Situating the Uyghuristan Between China and Central Asia

Ildikó Bellér-Hann, M. Cristina Cesàro, Rachel Harris and Joanne Smith Finley

Divergent Traditions of Scholarship

This edited volume explores the social and cultural hybridity or ‘in-between-ness’

of the Uyghurs, an officially recognized minority mainly inhabiting the Xinjiang

Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China, with significant

populations also living in the Central Asian states. It seeks to bridge a perceived gap

in our understanding of this group, which too often has fallen between two regional

traditions of scholarship on Central Asia and China: Central Asian studies, with its

focus on the post-Soviet Central Asian states, and Sinology.

The ‘Great Game’ in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Central

Asia was a historical period that stimulated intense political, economic, military and

scholarly interest in the region then more commonly known as Chinese (or East)

Turkestan and its oasis inhabitants, then commonly referred to as Turkis/Turks,

Muslims or Sarts. This period of global strategic interest came to an end with the

establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, and the region was for a

time largely marginalized in Western scholarship. As China began to open up to

the outside world in the 1980s, academic interest in what was now the Xinjiang

Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) flourished again. With the disintegration of

the USSR in the early 1990s, the study of Central Asia made its own comeback as

the region offered a comparatively accessible environment both for field study and

archival research. Yet communication between the two new fields has so far been

limited. Although scholars working on the post-Soviet Central Asian republics tacitly

acknowledge cultural ties and continuities between the peoples of the former Soviet

territories (Russian or West Turkestan) and the inhabitants of Xinjiang (Chinese or

East Turkestan), they seldom concern themselves with the latter. Meanwhile, those

who approach the study of Xinjiang from a sinologist’s perspective rarely extend

their research interests across China’s north-western borders.

The principal reason for the lack of cross-fertilization is evidently related to the

different linguistic backgrounds and abilities of scholars working on the respective

regions. Sinologists are primarily trained in the Chinese language (making it easier

to conduct fieldwork and access documentary data in the Chinese language), while

Central Asia scholars tend to be trained in Russian and/or the Turkic-Altaic languages.

While it is common to find scholars who combine their main expertise in Chinese or

Situating the Uyghurs Between China and Central Asia

Russian with (an often less thorough) knowledge of one or more Turkic languages

and are thus equipped to tackle one or other of the two ‘Turkestans’, it is rare to find

mastery of both Chinese and Russian in the same individual. Yet the phenomenon

must also be due in part to other, cultural factors. To many Central Asia scholars, for

example, the Uyghurs appear as an exotic extension of Central Asian Turkic-Islamic

culture, one which does not fit comfortably within the post-Soviet, post-socialist

framework of their enquiry. Another distinction between these comparatively new

fields is that scholars working from the Central Asian perspective often tend to be

interested in social and cultural practices and processes, focusing on things Uyghur,

Central Asian, Turkic or Muslim, while those starting from a sinological perspective

often have a predominantly territorial focus: Xinjiang (Chinese, lit. ‘New Border’ or

‘New Dominion’ of the Chinese polity), majority-minority configurations, Uyghur

nationalism, repression, secession.

Public Representations

When the history, culture or the contemporary political situation of this region

and this people emerge into the public sphere, their representations are equally

schizophrenic. In May 2004 the British Library in London mounted a major

exhibition, ‘The Silk Road’. Centred on the much contested discoveries of early

Buddhist artefacts, frescos and manuscripts made by Sir Aurel Stein in the regions

of Khotän and Dunhuang, the exhibition included many loans from the Chinese

government, among them a recreation of a Dunhuang cave complete with Buddhist

frescos. The term ‘Uighur’ [Uyghur] appeared only fleetingly, in reference to a

Tibetan document written in the Old Uyghur script, while there was just one brief

reference to the last millennia of Islamic culture in the region. Instead, a section of the

exhibition entitled ‘Play on the Silk Road’ featured a ‘Letter of Apology for Getting

Drunk’ from the kingdom of Gaochang, written in Chinese characters. The notes

explained: ‘By the eighth century there was a Chinese wine making industry using

mare’s teats grapes from Gaochang’. Contrast this with another major and extremely

well attended exhibition, ‘The Turks’, held in the Royal Academy in London in the

following year. This exhibition included many loans from the Turkish government.

Here the Uyghurs featured more prominently as an early stop-over on the march

of Old Turkic, and subsequently Islamic, art which advanced via the Seljuks and

Timurid Samarkand towards the glories of Ottoman Turkey. The exhibition included

a ninth century fresco from the capital of the Uyghur kingdom of Khocho. It would

have taken an observant visitor to both exhibitions to realize that Gaochang is in

fact the Chinese name for Khocho, and that the kingdom in question was one and

the same. This is not to accuse either exhibition of deliberate misrepresentation,

http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/features/silkroad/main.html (accessed 23 August 2005).

http://www.turks.org.uk/ (accessed 23 August 2005).

In fact, and one must have some sympathy with the author of the entry, the name

‘Kucha’ (another city along the Silk Road further to the west, Qiuci in Chinese sources and

Kösän in modern Uyghur) is given mistakenly on the ‘Turks’ website for Khocho (also

sometimes written Kocho but never Kucha).

Introduction

merely to note the strikingly different representations that can arise from differing

perspectives, agendas and traditions of scholarship. The challenge lies in developing

a vision of Uyghur history, society and culture which can encompass these multiple

perspectives.

The ‘Uyghur Problem’

The Uyghurs’ in-between-ness arguably underpins the key problems which they,

as a group, face today. The year 2004 brought a flurry of studies on the ‘Uyghur

problem’, viewed from political and strategic perspectives, as the Central Asian

region once again came to prominence in the global political arena (Dillon, 2004;

Gladney, 2004; Millward, 2004). These studies focus on Uyghur separatism and

unrest, and the rise of radical Islam; on China’s ongoing ‘Strike Hard’ anti-separatist

campaign; and on its manipulation of the ‘global war on terror’ as it colours Uyghur

opposition to Chinese rule ‘Islamic terrorism’. An edited volume on ‘Xinjiang’

(although it largely focuses on the Uyghurs) published in the same year, probes

some of the historical, demographic, socio-economic and political issues in greater

depth (Starr, 2004). Situating Xinjiang as China’s ‘borderlands’, its authors argue

that the Chinese state’s penetration or ‘domestication’ of the region has accelerated

during the 1990s, and with increasing rapidity into the twenty-first century (see also

Becquelin, 2004). This ‘domestication’ of Xinjiang entails state attempts to establish

continuities in demography, communications, and language, primarily through

strategies of construction and development under the Western Development Policy

(Xibu da kaifa), but also through the media and more coercive policies of control

such as population transfer and education. The development of infrastructure,

notably the extension of the railway to Qäshqär [Kashgar] bringing greater numbers

of Chinese migrants into the Uyghur heartlands, and the growing insistence on the

use of Chinese language as the medium of instruction, are the prime examples of this

tendency (Dwyer, 2005). The stepping up of religious repression which in Xinjiang

is especially targeting Islamic practices is a further example of coercive tendencies.

These policies may be interpreted as leading inevitably to the acculturation of the

Uyghurs, yet they are also contributing to the strengthening of Uyghur nationalist

sentiment in reaction to perceived Han discrimination and increased Han competition

for education, employment and resources.

