What are the reasons for anti-Chinese sentiments in Kazakhstan? What measures does China take to improve its image in Central Asia and how effective are they? Will the social base of anti-Chinese sentiments in Kazakhstan expand, or vice versa? The Editorial of CABAR.asia discussed these and other questions with Professor of Nazarbayev University, Jessica Neafie (Astana).
Dr. Jessica Neafie is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Nazarbayev University. Her research focuses on various issues, including the impact of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) on the environment, the interactions between society and Multinational Corporations (MNCs), and the impacts of the Chinese Belt and Road initiative on Developing Countries. She also does surveys on public opinion in Central Asia and social media analysis. She has authored a peer-reviewed article for Politikon and International Politics. Her current research projects include an analysis of public opinion of China in Kazakhstan on Twitter and a survey of SDG implementation in Coporations in Kazakhstan.
The anti-Chinese sentiments still prevails in Kazakhstan, as well as in Kyrgyzstan. At the same time, China invests quite a lot of money in soft power projects, but this fact still does not contribute to improving China’s image. Can you list the main reasons for anti-Chinese sentiment in Kazakhstan, starting with the most important reason and moving on in descending order?
I am basing this on preliminary data and findings of the research on Twitter posts. We have been coding the overall anti-Chinese sentiment using Twitter posts posted since 2009. If we look at these posts and try to get a background on what motivates the way the citizens of Kazakhstan see China, the number one area is security issues out of the fears of China invading Kazakhstan. They, by far, are one of the most significant motivators for the anti-Chinese sentiment. There has been a very interesting set of tweets going on for a while on this belief that China was slowly moving the border into Kazakhstan every year. The second largest is the split between nationalism and economic issues, where we see similar numbers, slightly more negative. Nationalism sees more negative posts, but there are a lot of anti-Chinese thoughts over economic issues and whether or not China is taking advantage of Kazakhstan, some related to land grabs, some related to Chinese business practices in Kazakhstan, and whether or not they are fair. Those are the following two most prominent reasons for the sentiment. There are negative feelings about the Chinese Communist Party and the government of China as well. Then come historical reasons, cultural narratives, beliefs about cultural differences, and the idea of China culturally appropriating Kazakhstani traditions play into anti-Chinese sentiment. These are the main areas we see.
Is it possible to divide somehow or characterize those groups that oppose China and are considered to be carriers of Sinophobia?
I cannot say much about this, given that we are basing the research on Twitter posts and targeting university students. I do see that there is a rising sentiment among the youth population. According to my recent research, each year since 2014, there has been a growing belief among university students across Kazakhstan that China is causing more harm than benefit. This observation is from surveying university students in 2021. The survey is based on previous studies performed before COVID-19 on university students in Kazakhstan and allowed to investigate how the local perceptions have changed over time and how world events may be affecting these perceptions. These surveys are designed with questions targeting perceptions of China’s influence in Kazakhstan and the wider Asian continent, and the survey I performed in 2021 adds not only another data point to test changes in Chinese sentiment over time but also how the actions of the Chinese during the pandemic have helped or hurt local opinions of China. This survey instrument is modified from earlier surveys in Kazakhstan to include questions relevant to COVID-19 and based on the Asian Barometer and Afro barometer surveys. These are both well-known large-scale survey projects that investigate public opinions about politics in Africa and East and Southeast Asia.
Since this research is limited to only university students and current anti-Chinese sentiments, I have also been conducting past sentiment analysis using Twitter posts that I mentioned earlier. This research also allows observing the change in Sinophobia over time. We adopted the trust identification of Islamophobia to Sinophobia by measuring the fear of people towards China. We analyze whether people perceive China as static or changeable, other or interdependent, aggressive or cooperative, inferior or superior, manipulative or sincere, and finally, whether the discrimination towards China is defended or opposed. The first categories in this list indicate negative attitudes toward the Chinese and the latter ones show positive attitudes.
How has the coronavirus affected anti-Chinese sentiment? After all, on the one hand, China was called the source of the spread of the pandemic, but on the other hand, China quite effectively implemented vaccine diplomacy.
What I have found so far, particularly in my research targeting university students, is that Chinese-funded projects are not well known in Kazakhstan. According to 2021 findings, only 16.7% of students asked had ever heard of the health Silk Road or China’s vaccine diplomacy. Over 75% were either unsure or had never heard of that. Most of them, historically and today, do not care about these programs or do not associate them with China. That can be problematic for China because it is spending large amounts of money on soft power policies, but they are not being recognized at the local level; therefore, it does not do anything to alleviate anti-Chinese sentiment. It was very interesting because, given that about 55% saw China as somewhat helpful to Kazakhstan during COVID-19, only 8% thought the relationship improved. Overall, such projects did not improve the Chinese image.
Can you give examples of when anti-Chinese sentiments contributed to the disruption of projects between China and Kazakhstan, and how do they affect the internal politics of Kazakhstan? How does Sinophobia affect the foreign policy of Kazakhstan?
Currently, there has not been any disruption of projects, mainly because of the need Kazakhstan has for Chinese investments. The internal politics of Kazakhstan is mostly affected by economic development rather than sentiment because of the current importance of economic development for the country. At the same time, most internal policies are built to protect Kazakhstan and even predated relationships with the Chinese. Even when it comes to companies, particularly the oil and gas industries, they are all partly owned by either KazMunaiGas or Samruk, a national fund, and stock company. In the past, there were some issues with Chinese companies hiring only Chinese workers, but Kazakhstan pushed back against that and created policies that required the employment of and particular pay for Kazakhstani citizens working in Chinese companies. Thus, Kazakhstan forced the Chinese companies to acquiesce to Kazakhstani demands. It is also because of a mutually dependent relationship. China needs access to Kazakhstani resources, particularly oil and gas, to meet its energy demands.
