Curious how this unrest can happen, like a switch was flipped, given the circumstances on the other Russian border country with Ukraine. Coincidental timing if nothing else, right?
Also, I find it amusing that the West is always mentioned as potential factor, yet the bigger picture is rarely mentioned: Kazakhstan is a resource rich country with low population, sandwiched between two countries with huge ambition. China has much stake in Kazakhstan as any other countries, and probably more.
Remember also that Kazakhstan's largest city (and former capital in 2019), Almaty, is located by the Southern border. In an effort to curb this black market, the domestic price of gas raised much closer to the global market rate. Not surprisingly, the unrest was most violent and most well organized in Almaty.
There is also an undercurrent of ethnic conflict between the ethnic Kazakh people and the ethnic Russia population. The former government has been working to switch from the Cyrillic alphabet to the Latin one, sending out language police to ensure businesses don't do business in Russian, and probably most importantly, talking to the US to establish US air bases.
> talking to the US to establish US air bases
I haven't read about this anywhere, but it sounds highly important considering Russia just sent in their troops. Do you have sources for these two claims?