Looking across the border, it was argued in the early 1990s that the newly

independent Central Asian states would have a strong impact on political

developments for the Uyghurs. These states, it was thought, would serve as models

of independent governance, market capitalism and democracy, and also as new sites

for Uyghur political organizations, which were expected to offer support to their

‘ethnic brothers’. By 1996, scholars, international observers and analysts had begun

to realize that these hopes were largely illusory, and were judging the states as failed

models in their politics, economies and nationality policies. This notwithstanding,

young Uyghurs in Xinjiang continued to be inspired toward their own secession

movement at least until, and in some cases beyond, the Ghulja riots of February

1997. By the start of the new millennium, it was abundantly clear to both local and

Situating the Uyghurs Between China and Central Asia

international observers that, far from providing safe havens for Uyghur nationalists,

the Central Asian states were increasingly complying with Chinese demands to

crack down on Uyghur separatism, levied through the mechanism of the Shanghai

Cooperation Organization (see Dillon, 2004).

Problems with Names

As we suggested above with reference to the London exhibitions, the complex

problems inherent in trying to ‘situate the Uyghurs’ are highlighted by the lack

of agreement over names. The political arguments over the links between the

contemporary Uyghur ethnic group and the pre-Islamic Old Uyghur kingdoms

are well rehearsed, but the dual perspective remains constant. Chinese official

histories place Uyghur roots in what is commonly termed the ‘Western Regions’

(Ch. xiyu), a term which clearly makes sense only when viewed from China.

Uyghur nationalist histories, on the other hand, reject the Chinese perspective on

their homeland. Turghun Almas, in his influential history The Uyghurs, writes: ‘One

must state definitively: the motherland of the Uyghurs is Central Asia’, a region

which he describes as an ‘ancient golden cradle of world culture’ (see Bovingdon,

2004: 357−63). Meanwhile, Central Asians (both Soviet and post-Soviet) term the

region ‘East Turkestan’ (viewed from the perspective of nineteenth-century Russian

or West Turkestan), and Uyghur separatists remain divided in their preferences

between the pan-Turkic ‘East Turkestan’ and the less inclusive ‘Uyghuristan’. Both

these names are of course banned in China, where Chinese histories of the East

Turkestan Republic (1944−49) refer rather to the ‘Three Districts Revolution’ [Ch.

Sanqu geming, U. Üch wilayät inqilawi].

These various binary oppositions expressed in the form of place names can be

easily understood if we consider Xinjiang’s position in terms of its present political

subordination to China. Yet they mask far more complex historical processes.

Toponyms are always politically loaded, and may at different times in history (and

from the perspectives of different actors) be expressions of local identity, emblems

of enforced state control, or indeed a locus of contested political power. Thus,

although the generic name ‘Xinjiang’ is today used as a short-hand designation

for the region by political power holders, most of its inhabitants and outsiders,

including the international scholarly community, it continues to be contested by

Uyghur separatists and émigré groups pursuing a nationalist agenda. As a blanket

term, the name ‘Xinjiang’, even in its full incarnation (Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous

Region), fails to do justice to the region’s rich ethnic and cultural diversity, though

the same could equally be said of the names of many of today’s large nation-states.

A brief glimpse at the history of toponyms in Xinjiang quickly dispels the notion

either that territorial continuity presumed cultural continuity with China, or that this

vast region itself enjoyed cultural and political homogeneity. As is well documented,

This term could be used to cover all the regions to the west of China, from the Middle

East to South Asia, but was also used in a more specific sense to refer to the Tarim basin

area.

Shinjang, the loan from Chinese, is regularly used in spoken and written Uyghur.

Introduction

the name ‘Xinjiang’ (New Dominion) was imposed by the Manchus during the

Qing period, and reflected the imperial perspective. By contrast, the designation of

‘East Turkestan’ represented the Russian view, which emphasized continuities with

the other Turkic-speaking regions of Central Asia (West Turkestan). This Russian

distinction between East and West Turkestan incorporated both the linguistic and

cultural continuities connecting the two regions and the political/colonial boundaries

separating them.

Yet even as cultural continuities drew together this vast terrain, it was characterized

also by a sense of political disintegration. The names used for the oases of East

Turkestan prior to Manchu occupation suggest a lack of unifying political structure,

and this condition was reflected for some time in locally used terminology even

following the region’s formal incorporation into the Qing Empire in 1884. Indigenous

sources dating from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries used the loose

designation of ‘Six Cities’ (Altä Shähär) to refer to the oasis settlements south of

the Tianshan (Heavenly Mountains), a term which simultaneously reflected a loose

sense of shared features as well as the fragmented nature of the region as a whole.

Fluctuations in local usage concerning the exact identity of the Six Cities suggest that

the term denoted a rather general territory, and expressed the relative autonomy of the

cities, the fluid nature of the connections between them, and their respective lack of

fixed political rank. Xinjiang’s toponyms also reflect changing religious beliefs over

time. A late nineteenth century indigenous source gives epithets for the Six Cities,

all projecting images of sacred places and the shrines of saints, simultaneously local

and connected to the Islamic umma and the Middle East (Katanov, 1936: 1220−21).

That these epithets were of Arabic and Persian derivation suggests that the naming

process embodied an implicit claim to exclusively Islamic religious traditions, as

well as a desire to disclaim the pre-Islamic past to which the Old Uyghur Kingdoms

belonged.

In this way, Xinjiang toponyms encapsulate both the contested, political nature

of the symbolic appropriation of space and the multiplicity of cultural influences that

have come to bear on the region throughout its troubled history. Political contestation

over the region and, by extension, over its indigenous population, continues to play

out today with Chinese names used in the public domain to denote places which

Uyghurs and most other minorities refer to using traditional Turki designations

(Qumul – Hami; Ghulja – Yining, and so on). These simple binary approaches are

implicitly fostered by Chinese state discourse and explicitly reproduced by Uyghur

actors situating themselves in terms of cultural difference from, and political

opposition to, the Han. They may serve us well when positioning the (modern)

Uyghurs as political − and politicized − beings. Yet they are deficient if our aim is to

create a rounded picture of the Uyghurs as social and cultural actors, and one which

Qäshqär is listed as Azizanä or the City of the Saints; Yäkän [Yarkand] as Piranä, the

City of Patron Saints; Khotän as Shähidanä, the City of the Martyrs (after the great number of

martyrs buried there); Aqsu as Ghaziyanä, the City of the Ghazis (the Triumphant ones, after

the Muslim fighters who victoriously fought for Islam), Kucha as Güli-ullanä, or the City of

God’s Governors (after the Muslim governors buried there); and Turpan as Gharibanä, the

City of Strangers (after the many pilgrims to the numerous saintly shrines).

Situating the Uyghurs Between China and Central Asia

allows for continuity and change over time and space. In this latter endeavour, a

broader, multi-faceted approach becomes necessary.

