China business briefing: Not happy with Kyrgyzstan, 3 November 2020

...During the unrest that followed legislative elections in Kyrgyzstan on October 4 – stoked by [Kyrgyzstan’s acting leader Sadyr Japarov] who was sprung from jail amid the chaos and proceed to seize all levers of power – Chinese businesses were targeted for shakedowns nationwide, at times accompanied by violence, a security contractor said: Women were threatened with rape, men were savagely beaten and the Chinese flag set alight. On October 6, 35 Chinese executives fled to a hotel in Bishkek, only to be surrounded by an armed mob seeking ransom. Elsewhere, over 100 Chinese workers spent that night in a snowy forest after fleeing a mob that had occupied their mine. The next day, men wielding Kalashnikovs visited the Chinese oil refinery in Kara-Balta demanding a $350,000 protection fee, threatening to set the plant on fire. When hundreds of protesters surrounded the plant, the men with AKs were paid, the source said...