Anti-Kazakh sentiment

Anti-Kazakh sentiment, also known as anti-Kazakhism, Kazakhophobia and Kazakhphobia, encompasses a wide-ranging spectrum of hostile attitudes and expressions of negative feelings (e.g., fear, aversion, derision, suspiciousness, dislike, etc.), as well as overt/covert chauvinism and xenophobia, harmful stereotypes, deliberate sidelining or downplaying, and/or prejudice towards Kazakhs, Kazakhstan, and Kazakh culture. It has been built throughout history and, in some aspect, intertwined with (but not often associated to) Turkophobia and more commonly, anti-Mongolian sentiment.

While Kazakhstan and Mongolia share an intertwined history due to being connected via the Mongol Empire (mainly Golden Horde) and shared nomadic background, there had been some anti-Kazakh acts in the history.

In the 18th century, amidst the height of the conflict between Kazakh-led Kazakh Khanate and Oirat-led Dzungar Khanate, the Dzungars under Tsewang Rabtan caused a mass expulsion and ethnic cleansing of the Kazakhs in the eastern steppe, killing over 50% of Kazakh population in an event known as Barefooted Flight, a traumatic event still remembered in modern Kazakh history.^[1]

More recently, forward the end of the 20th century, as most communist regimes collapsed in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Kazakh minority in Mongolia suffered discrimination amidst Mongolia's transition to democracy, causing exodus among Kazakhs from Mongolia back to Kazakhstan.^[2][3] However, these discrimination incidents has largely been subsidised by the 21st century due to integration and shared nomadic heritage of Kazakhs and Mongols.^[4]

Following the First Sino–Kazakh War, as Qianlong Emperor of the Manchu-led Qing China accused Ablai Khan of sheltering Dzungar rebels, the Kazakhs were seen with suspicion by the Qing rulers, and as such, the Dzungar genocide also targeted Kazakhs as well, with an unknown but high portion of Kazakhs perished during the genocide.^[5][6][7] The Chinese would again wage another war against the Kazakhs a decade later, aiming to fully decimate the whole population of Kazakhs in the Dzungarian basin, before the Kazakh Khanate finally fell in 1782 and divided between Tsarist Russia and Qing China.^[6]

After the Treaty of Tarbagatai in 1864, which China ceded the entirety of eastern Kazakhstan to Russia, in order to manage the Kazakh nomads, Qing China forcibly imposed an exploitative attempt, limiting to just 1,000-family system on all Kazakh tribes.^[8]

The rise of Kuomintang and Chiang Kai-shek drastically altered the relations between Chinese and Kazakhs to negative, as Kazakhs saw Chinese warlords as all associated with Chinese nationalist agenda, causing multiple insurrection attempts like Kumul Rebellion to break out, resulted in violent reprisals by Han and Hui troops.^[9][10] Kazakhs fleeing from famine in the Soviet Union were also massacred by Chinese warlords as they were also seen as fifth column threatening Chinese state.^[11][9][10] Several Kazakhs figures like Osman Batur and Dalelkhan Sugirbayev had both fought for, and against, both the Republican and later Communist regimes.^[12][13] Thousands of Kazakh refugees fleeing from China and the Soviet Union ultimately would settle themselves in India, before the majority of them were airlifted to Turkey.^[14]

Kazakh livelihood was quickly decimated and undermined during the Yi–Ta incident and later Cultural Revolution, which many Kazakhs were killed or fled the country to the Soviet Union during the most tyrannical reign of Mao Zedong.^[15][16][17]

In modern days, Kazakhs are seen with suspicion by the Chinese government, despite Kazakhs of China lacking any similar militant activities seen among the Uyghurs; as for the result, more and more Kazakhs were thrown to Xinjiang internment camps and persecuted, causing many Kazakhs to flee to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, before moving to Europe.^[18]

Additionally, multiple Chinese nationalist articles have also, in several occasions, questioned Kazakhstan's existence as a state, and distortion of Kazakh history is common in China; Chinese state's response has been dubious, sometimes censoring stories or sometimes tolerating it if needed.^[19]

Russian distrust of Kazakhs has developed since the Golden Horde, the Turco-Mongol state that would codify modern Kipchaks, including the Kazakhs.