Dialogue across Borders

The majority of recent studies, then, have adopted the binary focus on Uyghur-Han

political and cultural conflict, as suggested by the contemporary political situation in

Xinjiang. They have rarely looked beyond the construction of Otherness of, and by,

the Uyghurs in relation to the Han to consider the role of Central Asian culture (or

indeed other cultures) in the shaping of Uyghur identity. With this volume we aim to

fill this gap, approaching the Uyghurs with a focus on the dynamics of historical and

contemporary contacts between China and Central Asia. We consider these contacts

as they have been maintained through, for example, intermarriage, education,

migration and trade; through shared institutions (Islamic, Turkic, political and sociocultural)

and during different historical periods (pre-colonial, colonial, socialist, and

‘socialist market economy’). We hope that this perspective will afford fresh insights

into the complexities of Uyghur social and cultural institutions over time, and open

up new avenues for future studies of the region and its peoples.

This edited volume, like the international conference from which it arises, was

conceived with the aim of promoting dialogue across national, disciplinary and

linguistic borders, bringing together Xinjiang specialists who have hitherto worked

in relative isolation, and narrowing the chasm between Sinologist and Central

Asianist perspectives. It is hoped that the project will pave the way towards a new

style of integrative research, leading to further collaborations among scholars from

different disciplinary backgrounds and with different linguistic strengths to bring

the Uyghurs to a more prominent position within Asian scholarship. The conference

‘Situating the Uyghurs between China and Central Asia’ was held at London’s

School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in November 2004. Invited speakers

were asked to respond to the following questions:

To what extent can Xinjiang’s Turkic-speaking Uyghur Muslim population be

described – or describe itself – as part of China and/or part of Central Asia?

Beginning with the Qing administration, which first encouraged mass Han

immigration to the region in 1821 and had by 1884 made Xinjiang an official

province of China, how far has successive Chinese rule − imperial, republican,

socialist − succeeded in disembedding the Uyghurs from the Central Asian

cultural context and integrating them into China?

As a result of almost 200 years of contextual change, have the Uyghurs now

developed characteristics that render them ‘culturally autonomous’ from both

Central Asia and the People’s Republic?

To what extent may Uyghurs be described as ‘culturally hybrid’? Or do they

rather negotiate dual and multiple identities that shift and change according to

social and political contexts?

•

•

•

•

Introduction

The twelve scholars whose revised and edited chapters appear in this volume

address these questions from a range of disciplinary perspectives including history,

anthropology, sociology, literary studies and musicology. All the contributors have

an intimate knowledge of the region based on long-term stay, library and archival

research, while several Uyghur contributors offer rare insiders’ views. The volume’s

emphasis on micro-level, fieldwork-based approaches provides a wealth of original

and detailed material which, due to the constraints typically placed on scholars

working in this region, previous publications have often failed to deliver. Methods

such as case study permit an understanding of current identities (social, cultural,

religious) as they are experienced by the actors themselves (Roberts, Smith Finley,

Waite). The micro-approach is complemented in other chapters by a focus on the

complicated interplay of larger cultural currents, which may remain hidden from

local actors but which concern issues that are meaningful to them. Popular literature

(Friederich), ‘national’ and local musical traditions (Light, Harris), food practices

(Cesàro), and life cycle rituals (Bellér-Hann) are all important constituents of

modern Uyghur identity, which despite evolving through multiple cultural influences

may nonetheless become articulated as ‘our traditions’. While in some chapters the

Central Asian component of Uyghur identity remains comparatively implicit, those

chapters that explicitly address the tripartite structure suggested by the conference/

volume title often end up challenging this neat classification. In one way or another,

each chapter implicitly addresses the larger issue of the tension between that

dimension of social reality experienced by actors and that which remains hidden

and lies beyond their control and agency. The historians have concentrated on

larger currents invisible to actors, cautioning that representations of the Uyghurs

must always be considered within the specific historical context in which they were

produced (Kamalov, Newby). On the other hand, two of the Uyghur authors present

cases in which the Uyghurs explicitly emerge as active shapers of their own destiny:

the ongoing debate surrounding name and surname reform (Sulayman) and local

responses to the promotion of Muslim shrines as tourist sites (Dawut). Here, the

background of the authors is significant, as the Uyghurs are presented as agents

rather than helpless victims of the current political situation.

Some of the authors in this volume have chosen to adopt a comparative framework

in order to tease out the links and correspondences (or lack of them) between Uyghur

and Central Asian/Chinese cultures, but each voices caution about the comparative

endeavour. As Ildikó Bellér-Hann argues in her chapter, highlighting the centrality of

the veneration of the dead among the Uyghurs may inadvertently supply apologists

of Chinese political and cultural hegemony over Xinjiang with new material. On

the other side of the border in the independent Central Asian republics, pointing out

commonalities among the Turkic groups may serve as a good antidote to former

Soviet nationality policies (which, through emphasizing real or imagined differences,

were largely responsible for the emergence of modern Central Asian ethnic groups),

but it may also serve pan-Turkic ideologies. The chapters gathered in this volume

have no such agendas. None of the authors embraces extreme cultural relativism

or universalism. They do try to go beyond the simple binary oppositions (Han v

Uyghur) and comparisons (assumed affinities between Uyghurs and Central Asians)

to substantiate or refute assumptions and claims of similarity and difference.

Situating the Uyghurs Between China and Central Asia

The editors have made no attempt to impose a single unified viewpoint on the

authors. The result is that while several chapters stress cultural continuities with

Central Asian peoples, practices and experiences over time, attention is also given to

differences (real or perceived) between the Uyghurs of Xinjiang and other Central

Asian groups, and to examples of accommodation, adaptation and compromise

between Uyghurs and Han Chinese. Indeed, one of the most interesting aspects of

the conference ‘Situating the Uyghurs’ was the striking contrast between speakers

in their attitudes and assumptions, depending on their scholarly background and/or

sphere of enquiry. The conference, which was well attended by Uyghur students and

residents in the UK, also brought home to us the sensitivities of discussing aspects

of Han acculturation with a Uyghur audience. In a field where politics is all but

inescapable, it is hard to state as matters of simple fact that, for example, Uyghurs

have absorbed many foodways from the Chinese, but are very little influenced

by Chinese music. Is it possible that a search for the meanings behind this might

conclude innocently that Chinese music is indigestible and Central Asian cuisine

dull? This volume arises out of, and continues, that ongoing dialogue.

The Chapters

Drawing on a combination of fieldwork in Uyghur communities in Xinjiang and

historical research into the nature of ‘tradition’ in the pre-socialist era, Bellér-Hann

attempts to substantiate the hitherto tacit assumption of cultural links between the

Uyghur and other Turkic-speaking Central Asian groups through looking at life

cycle rituals in their historical contexts. Her enquiry also draws on ethnographic

parallels from Han Chinese culture, and suggests that levels of difference must be

distinguished if we are to allow for human diversity without losing sight of broad

underlying commonalities and examples of accommodation and cultural borrowing.

She argues against the constraints imposed by binary oppositions, and calls for

the inclusion of other groups (such as the Hui) into the enquiry, who may hold the

key to understanding the complicated interplay between Han and Uyghur cultural

practices.

