Professional China-basher Gordan Chang, ever forecasting that a popular uprising against the Chinese Communist Party is just around the corner, published a rant in The Hill two days ago declaring that protests in Kazakhstan could become “a challenge” to Chinese President Xi Jinping which he may not be able to handle, should the unrest spread “across the 1,060-mile China-Kazakh border into the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, where ethnic Kazakhs live.” Similarly, the Wall Street Journal focused on the Kazakhstan-Xinjiang ethnic overlap, and ethnic fault-lines in Central Asia generally, in its article yesterday citing Heritage Foundation idiots confident that conflicts between China, Russia, and the Central Asian nations can be provoked. Author Yaroslav Trofimov wrote:
“Although all Central Asian states are, to varying degrees, wary of Russia, their former colonial power, China is usually eyed with an even greater suspicion. While no Central Asian government dared to openly criticize Beijing for its repression of ethnic Uyghurs, Kazakhs and Kyrgyz in Xinjiang, it is an issue that reverberates within public opinion, particularly in Kazakhstan. The country is home to hundreds of thousands of ethnic Uyghurs who had migrated from China since the 19th century and has also resettled more than 100,000 ethnic Kazakhs from Xinjiang in the past three decades. In recent years, there have been several protests over Xinjiang outside China’s diplomatic missions in Kazakhstan.”
