Brian M Downing
Thousands of miles east of Moscow, just northwest of China’s Xinjiang province, Putin faces another problem. Kyrgyzstan, a former SSR, is in turmoil after an obviously rigged election and angry, determined crowds have taken to the streets of Bishkek. As with many SSRs, power is in the hands of former communist party bosses and their successors whose dispositions toward authoritarian rule has carried forth thirty years after the Soviet Union fell.
The unrest is far off and may well worsen. The global tumult begun in the Arab world ten years ago led to similar movements in Europe, the United States, Chile, Thailand, and elsewhere. Now it’s in Belarus and Kyrgyzstan. No outcome in Kyrgyzstan is going to bring NATO closer to Moscow, but it has import for stability throughout Central Asia.
Political change or continued turmoil
Putin wants Kyrgyzstan’s oligarchy to stay in power, probably by adopting the same “rolling repression” underway in Belarus – random arrests, tear gas, and water cannon. Both states hope that with time the demonstrations will ease.
However, crowds don’t ease up these days, not in Minsk, Paris, Tel Aviv, Portland, and probably not in Bishkek. Authoritarian efforts to stay in power with promises of change are well known as delaying tactics. They don’t work well anymore. People are onto them.
The perils of a new government
Putin does not want to see representative government anywhere along his borders, even in remote Kyrgyzstan. A spillover of democracy is unlikely, but it would show his inability to manage the Russian periphery and his reputation was built in part on that.
Perhaps more importantly, a representative government might move closer to Beijing than the old oligarchy aligned with Moscow since the days of Lenin. China doesn’t want democracy along its periphery either but one in Bishkek, especially a venal one, would have advantages for its goal to become the global leader.
While Russia has maintained influence in the Kyrgyz state, China has been increasing involved in its economy. Chinese engineers and workers are more common than Russian counterparts. Resources flow to Chinese firms, not Russian ones.
Though allies now, Russia and China are heading for disagreement, contention, and conflict from Kyrgyzstan to the Caucasus as that region becomes part of Beijing’s co-prosperity sphere. Better for Putin to keep reliable people in Bishkek – and across Central Asia too.
The perils of no government
The fall of the old regime could bring a period of instability, drift, and faltering administration in many parts of the country. Kyrgyzstan has about fifteen sizable political parties with little experience in compromise and coalition building.
Instability would be an unwelcome development for all concerned, except for Islamists. The experience of Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Mali, and Afghanistan is that collapsed or very weak governments leave swathes of territory open to Islamist militants. Many regional experts are unconcerned by the handful of Islamist incidents but it might be noted that those disposed to jihad might have joined the fight elsewhere over the last few years.
The conditions in Kyrgyzstan are favorable: a large male cohort (50% are under 25) with unpromising futures, ethnic antagonisms (Kyrgyz, Tajik, Uzbek, Russian), and a number of local men already fighting with jihadi groups in Afghanistan and the Levant and with the still small Islamic Movement of Central Asia. The Pakistani-backed jihadi bastion in eastern Afghanistan, home to AQ, Islamist Movement of Uzbekistan, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and others, is 400 miles away.
Kyrgyzstan is adjacent to China’s Xinjiang province where the Uighur and Islam face oppression on an immense and growing scale. Kyrgyzstan is home to tens of thousands of Uighur.
An Islamist tide is not about to sweep over Kyrgyzstan, as with ISIL in Syria and Iraq in 2014, but ferment is clear and state paralysis may be coming. Moscow can’t be unconcerned.
© 2020 Brian M Downing
Brian M Downing is a national security analyst who’s written for outlets across the political spectrum. He studied at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, and did post-graduate work at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. Thanks as ever to Susan Ganosellis.