The story of the Xinjiang Kazakhs: silent suffering along the Belt and Road8 min read
Relations between Kazakhstan and China are deepening fast. As a linchpin in Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, Astana hopes to pluck the fruits of this global infrastructure development strategy, which aims to boost overland trade connections between East and West. However, China’s treatment of ethnic Kazakhs in the Xinjiang province, the region’s second-largest Turkic community after the Uyghurs, remains a sensitive subject that is complicating further rapprochement between the two countries.
On a cold winter’s day in February 1997, thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of the city of Yining, known to locals as Ghulja, in China’s Xinjiang province to protest against growing ethnic discrimination and religious repression. As the demonstration grew in strength, people started chanting “God is great!” and “Independence for Xinjiang!”. Chinese security forces soon mobilised and cracked down on the crowd, killing dozens and arresting hundreds. The exact casualty figures of the massacre remain unknown. The 1997 Ghulja incident is now looked upon as a precursor to the brutality against the predominantly Muslim population in China’s westernmost region.
Nearly three decades later, tensions are still palpable in Yining. Travelling through the city, there is a distinct presence of CCTV cameras and police patrols on the streets. Important intersections in the downtown area are overseen by well-equipped Chinese soldiers next to armoured vehicles with mounted machine guns. They appear suspicious of people taking pictures of the local street life and seem uncomfortable with foreigners freely roaming about a region where, according to most observers, China is perpetrating grave crimes against humanity. Several countries have also accused Beijing of committing genocide, though some human rights groups contend that there is insufficient evidence to support this qualification.
One of the targeted communities are the Xinjiang Kazakhs, the region’s second-largest ethnic minority after the Uyghurs. Because of their mostly Turkic-Muslim background, the Chinese authorities see them as a threat to the state ideal of creating a homogeneous nation, united under the red banner of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In accordance with a policy of “preventative repression”, Beijing has sought to dilute the province’s demographic makeup through the state-sponsored in-migration of Han Chinese and has invested heavily in surveillance technology and infrastructure while building an enormous network of so-called re-education camps.
A short history of repression
After the takeover of Xinjiang by the CCP in the waning days of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, the position of the Kazakhs in the region steadily grew worse. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Mao Zedong implemented his Great Leap Forward, which caused tens of thousands of local Uyghurs and Kazakhs to defect to Soviet Central Asia.
The exodus coincided with a gradual deterioration of relations between Moscow and Beijing. The Soviets launched a propaganda offensive against China, promoting the migration of minority groups while trying to destabilise Chinese authority over Xinjiang by appealing to separatist movements. The local Soviet consulate enabled the emigration of ethnic minorities by issuing passports.
When Beijing found out, they stopped distributing exit visas, which sparked fears among local Kazakhs and other minorities of being cut off from their kin in the USSR. A resulting demonstration was brutally put down, encouraging thousands of others to flee as well. Eventually, in 1962, the Sino-Soviet border was closed after between 60 and 100 thousand had left, and remained so for most of the Cold War.
Isolated from the outside world, the economic situation in Xinjiang worsened, while elsewhere the “Chinese economic miracle” was just gaining steam. Uneven regional development, combined with interethnic tensions due to the continued inflow of Han Chinese settlers, eventually resulted in a wave of separatist terrorism in the 1990s and 2000s, followed by a ruthless clampdown on the region by Chinese authorities. This eventually culminated in the ongoing Strike Hard Campaign against Violent Terrorism, which started in 2014.
Atajurt Eriktileri (Homeland Volunteers), a Kazakhstan-based human rights organisation in the forefront of advocating for the release of ethnic kin in Xinjiang, has documented thousands of cases of ethnic Kazakhs who have been incarcerated in China without a trial. Although the number of imprisoned Kazakhs is much smaller than the several hundred thousand Uyghurs currently detained in prison camps, Atajurt has done most to highlight the plight of all ethnic minorities in Xinjiang.
Yet, as China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) brings a surge of investment into Kazakhstan, deepening ties between the two countries place Astana in a delicate position amid domestic concerns over the repression of the Xinjiang Kazakhs.
Crossroads Khorgos
About a hundred kilometres by road to the northwest of Yining, on the Chinese side of the Sino-Kazakh border, lies Khorgos. This newly planned town with a skyline that, from a distance, rivals that of any major European city, is part of a recently created special economic zone. It includes a massive area full of highways, warehouses, manufacturing sites, residential areas for workers and their families, and a duty-free shopping zone.
