In the weeks running up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, amongst the stories of Tibetan protesters’ attempts to intercept the Olympic torch, were a series of stories concerning another set of protests against the Chinese government. These protests were different, however; they took the form, claimed the Chinese authorities, of violent, terroristic action. The Chinese claimed that the perpetrators of these plots, including several plots to kidnap athletes at the games, were Uyghur separatists, demanding their own state in Xinjiang, China’s westernmost province. Overshadowed by the Tibetan protests in the Western media, this story quickly faded from the headlines. These plots, however, were only some of hundreds of reported actions by Uyghur separatists in the last 15 years.
The Uyghurs are a Turkic and traditionally Islamic people, who mostly live in China’s westernmost province, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). Xinjiang is geographically diverse, sparsely populated and larger than Western Europe. Whilst much of its area is covered by the infamous Gobi and Taklimakan Deserts, mountains and steppe, there are extremely fertile pockets, such as the Turpan Depression, and several major cities, notably Urumqi and Kashgar. It is populated by a number of national ‘minority groups’ of which the Uyghurs are the largest, numbering 8.3 million according to the Chinese 2000 census, but also including Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Tatars, Kazakhs, Hui and Iranians. The Uyghurs were originally a nomadic, steppe people who moved into the region from Mongolia in the 8th century CE, although some Uyghurs also claim descent from the Indo-European Tocharian people who had inhabited the region since the 3rd millennium BCE. Periodically under Chinese domination, they nevertheless had numerous periods of independence, most notably controlling a Uyghur state which dominated Xinjiang from the 9th to 13th centuries CE. In the 14th and 15th centuries, the Uyghurs converted to Islam.
In the 1750s, the Chinese Qing Empire annexed much of the region, giving it the name Xinjiang, translatable as “New Frontier”. Before this, the region had numerous names, including East Turkestan, the preferred name of the region today for Uyghur political groups. The weakening of the Qing Empire in the mid-19th century led to a Uyghur rebellion and the effective independence of the region between 1864 and 1877. Similarly, with the collapse of Chinese central government in the 1930s a series of Uyghur rebellions established the First (1933-4) and Second (1944-9) East Turkestan Republics, the second in particular being under heavy Soviet influence. In 1949, the Communist People’s Liberation Army (PLA) entered Xinjiang in an act seen as a peaceful liberation by the Chinese government and an invasion by Uyghur nationalists. Since this time, Xinjiang has been under the rule of the Chinese government.
The importance of Xinjiang to China in economic and strategic terms cannot be understated. For a quick comparison, the GDP of Xinjiang in 2008 was 420 bn RMB (£30 bn), whereas Tibet’s was 39.6 bn RMB (£2.86 bn). This figure has doubled from 220 bn RMB (£14.3 bn) since 2004, such has been the level of recent investment in the region. Xinjiang is also an important area for trade with Pakistan and Central Asia, and the region’s mineral resources are considerable - for example, it has China’s largest copper mine. But most important to China are the oil and natural gas resources of Xinjiang, estimated to total 20.6 billion tons of oil and 10.5 trillion cubic metres of natural gas, 40% of China’s total reserves. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Xinjiang is crucial to China’s future energy policy, since not only does it have its own reserves to offer, but also the oil and gas reserves from Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Pipelines from these countries feed into the major West-East pipeline between Xinjiang and Shanghai, further increasing the importance of controlling the region. Considering China’s growing hydrocarbon dependence as a motor for its industrial expansion, it is hard to overstate the importance of Xinjiang.
Intimately linked to Chinese economic policy in Xinjiang is the region’s strategic importance. Historically, control of Xinjiang was vital to the security of the rest of China, with the result that Chinese involvement in the region stretches back as far as the Han Dynasty, second imperial dynasty of China (202 BCE- 220 CE). Historic precedents are explicitly cited by the Chinese government with reference to their policies in Xinjiang. The strategic importance of the region is now more vital than ever, in the face of first Soviet and now US strategic encirclement due to both powers’ involvement in Central Asia and in Afghanistan. The unusual organisation known as the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC) is probably the best example of the close links between Chinese economic and strategic policy in the region. The XPCC was founded in 1954 from demobilised PLA and Kuomintang soldiers with the explicit double aim of economically developing Xinjiang and defending it from foreign powers. Indeed, a Chinese government paper on the corps states that “the XPCC adheres to the principle of attaching equal importance to production and militia duties”. The XPCC, in essence, resembles a gigantic kibbutz, using its largely ex-military personnel to combine economic and military functions in one organisation.
