Thread by @TUmarov

This fall will be remembered in #Kazakhstan 🇰🇿 for a wave of anti-China protests there. Why ppl are not happy w/ growing 🇨🇳 influence in the region? Why the leadership of the country cannot solve the problems w/ 🇨🇳? Here's my take for @CarnegieRussia:
carnegie.ru/commentary/802…

At first, while the protests were not political, the authorities dealt with them calmly. But later when the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan party (banned as an extremist group there) and it's leader Mukhtar #Ablyazov took the lead, the rallies were all broken up by police. 1/

Officials tried to deflate the uproar by blaming everything on false information and “certain forces.” Some anonymous sources showed anti-Chinese protests as the sign of frictions within the ruling elite. 2/
t.me/Uzynqulaq/255

It might be so. The protests were sparked by a message on #WhatsApp that was based on information from five years ago: a framework agreement on 55 joint projects was signed by Kazakhstan and China back in 2015. 3/
online.zakon.kz/Document/?doc_…

In addition, #Zhanaozen, where the information first spread, is plagued by unemployment, and the potential for protest there was already tragically clear: it was there that striking oil workers were shot dead in 2011. 4/
bbc.com/news/world-asi…

But #fakenews only triggered existing unhappiness and cannot be considered as the main reason for protests. It's easier for the country’s leadership not to acknowledge the risks, preferring instead to strengthen control over the internet and look for troublemakers in&out 🇰🇿. 5/

In fact, the authorities don’t know how to talk to ppl about the balance between problems & opportunities created by relations w/ 🇨🇳. There's a lot of risks that the leadership prefers to ignore publicly: huge corruption at the border, #Xinjiang camps.. 6/

https://twitter.com/Majlis_Podcast/status/1178662257980522497

Some of the fears are groundless, but the authorities don't discuss them as well: Kazakhstan’s debt to China is actually decreasing by 7%/year & there is no real threat about labor migrants - there were only 12,000 migrants from China in 2017. 7/
enbek.gov.kz/ru/node/344757

Unlike with Western countries, which state the terms of cooperation in advance, with China there are unspoken rules. Consequently, fear of ruining their relationship with China results in the Kazakh authorities engaging in self-censorship. 8/

Previously, the Kazakh leadership could easily rebuff all public fears with one iron-clad argument: 🇨🇳 = big investors. But now 🇨🇳 expects a payoff from what it's already invested. During Tokayev's visit to China, no investment agreements were signed. 9/
zonakz.net/2019/09/11/10-…

In these conditions, the Kazakh authorities (and those of other Central Asian countries) will find it harder to quash anti-Chinese sentiment in the country, and until they recognize the reasons for such sentiment, the problems will only grow bigger. 10/10
carnegie.ru/commentary/802…