How do you solve a problem like Tajikistan?

Following the Crocus City Hall atrocity, China is paying more attention to security issues in Tajikistan. Russia and Turkey, meanwhile, are adopting restrictive approaches.

Even among its friends, Tajikistan is increasingly perceived as a security problem.

Last week, Chinese Public Security Minister Wang Xiaohong paid a visit to Dushanbe to meet with President Emomali Rahmon. 

A Tajik state media bulletin described the list of topics under discussion as comprising such threats as “terrorism, extremism, manifestations of radicalism, separatism, transnational organised crime, drug trafficking and cybercrime.”

The upshot of the encounter was that Chinese and Tajik state agencies tasked with dealing with these matters should “strengthen coordination and practical cooperation.”

It is unlikely to be a coincidence that this visit should have come so soon after the deadly Crocus City Hall atrocity, which Russian authorities pinned on a group of Tajik nationals.

Beijing’s domestic public security assistance to Tajikistan rests heavily on endowing it with the kind of surveillance technology it has used to great effect in its Xinjiang province.

As Eurasianet has reported, Tajikistan in 2013 made a $22 million deal with Chinese tech company Huawei to install close-circuit TV cameras and traffic cameras around the capital. The motorists of Dushanbe quickly learned to hate the cameras as it meant they were no longer able to breeze through red lights without incurring a fine. 

But this was never simply about road safety.

Combining AI-juiced CCTV technology with a Tajik government requirement for IDs to include place of residence, and data on fingerprints and blood type makes for a totalising snooping machine.

And the alleged closeness between Huawei and the Chinese state likely means that security officials in Beijing have extensive access to data being collated in Tajikistan. 

Tajikistan’s reliance on Huawei is only getting stronger. In December, the company’s office in Dushanbe reached a tentative deal with the Tajik telecommunications authority to upgrade or install 7,600 base stations that will serve as the cornerstone for a 5G network. Tajik internet users will rejoice at the faster speeds, but this will probably come at a cost. 

The digital surveillance concept dovetails neatly with the kind of controls that Russia is mooting for arriving foreigners.

Earlier this month, the Interior Ministry in Moscow revealed that it had put together a draft bill that envisioned, among many other things, creating a digital profile for foreign citizens that would be shared across multiple government departments. 

If there was any illusion that the ministry had migrant labourers in mind, other strands of the same proposed legislation explicitly address employment rights. Another provision is to limit the stay of foreign nationals in Russia to “no more than a total of 90 days in a calendar year,” as opposed to the 90 days per six months rule now in force.

Whether the more draconian aspects of this draft bill will survive amid complaints from the business community and once the wounds of Crocus City Hall have begun to heal remains to be seen.

But the direction of travel is clear: surveil, intimidate, expel. 

With remittances from migrant workers in Russia accounting for around half of Tajikistan’s economy, this is troubling.

Turkey, another destination for Tajiks, has already pulled the trigger on one major restrictive measure. Last week, it cancelled an agreement on visa-free travel for Tajik nationals. This comes as a blow for those people who used Istanbul as an affordable transit point for travel onward to third destinations.

The Foreign Ministry in Dushanbe said it had not been briefed about this decision ahead of time, indicating that it was adopted with haste.

“Under international practice, Turkey should have given us official information about the date from which a visa system for citizens of Tajikistan will be introduced,” a ministry official remarked dolefully.