The Kazakhstan-based Uyghur historian, Ablet Kamalov, contributes a strongly

argued and thoroughly sourced contention that modern Uyghur national identity was

initiated in and largely shaped by Russian Central Asia. Both this and the British

historian Laura Newby’s chapter serve as important counter-balances to the oft-cited

contention that Uyghur national identity is largely created by, or in response to, the

Chinese state (Gladney, 1990). Based on detailed reading of Qing sources, Newby

asserts that a sense of community and discrete identity was shared by the peoples

of the Altä Shähär (Six Cities, contemporary southern Xinjiang) as early as the

eighteenth century, and that this was promoted by inter-oasis trade and marriage, and

Qing policies including population transfer. While she acknowledges the commonly

accepted view that the ethnonym ‘Uyghur’ fell into disuse following the fall of the

Uyghur Khocho kingdom and re-emerged only in the twentieth century, she argues

that the absence of an ethnonym does not preclude a shared sense of identity.

Introduction

The flipside of the commonplace assumption of the recent nature of Uyghur

national identity is the notion of powerful local or ‘oasis’ identities, Qäshqärliq,

Turpanliq, etc. (Rudelson, 1997). These local or vernacular identities within

contemporary Uyghur culture are emphasized in only one of the chapters, in the

context of musical traditions. Rachel Harris takes a detailed look at the music of

the Twelve Muqam to debunk the various hotly contended myths about their

origins. Arguing that they are neither ‘Arab music’ nor ‘of the Western Regions’

(Xiyu), she instead situates the various local Uyghur Muqam traditions (Qäshqär-

Yäkän, Turpan, Dolan, etc.) within a mosaic of distinct yet inter-related local

musical traditions practised by peoples across the Central Asian region. Harris also

expresses ambivalence about the comparative project, warning that comparison of

de-contextualized cultural products (a popular activity with early twentieth century

comparative musicologists) is fruitless if their performance contexts and meanings

are not taken into account.

As discussions arising from the conference demonstrated, the Uyghurs’ ‘inbetween-

ness’ soon escapes the neat China-Central Asia dichotomy. In his recent

edited volume, Frederick Starr discusses the ‘external gravitational fields’ which

exert force on the region of Xinjiang, commenting that ‘it is hard to find another

region on which such diverse cultural forces have been so consistently exerted’

(Starr, 2004: 7). From the penetration of Buddhism from India to the advent of Islam

from the Arab-Persian world; from the waves of early nomadic invaders and settlers

who entered the region from Siberia, to periods of Chinese dynastic rule under the

Han and Tang; from nineteenth century Russian models of modernity and reform to

the global information networks and cultural flows through which Uyghurs today are

circumventing their oft-cited position in China’s backyard, clearly any consideration

of Uyghur ‘in-between-ness’ must take into account multiple spheres of influence

and interaction.

Several of the chapters consider the impact and reception of globalized currents

in Uyghur culture and society. Michael Friederich considers a range of cultural

influences on the work of contemporary Uyghur poets. His chapter alerts us to

the possibility of multiple and shifting interpretations of ‘east’ and ‘west’, as he

argues that the Uyghurs’ historical westward orientation (first towards the Islamic

world, then the Russian sphere) has been replaced under the PRC by a circuitous

flow of literary stylistic influence emanating from Europe and arriving in Xinjiang

via Beijing. The most controversial example of global flows entering the Uyghur

sphere is, of course, the penetration of new forms of Islam ranging from reformism

to militancy. Edmund Waite brings a rare fieldwork-based perspective to bear on

this much debated subject. In his discussion of the changing nature and sources

of religious authority in contemporary Qäshqär, he argues that varying degrees of

religious repression and secularization practised under PRC rule formerly served

to isolate the religious community and promote the local authority of the mosque

community. Following the opening of Xinjiang’s borders in 1987, however, this

local authority has been increasingly challenged by reformist ideologies which

emanate from Saudi Arabia and arrive in Qäshqär via Central Asia. Working on the

other side of the border with a Uyghur community in Almaty in Kazakhstan, Sean

Roberts also discusses changing understandings of Islam. He explores the complex

10 Situating the Uyghurs Between China and Central Asia

question of the interaction of faith with ethnic national consciousness, and argues

that local identity is shaped by a multiplicity of cultural influences emanating from

Islam, China, and the Soviet and post-socialist experience.

The contradictions inherent in these competing strands of influence on Uyghur

culture also underlie contemporary issues of development. One important aspect

of China’s domestication of Xinjiang is the fast-growing industry of Han Chinese

tourism in the region. Rahilä Dawut’s chapter, based on a wide-ranging field

survey, discusses the problems arising from attempts to re-brand Islamic shrines

as tourist attractions. Dawut considers local reactions to the contradictory trends

of the pull of tradition and the promotion of tourism, showing local people to be

creative actors rather than pawns in a political game. She argues that the Xinjiang

authorities’ mistrust of shrine pilgrimage, which they equate with Islamic militancy,

is fundamentally misplaced and arises out of official misconceptions of the different

strands of Islam in the region; in fact the militants fiercely oppose shrine pilgrimage.

Her chapter also highlights the lack of continuity between policies in inner China

and in Xinjiang, contrasting the liberal policy on Han Chinese temple fairs with the

ongoing official mistrust of Uyghur shrine festivals.

Äsäd Sulayman’s chapter offers a valuable inside view on emerging local debates

concerning the need to reform Uyghur name and surname practices. Though the

ongoing debate may appear to be a purely linguistic discussion, it in fact encapsulates

many of the dilemmas of the Uyghurs caught amid contrastive political and sociocultural

systems. Stemming from the need to address the practical problems of fitting

Uyghur names written in the Arabic script into a national bureaucratic system based

on names composed of two or three Chinese characters, the local debate on surname

reform has developed to encompass the notion of ‘civilized-ness’ (Ch. wenming; U.

mädiniyätlik), so prevalent in Chinese public discourse. Yet intellectuals recently put

forward a recommendation that seems to highlight the contested nature of notions

of civilization: their proposition that Uyghurs should adopt a system of fixed,

hereditary patronymics such as those used by English-speaking nations implies that

name practices are just one more cultural space in Xinjiang that has been politically

coloured. A prominent Uyghur musician, when outlining some similarities between

Uyghur melodies on the one hand and Turkish and Japanese melodies on the other,

once observed pointedly to one of the editors (Smith Finley): ‘Some peoples’

cultures resemble one another more closely than others’. In the same way, urban,

secular Uyghurs have tended to desire to align themselves with the West rather than

with China.

Sulayman’s chapter is important in emphasizing that the project to ‘situate

the Uyghurs’ is in no way confined to the efforts of the authors in this volume.

Similarly, this volume does not presume to impose on a passive people an outsider

view of their situation. Uyghur intellectuals, cultural leaders and decision makers

are engaged in various ways in ongoing attempts to situate and re-situate Uyghur

culture even within the restrictive framework of the Chinese polity, and their

efforts are discussed and debated in the wider community. Other chapters in this

volume consider the issues surrounding some of these efforts from an outsider’s

perspective. Nathan Light traces the changing metaphors that Uyghur writers, artists

and musicians use in their discourses to define the group and its practices. Focusing

Introduction 11

especially on the canonization of the Twelve Muqam, he contrasts official attempts

to shape the meanings attached to this musical repertoire with individual responses

to, and subversions of, these official tropes. Light’s prime concern is to highlight

the contradictions and negotiations which underlie the surface of ethnic identity

construction.

