Exporting Surveillance: China’s Authoritarian Blueprint in the Kyrgyz Republic

Through the multi-nodal design of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the Chinese state has developed a “…panopticon-like…” level of structural coercion in the nations of Central Asia. These nodes function as hubs of communication within decentralised networks of information sharing and technological exchange. Such a degree of interconnection is embedded within aspects of “weaponised interdependence,” a concept which describes how dominant states leverage asymmetric access to global networks (such as trade, finance, or technology) to exert coercive influence over weaker states. Within the CCP’s BRI project, this dynamic enables China to entrench its strategic control while projecting stability under its own terms. The states of Central Asia (Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan) are growing more susceptible to Beijing’s influence, not only due to proximity and economic dependency but also through the increasing centralisation of technology. China’s broader strategy seeks to export its model of illiberal governance and to implement security-oriented practices, including surveillance, policing, and border control, that reflect a broader process of regional securitisation. 

These efforts are tightly interwoven with economic and technological interdependence, enabling Beijing to entrench regional influence through weaponised interdependence. This strategy is met not just with passive acquiescence but with active enthusiasm from domestic actors in the Kyrgyz Republic, where a growing appetite for authoritarian governance provides Beijing with willing partners. Kyrgyzstan’s underrepresentation in Western strategic discourse, despite its geographic proximity to Xinjiang and growing entanglement with Chinese security initiatives, makes it an essential focal point for assessing China’s regional ambitions. While conducting fieldwork in Kyrgyzstan, I encountered firsthand how securitisation and digital surveillance shape movement, access, and everyday life. These experiences inform the analytical lens of this paper and underscore the tangible impact of China’s expanding security architecture in the region. Through weaponised interdependence and a decentralised network of private and state actors, Beijing has embedded itself into the core of Central Asia’s security landscape, with the Kyrgyz Republic offering a compelling case study of how local political dynamics can both enable and amplify China’s authoritarian export model. Ultimately, China’s influence under the Belt and Road framework presents not only an economic opportunity for Central Asia, but a growing risk of entrenched authoritarian governance, regional dependency, and diminished sovereignty.

Structural Coercion Through Multi-Nodal Interdependence

The increasing complication and centralisation of technology has allowed Beijing to emerge as a global leader in the ever-changing technological sector. With this increased complexity and centralisation, Beijing has moved to implement the “Digital Silk Road” framework, which would see China become the primary global data hub. This hegemony of technology grants the CCP oversight over a wide range of data flows, including cross-border communications, financial transactions, e-commerce logistics, biometric records, and metadata. While not overtly coercive at this stage, this interdependence creates structural asymmetries that China may later exploit as leverage, a dynamic explored in subsequent sections.

Coacting with the multi-nodal structure of the BRI and the growing digitisation and technological dominance, China has established the “Belt and Road National Security Intelligence System” (BRNSIS), which utilises private actors, primarily Chinese private security contractors. These actors primarily assist Chinese embassies in Central Asia with information gathering, accessible to various government institutions through a centralized database. Chinese private security contractors employed by the BRNSIS aid embassies in gathering intelligence, which is stored in a centralised database accessible across Chinese government ministries, enhancing the state’s ability to coordinate regional surveillance. In addition, growing trade networks with Central Asia have also provided power asymmetries that allow for growing data gathering from individual traders acting as independent nodes. 

Targeting the Uyghur Diaspora: Exporting Securitisation

As China begins consolidating its influence in Central Asia, largely replacing Russia as the regional hegemon post-2022, the diaspora Uyghur population has fallen victim to methodologies of Beijing’s securitisation. The Uyghurs are a Turkic Muslim ethnic group indigenous to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in western China. Since 2017, China has faced widespread international condemnation for its mass internment of over a million Uyghurs in so-called “reeducation” camps, with some governments, including Canada, labelling these policies as genocide. Many Uyghurs have fled persecution and now live in Central Asian countries, where they remain under the surveillance and coercive reach of Chinese security practices. In Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, facial recognition software has been sold to authoritarian regimes to identify political dissidents and protest participants. As this technology becomes increasingly centralised, Chinese intelligence services also gain access to the collected data, which they can use to identify individuals deemed security threats, particularly among the Uyghur diaspora in Central Asia. While Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan possess deeper bilateral relations with China in terms of security, the Kyrgyz Republic, which, along with Kazakhstan, borders the region of Xinjiang, does not possess this same set of relations. However, the Chinese and Kyrgyz states have begun cooperating with joint policing exercises directed towards anti-terrorist measures. The lack of formalised security ties suggests that China’s model of regional influence does not rely solely on official agreements. It also operates through ad hoc cooperation, technological penetration, and strategic pressure, especially in states like Kyrgyzstan, where domestic authoritarian appetites are beginning to align with Beijing’s interests.

