Аннотация
Public opinion towards China in Central Asia is commonly framed as a story of backlash, driven by fears of land grabs, debt traps, and economic displacement. Focusing on Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan, we show that these factors do not structure attitudes as prevailing accounts suggest. Drawing on the Audience-Context-Cues (ACC) framework, we argue that views of Chinese engagement emerge from the interaction between individual predispositions, interpretations of material conditions, and exposure to competing narratives. We test five hypotheses using 32,650 observations from 14 nationally representative waves of the Central Asia Barometer from 2017 to 2023. The analysis relies on survey-weighted generalised linear models with country and wave fixed effects, controlling for demographic characteristics, region, ethnicity, employment status, and media consumption. We find that perceived economic benefits, especially employment creation and infrastructure improvements, are the most consistent and significant predictors of favourable attitudes towards China. By contrast, perceived economic risks, including concerns about debt dependency and land acquisition, have weak and uneven effects. Interestingly, geopolitical concerns, particularly fears that closer ties with China could strain relations with Russia, are some of the most robust predictors of negative sentiment. Rather than signalling backlash, attitudes reflect material gains and regional power dynamics.