By 1782, the Kazakh Khanate had been split between Tsarist Russia and Qing China, and Russian policies became increasingly repressive on Kazakhs, causing various rebellions; the most popular of it had been the Kenesary's Rebellion led by Kenesary Kasymov, the last Khan of the resurrected Khanate, before it was violently crushed in 1847.^[20][21]

After the Tsarist regime announced military conscription of Kazakhs in 1916, as the World War I did not go well for the Russians, Kazakhs revolted as part of the Basmachi movement, until being brutally crushed by the Soviets in 1922; though anti-Soviet activities continued until 1931.^[22][23]

In retaliation for the Kazakh unrests against both the Tsarist and Soviet authorities, the Soviet regime of Joseph Stalin deliberately starved the Kazakhs twice, first during the 1920s, and second during the 1930s; the second was the most catastrophic of all, as more than 40% of Kazakhs perished during the famine.^[24][25] During the World War II, Kazakhs were disproportionally recruited by the Soviet regime to fight against the Nazi invasion, in which 10% of Kazakh population were also killed in the battlefield.^[26] Furthermore, Kazakhstan became the dumping ground for the Soviet nuclear programs, and the destruction of Aral Sea, further devastated the Kazakhs.^[27][28] To replace the lost Kazakh population, Stalin and subsequent Soviet leaders enabled demographic engineering, making Kazakh SSR the only Soviet state where the main titular people became minority of their own land, a situation that would not change until the Fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.^[29]

In modern history, relations between Russia and Kazakhstan tend to be cordial, but Russian whitewashing of Kazakh history has also persisted in some aspects. In 2014, Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, caused uproars in Kazakhstan for framing Kazakhstan as not having a nation until the fall of USSR.^[30] Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Kazakh minority in Russia and even Kazakhs from Kazakhstan have been forcibly coerced into the military service, where they suffer from maltreatment (including being deliberately made cannon fodders) by the Russian instructors.^[31][32]

Historically, relations between Kazakhs and Uzbeks were dictated via the two key Turkic tribes, Kipchaks and Karluks, and their relations had been fluctuated throughout history, ranging between cooperation and antagonism. In the 14th century, after Tokhtamysh grew increasingly powerful and antagonised Timur, the Kipchak–Karluk War broke out, which lasted until 1395, during which the Timurid Empire brutally destroyed much of the Golden Horde to a point the state never recovered.^[33][34][35]

In the 16th century, the Kipchak Shaybanids (the original Uzbeks) conquered Transoxiana from the Timurids and established the Khanate of Bukhara, but overtime, they underwent Karlukification and thus lost their Kipchak origins in favour for the more powerful Karluk identity, during which the Uzbek identity moved away from a Kipchak tribal confederation to become the Timurid-influenced elites of Central Asia (which was consolidated by the Janid dynasty), and reconciled with the Timurids of India (who were also referred occasionally as Uzbeks by European travellers).^{[36][37][38][39]} As such, their policies toward the Kazakh Khanate had become fluid ones; often the Karlukified Uzbek rulers and the Timurid Mughals perceived the Kazakhs as dangerous and troublesome, resulted in several wars like the Mughal invasion of Kazakh Khanate under Shah Jahan.^[40]

The Khanate of Kokand, which was also descended from the Karlukified Uzbeks, was infamously oppressive of the Kipchak Kyrgyz and Kazakhs, viewing them with disdain as the Kokandi Uzbek rulers considered themselves civilised while Kipchaks (including Kazakhs) as savage nomads. Muhammad Khudayar Khan ordered total persecution of all Kipchaks, be it Kazakhs or Kyrgyz, and to replace them with Karluk settlers.^[41][42][43]