The Chinese government claims that its economic development programmes in Xinjiang have greatly benefitted the Uyghurs economically. In 1950, the majority industry in Xinjiang was still subsistence agriculture; today, heavy industry provides 86% of the region’s GDP. Per capita income across all the ethnic autonomous regions has doubled since 1994, and the numbers of schools and hospital beds have risen by five times and 67 times respectively since 1952, according to the Chinese government. Infrastructure, too, has massively improved, with Xinjiang’s major cities now being linked by modern highways, and by a rail line from Kashgar to the rest of China.
In contrast, however, to the Chinese picture of sustained economic development for the Uyghurs, there have been significant concerns raised about the human rights situation in Xinjiang. Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International (AI) have published reports on the situation in Xinjiang, and the US and UK governments have iterated concerns about human rights in the region. Xinjiang is home to a number of the notorious ‘black prisons’, where Chinese legal codes do not apply and torture is widespread. Xinjiang is also the only area of China where executions are still carried out for political crimes - over 200 people were executed for this between 1997 and 1999, according to Amnesty International. Broadly speaking, accusations against the Chinese Government fall into three categories - of Chinese failure to distinguish between peaceful protest and separatism; of Chinese attempts to restrict Uyghur civil and religious life; and of Chinese attempts to change the demographic makeup of Xinjiang.
Of these three accusations, Chinese repression of Uyghur dissent is perhaps the easiest to prove. The Committee Secretary of the Xinjiang Communist Party, Wang Lequan, stated in January 2001, “our media absolutely does not allow any noise that counteracts the party’s voice”. The definition of dissent as a political crime can be spread very wide indeed- for example, the son of the prominent Uyghur exile Rebiya Kadeer was arrested and apparently tortured for asking to post Uyghur-language articles on Yahoo, an activity which was “instigating and engaging in secessionist activities”, according to the Chinese government. During the 2001 ‘Strike Hard’ anti-crime campaign, Chinese judicial officials were ordered to “clear up cases quickly”. For example, in Atush, Akqi and Aqto counties, two people received death sentences for “sabotaging social stability”- a catch-all category under the Chinese legal system for non-specific offences. Other such offences include “inciting the masses to illegally rally and demonstrate”, considered a political, separatist crime. It has been reported that, in addition, listening to Radio Free Asia or discussing grievances in public are punishable by prison sentences. In essence, the Chinese government has made discussion of the political situation in Xinjiang an activity which cannot be conducted in public.
Chinese policy towards the Uyghurs goes deeper, however, than limitations on freedom of expression. There is considerable evidence that since the mid-1990s the Chinese government has attempted to restrict the traditional social and religious life of the Uyghurs. Chinese laws requiring all social and religious non-profit organisations to register with the government, and criminalising all unregistered organisations allow the government a method to regulate and, if desired, criminalise all social life. These rules allowed for the closure of numerous associations in “rectification drives” in the 1990s and 2000s- for example, between 1996 and 1999, 131 of the 250 associations in the city of Urumqi were shut down. Similarly, these laws have allowed the Chinese government to implement controls on religious life- for example, in 1994 traditional meshrep community meetings were outlawed under its provisions. Furthermore, the banning of unauthorised religious worship has been used to enforce repeated campaigns to get Xinjiang’s Islamic clergy to support the Communist party. For example, in June 1997 Abdulahat Abdurixit, chairman of the Xinjiang government, stated that religious leaders should “educate the broad masses of believers to love their country… and make new contributions to social stability.” The consequences of the campaign in which this statement was made were stark. For example, between 1995 and 1997 in the Ili prefecture in the north of Xinjiang, 105 scripture classes and 133 mosques were shut down, and 40 people arrested. More recently, since 2001 8,000 village imams have had to attend annual “political re-education” courses, in which they must listen to political speeches and take part in “exchange of experience” sessions, in which they must describe mistakes which they have made in their work. This tactic is reminiscent of the “patriotic education campaign” of Buddhist clergy in Tibet, and of the Maoist self-criticism sessions of the Cultural Revolution.
