Kazakhs in China are one of the many peoples living in this country. They are less nomadic than other national minorities. Traditionally, livestock are earning a living. Only a small number of them settled and engaged in agricultural production.
Most Kazakhs are Muslims. Since they are part of a multinational state, researchers are studying a number of problems related to the development of this nation. Of no small importance, in particular, is the question of how many Kazakhs live in China. Also important is the problem of maintaining national identity and self-awareness.
Resettlement geography
The number of Kazakhs in China is about 1.5 million people. This equals 13% of the total number of all representatives of this people in the world (more than 12 million of them live in Kazakhstan).
Kazakhs made up about 9% of the Xinjiang population in the 1940s, and only 7% at present. They live mainly in the north and northwest of it. Most of them are settled in three autonomous regions - Ili, Mori and Burkin and in the villages around Urumqi. The territory in the vicinity of the Tien Shan Mountains is considered their homeland. Some people live in the provinces of Gansu and Qinghai. The largest Kazakh tribes in China are the Kerei, Naiman, Kezai, Alban and Suwan.
They settled mainly in Altai Prefecture, Ili-Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, as well as in the Mulei and Balikun Autonomous Districts in Ili, northern Xinjiang. A small number of this nationality is located in the Haisi-Mongolo-Tibet Autonomous Region in Qinghai, as well as in the Aksai Kazakh Autonomous Region, Gansu Province.
Origin
The history of Kazakhs in China goes back to very old times. The inhabitants of the Middle Kingdom consider them to be descendants of the Usun people and Turks, whose ancestors, in turn, were the Khitan (nomadic Mongol tribes), who migrated to western China in the XII century.
Some are sure that they are representatives of the Mongol tribe, which grew up in the XIII century. They were part of the nomads who spoke Turkic languages, separated from the Uzbek kingdom and migrated east in the 15th century. They come from the Altai Mountains, Tien Shan, Ili Valley and Issyk-Kul Lake in the northwestern part of China and Central Asia. The Kazakhs were one of the first to move along the Silk Road.
Start
There are many records in the history of the country about the origin of ethnic Kazakhs in China. For more than 500 years, as Zhang Qian of the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC - 25 AD) went as a special envoy to Usun in 119 BC. e., in the valley of the Ili River and around Issyk-Kul, mainly Usuns lived - the Sayzhun and Yuesi tribes, the ancestors of the Kazakhs. In 60 BC e. The Han Dynasty government created Duhufu (a local government) in Western China, seeking to form an alliance with Usun and oppose the Huns together. Therefore, a vast territory from the east and south of Lake Balkhash to the Pamirs was included in the territory of China.
In the middle of the VI century, Turkmens founded the Turkic Khanate in the mountains of Altai. As a result, they mingled with the Usun people, and the descendants of the Kazakhs later with nomadic or semi-nomadic Uyghurs, Khitan, Naimans and Mongols of the Kipchak and Jagatai khanates. The fact that some of the tribes in the following centuries retained the names Usun and Naiman proves that the Kazakhs in China are an ancient ethnic group.
Middle Ages
At the beginning of the XIII century, when Genghis Khan went west, the Usun and Naiman tribes were also forced to move. Kazakh pastures were part of the Kipchak and Yagatai khanates of the Mongol Empire. In the 1460s, some shepherds in the lower Syr Darya, led by Dzhilaya and Zanibek, returned to the Chukhe river valley south of Lake Balkhash. Then they mingled with the displaced south Uzbeks and the settled Mongols of the Jagatay Khanate. As the population grew, they expanded their pastures northwest of Balkhash in the Chu River valley and to Tashkent, Andijan and Samarkand in Central Asia, gradually turning into an ethnic group of Kazakhs.
Forced relocations in the New Time
From the middle of the 18th century, tsarist Russia began to invade Central Asia and absorb Kazakh meadows and areas east and south of Lake Balkhash, part of China. In the second half of the XIX century, the Middle and Small hordes and the western branch of the Great Horde were cut off from the country. From 1864 to 1883, the tsarist government and Qing signed a series of treaties on the delimitation of the Sino-Russian border. Many Mongols, Kazakhs and Kirghiz returned to the territory controlled by China. Twelve Kazakh clans grazing herds near Lake Zhaysan in 1864 transported their animals south of the Altai Mountains. More than 3, 000 families moved to Ili and Bortalu in 1883. Many followed suit after delimiting the border.
The Uprising during the 1911 revolution overthrew the Qing rule in Xinjiang. However, this did not shake the foundations of the feudal system, as field commanders Yang Zengxin, Jin Shuren and Sheng Shikai gained control of the region. More than 200, 000 Kazakhs fled to China from Russia after the uprising due to the call of young people for forced labor in 1916. They moved even more during the revolution and during the period of forced collectivization in the Soviet Union.
Modern history
The Chinese Communist Party began revolutionary activities among the Kazakhs in 1933. Fearing a possible encroachment on their feudal privileges, the rulers of the ethnic group boycotted the creation of schools, the development of agriculture, and other events. Under the rule of the commander Sheng Shikai, some Kazakhs in China were forced to leave their homes, while others, due to threats and deceit from the leaders from 1936 to 1939, moved to Gansu and Qinghai. There, many of them were robbed and killed by the warlord Ma Bufang. He sowed discord between Kazakhs, Mongols and Tibetans and incited them to fight with each other. This led to the uprising in 1939.
The inhabitants of Gansu and Qinghai until the national liberation of China in 1949 led a largely nomadic life. In the 1940s, many Kazakhs participated in the armed struggle against the Kuomintang. After the establishment of communist power, they actively resisted attempts to force them to live in cattle-breeding communities. According to some reports, in 1962, about 60, 000 Kazakhs fled to the Soviet Union. Others crossed the border of India and Pakistan or received political asylum in Turkey.
Religious views
Kazakhs in China are Sunni Muslims. However, it cannot be said that Islam plays a very important role for them. This is due to the nomadic way of life, animistic traditions, remoteness from the Muslim world, close contacts with the Russians and the suppression of Islam under Stalin and the Chinese Communists. Scientists believe that the lack of strong Islamic sentiment is explained by the Kazakh code of honor and law - the adat, who was more practical for the steppe than Islamic Sharia law.
