many students chose Chinese universities only because of the scholarships.
“If Western countries gave the same scholarships, they would prefer these countries,” Arynov said.
The Chinese scholar Anton Bugaenko divides China’s soft-power tools into three. The first is classic propaganda through the media, through all media planes.
“The second is Chinese education, which gives the most practical results. China has a solid 2-3 places in popularity among applicants in Kazakhstan. People who have studied there, even if they have negative emotions towards China, their behavior softens. At least they understand China and it dramatically reduces the degree of tension,” he told CABAR.asia.
Soft power doesn’t teach people to love China, he said, but introduces them to China. Social media, bloggers and public diplomacy are used for this purpose.
“The emergence of China in our media space as a society, as a nation, as one of the topics of discussion is about familiarity. Sinophobia in Kazakhstan and in Central Asia is primarily xenophobia, a fear of the unknown,” says the expert.
The third component, Bugaenko says, is the principles of Chinese foreign policy, such as the principles of non-interference, stability.
“They are in themselves part of soft power. The main concern is Chinese expansion, the fear of Chinese aggression. China understands this and therefore is particularly active in promoting the principle of equality, the principle of non-interference, the principle of good neighborliness and so on. In this way, China introduces its narratives. Against the background of Western countries, which actively promote their values, this is a kind of soft power of China,” he said.
Bugaenko also said that the attitude of Kazakhstanis to China changes in waves depending on information campaigns.
“When the land issue was raised, the issue of camps in Xinjiang, the wave of discontent rose sharply, but then gradually decreased. There is always a steady percentage of Sinophobes and it grows during information campaigns,” he said.