Two chapters respond specifically to issues surrounding Chinese acculturation

of the Uyghurs, reminding us that the Uyghurs are not simply passive victims of

policies of domestication, but agents who negotiate multiple and hybrid identities in

reaction to Chinese state policies. Cristina Cesàro’s starting point is the emic view

which considers food culture to be one of the most obvious distinguishing features

of Uyghur identity. She goes on to discuss Han Chinese influences on the Uyghur

diet, and the negotiations surrounding what is today considered distinctive ‘Uyghur’

cuisine. It is indicative of the paths of Uyghur nationalism as well as the paths of

Chinese influence that Chinese food terms are now more current in the distant,

southern oasis of Qäshqär than in the regional capital Ürümchi, which has a majority

Han population. Just as cultural borrowings tend to originate in the area of greatest

contact between Hans and Uyghurs and trickle down to the rest of the region, so too

the reactive nationalist impulse to absorb and recast these borrowings as ‘authentic’

Uyghur cultural capital occurs first where exposure is most acute.

These reactive counter-trends to Han Chinese influence are highlighted in Joanne

Smith Finley’s analysis of the special position of the minkaohan (Ch. Uyghurs

educated in the Chinese language). The minkaohan (sometimes known as ‘Xinjiang’s

fourteenth nationality’) are considered by most actors − minkaohan themselves, other

Uyghurs, Han Chinese − to be neither wholly Uyghur nor wholly Chinese. Smith

Finley’s detailed case study of the life experiences of one woman illustrates the

conflicts of loyalty and internalized oppression of the minkaohan experience. This

group is both the best situated to take advantage of China’s development policy, and

at the same time arguably the group that suffers most from the Uyghurs’ in-betweenness.

Räwia (the subject of Smith Finley’s case study) actually strengthened her

sense of ethnic affiliation over the course of the 1990s in response to her perception

of Han discrimination, turning back to the Uyghur language and to Islam via the

education and upbringing of her daughter. Over the same period, she secured a

position where she could deploy her dual identity to maximum effect within the

frame of the Chinese state. In her final analysis, Smith Finley is upbeat about the

future of the urban youth: ‘The pride she [Räwia] displayed when speaking of her

minkaomin (Uyghur-language educated) daughter’s perfect command of both Uyghur

and Chinese suggested that she had begun to envisage a middle way for the new

generation: the potential for them to be simultaneously 100 per cent Uyghur (in the

sense of being Central Asian) and 100 per cent Han (in the sense of being Chinese)’.

Such an endeavour is certainly not easy, and will require strongly supportive state

policies for individuals if it is to be achieved, but this may be the best hope that the

Uyghurs can at present envisage.

12 Situating the Uyghurs Between China and Central Asia

References

Becquelin, N. (2004), ‘Staged Development in Xinjiang’, China Quarterly, 178,

358−78. [DOI: 10.1017/S0305741004000219]

Bovingdon, G., with contributions by N. Tursun (2004), ‘Contested Histories’, in

Starr (ed.) Xinjiang: China’s Muslim Borderland (New York and London: M.E.

Sharpe), 353−74.

Dillon, M. (2004), ‘Xinjiang: China’s Muslim Far Northwest’, Durham East Asia

Series (London and New York: Routledge Curzon).

Dwyer, A.M. (2005), The Xinjiang Conflict: Uyghur Identity, Language Policy and

Political Discourse, Policy Studies 15 (Washington: East-West Center).

Gladney, D.C. (1990), ‘The Ethnogenesis of the Uighur’, Central Asian Survey,

9(1), 1−28.

—— (2004), Dislocating China: Muslims, Minorities and other Sub-altern Subjects

(Chicago, Illinois and London: University of Chicago Press).

Katanov, N.T. (1976, 1936), Volkskundliche Texte aus Ost-Türkistan, I.-II, Aus

dem Nachlass von N. Th. Katanov. Herausgegeben von Karl Heinrich Menges.

[Folkloristic Texts from East Turkestan] (Leipzig: Zentralantiquariat der

Deutschen Demokratischen Republik).

Millward, J. (2004), Violent Separatism in Xinjiang: A Critical Assessment, Policy

Studies 6 (Washington DC: East-West Center).

Rudelson, J.J. (1997), Oasis Identities: Uyghur Nationalism along China’s Silk Road

(New York: Columbia University Press).

Starr, S.F. (ed.) (2004), Xinjiang: China’s Muslim Borderland (New York and

London: M.E. Sharpe).

http://www.ashgate.com/pdf/SamplePages/Situating_the_Uyghurs_Between_China_and_Central_Asia_Intro.pdf

Separatism And The War On "Terror" In Uyghuristan/ Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region

Bu kitapning milliy herkitimiz üchün pütünley paydiliq bolup ketishi natayin, emma paydisi bolmaydu degilimu bolmaydu. Keng kitapxanlarning we bu heqte tetqiqat bilen shughullinidighanlarning ihtiyajini nezerde tutup élan qilindi.Selbiy tereplerni shakal süpitide shalliwétip, ijabiy tereplerdin janliq paydilinishinglarni ümid qilimiz.
                                                                                                        -Uyghuristan Redaksiyoni

A Thesis by Davide Giglio for Award of the Certificate of Training in

United Nations Peace Support Operations

Introduction p.2

1. China and Terrorism……………………………………………………p.3

2. Why Xinjiang Matters……………………………………………….….p. 5

3.Background……………………………………………………………….p.6

3.1 Geography

3.2 People

3.3 Economy and resources

3.4 Culture and Religion

3.5 History

Critical Context – a comparison of the protagonists

4. Episodes of Terrorism in Xinjiang………………………………….….p.11

4.1 Explosions

4.2 Assassinations

4.3 Attacks on Police and Government Institutions

4.4 Secret Training and Fundraising

4.5 Plotting and Organizing Disturbances and Riots

4.6 "East Turkistan" terrorist incidents outside China

5. The Separatists: Organizations and Individuals……………………….p.16

5.1 Organisations active in Xinjiang

5.2 Uighur organizations active outside Xinjiang

5.3 Uighur “cyber-separatism”

5.4 Most Wanted

6. China’s counter- terrorist strategy: repression and diplomacy……….p.22

6.1 Domestic measures

6.2 China’s anti-terror diplomacy

6.3 Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)

Integrative conclusion

7. Xinjiang : radical Islam’s next tinderbox?…………………………..p.25

7.1 Conclusion

7.2 Sources

Introduction

The Chinese central government authority has in recent years been under increasing challenge

from Muslim separatists in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) of the People’s Republic

of China, a vast, landlocked expanse of deserts, mountains and valleys bordering Central Asia.

The ongoing situation in Xinjiang has been receiving increasing attention since China, after the

Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on American soil, has raised the public profile of its campaign against

local Uighur separatism, in the attempt to attract international support and understanding.

Terrorism has emerged as a major security threat for China and a national defense priority for

the People’s Republic of China as indicated in its Defense White Papers. China's Defense 2000 White

Paper had made only sparse and general references to terrorism. The document "China's National

Defense in 2002", instead devoted an entire section to the terror threat. The report identified terrorism

as a top ranking security issue, specifically pointing to the restive Western Xinjiang region, where

separatists want to create an independent "East Turkistan". In portraying China too, as a victim of

terrorism, the White Paper said that "The 'East Turkistan' terrorist forces are a serious threat to the

security of the lives and property of the people of all China's ethnic groups."