During the time of the Soviet Union, Tashkent was the administration capital of Soviet Turkestan. As such, despite suffering from similar Russification policies, Uzbekistan enjoyed relatively more lenient treatments by the Soviet rulers due to the stronger and more persistent Uzbek domination demographically in the heartland; Uzbeks were often employed to govern other republics inside the USSR, notably in Kazakhstan, which had suffered from far more brutal and repressive policies by Moscow, causing resentment among Kazakhs that Uzbeks were unfairly given advantages by the Soviet regime.^{[44][45][46][47]}

Following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, newly independent Uzbekistan has treated Kazakh minority relatively better compared to other minorities at the countries; still, repressive policies and discrimination against Kipchak groups like Karakalpaks, Kazakhs and Kyrgyz are not uncommon and there have been accusation of Uzbek marginalisation of these minorities.^[48][49]

At the same time, Uzbeks make up a significant titular minority in southern Kazakhstan, and in 2020, a minor dispute escalated into a major brawl between young Uzbek and young Kazakh men in Qosmezgil village.^[50]

The Uyghurs, who are natives of Tarim Basin, supported Qing China and took part in mass genocide of the Kazakh and Kyrgyz nomads as part of the larger Dzungar genocide that targeted the Dzungars, as well as enslaving Kazakh women and converted them to their Karluk-based Uyghur identity; this event had contributed to the reason why Kazakhs had become minority in their own land today.^[5][6]

The Second East Turkestan Republic, which was based in Ili after the Ili Rebellion, was composed mostly of Kazakhs, but the leadership was overwhelmingly Uyghur and Uzbek-led under the Soviet direction, and Uyghurs increasingly dictated the affairs of the Kazakhs.^[51] This marginalisation triggered Osman Batur, the Kazakh leader, to side with the Republic of China to fight against the second Republic; while the Kuomintang authorities deliberately exploited this racial division to call for the Uyghurs of Tarim Basin to not back the second Republic by triggering antagonism between Uyghurs and Kazakhs.^[52]

In the Soviet Union, after Dinmukhamed Kunaev was removed from the position as Chairman of Kazakh SSR, the Uyghur Ismail Yusupov succeeded him and governed the territory between 1962 and 1964; his rule was deeply unpopular among Kazakhs as many Kazakh SSR territories were deliberately transferred to Uzbek SSR, and covert discrimination of Kazakh culture.^[53]

During the modern era, as the PRC intensified persecution on both Uyghurs and Kazakhs, the plight of Kazakh minority has been sidelined by the much larger and more militarised resistance of the Uyghurs.^[54][55]

Salars, who are Oghuz Turks but historically connected at many ways to China, having received Chinese names and were employed to the military since the Ming dynasty, had fought against the Kazakh Khanate and also taken part in the Dzungar genocide that saw Kazakhs and Kyrgyz also slaughtered and enslaved by Salar soldiers; Salars were later permitted to migrate to Xinjiang to repopulate the region following the mass extermination of Dzungars, Kazakhs and Kyrgyz due to colonisation policies of the Qing dynasty.^{[56][57][58][5][6][59][60]}

Han Youwen, an ethnic Salar general, commanded the Kuomintang's Salar (and variety of ethnicities) troops to fight against the Second East Turkestan Republic, which comprised of the majority Ili-based Kazakh force.^[61][52][62] He later defected to the communist side and fought against his former ally Osman Batur and the Kazakhs again after the proclamation of the People's Republic and re-annexation of Xinjiang.^[52][61][62]

Turkey and Azerbaijan have largely maintained friendly relations with Kazakhstan because of shared Turkic heritage, and Kazakhstan does back Turkey and Azerbaijan in several occasions relative to Organization of Turkic States' (OTS) stances. However, there have been accusations that Turkey and Azerbaijan have been trying to Oghuzify Turkic history, including sidelining Kazakh and wider Kipchak history into the backstage, as well as their alliances with Pakistan, whose policies have harmed Kazakh population of Afghanistan in process and caused a major refugee crisis that Kazakhstan has struggled to handle.^{[63][64][65][66][67][68]}

