China's Xinjiang Problem Has Nothing Much to Do With Islam
 
Philip Bowring International Herald Tribune
Friday, November 30, 2001
HONG KONG China has branded the Uighur nationalists of its western Xinjiang Province with the marks of Taliban and Qaida. This playing up of China's own alleged "Muslim threat" could rebound against it. Beijing has drawn attention to a cause which had largely escaped outside attention. It has underlined its inability to solve the Xinjiang problem other than by brutal suppression of the political aspirations of the non-Chinese peoples of Central Asia who at present fall within the boundaries of the People's Republic. China's historical claims to the region have been based on periodic occupations, not on the consent of the governed.
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The Uighurs are the largest of the Turkic-speaking groups of Xinjiang. Like the other non-Han people of the province, they are Muslims.
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Until Mao Zedong ordered mass migration of Han Chinese, the Turkic groups constituted more than 80 percent of the population. Now the Hans are around half of the population, are largely urban and richer and, most importantly, constitute the power structure. The social divide between Han and non-Han is vast and obvious. Control from the center is thorough.
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In recent years there have been occasional acts of violence by Uighur nationalists against the instruments of the state. President Jiang Zemin has now used these to assert that Taliban-linked terrorism and Muslim extremism are the problem in Xinjiang.
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This claim has been swallowed by many eager to find evidence of Qaida's global reach or willing to turn a blind eye so long as China expresses support for the "war on terrorism."
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In fact, the only evidence of links is a few Uighurs found to have been serving in the lowest ranks of the Taliban forces. It is not even clear whether or not these were Uighurs from adjacent states with Uighur minorities. The part of Afghanistan bordering China was never in Taliban hands. Militant Islam may be a problem in parts of Central Asia but it has never been a significant factor in Uighur nationalism, a phenomenon which long predates the establishment of the People's Republic and is based on language, land and history, of which religion is only a part.
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China's actual concern is with separatist tendencies in a strategically important region with huge mineral resources, particularly energy.
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The extent of recent oppression of nationalists has gone beyond that in Tibet. There have been dozens of executions of nationalists, regardless of any evidence of terrorist involvement. Seven executions have occurred since Sept. 11, according to Chinese statements, which may well understate the real number.
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Oppression of religion has also been stepped up. Young people are kept away from mosques, and fasting during Ramadan has been banned.
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Unlike Tibet, which has the Dalai Lama to speak for it, the Uighurs have no significant exiled figure, or even Hollywood star, to bring their plight to outside attention. The fact that they are Muslims, however moderate, makes them suspect in the eyes of much of the quasi-Christian West.
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But the Uighurs are not finished yet, any more than their neighbors the Kazakhs were forever swallowed up into the Russian/Soviet empire. China may be colonizing Xianjiang's resources and piping them back east, but it has a hard time persuading Hans to stay in this remote region with its harsh climate and poor economy.
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Meanwhile, the largely rural Uighurs are breeding fast - indeed, at a pace which is outrunning the water and agricultural resources of the region.
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For now, their Central Asian neighbors are anxious to avoid Chinese wrath, and too preoccupied with their complex relationships with Russia to offer sanctuary to Uighur nationalists (or to the million strong Kazakh minority in Xinjiang). But that could change.
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So, too, could the Uighur view of Islam. Beijing's current oppression both of nationalism and of religious observance in Xinjiang could drive the Uighur nationalists into the arms of the one group that would definitely give them succor, the Muslim fundamentalists.

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