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Paper short abstract:

Recently the political regimes of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have implemented Chinese technological instruments into their governance. It is believed that Beijing is pushing others to adopt its know-how, but less is known about the demand side of the process. What does Central Asia learn from China?

Paper long abstract:

After 30 years of becoming independent states the political regimes of Central Asian Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan are on their way to transforming. In this process, the implementation of technological instruments into governance might potentially play an important role to make a leap towards further development. But Central Asian states do not have to create strategies of governance digitalizing from the scratch, there are already other countries that have gone through this process. China is one example.

Chinese great technological leap in the early 2000-s has become one of the main reasons for the fast development not only of its economy but the stability of its political regime. Today almost no aspect of the Chinese government’s interaction with society cannot be imagined without modern technological instruments.

The Chinese experience is something that Central Asian countries are looking up to while struggling with their own development problems. But usually, when it comes to Chinese technologies spreading to Central Asia, there’s the idea that it happens mainly because Beijing pushes this process. In this paper, I want to analyze local news, existing agreements between Kazakh and Uzbek corporations, and state institutions with their Chinese counterparts to measure the demand side of using Chinese know-how in governance. Why do local regimes choose China as a role model and how do they adopt Chinese practices to local specificities?