New Delhi, July 20: China’s expanding role in Kyrgyzstan has fuelled concerns over jobs, land, natural resources, and national sovereignty in Kyrgyzstan, with many Kyrgyz citizens saying that the country’s leaders are ignoring the national interest.
Chinese firms are involved in many of the country’s largest infrastructure, mining, and energy projects, some involving leases of state land for up to 49 years.
China is also Kyrgyzstan’s largest bilateral creditor. The Export-Import Bank of China holds about $1.6 billion, or 28 percent, of Kyrgyzstan’s $8.9 billion external public debt, according to an article published in the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty news website.
During the first half of 2026, Kyrgyzstan issued some 61,000 work visas, according to the Foreign Ministry’s Consular Department, with about 60 percent going to Chinese citizens. That influx of Chinese workers is part of a wider economic expansion as Nearly 7,000 Chinese companies, associations, and other organizations have been registered in Kyrgyzstan over the past three years, according to official statistics.
In a country of just more than 7 million people where hundreds of thousands leave to work abroad, mainly in Russia, the arrival of so many Chinese workers has been difficult to accept for many Kyrgyz.
These concerns have increasingly surfaced online, where even small incidents involving Chinese nationals can quickly become national controversies, the article states.
Public discontent flared after videos of several incidents involving Chinese nationals circulated widely online. Videos showed Chinese citizens allegedly using electric equipment to catch fish in the protected Arpa highlands. (IANS)