Kyrgyzstan’s Security Alignment with Beijing Post-2016

Largely influencing this alignment of Kyrgyz domestic security with Chinese regional objectives was the 2016 Chinese embassy bombing in the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek. In the aftermath of the attack, China began rejecting visas to Kyrgyz citizens and applied pressure to the Kyrgyz state to hold the perpetrators accountable and release the information gathered during the investigation. The State Committee on National Security (GKNB) found that it was a targeted terrorist attack committed by the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a transnational Uyghur organisation active across Central Asia.

Three years later, in 2019, a new police command centre was established in Bishkek, incorporating the same facial recognition technology used in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. A protest, which developed into a riot, took place soon after the completion of the police command centre, fueled by Kyrgyz fears over growing Chinese influence in the nation. Public hostility toward Beijing’s influence was fueled by rising Chinese immigration into the Kyrgyz Republic and reports of mass detentions of ethnic Kyrgyz in “vocational education training centres” in Xinjiang. 

The SCO, RATS, and Authoritarian Learning

Within the construction of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), there is a strong focus on anti-terrorism efforts, emphasised by the pillar of the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS). Within the framework of RATS, cooperation across member states to promote regional stability is encouraged. In June 2023, Kyrgyz Interior Ministry representatives travelled to Xinjiang for demonstrations hosted by the Chinese government, which showcased crowd control and counterterrorism techniques. At the conclusion of the visit, representatives of both countries signed a memorandum under which Chinese security officials “will conduct and organise training for (Kyrgyz) employees of police districts adjacent to the border.” As China will gain utility from increased regional cooperation and subsequent codependency, the Kyrgyz delegation, under the growing authoritarianism of the Japarov regime, gained insights into building an improved surveillance state. This reflects a domestic openness in Kyrgyzstan to adopt illiberal governance models, revealing a reciprocal dynamic where China’s export of authoritarian practices meets local political appetite, thus enhancing both states’ objectives. According to the Interior Ministry statement, Kyrgyz security officials had opportunities “to study new achievements in the digitalization of the Chinese police, to familiarize themselves with the work of the police using unmanned aerial vehicles, to study methods of combating religious extremism … (and) familiarization with the actions and methods and means used by the police during mass riots.” Chinese officials also staged riot-control exercises for the Kyrgyz visitors, demonstrating “the work of a special forces detachment, as well as public order services, and their actions during riots.”

Interaction-2024 and Japarov’s Strategic Calculus

A recent development within RATS is “Interaction-2024,” a joint counter-terrorism exercise between China and the states of Central Asia, which involved specialised operations intended to enhance the operational capabilities of member states. In February of 2025, Kyrgyz president Sadyr Japarov visited Beijing for a visit with Chinese president Xi Jinping. Xi Jinping emphasised the historic and geographic connections between China and the Kyrgyz Republic as well as the rapid growth of bilateral relations in recent years. The Chinese president added that the two sides should continue to explore new ideas, focus on cooperation, and deepen mutually beneficial cooperation. China is willing to continue to expand cooperation and enhance connectivity by continuing construction of the “Silk Road on steel rail,” a railway connecting China, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. Xi Jinping expressed hope that Kyrgyzstan will continue to protect the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese investors in the country.

Border Control and Securitisation

Demonstrating the expansion of connectivity is the reopening and ongoing development of the Bedel Pass border crossing connecting the Kyrgyz settlement of Barskon, located along the south shore of Lake Issyk-Kul, to the region of Xinjiang. The Bedel Pass crossing is the third border district connecting China to Kyrgyzstan, with the other two being the Torugart Pass in the Kyrgyz region of Naryn and the Erkeshtam Pass in the Osh Region. However, the entirety of the Chinese-Kyrgyz border is along the region of Xinjiang. This contributes to Beijing’s desire to police the regions as many Uyghurs flee and seek refuge in the Kyrgyz Republic, as well as reported activity of the East Turkestan Liberation Organisation (ELTO), a secessionist Uyghur organisation training in the border regions of the Kyrgyz Republic. Increased securitisation on the Kyrgyz border side has assumed Xi Jinping’s demands for Kyrgyzstan to “…protect the legitimate rights and interests of China…”. Along the entirety of the 1,063-kilometre border between China and Kyrgyzstan, a Border Zone extending 50 kilometres from the de facto border has been established. To enter the Border Zone, a permit is required, which can only be obtained from Kyrgyz authorities, ensuring that only authorised individuals can enter these securitised areas.