Following independence in 1991, Turkmenistan, which shares Oghuz bloodline with Turkey and Azerbaijan, has undergone autocratic regimes one after another, started by Saparmurat Niyazov, who triggered the Turkmenization program. As such, Kazakhs have been marginalised and forced to leave the country.^[69] Persecution of Kazakhs in Turkmenistan has been ongoing under the Presidency of Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow and his son Serdar Berdimuhamedow, and Kazakh minority leaderships often face harassment and persecution by the regime.^[70][71] There are currently no Kazakh-language school in Turkmenistan due to this extensive state-sponsored discrimination.^[72]

The Kazakh minority of Iran has largely been assimilated to the Iranian society. However, due to the economic mismanagement, overuse of natural resources by the Islamic Republic, and widespread repression, many Kazakhs have fled Iran since the 1990s.^[73][74]

Kazakh minority in Tajikistan is closely related to that of the larger Kyrgyz minority in the country, and like those compatriots in Iran, have also been integrated to the wider society of Tajikistan, whose population are majority overwhelmingly Persianate and Iranian.^[75][76] However, Kazakhstan's position tended to be favourable to the Kyrgyz due to shared Kipchak origin (via the OTS); as for the result, when border clashes occurred between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan in 2021 and 2022, Kazakh minority had also been attacked and discriminated by the Tajik authorities.^{[77][78][79][80][81]}

Kazakhs, alongside Kyrgyz and Hazaras, have suffered repeated violent persecution by the Pashtun-led Taliban throughout history, often due to their allegiance to the earlier Northern Alliance (which Kazakhstan itself supported) during the 1996–2001 Afghan Civil War.^[82] Subsequently, once the Taliban resumed its powerbase and retook Kabul in 2021, Kazakhs, alongside Kyrgyz, were deliberately targeted by the Taliban leadership out of old grievances; many Kazakh refugees have also struggled to find way to Kazakhstan as Astana is, in many aspects, not in a strong position to antagonise Russia and China (whose relations with Taliban have been friendly post-2021).^{[83][84][85][86]}

Pakistan, long accused for sponsoring terrorism and once enthusiastic backer of Taliban, has also been accused of maltreating Afghan Kazakh refugees, as the relations between Pakistan and Taliban deteriorated after initial optimism; many Afghan Kazakhs were forcibly evicted back to Afghanistan by Pakistani authorities with inadequate supplies and devoid of protection.^[87][88]

Ever since the independence of Kazakhstan in 1991, a significant portion of Kazakh migrants, many of them ethnic Koreans, have arrived to South Korea; however, the country's lack of anti-racist policies, and these Kazakhs' poor Korean language skills, meant many of them have been forced to work in "3D" (dirty, dangerous, and difficult) jobs. As such, it has also resulted in many of these Kazakhs being marginalised by the Korean society.^{[89][90][91][92]}

Borat, the British-American film in 2006 and starred Sacha Baron Cohen, had been harshly criticised by Kazakhs as racist and xenophobic for making description of Kazakhstan as some forms of a backward, underdeveloped country with an ignorant population.^[93]

Although being a Kipchak Turkic people, but due to their stronger and deeper Asiatic appearance given their links to Mongols and nomadic culture, the term "Mongoloid" as a pejorative still pervades many cultures today, with stereotypes of Kazakhs as being Mongols with superstitious alcoholics, barbaric savages, and lack of devotion to Islam.^[94][95][96]

Additionally, the Kazakh term "Shala Kazakh" is also used with pejorative meaning regarding the Kazakhs that have lost their identities and assimilated to other non-Kazakh, non-Kipchak identities, mainly toward Russians but also other ethnicities like Uzbeks, Dungans, Mongols, Han Chinese, and Afghans.^[97][98]

• Tatarophobia
• Anti-Russian sentiment
• Anti-Turkish sentiment
• Anti-Hungarian sentiment
• Anti-Mongolian sentiment
• Anti-Chinese sentiment
• Anti-Afghan sentiment
• Anti-Pakistani sentiment