In 2019, Akqol became Kazakhstan’s first “smart city.” Today, an extensive network of high-resolution cameras tracks everything from pedestrians’ morning commute to traffic flow, energy consumption, and school attendance. Designed to bring urban security and operations into the 21st century, this experimental city resulted from a deal made by various Kazakh organizations, including national telecommunications giant Kazakhtelecom, government-owned mineral supplier Eurasian Resources Group, and tech start-up company Tengrilabs, which is based in the capital, Astana.
But while the city was planned and built by Kazakhs, its technology was not. Instead, Akqol relies on Chinese telecom companies Hikvision and Dahua, which have been helping Central Asian governments implement mass surveillance technology across critical infrastructure. Chinese tech companies have also increased their funding of Central Asia’s technical educational institutes and provided the region with 5G connectivity. For Central Asian governments—which have sought to become leading tech hubs independent from Russia since the invasion of Ukraine—Chinese investment into their lagging, landlocked economies is more than welcome. However, while China’s tech may appear attractive, the citizens of Central Asia need to seriously consider the risks that such investments pose to the political autonomy, economic independence, and educational needs of their countries.
A chief concern with Chinese tech infrastructure is data privacy. Although most Central Asian countries have laws protecting citizens’ personal and biometric data, loopholes allow governments to access data in the case of a perceived security risk. Central Asian governments, which tend to score badly on corruption indices and measures of authoritarianism, will likely use these surveillance projects to impede citizens’ rights. For example, in January 2022, following violent unrest in Kazakhstan over government corruption and the 30-year rule of autocrat Nursultan Nazarbayev, China sent an analytics team to identify protestors using data collected by city-wide Hikvision cameras. Additionally, legal experts say that both Chinese and Central Asian governments have the technical capabilities to block social media content they deem threatening, creating another technology-based human rights threat.
The crux of the matter is whether China has access to data collected by Chinese companies in Central Asia—a question much like the one US lawmakers are asking themselves as they consider a national ban on Chinese-owned TikTok. Such data breaches in Central Asia would pose a threat to the region’s citizens and their governments: Biometric and surveillance data in the hands of a foreign government would allow that government to track the location and activities of citizens, some of whom may have access to sensitive political information. Central Asia’s e-fears are not unfounded—China’s 2015 National Security Law and 2017 National Intelligence Law require citizens and private enterprises to “support, assist, and cooperate” with the Chinese state to maintain national security and intelligence interests. Telecommunications companies must therefore share surveillance data when requested by the government. It is, then, not hard to conclude that companies with strong ties to the state (such as Hikvision and CETC) or highly exploitable ownership structures can collect data overseas and ship it back to the Chinese government. Early evidence indicates that such speculation is right on target: One investigation revealed that Huawei technology is capable of disrupting and intercepting US military communications. Another alleged that Chinese IT was transferring data from the African Union headquarters to China. If the Chinese government indeed has access to surveillance data on Central Asian citizens, it will make these countries much more vulnerable to political interference.
Also looming large is the issue of Uyghur human rights abuses in Xinjiang. The topic remains extremely controversial among Central Asian civilians, as the Uyghurs make up a sizable proportion of the region’s population and are closely related to the Muslim Turko-Mongolic ethnicities of Central Asia. Western countries have sanctioned many of China’s telecommunications companies for enabling the mass surveillance used to track Xinjiang residents. For citizens in Central Asian countries, some of whom have Chinese or dual citizenship and have been detained in Xinjiang detention centers, Chinese access to civilian data could make Xinjiang more dangerous and inaccessible. Central Asians traveling to Xinjiang for work or family reasons could be subject to increased persecution if the Chinese government obtains surveillance data identifying their movements. Another potential avenue for human rights abuses comes from China’s efforts to silence pro-Uyghur activists in Central Asian countries, particularly Kazakhstan. If surveillance data is shared with the Chinese government, Beijing may have more leverage to strongarm the Kazakh government into silencing protestors and activists.
Large-scale surveillance and smart city projects are also extraordinarily expensive and frequently lead Central Asian countries to take on large debts to China. In Dushanbe, Tajikistan’s capital, the government took out a $21 million loan from Huawei to implement a city-wide traffic surveillance system. In 2018, it was estimated that it would take two decades to pay off the loan, but with a recent 2019 upgrade to increase camera density and add facial recognition technology, it’s likely to take even longer. Wealthier countries make even pricier deals, like Uzbekistan’s 1 billion dollar deal with Huawei and CITIC Guoan Information Industry to manufacture and install facial recognition surveillance systems. If a country cannot pay off its debts, it can potentially be forced to turn over natural resource extraction sites for little or no compensation. Because Central Asian industry is concentrated in extractive activities like mining and quarrying, such seizures can significantly increase dependence on China.
Even China’s development of technical education in Central Asia has been criticized for trying to exert influence over citizens. In Kazakhstan, President Kassym-Jomart Tokaev supported the goal of training 100,000 IT specialists by 2025 on the Huawei ICT Academy curriculum. Huawei has already opened 50 IT academies in Kazakhstan, with curricula laser-focused on Huawei technology and professional development within Chinese telecommunications companies. While tech education is beneficial, critics argue that the training structure prepares Central Asian youths to be administrative staff within Chinese companies without giving them the skills needed to develop technology domestically.
When it comes to the proliferation of Chinese technology in Central Asia, citizens have the most to lose. Their autocratic governments are implementing mass surveillance systems at the expense of basic infrastructure, and China may already be spelunking into databases containing private information on Central Asians. And while Central Asian countries are generally careful not to become too dependent on any one power, dependency via telecommunication and surveillance technology is a largely novel phenomenon, complete with a slew of hidden and politically fraught risks. The people of Central Asia need to diversify the sources of their telecommunications infrastructure and redesign their tech education system to support the development of local technologies.