Due to the securitisation of the Border Zone, the centralisation of technology and the ongoing digitisation of police activities, I did not travel closer than the village of Chiy-Tala in the Osh Region, located 140 kilometres from the Erkeshtam Pass border crossing.

Domestic Nationalism and Foreign Leverage

However, in the capital of Bishkek, securitisation in the historic Uyghur-run Madina Market can be observed from first-hand accounts and primary sources. During repeated visits to the market throughout my fieldwork, I consistently noted a heightened police presence, which included both uniformed and plainclothed officers. Compared to the two larger markets in the city, Osh Bazaar and Dordoi Bazaar, this visible security presence appeared disproportionate and politically charged. Conversations with Uyghur merchants revealed a sense of anxiety with several vendors speaking cautiously and avoiding political discussions. In contrast, some ethnic Kyrgyz locals I spoke with openly expressed suspicion toward the Uyghur presence in the market. These sentiments reflect how Chinese securitisation narratives, particularly the conflation of Uyghur identity with extremism, have filtered into public discourse, helping to justify increased surveillance and legitimise discriminatory practices in local contexts.

The neo-nationalist Kyrgyz grassroots movement, Kyrk Choro, has been calling for the barring of ethnic Uyghur merchants from the Madina Market since 2015. While previously Kyrk Choro enjoyed complacency from security officials and state actors in the Kyrgyz Republic, under the populist platform of Sadyr Japarov, the group’s ideology has benefited from presidential policies such as Japarov’s “Five-Year Morality Plan”, which aims to protect the “traditions and values of Kyrgyz families” by discriminating against ethnic minorities, rolling back women’s rights, and centralising media and journalism, capturing support from nationalistic and subsequently anti-Uyghur political movements. China’s exportation of illiberal governance aligns with a growing domestic appetite for authoritarianism in Kyrgyzstan, where nationalist movements and political elites actively embrace these models to strengthen their own power. This dynamic grants Kyrgyz actors agency in shaping the country’s authoritarian trajectory, making the relationship with Beijing a mutually reinforcing process rather than a simple external imposition. Official state action reflects domestic nationalist sentiments while simultaneously satisfying China’s desires for stability and securitisation. 

In 2023, the GKNB launched an investigation against the founder of the Madina Market, Tursuntai Salimov and his son Ilshan. Tursuntai was also the leader of Ittipak, a Kyrgyz-Uyghur diaspora political organisation advocating for cultural preservation. In 2024, both Tursuntai and Ilshan Salimov were arrested for the laundering of criminal proceeds in the interest of Kamchybek Asanbek’s organised crime group. 

The assets of the Salimov family, including Madina Market, were rapidly transferred to Tarim Trade, a company owned by the son of Khabibula Abdukadyr. Abdukadyr, a close ally of Japarov, had successfully built a trading monopoly which transits Chinese goods throughout Central Asia. Abdukadyr is also a business partner of a close friend of the president’s son, who manages construction projects across Kyrgyzstan, which are an integral part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

Conclusion: A New Security Order under Chinese Patronage

By utilising the pre-existing frameworks of the SCO, the infrastructure of the BRI, and the centralisation of technology via the Digital Silk Road, China has constructed a vast and adaptive apparatus of regional surveillance and control and a comprehensive security architecture in the form of the Belt and Road National Security Intelligence System. Through weaponised interdependence and a decentralised network of private and state actors, Beijing has embedded itself into the core of Central Asia’s security landscape. China’s broader strategy seeks to export its model of illiberal governance and practices of securitisation as a means to impose regional stability, thereby facilitating deeper economic engagement and political interaction under Beijing’s terms. Importantly, this approach resonates with domestic actors in Kyrgyzstan, where an existing appetite for illiberalism and nationalist governance provides agency to local elites, enabling them to actively participate in and shape this evolving security architecture. While framed as cooperation or development, the deeper consequence is a significant erosion of regional sovereignty and the externalisation of China’s internal securitisation model. The targeting of Uyghur diaspora communities, the co-optation of nationalist movements, and the strategic transfer of economic assets all underscore the convergence of surveillance, economic control, and authoritarian governance under Beijing’s influence.

As China supplants Russia as Central Asia’s dominant external power, its approach represents not merely a shift in regional geopolitics but a reconfiguration of sovereignty itself, one grounded in digital oversight, security codependence, and authoritarian learning. Without meaningful safeguards or regional pushback, the Belt and Road may no longer be simply a path to economic development but a conduit for asymmetrical control and systemic repression.