A final charge levelled against the Chinese Government, is that it is attempting to change the ethnic make-up of Xinjiang. The level of Han immigration into Xinjiang became clear with the 2000 census, which stated that 41% of Xinjiang’s population was now Han Chinese, up from approximately 6% in 1950. The Chinese government claims that these migrants have been attracted by the prospect of a new life and building up Xinjiang economically. However, for the last 30 years or so the Chinese government has been offering economic and career incentives to economic migrants to the region, and before this forcibly compelled Han Chinese to migrate. The most notable example of this is the XPCC. Today it has 2.5 million members, largely still composed of Han Chinese ex-PLA soldiers. The Uyghur opposition in exile claims that this and other population movements constitute nothing less than an attempt to fundamentally change the demographic makeup of Xinjiang. Although these claims of intent are unsubstantiated, this population movement seems to mirror the movement of Han Chinese into other parts of China, most notably Tibet.
The question remains, however: why does the Chinese government behave in this way towards the Uyghurs, and what do the very real strategic and economic imperatives in Xinjiang have to do with it? The reason is that, to the Chinese government, external and internal strategic factors are closely and explicitly linked. The XPCC has, according to the Chinese government, “played an irreplaceable special role in smashing and resisting internal and external separatists’ attempts at sabotage and infiltration.” Another restricted Chinese government paper makes the links between external infiltration, ethnic separatism and religion even more explicit. It states that: “Religion plays the role of a sacred banner which… serves as an important tie for national unity… What is especially worthy of our vigilance is that hostile international forces are brazenly supporting the national splittist forces in our country. They are using the national and religious questions to find a breakthrough point… The national splittist elements in China, acting as their planted agents, are using religious fanaticism to divide the people, [and] undermine the unification of the motherland… The major danger affecting the stability of Xinjiang… comes primarily from national splittism. The danger… lies in their ability to use the growing national and religious sentiment to cover themselves and avoid punishment…”
Here can be found explicit linking between strategic and domestic security concerns, and evidence of the importance of religion in the thinking of the Chinese government. The drives against Uyghur association and religion not controlled by the Chinese Government therefore take on the character of strategic-domestic attempts to secure this vital region for China in the long term. The document finishes by once again linking historic, strategic and religious factors in Chinese government thinking over Xinjiang: ”The Qing dynasty brought about border peace through the correct handling of the religious question. We should be much more competent than the Qing.”
Disunited
In the light of the strategic and economic imperatives keeping China in Xinjiang, and the methods it is willing to use to pursue them, the question remains of why the Uyghur cause is relatively unknown outside of human rights NGO circles. There are a number of reasons for this, and for why Tibet gets more media attention in the west.
Firstly, the historical case for Xinjiang being a Uyghur homeland is far shakier than that of the Tibetans. Although Tibet had been under periodic Chinese domination at times, for most of its history it was at least nominally independent. In contrast, Xinjiang has been under Chinese domination or direct rule at certain times for the last 2,000 years. Unless you accept Uyghur arguments about their descent from more ancient inhabitants of the region, this Chinese involvement predates the arrival of the Uyghurs in the region. Xinjiang has also been much more integral to China than Tibet has, and the fact that Xinjiang is strategically more important has meant that Chinese involvement there has been more historically wide-ranging than in Tibet.
Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, the Uyghur opposition is extremely disunited. Simply put, there is no Uyghur Dalai Lama. The Tibetan opposition, whatever their divisions, generally recognise the Dalai Lama as spiritual leader, and his community at Daramsala has the form and functions of a Government-in-exile, issuing ‘passports’ and having a functioning executive system. In contrast, the Uyghur movement is divided between dozens of competing groups, each claiming to represent some or all of the Uyghur people. This reflects the disparate structure of Uyghur society, the identity of which was largely based around villages and oases, due to the difficulty of communication, until the 20th century. Furthermore, the modern Uyghur movement is split along a number of lines, notably between those inside and outside of Xinjiang, and between groups following a nationalist or Pan-Turkic ideology, and those following a version of Islam. Some of the more Islamist groups, for example the East Turkestan Islamic Party (ETIP), an offshoot of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), in fact downplay Uyghur identity in favour of a Pan-Islamic one. Moreover, it must not be forgotten that the Uyghurs are not the only minority nationality in Xinjiang, and co-operation between the Uyghur separatists and the other nationalities is not good. The net result of this is, and of the sweeping demographic and economic changes facing Xinjiang recently, is that there is no concrete Uyghur plan for the future of Xinjiang. Some of the more extreme groups even advocate a literal ‘turning back of the clock’ and the disenfranchisement of Han Chinese migrants. This confusion over long-term goals means that the larger organisations, such as the World Uyghur Congress and the East Turkestan Liberation Organisation, tend to concentrate on human rights demands, rather than potential solutions.
A third reason for the lack of international sympathy for the Uyghur cause has been the violent tactics used by certain Uyghur groups in their attempts to attract attention to their cause. Although Uyghur groups claim that the number and severity of these attacks have been massively exaggerated for propaganda value by the Chinese government, certain of these incidents cannot be denied. For example, in August 2008 an all-night gun battle was waged against Chinese forces by Uyghurs in Kuqa city. Extremely important in this image of the Uyghur insurgency as violent (in contrast to the non-violent view of the Tibetan resistance) is the apparent Islamist motivation of some of the insurgents and their alleged links to al-Qaida. Crucial in forming this image of the Uyghur opposition as violent, and in vindicating long-standing Chinese claims of Islamist or Jihadist motivation for it, was the listing of one group, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), on the terrorism lists of the United States and the UN in 2002.
However, is this image of the Uyghur insurgency as part of the ‘War on Terror’ a correct one? Even at the time, questions were raised as to how far the insurgency could be considered an Islamic one. Traditionally, the Uighur variety of Islam was comparatively tolerant and open to new influences, and there can be no comparison between the variety of Islam practiced by the majority in Xinjiang and that practiced in Saudi Arabia or the tribal areas of Pakistan. Despite this, the Chinese Government claimed before 2001 that the Taliban and other Islamists were involved in Xinjiang, even though the part of Afghanistan adjacent to Xinjiang was controlled by the Northern Alliance. When a number of Uyghurs were captured fighting with the Taliban, and subsequently sent to Guantanamo Bay, China seized on this as evidence that it had been correct, despite the Uyghur fighters’ claims that they were only acting in an individual capacity.
These doubts meant that the blacklisting of ETIM was the event which cemented the idea of the insurgency in Xinjiang as an Islamic one. Therefore, this decision warrants closer examination. The reason given at the time for it, by the US Under-Secretary of State Richard Armitage in Beijing on August 26th 2002, was that ETIM “committed acts of violence against unarmed civilians without any regard for who was hurt”. No specifics were given. What was not explained, however, was why ETIM in particular had been listed for this reason, since other Uyghur groups, for example the United Revolutionary Front, had repeatedly claimed responsibility for violent actions and bombings. Even the US State Department’s August 2002 Patterns of Global Terrorism report put the balance of blame for violence in Xinjiang on another group, the East Turkestan Liberation Organisation (ETLO). Indeed, the reaction from Uyghur groups to the blacklisting, beyond dismay and a natural desire to deny any connection to ETIM, was puzzlement as to why such an obscure group had been listed, rather than one of the better-known Uyghur separatist organisations. Mehmet Hazret, head of ETLO, claimed that the first time he heard of ETIM was via the Chinese media, despite the fact that he knew the people claimed to be its leaders. It would appear that the reason such an obscure organisation was listed by the US (and subsequently, as a direct consequence of this listing, by the UN) was due largely to Chinese intelligence. For example, a statement by the US embassy in Beijing on August 29th 2002 blamed ETIM for 162 deaths in more than 200 terrorist acts. The figures were identical, however, to Chinese government figures published in January of that year, except that the Chinese figure referred to actions by eight different Uyghur separatist groups, and not just ETIM. The piece of evidence which appears to have swung the US round to the Chinese point of view is an apparent plot by two Uyghurs to bomb the US embassy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. However, considerable doubt has been cast over the reliability of the Kyrgyz justice system and its treatment of the country’s Uyghur minority. It also emerged that the ‘evidence’ for the bomb plot was that one of the Uyghurs arrested had a map of the embassy district, which covers a large area in the city centre of Bishkek and contains dozens of other potential targets. It would appear, in short, that the US State Department was sold a dummy by the Chinese authorities. The question now is, why did the US allow itself to be duped so easily?