Riding the momentum of the US-led global war on terror, China has actively sought to project

its own action vis-‡-vis Muslim separatists as part of the worldwide effort. Terrorist characterization of

the Uighurs pro-independence activities has been criticized in Xinjiang and by human and civil rights

groups worldwide. In both cases it has been alleged that Beijing is using anti-terrorism as an excuse to

stifle dissent in its western-most region. Taking the Uighurs’ cause to heart, human rights activists also

charge that the Chinese government's use of the term “separatism” refers to a broad range of activities

including the exercise of the rights of expression and religion and the native population's desire for

cultural, linguistic and religious autonomy.

On the contrary, if one is to adopt the Chinese central government perspective, the PRC policy

in the region is instead a legitimate response to a genuine threat to the stability of a territory deemed to

be of vital national significance both in its strategic location and in its resource potential. This threat

would be carried out by obscurantist and violent forces, part of an international terrorist movement

aiming at destabilizing Central Asia.

The People’s Republic of China is remarkably engaged in a titanic effort to drag the region out of

the shoals of underdevelopment into which for centuries remoteness, backwardness and geo-political

interests have run Central Asia aground. Xinjiang, with its mineral wealth and its strategic geographic

position should be - of all of Central Asia - uniquely equipped to take full advantage of the current

dizzying pace of economic development promoted by the Chinese authorities.

In this paper I will argue that Beijing’s safest bet in ensuring that the region remains free of

fanatic Islamist violence is to make sure that economic improvements and opportunities are more

evenly distributed. It befalls on the Uighurs as well as to the Chinese to make the best out of the

ongoing development of Xinjiang.

I will further argue that despite the resurgence in recent years of Muslim identity throughout

Central Asia the radical Islamic dimension of Uighur activism in Xinjiang – which has certainly been

on the rise for some time – should not be over-emphasized. Unrest in Xinjiang has been until now

motivated less by Islamic fundamentalism than secular demands. Religion is rather the natural vehicle

of expressing the Uighurs’ growing socio-economic grievances. Beijing has so far been successful in

tackling the interaction of Uighur groups and outside Islamic radicals. There are, however, growing

concerns that the conflict could become more violent as Uighurs combining with external militant

Islamist influences could radicalize their activities in Xinjiang.

The challenge for Beijing is to find a way to contain the influence of the separatist movement

through measures designed to provide genuine autonomy for the Muslims of Xinjiang within the

Chinese constitutional framework. The latest indications however, are that in the near future, the

Chinese government will maintain keep its course with its policy aimed at preserving law and order in

the region .

However framed and viewed, the ultimate outcome of the ongoing struggle in Xinjiang is

uncertain and will much depend on China’s unpredictable political and economic evolution. For the

time being tensions in Xinjiang remain low-level. As the nexus between China, the Greater Middle

East, Central and South Asia and Russia Xinjiang lies at the cultural crossroads between the Islamic

world and the Han Chinese heartland. These factors combine to make the outcome of the separatist

struggle in Xinjiang of growing international strategic importance.

1. China and Terrorism

A paper on the “East Turkistan” terrorist forces issued in January 2002 by the Chinese State

Council Information Office, disclosed that various terrorist activities have been underway in Xinjiang

since the 1950s.†The Chinese government stated that, particularly from 1990 to 2001, the “East

Turkistan” terrorist forces inside and outside Chinese territory were responsible for over 200 terrorist

incidents in Xinjiang, resulting in the deaths of 162 people of all ethnic groups, including grass-roots

officials and religious personnel with injuries to more than 440 people.

Pressure on suspected government opponents intensified in the XUAR soon after 11 September

2001. Official sources made clear that the “struggle against separatism” was wide-ranging. Beijing has

valid reasons to express its condemnation of terrorism. China’s international status has been

relentlessly growing in hand with its extraordinary economic development. The selection of Beijing as

the site for the 2008 Olympic Games reflected the international community's confidence in China's

continuing reform and stability. China's admission to the World Trade Organization demonstrated the

Chinese commitment to embracing and upholding the rules of international trade and investment. It has

been noted that a strong and forceful stand on international terrorism will put China in good stead in the

community of nations. These efforts also help refute accusations, still making the rounds in some U.S.

conservative circles, that China has had “one foot in the terrorists' camp” due to arms’ transfers to

states that harbor or sponsor terrorist groups and organizations .

The Western region of Xinjiang appears to be the main concern and the focus of China’s current

domestic anti-terrorism drive. Since Oct. 2001, Chinese authorities have disclosed an increasing

amount of information about “terrorist” activities in Xinjiang. China has also charged that Xinjiang's

separatists have colluded with al Qa'ida members who allegedly may be seeking refuge in remote

Xinjiang. Indeed, at least twelve Uighurs are known to be among the six hundred suspected al Qa’ida

and Taliban prisoners being held by U.S. forces in the Cuban naval base of Guantanamo.

China alleges that the Uighur separatist movement has been extensively financed by Osama bin

Laden and has direct connections to the al Qa’ida network. In a report released in January 2002, titled

"East Turkistan Terrorist Forces Cannot Get Away with Impunity" , the Chinese government stated

"Bin Laden has schemed with the heads of the Central and West Asian terrorist organizations many

times to help the 'East Turkistan' terrorist forces in Xinjiang launch a 'holy war' ". According to the

report, bin Laden met with the leader of the dangerous separatist organization, the East Turkistan

Islamic Movement (ETIM) in early 1999, and asked him to coordinate with the Islamic Movement of

Uzbekistan (IMU) and the Taliban while promising financial aid . In February 2001, the report

continued, bin Laden and the Taliban "decided to allocate a fabulous sum of money for training the

'East Turkistan' terrorists," promised to bear the costs of their operations in 2001, and along with the

Taliban and IMU, "offered them a great deal of arms and ammunition, means of transportation and

telecommunications equipment."

In analyzing the Chinese stance, it has been said that in the US - led war on terror, China has

seized the opportunity to justify its repression of pro-independence activities in Xinjiang by framing the

conflict in that region as just one more front of the global war on terror.

To address the challenge posed by separatism in Xinjiang, China has taken action both at home

and on the international front. Domestically, Chinese authorities have undertaken a number of

measures to improve China’s counter-terrorism posture and national security. These have included

increased vigilance in Xinjiang and higher readiness levels of military and police units in the region.

Action has also been taken to update and give more teeth to anti-terrorism legislation. At the end of

December 2001, China amended the provisions of its Criminal Law with the stated purpose of making

more explicit the measures it already contained to punish “terrorist' crimes”.

On the diplomatic front, the PRC has been active not only in multilateral fora dealing with

terrorism but also within regional security organizations. At this level, the PRC has worked to establish

and develop the security and anti-terrorism components of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation

(SCO) a loose alliance comprising China, Russia and four other Central Asian States . Born in 1996 as

the ‘Shanghai Group’, a body to stabilize and demilitarize shared borders, the SCO, as the organization

has called itself since 2001, has progressively been tasked with a larger agenda starting with the

promotion of regional trade. China has exercised leadership in developing the body’s contents and

structure. While this has been done to make the Group more active in standing against ‘terrorism,

separatism and extremism’, it has been argued that a possible rationale of SCO’s empowerment on

China’s part could also be the reduction of the American increased influence in neighboring Central

Asia.

