For the some 150 people in the tiny Tajik village of Khumgaron, the pollution and waste from the Chinese gold-mining operation nearby is not what they bargained for.
“How will we live if the air and water are polluted?” asked one villager. “What meaning does life have when a person loses their health?”
Fed up with the severe pollution in their village caused by the Zarafshon mining company, a group of angry women traveled to the nearby city of Panjakent last year to file an official complaint on behalf of the village.
But instead of the local officials promising to look into the issue, the women say they were taken to the police station and harshly warned to stop criticizing the sprawling Chinese mining project near their village.
The women, who spoke to RFE/RL on condition of anonymity, say the intimidation has been effective and many villagers are still afraid to voice their grievances about the nearby gold mine.
Ever since the Chinese-run gold mine started operating in western Tajikistan in 2007, villagers say government officials have turned a blind eye to growing air, water, and land pollution in the area — on land they say the mining company is using without their permission.
This situation near Tajikistan’s remote northwestern border with Uzbekistan provides an up-close look at how Dushanbe’s growing economic reliance on Chinese investment is playing out on the ground, where Chinese firms are tapping into the country’s vast mineral wealth while receiving impunity and preferential treatment from the Tajik government.
A monthslong RFE/RL investigation on four Chinese-run projects in Tajikistan — including three mining ventures — highlights this pattern.
Stolen Land?
A resident who asked to remain anonymous showed RFE/RL property deeds in her name for farmland where the Chinese mining operation has built refineries for the gold they extract.
She says this was done without her permission and she has neither been compensated nor received an official response despite raising the issue with Panjakent officials several times. Other villagers make the same claim.
While locals living near these multimillion-dollar investments grapple with environmental degradation and health concerns stemming from the chemicals used in the vast mining and agricultural projects, Tajik officials protect the Chinese companies from public scrutiny because China is Tajikistan’s main source of foreign investment.
In the case of the Zarafshon mine, which accounts for 70 percent of the gold mined in Tajikistan, officials at various levels of government who spoke with RFE/RL — including a high-ranking Environmental Protection Committee official — praised the company and defended their support for Chinese companies.
They pointed to the firms’ economic importance in the investment-starved country and dismissed complaints about environmental pollution.
Tajik President Emomali Rahmon also put his stamp of approval on the Zarafshon plant when he visited it in July 2023.
Please Don’t Go
But the high-level official from the Tajik Environmental Protection Committee, the country’s main environmental agency, told RFE/RL on condition of anonymity that the state body has been ordered to turn a blind eye to any environmental or health issues stemming from the Zarafshon mine.
“We also have complaints about environmental pollution, but if we put too much pressure on Zarafshon or increase inspections and fines, the Chinese investor may leave Tajikistan,” he said. “This would be very harmful for our economy because [the Chinese company] produced some 2.2 billion somoni ($201 million) worth of [gold] in six months of 2023.”
He added that Tajikistan’s gross domestic product (GDP) in that period was 54 billion somonis ($4.9 billion).
“So imagine the harm that the firm’s failure would cause the country’s economy,” he said.
The official said the taxes levied on the gold mine make up a large part of the budget of Sughd Province, where the mine is located, and that officials don’t want to jeopardize this crucial source of revenue by issuing fines for pollution or allowing public criticism to mount.
“If we end the mining operations, the budget will lose millions of dollars,” he said.
The official said a similar dynamic exists at other Chinese-run projects that were investigated by RFE/RL, including a gold mine in Pokrud; a lead, zinc, and copper mining site in Zarnisor; and a cotton farming venture in western Tajikistan.
“There is currently no other option but to put up with this situation [of the Chinese companies polluting the environment],” he added.
A New Dependency
The poorest country in Central Asia, Tajikistan’s economy has struggled over the years as it has grappled with the fallout from a devastating civil war in the 1990s and has relied on Russia…
Read More: Chinese Mining Operations in Tajikistan Spark Environmental Backlash