ABSTRACT
Since 1978, the Kazak areas of northwestern China have been most deeply influenced by two powerful forces: internal Chinese policy, which increasingly expects conformity with national agendas by minorities like the Kazaks, and international developments, including the establishment of the independent Republic of Kazakstan in 1991. Previous chapters have charted some of the internal changes in Kazak areas of China, leading up to the more rapid pace of change in the 1990s. In this chapter we focus on the impact of the Republic of Kazakstan, which, for the first time in 300 years, offers Kazaks dispersed throughout the world an independent, Kazak-administered homeland.
