A brawl involving Chinese workers erupted in northern Kyrgyzstan, exposing growing anti-Chinese sentiment in the Central Asian country.
Dozens of Kyrgyz and Chinese construction workers clashed in the village of Konstantinovka in the northern province of Chui on November 15 after a road dispute.
Police detained 16 people and called in for questioning another 44, including Chinese workers. One Kyrgyz worker was hospitalized.
The authorities have attempted to downplay the incident, which involved drivers employed by China Road & Bridge Corporation and the Kyrgyz company Zhongzi.
But the brawl has highlighted anger in Kyrgyzstan over Chinese-funded projects and the influx of Chinese workers to the impoverished country.
Beijing has expanded its footprint in recent years in Central Asia, a strategic and energy-rich region where China has become a key economic and political player.
Kyrgyzstan is home to several Chinese-funded infrastructure projects, including the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway, a multibillion-dollar megaproject that aims to transform East-West trade, cutting delivery times between China and Europe by up to one week.
Calls For Calm
The Kyrgyz authorities have called for calm after the brawl.
Foreign Minister Jeenbek Kulubaev rejected claims that Chinese workers were flooding the country, Central Asia's second poorest, and taking jobs away from locals.
"Chinese citizens are working on the basis of work visas. We have a visa regime. When their visa expires, they leave," Kulubaev said, according to the state-run Kabar news agency.
Daiyrbek Orunbekov, who works in the president's office, also attempted to downplay the fight in northern Kyrgyzstan.
"Conflicts happen wherever there are people -- it's human nature. It doesn't depend on ethnicity or race," he wrote on Facebook. "More than 1.5 million of our Kyrgyz citizens also work in other countries, just like the Chinese here. They also sometimes get involved in fights and conflicts. So don't be misled by provocateurs."
The remarks by officials have done little to quell the public anger over Chinese workers in Kyrgyzstan.
'Social Discontent'
The anti-Chinese sentiment reflects broader anxieties about China's expanding economic footprint in Kyrgyzstan, experts say.
Around a quarter of the $873 million in foreign direct investment that entered the country in 2024 came from China.
The influx of Chinese-backed projects has added to the thousands of Chinese workers already working in Kyrgyzstan. That has led to housing shortages and rent hikes in some areas.
Chinese companies often hire Chinese workers, not locals, to complete infrastructure projects abroad, another grievance among locals.
"There's a widespread perception that on large construction projects, from engineering and technical staff down to laborers, they bring their own people from China," economic analyst Nurgul Akimova told RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service.
Akimova said Chinese citizens "make up a significant portion" of workers in areas such as mining and road construction, which creates a perception among locals that foreigners are taking their jobs.
"If the unemployment problem remains acute and cheap Chinese labor continues to fill the market, it will intensify social discontent," she said.
Prominent lawyer Nurbek Toktakunov said government opacity was also fueling anti-Chinese sentiment.
"There's very little information about China, what kind of cooperation we have, what projects are under way," he told the Kyrgyz Service. "When information is scarce and people get silenced whenever they speak up, that's when xenophobia thrives. The only way to combat it is through transparency."
There is also broader anger at China's treatment of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities -- including ethnic Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Tajiks, and Uzbeks -- in its western province of Xinjiang.
Over 1 million people are believed to have disappeared into China's vast network of mass detention camps in Xinjiang in recent years. Central Asian governments, however, have remained largely silent.
The November 15 incident was not the first flashpoint in Kyrgyzstan, where several brawls involving Chinese nationals working on Chinese-funded projects have been reported in recent years.
In 2019, dozens of Chinese workers were hospitalized after a fight with locals, who had staged a protest against Chinese-run gold mines in Kyrgyzstan.
Fights involving Chinese workers have also been reported elsewhere in Central Asia, including in Kazakhstan, which has been the scene of anti-China protests in the past.