Khorgos is key to Beijing’s BRI. This multi-billion infrastructure development strategy, colloquially known as the New Silk Road, aims to expand China’s economic and political influence around the globe by boosting trade connections between East and West. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, as well as heightened instability in the wider Middle East, the route passing through Khorgos – the shortest overland transport route to Europe – has rapidly grown in importance.
That strategic relevance is also visible on the Kazakh side of the border. Here, Khorgos transforms from a geopolitical pivot into a logistical hub. The importance of Khorgos lies in the fact that the Chinese operate with a different track gauge, so any rail transport making its way to Europe has to change trains here. This happens just inside Kazakhstan, on a vast asphalted harbour-like complex, surrounded by barbed wire fence and dense with brightly-coloured shipping containers, towering cranes, and a warren of railway tracks.
This infrastructure, together with additional roads and railways for onward transport, has been financed with Chinese loans. Critics of the BRI have voiced concerns about what they call “debt-trap diplomacy”. This alleged strategy, however, has been repeatedly disproven by experts. In the case of Kazakhstan, Nargiza Muratalieva, associate professor at the American University of Central Asia, states that “[s]trong institutions, public understanding, a diversified loan portfolio, and sustainable projects” allow Kazakhstan to effectively manage its debt.
That is not to say there are no risks to deepening economic ties with China. China is facing considerable economic challenges, as it struggles with deflation and an ageing population. These internal problems could easily spillover into BRI countries. Should Kazakhstan continue to take on BRI-related investments in the long term, infrastructure projects like Khorgos might become a liability.
Views on China
China has come to recognise growing unease over its expanding economic footprint in Kazakhstan. Beijing has responded by promoting soft power initiatives, especially through boosting educational and cultural exchanges and increasing the production of Kazakh language content through Chinese media outlets. These efforts are aimed at moving beyond the elite-level political and economic ties China previously depended upon.
So far, this strategy has not been very successful. Apart from economic concerns, the (mis)treatment of ethnic kin in Xinjiang continues to influence public opinion on China in Kazakhstan. Over the past few years, several demonstrations have been organised to protest against China’s Xinjiang policy.
Meanwhile, Kazakhstan’s government under President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has been mostly silent on this issue. Although the resettlement of several thousand ethnic kin from China has given the impression that Astana is trying to address the situation with Beijing, the country’s political leadership carefully avoids direct criticism. Tragic but true, the pursuit of economic interests undercuts any meaningful response to human rights abuses on the other side of the border.
The awarded reportage Kazakhstan-Xinjiang, the Border of Tears describes how many Kazakh survivors, upon their return to Kazakhstan, face indifference with regard to their experiences in China: “All the violence they have endured is not recognised, and seems to exist only in their private lives: denied by the Kazakh authorities, generally ignored by civil society, invisible to the medical community.”
In recent years, Astana has tried to actively thwart activists and grassroots organisations concerned with the suffering of Xinjiang Kazakhs. Most notably, in 2019, Atajurt Eriktileri’s founder and frontman Serikzhan Bilash was charged for inciting inter-ethnic hatred and arrested. When he was released after seven months of detention, he was forced to leave Kazakhstan. Attempts by his organisation to enter national politics were obstructed by the authorities, and little has been heard about these efforts.
The BRI paradox
To pre-empt domestic unrest linked to China’s Xinjiang policy, Kazakhstan’s government is committed to making the BRI work. The latest Central Asia Barometer shows a correlation between the current boom in trade between China and Kazakhstan and more favourable views on China, especially among the youth. This finding reveals a striking paradox. Kazakhstan’s growing economic dependence on China could be softening Sinophobic sentiment – even as the BRI facilitates the repression of Muslims in Xinjiang, a cause that has provoked outrage among Kazakhs.
In China, BRI projects have gone hand-in-hand with a sharpening of security measures. The new highway connecting Khorgos with Yining, for example, is strewn with police checkpoints, and at airports and train stations throughout Xinjiang security controls are strict and time-consuming. The Chinese government has long perceived the expression of minority identity as an obstacle to regional development and worked to pacify separatist resistance.
Scholars have argued that the economic benefits of BRI-related infrastructure development befall disproportionately upon the non-local Han Chinese population, while the ethnic minorities of Xinjiang have played a significant role in the workforce behind BRI projects — possibly under conditions that amount to forced labour. If true, these findings would suggest that the promise of the BRI would sooner increase than diminish regional inequalities.
Ultimately, managing the fine line between fostering economic development and addressing human rights issues leaves Kazakhstan in a tricky situation. The ongoing struggles of ethnic Kazakhs in China highlight the significant tensions that form a major obstacle for further rapprochement between Kazakhstan and China.