The reason lies in the timing of the announcement. At the time of Richard Armitage’s visit to Beijing, the US was in crucial negotiations with China in an attempt to gain support over the war in Iraq, and also to prevent the Chinese export of missile technology. Relations between Beijing and Washington were not good at this time, especially after the detention of the crew of a US spy plane in 2001 and the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during the 1999 Kosovo war. Indeed, before September 11th, China had been seen by some US strategists as “potential enemy No.1”. Under the circumstances, the US blacklisting of ETIM was welcomed by China, the state Xinhua news network commenting, “China appreciates the US’ recent move of placing the East Turkestan Islamic Movement on its list of terrorist organisations, and the Chinese government’s fight against the organisation has won broad understanding and support from the international community.” Whether the move to place ETIM on the US terror exclusion list was cynical or simply poorly researched, the result for the Chinese government and for the Uyghurs was the same- a tacit ‘green light’ for certain Chinese policies in Xinjiang. Of course, the addition of ETIM to the US and UN terror exclusion lists was not the only cause of the Uyghurs’ lack of Western support. However, it has had a major impact on the fortunes of the Uyghurs and Uyghur rights groups.
Whether the West notices or not
The current human rights situation in Xinjiang then, is intimately linked with the strategic situation which has led to Chinese involvement in Xinjiang for the last 2,000 years. In addition to this, is the vital role Xinjiang now plays in China’s energy policy, further increasing the importance of this land to China - and the lengths it will go to in order to protect it. China, also, is not the only country whose geopolitical considerations has impacted on the Uyghurs. The ideological contortions made by the US in the run-up to the Iraq war led to it to contradict its previous policy on Xinjiang for the sake of Chinese support. The nature of Uyghur society itself has meant that their voices are not as loud or as widely heard as those of the Tibetans.
What will become of Xinjiang and the Uyghurs? This is the great imponderable of the whole issue. Chinese economic and demographic changes in Xinjiang are not going to be undone. Xinjiang is not going to return to being a Uyghur majority area, and nor should it. After all, the policies of the Chinese government are not the fault of the Han Chinese who have moved (by choice or by compulsion) to the region. The attempts of certain Uyghur groups, therefore, to turn Xinjiang into a Uyghur majority state carry with them the unpleasant whiff of similar rhetoric used in the past, which has been used to justify the denial of rights or worse.
Chinese withdrawal from Xinjiang, moreover, would fundamentally compromise the Chinese economic and strategic position. Withdrawal, therefore, is simply not going to happen, barring the conditions in which China has withdrawn historically- a collapse in the authority of the Chinese government. Moreover, as has been seen, Chinese treatment of the Uyghurs is intimately tied to their assessment of the geopolitical situation in Xinjiang, and the means by which domestic peace can be attained in such a situation. The only way, therefore, that concrete, sweeping improvements in the lives of the Uyghurs will come about is with a fundamental rethink of the Chinese government’s broader domestic and international policies. If this does not happen, then the Uyghurs’ conflict in Xinjiang will continue, whether the West notices it or not.