I think the biggest concern is actually for China regarding the future of their BRI project. China does not care if it loses money now if it means that it will have gains in the future. One of the biggest things that China has to worry about, though, is if anti-Chinese sentiment continues to grow. Using Kazakhstan as an example, it could have an effect in the future because right now, it looks like Kazakhstan has a large reliance on China. There was even a discussion about this when one of the Chinese papers printed about Kazakhstan wanting to return to China on a Chinese government-sponsored website. This upset the people and led to protests in Kazakhstan out of a security threat and, of course, increased anti-Chinese sentiment. If this sentiment continues to grow, this could create tensions in the future, especially if Kazakhstan has options to go in other directions. This can be reflected in specific policies that were changed because of that. One of the major ones was the land policy. Many protests over the land policy in 2016 were affected by anti-Chinese sentiment due to worries of land grabs by China. That means there is an influence the anti-Chinese sentiment may have on the outcomes of the foreign policy of Kazakhstan. It is something that China needs to worry about to avoid future disruptions in foreign investments or partnerships.
China is one of the leading investors in Kazakhstan. Have there been any recent changes in Chinese investment in Kazakhstan, and what is Beijing doing to minimize Sinophobia?
Following 2020 there was a decrease in investment in Kazakhstan, mainly because of COVID-19. However, there is much potential investment after the war in Ukraine. For example, there have been talks about Chinese investments in pipeline development going through Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Russia largely opposed it because it left Russia out of the international trade routes. China might take advantage of the weakening relationship between Kazakhstan and Russia to fill in the areas that Russia is leaving or is not strong enough.
Apart from infrastructure investments, there are investments in spheres like education. For example, there were discussions about the potential of Chinese trade schools opening in Central Asia. They have them in Africa already. They provide local training to individuals in different trades, which can help them acquire new jobs.
Green projects initiated and invested by China are recently growing in number. However, what about Chinese companies already operating in Kazakhstan? Do they have any issues that affect the Chinese image?
China is doing numerous green projects abroad and at home because of energy deficiency, but that does not change the fact that China is still heavily reliant on oil and gas. In this regard, Kazakhstan is a significant source for China. One of the big problems that Chinese companies still have in Kazakhstan is the lack of environmental consciousness. The environmental sustainability efforts of Chinese companies in Kazakhstan are even much lower than Kazakhstani companies. They are not putting out policies or trying to make environmental claims. This was especially seen during COVID-19. Local media sources found them to be very circumspect where they were using the COVID restrictions to be able to violate environmental regulations. Many Chinese companies abroad are still operating with an economic mindset in which they promote profit over environmental impacts.
What predictions regarding Sinophobia in Kazakhstan and Central Asia can you make? Will the social base for anti-Chinese sentiments expand in Kazakhstan or vice versa?
I would say it is going to increase before it decreases. The reason is that many of the issues, especially the security ones, seem not necessarily based on factual information. A couple of propaganda that hit during COVID, particularly with these Chinese propaganda sites, attacked Kazakhstan because of their relationship with the U.S. and because, in some ways, they are an easy target for building up Chinese nationalism. For example, a rumor got picked up in Chinese propaganda forums that one of the actual sources of COVID was a U.S. Department of Defense labs in Kazakhstan. However, that does not have a positive spin when Kazakhstani citizens see it. Such propaganda is going to be problematic for the relationship. In response, China has also started printing the People’s Daily, The Chinese Communist Party’s newspaper. They also have a website in Kazakh now, which is supposed to help alleviate and provide the people of Kazakhstan with information on China. Most Kazakhstani citizens see China as trying to take the land as a security threat, trying to marry Kazakh daughters to access Kazakh land. Unless China figures out a way to change these longstanding social beliefs, this could continue to be a problem in the future. It will be hard to change that because you have to get many more interactions that Kazakhstani people do not have with the Chinese. As said before, most people do not know about Chinese-funded projects in Kazakhstan. If university students were unaware of Chinese soft power initiatives in Kazakhstan, I would be surprised if local people were any more aware because university students are the ones who are most informed about such things. The Chinese scholarships for Kazakhstan to study in China also tend to be aimed at elite university students, which means that ordinary Kazakhstani people do not get the possibility to go to China and interact with the Chinese. Even in those cases, they come back with some of the same stereotypes or worse than before.
As for other Central Asian countries, I think it is intermixed depending on the country. There is a mix in Kyrgyzstan where there are more interactions between citizens and Chinese nationals, while there are more mixed opinions in Kazakhstan on a less positive side because of fewer interactions. However, I do have a feeling that Central Asian countries are seeing more growing anti-Chinese sentiment.
How does the war in Ukraine affect China’s image in Kazakhstan?
China is already happy to step in with many of these issues and to work more closely with Kazakhstan moving forward. This might be welcomed or not by some of the Kazakhstani population. It is too early to make any predictions. However, I do know that the war in Ukraine is already increasing the relationship between Kazakhstan and China. This might or might not help, but it might make more anti-Chinese sentiment.