Beijing had banked on the international community understanding and acceptance of its policy in

Xinjiang in the light of the widely shared anti-terrorism concern post-9/11. Instead, the PRC has been

criticised for band-wagoning in the war on terrorism. Western human rights groups have expressed

increasing concern that the Chinese policy is spreading a wide net criminalizing innocent Uighurs in

addition to the genuine separatist activists.

Despite such criticism, China's efforts have been to an extent successful as, for instance, in the

case of East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), which was declared a terrorist organization by the

U.S. Department of State in August 2002. This is important as until then, the United States had

repeatedly rebuked China for human rights violations in Xinjiang and resisted linking the post-

September 11 2001 war on terrorism with Chinese attempts to quash Uighur separatism.

In broad terms, the central Chinese government has so far responded to the challenge posed by

ethnic unrest in Xinjiang with a two-dimensional approach. On one hand, the PRC hopes that Uighur

resistance to Chinese assimilation will be eventually be mollified by the fallout of improved economic

conditions in the region and overwhelmed by Xinjiang’s ‘Sinification’. The central government has

therefore given high momentum to the economic development of Xinjiang as part of the general ‘Go

West’ policy. While the overall results are indeed stunning, intra - regional economic development has

been uneven.

On the other hand, the Chinese government has been showing unrelenting resolve in tackling

separatism. Security tactics and uneven economic development risk therefore to aggravate relations

between Xinjiang's seven million Han, the dominant Chinese ethnic group, and its indigenous eight

million Uighurs. There are also indications of a growing radicalization of Central Asia posing the

credible risk of the contagious spread to Xinjiang of violent Islamic extremism. The collapse of the

Soviet Union and the subsequent independence of several Muslim Soviet republics bordering Xinjiang,

as well as the rise of Muslim fundamentalism in the Greater Middle East, have also contributed to a rise

in terrorist activity in the region. Islamic fundamentalist elements in Central Asia, Afghanistan, and the

Middle East have reportedly trained some of the individuals responsible for these attacks.

2. Why Xinjiang Matters

Uighur dissatisfaction over Chinese rule has been a constant thorn in China's side over the past

several decades. China’s current policy, however, suggests a deeper concern for the potential impact

that the Islamic resurgence in the region might have for the country's long-term stability.

The conflict in the province is further complicated by a fluid international context. After decades

of oblivion, Sept. 11 2001 has catapulted Central Asia back to the fore of international attention. The

regional chessboard where Kipling’s nineteenth century ‘Great Game’ was played, is again the theatre

of a renewed power struggle among traditional and new players. The new power entry is America

which, as a result of its 2001 military campaign in Afghanistan, has solidly entrenched itself in the

region.

Central Asia has been extraordinarily agitated since 9/11. This agitation has been spilling over

into Xinjiang with potentially unpredictable consequences for the PRC. The stakes are potentially high

as Beijing is concerned that separatist activities in the country's largest and westernmost province

region, home to some of China's key military posts and rich national resource deposits of oil, minerals

and natural gas, hold the prospect of becoming a significant threat to China's long-term political

stability.

It has been noted that the Uighur Turkic Muslims obviously represent only a fraction of China's

overall population of more than one billion, but given their concentration in a remote border area of

vital strategic concern, their power to threaten Beijing's interests is disproportionate to their numbers .

The importance of the region to Beijing in terms of its economic and strategic potential, helps explain

the central government's response to any unrest in Xinjiang. The priority attached by the Chinese

authorities to their policies in Xinjiang are therefore testament to the relevance of the region to

economic development and overall stability of the country. However, the scale and intensity of Chinese

response risks triggering further anti-regime unrest, heightening the prospect that the Xinjiang crisis

will spiral out of control, destabilizing China.

3. Background

3.1 Geography

Vast but thinly populated, Xinjiang (the name meaning “New Territory”) is China’s largest

region. Situated in the North-West of the country, with an area of 1.6 million sq km, the landlocked

region makes up one-sixteenth of China's territory and borders Russia, four former Soviet Central

Asian Republics (Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan), plus Mongolia, Pakistan, and

Afghanistan.

The geographical feature of Xinjiang is commonly referred to as ‘three mountains with two

basins in between”. In the North lies the stretching Altay mountain range and in the south are the grand

Kunlun mountains and the Altun mountains, serving acting as natural barriers. The Tienshan mountains

stand in the middle and divide Xinjiang into northern and southern parts, forming the Junggar basin in

the north and the Tarim basin in the South. The Gurbantunggut desert in the Junggar basin is the

second largest desert in China. It lies next to Taklimakan desert in the Tarim Basin which is the world’s

second largest mobile desert. The climate is typically dry-continental with abundant sunlight, little

precipitation, a sharp contrast between day and night temperatures, and a bitter coldness. In spite of the

presence of such large deserts, Xinjiang does have large rivers, such as the Tarim, the Ili, the Ertix and

the Manas which irrigate the desert oases .

The vast barren expanses of the province have historically provided China with “strategic depth”

from military threats coming from the West. The region’s remoteness made it also a logical choice as

China's nuclear weapons testing site. At site Lop Nor in the north – west part of the Tarim basin at least

forty five nuclear tests are reckoned to have been conducted since 1964 .

3.2 People

The latest Chinese census of 1999 estimated Xinjiang’s population in circa 17.5 million people.

Forty-seven ethnic groups are counted although only thirteen are officially recognized nationalities of

Xinjiang . Besides the Uighurs and the Han, other significant ethnic groups inhabiting the region

include also Kazaks (numbering about one million), Mongolian (around 159.000) Kyrgyz (about

150.000), and Huis, that is the Muslim Chinese Han (700.000). Small communities of Tajiks and

Uzbeks are also counted.

The Kazaks, nomadic pastoralists, arrived in Xinjiang in the mid-1800s when they were pushed

eastward by the expanding Tsarist empire and they particularly inhabit the Ili Prefecture in the North-

West. However, the Uighurs are the single most populous ethnic group, numbering slightly over eight

million. A considerable Uighur diaspora has left Xinjiang over the past decades. There are also some

500,000 Uighurs scattered in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan.

Approximately the same number are known to have settled in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia,

Turkey, Western Europe and the United States. Uighur communities are also settled in other parts of

China as far as Beijing and Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. The activities of the Uighur diaspora

are closely monitored and appear to be of major concern to the Chinese Authorities who fear that

separatists in Xinjiang receive indispensable logistical support from abroad, particularly through the

CARs.

The development, from the 1950s, of mineral resources and the opening up of the region for

cotton production, brought an influx of ethnic Chinese which dramatically altered the province’s ethnic

balance. In 1949, Xinjiang had 3.2 millions Uighurs and only 140,000 Chinese. Now, of the total

population, 40 percent are Han, and only 47 percent are Uighur. Given current migration patterns,

Uighurs fear they might soon be significantly outnumbered. The growth of the Han Chinese population

of Xinjiang has been achieved by flooding the region with massive numbers of Chinese immigrants.

