It would be the Chinese government’s nightmare scenario: dissatisfied Uyghurs in neighboring Xinjiang take their inspiration from protests in Kazakhstan and take to the streets.
Kazakh President Kasym-Shomart Tokayev cracked down on the dissatisfied in his country. For this he receives praise from China.
When last week in Kazakhstan’s largest city, Almaty, thousands of people marched through the streets to protest first against the rise in fuel prices and later against the abuse of power, oppression and corruption, the rulers in Beijing will have remembered events in China eleven years ago . After mass rallies and uprisings in numerous cities in the Arab world, Chinese people agreed to “go for walks” on the Internet, including in Beijing and Shanghai.
Just as the people of Cairo, Tunis and Bahrain protested against authoritarian regimes in the Arab Spring, the Chinese also wanted to draw attention to democratic deficits in their country. The Chinese government prevented – in the end successfully – with some effort and ingenuity, that the “walks” could become real protest marches. Beijing’s famous Wangfujing shopping street, for example, was teeming with security forces. In front of the local McDonald’s branch, in front of which the critics wanted to pace up and down on a Sunday lunchtime, a large construction site arose overnight.
In the end, the Internet calls petered out, there was only a noteworthy gathering of people in Shanghai. But the events of that time show how nervous China’s rulers get when larger movements for freedom rights and more social participation form somewhere in the world.
Kazakhstan borders Xinjiang
This is especially true for Kazakhstan. Because China and Kazakhstan share a border almost 1,800 kilometers long; the Central Asian country borders on the province of Xinjiang in northwest China. Like the Uyghurs living there, the ethnic Kazakhs are of Turkic origin. For decades, the Uyghurs in Xinjiang have been complaining about marginalization and discrimination by the Han Chinese, which is why there have been repeated attacks and violent riots in Xinjiang in the past. According to UN figures, China is holding around one million Uyghurs in camps under the banner of counter-terrorism. Numerous Uyghurs have fled to Kazakhstan in recent years.
Beijing is likely to have registered with relief that the Kazakh authorities, with Russian help, succeeded in suppressing the protests for the time being. China’s rulers had previously pledged their support to the Kazakh leadership. start of the week said Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi In a phone call to his Kazakh counterpart, China stood ready as a “strategic partner” to support “Kazakhstan in maintaining stability and ending the violence”. Wang also suggested that the security and law enforcement agencies of both countries should work more closely together in the future. Wang then discussed developments in the Central Asian country with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Praise from Xi for violent repression
China’s head of state and party leader Xi Jinping had previously met the Kazakh President, Kasym-Shomart Tokayev, in a verbal note expressly praised for its violent suppression of the protests. “You acted decisively and vigorously at a critical moment,” Xi confirmed to his counterpart, adding that Tokayev was demonstrating responsibility for his people and his country. Like Beijing, the Kazakh regime puts dissatisfied protesters in their own country with terrorists and justifies the suppression of civil protests as a fight against terrorism.
Kazakhstan is an important energy supplier for China and a strategically important country for Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative. The Chinese leadership recommends the Kazakh government to emulate its model of suppression of the Uyghurs. Thanks to the containment of extremism, peace and stability have long been restored in Xinjiang, writes Li Wen from the China Institute for Contemporary International Relations in a guest article for the state newspaper “Global Times”. “That could be a valuable experience for countries like Kazakhstan,” says Li.
The author writes that prosperity and economic development are important in eliminating dissatisfaction. Just as important, says Li, is to focus on “people influenced by extremist ideas”. Through “education”, the Chinese authorities “helped these people” to say goodbye to such ideas – the Chinese professor praises Xinjiang’s re-education camp, where innocent people are incarcerated and families are torn apart, as a model for other countries to emulate.
One can assume that the vast majority of the Chinese support their regime. But Xi’s praise to the Kazakh leadership leaves no doubt how Beijing would react to any protests in its own country.