Chinese people in Kyrgyzstan
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Chinese people in Kyrgyzstan have been growing in numbers since the late 1980s. 2008 police statistics showed 60,000 Chinese nationals living in
the country ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
. However, the 2009 census showed just 1,813 people who declared themselves to be of Chinese ethnicity.


History

During the
Mongol Empire The Mongol Empire of the 13th and 14th centuries was the largest contiguous land empire in history. Originating in present-day Mongolia in East Asia, the Mongol Empire at its height stretched from the Sea of Japan to parts of Eastern Europe, ...
, Han Chinese were moved to Central Asian areas like Besh Baliq, Almaliq, and Samarqand by the Mongols where they worked as artisans and farmers. The Daoist Chinese master
Qiu Chuji Qiu Chuji (10 February 1148– 21 August 1227), courtesy name Tongmi (通密), also known by his Taoist name Master Changchun, was the disciple of Wang Chongyang and a renowned Taoist master. He is known for meeting Genghis Khan near the Hindu K ...
travelled through Kyrgyzstan to meet Genghis Khan in Afghanistan. As China and Kyrgyzstan are neighbouring countries, there is a long history of population movements between the lands that today make up their national territories. The
Dungan people Dungan, Xiao'erjing: ; zh, s=东干族, t=東干族, p=Dōnggān zú, w=Tung1kan1-tsu2, , Xiao'erjing: ; russian: Дунгане, ''Dungane''; ky, Дуңгандар, ''Duñgandar'', دۇنغاندار; kk, Дүңгендер, ''Düñgende ...
( Chinese-speaking Muslims from
Northwest China Northwest China () is a statistical region of China which includes the autonomous regions of Xinjiang and Ningxia and the provinces of Shaanxi, Gansu and Qinghai. It has an area of 3,107,900 km2. The region is characterized by a (semi-)arid con ...
) fled to Kyrgyzstan in 1877 after the failure of their uprising against the
Qing Dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...
; they settled in
Semirechie Zhetysu, or Jeti-Suu ( kk, , Жетісу, pronounced ; ky, ''Jeti-Suu'', (), meaning "seven rivers"; also transcribed ''Zhetisu'', ''Jetisuw'', ''Jetysu'', ''Jeti-su'', ''Jity-su'', ''Жетысу'',, National Geospatial-Intelligence Age ...
as well as the
Ferghana Valley The Fergana Valley (; ; ) in Central Asia lies mainly in eastern Uzbekistan, but also extends into southern Kyrgyzstan and northern Tajikistan. Divided into three republics of the former Soviet Union, the valley is ethnically diverse and in the ...
. In the early 20th century, Uyghurs, Dungans, and
Han Chinese The Han Chinese () or Han people (), are an East Asian ethnic group native to China. They constitute the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 18% of the global population and consisting of various subgroups speaking distinctive va ...
alike came to the Ferghana Valley as
migrant worker A migrant worker is a person who Human migration, migrates within a home country or outside it to pursue work. Migrant workers usually do not have the intention to stay permanently in the country or region in which they work. Migrant worker ...
s in coal mines, cotton mills, and farms; some settled down permanently in Kyrgyzstan. The agricultural failures incurred during the 1950s
Great Leap Forward The Great Leap Forward (Second Five Year Plan) of the People's Republic of China (PRC) was an economic and social campaign led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1958 to 1962. CCP Chairman Mao Zedong launched the campaign to reconstruc ...
spurred many people from
Xinjiang Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest ...
to flee to the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
, including Kyrgyzstan, to escape hardships in China. However, as the
Sino-Soviet split The Sino-Soviet split was the breaking of political relations between the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union caused by doctrinal divergences that arose from their different interpretations and practical applications of Marxism–Len ...
worsened, the border was closed and such migration made impossible. Migration would begin again in the late 1980s, centred on
Chüy Region Chüy Region ( ky, Чүй облусу, Chüy oblusu; russian: Чуйская область, Chuyskaya oblast) is the northernmost region (''oblast'') of the Kyrgyz Republic. This region surrounds the national capital of Kyrgyzstan, Bishkek. It ...
,
Bishkek Bishkek ( ky, Бишкек), ), formerly Pishpek and Frunze, is the capital and largest city of Kyrgyzstan. Bishkek is also the administrative centre of the Chüy Region. The region surrounds the city, although the city itself is not part of ...
and its surroundings; people from Xinjiang would come to rent land, and grow vegetables. Others came as cross-border traders, selling
Chinese alcoholic beverages There is a long history of alcoholic drinks in China. They include rice and grape wine, beer, whisky and various liquors including ''baijiu'', the most-consumed distilled spirit in the world. Name (''jiǔ'') is the Chinese character referring ...
and buying up clothing—especially coats made from
Karakul sheep Karakul or Qaraqul (named after Qorakoʻl, a city in Bukhara Region in Uzbekistan) is a breed of domestic sheep which originated in Central Asia. Some archaeological evidence points to Karakul sheep being raised there continuously since 1400 BC ...
pelts—for sale in Xinjiang. In the early 2000s, the majority of PRC nationals in Kyrgyzstan were of Uyghur ethnicity, but since then, an increasing number of
Han Chinese The Han Chinese () or Han people (), are an East Asian ethnic group native to China. They constitute the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 18% of the global population and consisting of various subgroups speaking distinctive va ...
have been arriving. Kyrgyzstan and other
post-Soviet states The post-Soviet states, also known as the former Soviet Union (FSU), the former Soviet Republics and in Russia as the near abroad (russian: links=no, ближнее зарубежье, blizhneye zarubezhye), are the 15 sovereign states that wer ...
are popular destinations for people from Xinjiang because they offer the opportunity to learn
Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
, which has become important in urban job markets such as Urumqi. Recent migrants state they chose Kyrgyzstan as their destination, rather than join the large numbers of
Chinese people in Russia Ethnic Chinese in Russia officially numbered 39,483 according to the 2002 census. However, this figure is contested, with the Overseas Community Affairs Council of Taiwan claiming 998,000 in 2004 and 2005, and Russian demographers generally accep ...
or in Kazakhstan because Kyrgyzstan is cheaper, and because they perceive public safety as being better in Kyrgyzstan than in Russia where there have been cases of attacks on migrant workers.


