INTEL BRIEF: CHINESE REPRESSION OF UIGHURS
by Diane Chido
ISN
11/08/08
Switzerland
While China lays out the welcome mat for the world, millions of ethnic
Chinese have made themselves at home uninvited in the land of the
Uighur, Diane Chido writes for ISN Security Watch.
Despite historical, ideological and practical differences with Russia,
China is mirroring one of its more problematic policies, an action
unnoticed by the international community: the relocation of ethnic
Chinese into Uighur-dominated Xinjiang.
Just as oil-rich Kazakhstan was settled by massive influxes of ethnic
Russians during the Soviet period, which by the 1990s numbered nearly
60 percent of that nation’s population, ethnic Chinese are settling
in Xinjiang, an autonomous northeastern province in China inhabited
mostly by Uighur Muslims, at a rate of 7,000 per day.
The area, also known as East Turkestan, borders Pakistan, Tajikistan,
Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan as well as Russia.
When China officially annexed Xinjiang in 1949, there were 300,000
ethnic Chinese in the region. But in 2006, official Chinese statistics
indicated that the region’s population comprised 8.7 million Uighurs
and 7.5 million ethnic Chinese.
Increasing repression by the Chinese state has driven the traditionally
peaceful and secular Uighur Muslims to identify deeper with their
faith: It has also driven them to poverty and possible rebellion. Many
observers predict a violent reaction in the wake of China’s relocation
policy in the region.
War on terror or war on Uighurs?
Under the banner of anti-terrorism and anti-separatism, China has
embarked on a policy of suppressing religious freedom.
Government regulations intended to "manage religion and guide it in
being subordinate to the central task of economic construction, the
unification of the motherland, and the objective of national unity"
were instituted in 2000.
During the past decade, "re-education" camps have appeared in the
region, containing thousands of Uighurs suspected of "separatism"
and "extremism." Crimes that can land one in such a prison or justify
torture or execution include teaching religious practices to minors;
holding unauthorized religious ceremonies or celebrating holidays;
dressing in an "Islamic" fashion; wearing a beard; or reading banned
versions of the Koran.
The 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US and subsequent events in Spain
and the UK have enabled China to cloak these repressive actions as
part of their cooperative efforts in the global war on terror, which
has in turn enabled them to go uncontested in the West.
Access to natural resources important factor Xinjiang is known to
contain vast gas and oil fields as well as huge deposits of gold,
coal and iron ore. Access to oil and its necessary transit routes
also provide impetus for Chinese repression. According to Sun Longde,
president of the PetroChina Tarim Oilfield Company in Xinjiang,
a subsidiary of state-owned PetroChina, "The Tarim River Basin [in
Xinjiang] alone is expected to produce about 750 million barrels of
oil by 2010." Longde notes that this is almost equal to China’s total
2006 oil imports.
Virtually all the workers in the Xinjiang oil industry are imported
Han Chinese, another frustration for Uighurs as they watch nearly 85
percent of oil revenues from their province flow to Beijing. Local
government officials state that 65 percent of these funds flow back
in the form of transfers for building local infrastructure, but the
roads and bridges are mainly used for transporting local resources out
and for construction of an oil pipeline to Shanghai that is scheduled
to be fully operational by 2010.
Soil conditions in the region are ideal for growing cotton, a
traditional Uighur crop. Even though many cotton farms are still
owned by Uighur farmers, ethnic Chinese are increasingly taking
them over. They also have greater access to the Chinese commodities
market and state management agencies and are beginning to dominate
this industry.
The Uighurs, as Turkic-speaking Muslims, have always had a wide
cultural, linguistic and geographic divide from their Chinese
counterparts. However, the area’s natural resources, so necessary for
China’s continued industrial growth, have made the region a far more
valuable conquest target in recent years. These historical differences
are likely to greatly diminish in coming generations with the Chinese
relocation policy at the expense of the Uighur national identity.
Traditionally, nationalist groups such as the East Turkestan
Independence Movement (ETIM) have focused on stemming the loss of
Uighur culture. However, al-Qaida’s funding and training of such
groups for the past decade has provided an impetus to begin emphasizing
Islamic elements in their ideology to attract more aid. This enables
China to label ETIM members and the Uighurs at large "terrorists." It
also allows the US to ignore their struggles.
The US government is aware of the situation in Xinjiang. However,
unlike the Uighurs’ next door neighbor Tibet, for which the US Congress
passed the Tibetan Policy Act, the US has taken no concrete actions in
support of the Uighurs. Congress has held half a dozen hearings on the
Uighur issue in the past five years and US President George W Bush has
met once with an Uighur human rights activist and Nobel Prize nominee.
There is great concern in China that the ETIM will use the 2008
Beijing Olympics as an ideal occasion to bring their struggle to
international attention. Although it would be insurmountably difficult
to transport significant arms caches to the capital, an attack on
the oil infrastructure while the spotlight is on China would bring
attention to the movement.
In June 2007, a large supply of explosives and arms was discovered
in Xinjiang with clear ties to the ETIM. As a result, detentions and
crackdowns on even small public gatherings have increased over the
past year.
History in danger of repeating itself China’s conduct toward its Uighur
population is clearly akin to treatment of Jews in post-WW I Germany
and Armenians during the Ottoman Empire. The obvious similarities
are the Uighurs’ minority religion, language and culture as well as
their non-Asiatic, Turkic appearance. Historically, however, their
victimization may reach back, like the Jews and the Armenians, to
the Uighurs’ traditional role as the region’s moneylenders in China
at the height of the Silk Road’s prominence in AD 600-900 (Thubron,
Colin. "Shadow of the Silk Road." HarperCollins Publishers. New York,
NY: 2007).
Despite the lessons of history, it is highly likely that China will
continue its counterproductive policies and drive increasing numbers
of moderate, peaceful Uighurs into self-radicalization and affiliation
with groups that promise the equipment and training to deliver them
from the perceived Chinese threat to their economy and their national
and cultural identity.
Mercyhurst-ISN intelligence briefs offer foresight into issues that are
likely to dominate news headlines and policy agendas. The briefs are a
joint initiative of the ISN and Mercyhurst Institute for Intelligence
Studies and are composed and referenced using open sources.