
You Watch But Don’t Absorb
As independent journalists face mounting pressure in Kyrgyzstan, Chinese state media have quietly built influence over two decades. Adina Masalbekova tells Lingua Sinica how it happened.

On May 27, 2026, during the 2026 China-Kyrgyzstan Media Cooperation Forum (2026中吉媒體合作論壇) in Bishkek, China’s Global Times (環球時報), the state-owned tabloid published under the Chinese Communist Party’s People’s Daily (人民日報), signed a cooperation agreement with Kyrgyzstan’s Russian-language daily Slovo Kyrgyzstana. The terms of the agreement were not made public. However, Global TimesquotedSlovo Kyrgyzstana editor-in-chief Elena Zholobova as saying the outlets could “jointly produce quality content that serves the interests of both countries’ readers.” The forum, held under the theme “Deepening China-Kyrgyzstan Media Cooperation, Building a Better Shanghai Cooperation Organization Future Together,” was co-hosted by the People’s Daily and Kyrgyz Tuusu Information Publishing Group, publisher of Kyrgyzstan’s Kyrgyz Tuusu newspaper, and drew nearly 100 media representatives, officials, scholars, and business figures from both countries. At the same event, the People’s Daily and Kyrgyz Tuusu Information Publishing Group signed a separate memorandum of understanding.