Business and employment

Chinese traders often employ local Dungans as assistants. Kyrgyz university students of all ethnicities also often seek out employment with Chinese traders, using their job as an opportunity to learn the
Chinese language Chinese (, especially when referring to written Chinese) is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in Greater China. About 1.3 billion people (or approximately 16% of the wor ...
. On the outskirts of Bishkek, there is a large Chinese market, described as a "city within a city"; it has its own hospital, mosque, and apartment buildings. Migrants from China also work in the construction sector, especially on housing projects for low-income people. President
Kurmanbek Bakiyev Kurmanbek Saliyevich Bakiyev (, ''Kurmanbek Saliyevich (Sali Uulu) Bakiyev''; born 1 August 1949) is a Kyrgyz politician who served as the second President of Kyrgyzstan, from 2005 to 2010. Large opposition protests in April 2010 led to the tak ...
once gave a speech praising the diligent Chinese workers and contrasting them harshly with local workers, whom he described as "lazy"; however, his speech provoked some resentment from average citizens. Construction company bosses also prefer Chinese workers because they are seen as less litigious than local workers, especially in the case of those living in the country illegally.


Inter-ethnic relations

There is a popular perception that many Chinese migrants seek to marry Kyrgyz women in order to obtain Kyrgyz citizenship; local people, especially the elderly, object to the women marrying men who are not Muslims. However, such marriages actually remain relatively rare. Kyrgyz people complain that the Chinese specialists who run factories are secretive and do not wish to train local people how to operate the equipment, just keeping them as low-level manual workers. Kyrgyzstani workers also blame unskilled Chinese migrants for taking jobs away from local people and thus forcing them to migrate to Russia to find work, where they themselves face the danger of violence motivated by xenophobia. Kyrgyz merchants have also organised protests against the Chinese traders. There have been numerous incidents of xenophobic violence against Chinese migrants, including one in June 2002 which resulted in three deaths. During the 2010 riots in Bishkek which overthrew
Kurmanbek Bakiyev Kurmanbek Saliyevich Bakiyev (, ''Kurmanbek Saliyevich (Sali Uulu) Bakiyev''; born 1 August 1949) is a Kyrgyz politician who served as the second President of Kyrgyzstan, from 2005 to 2010. Large opposition protests in April 2010 led to the tak ...
's government, the Guoying Center, a prominent symbol of Chinese traders' presence in Kyrgyz's capital city, also became a target for mobs, who looted shops and burned the building. The Kyrgyz also violently targeted Uyghurs and Dungans during the same riots.


Media

The ''Ji'erjisisitan Huaqiao Bao'' (吉尔吉斯斯坦华侨报, literally "Kyrgyzstan Chinese Emigrant Newspaper") began publication in 2006 as a semi-monthly newspaper; it had a circulation of roughly 3,000 . It is printed in Xinjiang by the same department which publishes the ''
Xinjiang Economic Daily The ''Xinjiang Economic Daily'' () is a state-run daily newspaper published in the Xinjiang autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. It is published in the Chinese language only. It is considered to be one of the most dynamic newspapers ...
''.


See also

* China–Kyrgyzstan relations


References


Notes


Sources

* * * {{Overseas Chinese
Kyrgyzstan Kyrgyzstan,, pronounced or the Kyrgyz Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the south, and the People's Republic of China to the east. ...
Chinese diaspora in Asia Ethnic groups in Kyrgyzstan Ethnic groups in Asia Ethnic groups in Central Asia