From The Economist:
The Karasu Bazaar, just 200 metres from Kyrgyzstan‘s heavily patrolled frontier with Uzbekistan, is a bustling warren of trading stalls fashioned out of metal shipping containers stacked one on top of another. The wares on offer range from bicycles to television sets and cosmetics.
The haggling is done as it has been for years”in a mixture of Russian along with Kirgiz, Uzbek, Tajik and other tongues. But these days a new language can be heard in the commercial babble: Chinese.
Although the Chinese border is 260km (163 miles) away by road, that has not been an obstacle to the Chinese traders who make up the newest and fastest-growing presence at this Central Asian trading post, outside Kyrgyzstan’s second city of Osh. As elsewhere, China’s growing commercial force is penetrating the remote lands beyond its western border.[Full Text]
