An American historian refers to the Kazak herdsmen who lead a nomadic life
in the mountains, valleys and gobi in Tianshan and Altay as “the last nomads”
in China. During recent years, I traveled many times to the Kazak region in
northern Xinjiang to carry out field research. Each time I acquired a better
understanding of the nomadic life of the Kazak people there.
Kazak people in China are mainly distributed in Ili Kazak Autonomous Prefecture,
Tacheng Prefecture, Altay Prefecture, Mori Kazak Autonomous County, and Barkol
Kazak Autonomous County in northern Xinjiang, and in Aksay Kazak Autonomous
County in Gansu Province. They are also found along the Tianshan Mountains
in northern Xinjiang. These are herdsmen, farmers, and officials, workers,
and commercial service providers in cities.
It can be said that Kazak people are an important part of nomads in the Eurasian
Steppes. They have been living as nomads since ancient times. After the Kazakh
Kingdom was founded in the middle of the 15th century, these nomads were found
throughout the Tianshan Mountains, the Altay Mountains and the Central Asian
Steppe close to the Caspian Sea. Later on, the Kazakh Kingdom gradually declined
as a result of the aggression of the Junggar Kingdom and conflicts with other
ethnic groups in the Central Asian Steppe. Tsarist Russia expanded beyond
the Ural Mountains and the Volga River, thus accelerating the colonization
of Central Asia and causing the eventual fall of the Kazakh Kingdom. As a
result, most of the Kazak nomadic areas including the territories east and
south of Balkhash Lake that had been under the jurisdiction of China’s Qing
government were reduced to the colony of Tsarist Russia. In order to flee
the rule of Tsarist Russia, some Kazak people moved to Chinese territory.
Some other Kazak people fled from Russia to Xinjiang for various reasons.
After the Sino-Russian border was delineated in modern times, Kazak people
living in China became an ethnic minority of the country.
