The first time Tasken competed on the TV show The Voice of China, the Chinese version ofAmerica’s Got Talent, he didn’t get through to the second round.But the second time, he sang the song “A Lovely Rose” in Chinese. The judges were so impressed, they asked him to sing it in his native language – Kazakh. Kazakhs in China The second largest Turkic Muslim group in Xinjiang, with 1.5 million people, Kazakhs in China have a long tradition of pastoral herding between high-elevation summer pastures and lower-elevation winter pastures on the northern fringes of the Heavenly Mountains (Tian Shan). But in recent decades, a combination of state policies and the sense of lack which accompanies rapidly imposed development has radically transformed their way of life.Their rangeland was gradually seized by the Production and Construction Corps, a paramilitary established by agricultural Han in China’s border areas as land reclamation and irrigation projects were geared to secure the Chinese-Soviet frontier. This has led many Kazakhs into a more sedentary existence in government housing in small villages, and following the …