Number of Kazakhs Moving from China to Kazakhstan Triples since 2025 and is Now Higher than at Any Point in the Last Decade

Paul Goble

Staunton, May 14 – During the first quarter of 2026, 1260 people emigrated from China to settle in Kazakhstan, 99.5 percent of whom ethnic Kazakhs, three times the number doing so in the same time period in 2025 and higher than at any other analogous period in the last decade.

As a result, China now represents the third largest source of immigration to Kazakhstan, behind only Uzbekistan from which 2275 resettled earlier this year and just behind the Russian Federation from which 1265 did (asia24.media/news/potok-pereselentsev-iz-kitaya-v-kazakhstan-utroilsya-v-pervom-kvartale/).

This pattern, one likely to continue, means that Kazakhstan will continue to become ever more Kazakh and that tensions between Astana and Beijing over the treatment of Kazakhs in the PRC are likely to decline given that there were soon be few Kazakhs or even none at all left there.****