Flowing goods, hardening borders? China’s commercial expansion into Kyrgyzstan re-examined¹

¹A Contribution to the Eurasian Geography and Economics special issue “The Geopolitics of Chinese Development in Asia” (edited by Emily Ting Yeh).

Abstract

The Dordoi Bazaar, in Kyrgyzstan’s capital, Bishkek, has in the past 15 years become a prime example of the increasing impact of China’s rapid development in this structurally and politically weak post-Soviet state and in relation to its people. Chinese-made consumer goods, worth several billions of US dollars annually, have been re-exported overland via Kyrgyzstan to wholesale and retail clients across Eurasia. However, the hardening of the state border to the north, and particularly following the foundation of a tripartite customs union (CU) including Kazakhstan, Russia, and Belarus in the same year, has threatened the livelihoods of numerous trade entrepreneurs at the bazaar. Given Kyrgyzstan’s recent accession to the newly formed Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) in May 2015, it makes sense to re-evaluate local representations and future perspectives on China’s powerful commercial expansion into Central Asia. Based on several months of ethnographic fieldwork in Bishkek between 2012 and 2015, this article analyzes the dynamic socioeconomic effects of China’s trade and transport policy on trade entrepreneurs in Kyrgyzstan. It outlines how China’s commercial dominance in the neighboring state, albeit discussed controversially and often running up against nationalist anti-Chinese sentiments, have strongly influenced Kyrgyzstani trade entrepreneurs’ interaction with Chinese partners and their strategies of doing business at and beyond the bazaar – as will be demonstrated herein through the example of Bishkek’s emerging apparel industry. This article also illuminates the ways Dordoi’s trade entrepreneurs make sense of the uncertainties after Kyrgyzstan’s accession to the EEU.

Keywords:

• development
• transformation
• bazaar trade
• actor-centered and ethnographic approaches
• Central Asia

Acknowledgments

The author would like to extend his gratitude to Emily Ting Yeh as well as Carolyn Cartier and John O’Loughlin and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions during the work on this article.

Notes

¹ A Contribution to the Eurasian Geography and Economics special issue “The Geopolitics of Chinese Development in Asia” (edited by Emily Ting Yeh).

1. Field notes, April 27, 2012, Bishkek.

2. The overwhelming majority of Chinese investments into Kyrgyzstan’s economy are granted on a loan basis.

3. Field notes, April 27, 2012, Bishkek.

4. Biographical interviews and follow-up conversations with trade entrepreneurs, plus 15 expert interviews with bazaar proprietors, labor union representatives and government officials, were carried out by the author in the course of three fieldwork stays.

5. Salymbekov, at the same time, became the second-richest man in the country, expanding his business activities beyond trade into real estate, transport, tourism, and other service-related businesses.

6. Field notes, April 20, 2012, Bishkek, Dordoi Bazaar.

7. Field notes, May 1, 2012, Bishkek, Dordoi Bazaar.

8. This tendency applies also to other regionally important bazaars, with the Madina Bazaar, which has specialized in selling Chinese-made fabrics and is dominated by Uyghur-led businesses, forming a remarkable exclusion.

9. Interview with Husey Daurov, head of Kazakhstan’s Association of Dungans, March 28, 2012, Bishkek.

10. Field notes, April 17, 2012, Dordoi Bazaar, Bishkek.

11. Amanda Wooden in her talk at the conference “Encounters after the Soviet collapse: Chinese presence in the former Soviet Union border zone” on February 18, 2016 in Leiden (NL) emphasized that anti-Chinese sentiments in Kyrgyzstan would be used frequently in the official discourse and in the media for purposes of social mobilization.

12. Interview with Damira Dolootalieva, head of the Dordoi labor union, Bishkek, March 20, 2012. In a first of these efforts in 2007, legal restrictions were announced regarding the number of foreign traders at wholesale and retail markets; yet, they were delayed to 2008 and later indefinitely postponed, fearing diplomatic consequences from Beijing (Laruelle and Peyrouse 2012, 112).

13. Interview with Mariya Kapustina, deputy head of the textile producer association Soyuztekstil, April 20, 2012, Bishkek.

14. Field notes, May 2, 2012, Dordoi Bazaar, Bishkek.

15. Field notes, April 30, 2012, Dordoi Bazaar, Bishkek.

16. Debate within Kyrgyzstan’s public sphere on the country’s accession to the CU has been fierce and controversial over the years, with those criticizing the step ironically being from both pro-Western and nationalist circles.

17. Field notes, April 8, 2015, Dordoi Bazaar, Bishkek.

18. Field notes, April 11, 2015, Dordoi Bazaar, Bishkek.