[5] In the 1940s, high-ranking Communist Party officials in the Kazakh SSR planned to create a Uyghur autonomous oblast in a large part of the territory of modern-day Almaty Province.
However, as the intention of the government was to bring Xinjiang further into the Soviet orbit rather than afford local Uyghurs genuine autonomy, the plan was scrapped after the Communist victory in China in 1949.
[13] Few of the older Uyghur migrants retain personal cross-border links with relatives or friends in Xinjiang.
[14] Those who do generally try to avoid drawing Kazakhstani government attention to these links; for example, when their relatives from Xinjiang come to visit, they obtain visas on the pretext of being cross-border traders.
[18] In June 2011, a Uyghur schoolteacher fleeing Xinjiang police in Kazakhstan on terrorism charges was deported back to China, following a request from Interpol.
[16] The revival of the meshrep movement in Kazakhstan, which aimed to reinforce religious mores and "to unite Uyghur men... under a common ideology", quickly spread to China and became so politically potent that it was banned by the Xinjiang authorities.