Initially Han Chinese migration to Xinjiang was officially encouraged to support agricultural

development and to promote security with respect to a possible Soviet threat to the lightly populated

territory. Since the 1980s, official support for compulsory migration has been toned down, possibly in

response to increasing tensions with the local populace, but voluntary immigration to Xinjiang has

proceeded apace. In part, this reflects the same kinds of pressures being experienced elsewhere in

China as millions of people flood out of the rural areas to seek work in the growing manufacturing

economy.

This trend is mirrored in the case of the flow of Chinese to Xinjiang by the demand for skilled

workers to fill positions in resource-based extractive industries to supply the raw materials to support

China's booming economic expansion. In what is perceived as a further attempt at ethnic dilution by

national osmosis, China's strict one-child policy has been waived for Han Chinese willing to move to

Xinjiang; they are therefore allowed to have two children, a fringe benefit which encourages further

immigration.

The Han are heavily concentrated in the northern part of Xinjiang, in and around the capital

Urumqui. The southern, less habitable, part of Xinjiang remains dominated by native groups with the

Uighurs being the most important of these. The majority of Uighurs still live in rural areas or the

poorest areas of towns and cities. Many Chinese immigrants have moved into newly constructed

apartments and have taken most of the jobs in new factories and firms.

3.3 Economy and resources

The region is believed to hold some of China’s largest deposits of oil, gas and uranium which,

once all proven and tapped, will be of enormous benefit to the country's economic development

prospects. It has been estimated that China will need to import 21 million tons of oil by 2010 if it is to

maintain its present economic growth rate, and energy security is a major consideration in Beijing's

policy towards the region.

Besides its indigenous mineral resources, the region is central to China’s plans for major

pipelines linking oil and gas fields in the Central Asian republics to the industrial areas and the coastal

cities of China in the east (a gas pipeline joining Xinjiang to Shanghai is in the making). More

importantly, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the vast energy supplies of the former Soviet

Central Asian republics are becoming a focus of geopolitical attention as regional and extra-regional

states seek to secure access to new sources of oil.

Typically, Han Chinese control the major industries in Xinjiang, and its economic production is

expressly geared to the requirements of the centre. The Muslims largely remain in traditional

agricultural and livestock occupations with comparatively less opportunities for advancement in other

sectors. Most of the region's resources are exported unprocessed to China proper, and are re-imported

as manufactured goods at higher prices.

In an attempt to close the gap in income and wealth terms between the rapidly growing eastern

coastal provinces and the western China 1999 Chinese President Jiang Zemin launched the Western

Development campaign, popularly known as “Go West!”. Tracking it back to Deng Xiao Ping

economic strategy, Jiang’s plan focused on massive infrastructure investment in Xinjiang, Tibet,

Ningxia Hui Autonomous Regions, Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan, Yunnan, Shaanxi, Guizhou provinces

and Chonqing municipality – totaling 56% of China’s land area and 23% of the population. The results

in Xinjiang of the campaign show an impressive record of achievement on the part of the Chinese

Authorities. The development of modern infrastructure (highway, railways, telecommunications, etc.)

thanks to sustained investment – both domestic and international - is undeniable.

Although there is some controversy concerning the reliability of Chinese statistics, it is hard to

confute the perception that, in general, living standard in the province are improving year by year.

According to China White Paper on Xinjiang the income of both urban and rural residents is

continuously growing . In 2001, the average annual net income per capita in the rural areas of Xinjiang

was 1,710.44 Yuan (ca 206 US$). The average annual salary of an urban employee was 10,278 Yuan

(ca 1.243 US$). Consumptions are growing and the number of durable consumer goods owned by local

residents is increasing rapidly. The quality of life of local residents has been noticeably improved. Life

expectancy in Xinjiang has been extended to 71.12 years. The demography of Xinjiang shows the

features of low rate of birth, low rate of death and low rate of increase.

In 1999, the central government drew up a 10th Five-Year Plan and a development plan for the

period up to 2010. According to this plan, by 2005 the GDP of the entire region should reach 210

billion Yuan (calculated on the prices in 2000), with an annual growth rate of 9% and the GDP per

capita of over 10,000 Yuan; the investment in fixed assets should reach 420 billion Yuan. It is planned

that, by 2010, the autonomous region's GDP should be at least double that of 2000, and the popular

standard of living significantly higher .

Beijing holds fast to its policies of economic development and modernization, secularization, and

Sinification of its West as the keys to the pacification of the region. However, the prevalent perception

among Uighurs is that, in relative terms, the Chinese vision benefits few Uighurs. Southern Xinjiang's

economy, where Uighurs are concentrated, appears to be still far from being better integrated with the

relatively prosperous Northern Xinjiang economy where Han concentrate in Urumqui.

3.4 Culture and Religion

Remarkable geographical distances are key to understanding the tremendous cultural diversity of

Xinjiang existing not only among the various Muslim nationalities but also within the Uighurs as well.

The Uighurs are an ethnically Turkic group of Muslims who probably arrived in Xinjiang as part of the

great westward migration of Turkic peoples from what is now Mongolia in the eight and ninth

centuries. In addition to their collective identity as Uighurs (the name meaning “Unity”), most tend to

identify themselves by the oasis town they originate from such as Kashgar, Yarkand, Karghalik or

Turpan. Oases have maintained separate and strong local identities despite their common religion,

language and culture.

Uighurs are Sunni Muslims following the Hanafi school law placing themselves in the

mainstream tradition of Islam. Historically in Xinjiang, as well as in other parts of Central Asia, Sufism

developed although not always harmoniously. Violent raids and warfare by two rival Sufi sects

wreaked havoc in Xinjiang from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries. In broad terms, Islamic life

in the oases of the South of Xinjiang, particularly in Kashgar, appears to be more conservative than in

the North.

The practice of Islam, particular in its revived form of recent years, and considering the

inseparability of religion from all aspects of Muslim life, including politics and government, has

become a symbolic means of confronting the Chinese State. By embracing Islam, Uighurs reject the

atheism of the Chinese Communist Party as well as its goals of modernization and social liberation.

Such anti-modernist feeling is however far from being universal in the province, as significant

segments of the Uighur population are keen to take growing advantage from the remarkable economic

development propitiated by the Chinese government development policies in the region.

Early PRC attempts to accommodate cultural differences have in recent years increasingly given

way to assimilation policies colliding with Uighur traditional values. Language has also become a

symbolic issue. The traditional Arabic (and Koranic) script that had been used in the region for more

than a thousand years was banned at the time of the Cultural Revolution when thousands of historical

books as well as a number of important mosques went destroyed. Arabic script has been in the past

twenty years re-introduced. However, in order to take advantage of any educational and economic

opportunities, the native population is obliged to learn Chinese. Meanwhile, few Chinese learn the local

languages. The cultural, linguistic and religious distance between the two peoples is not closing and

social interaction remains therefore negligible.

3.5 History

Uighur resistance to Han rule has a long history in Xinjiang, portions of which have also been

controlled by Arabs, Mongols, Russians, Kazakhs and Tibetans over the centuries. China's Emperors

exercised power in the region as early as 200 B.C. under the Han dynasty, but their grip on the territory

waxed and waned with the rise and fall of dynasties. The province has been described rather as “an

occupied country undergoing its sixth or seventh invasion from China in two millennia”. It has been

said that control of Xinjiang from the capital, while historically loose, has also been historically

exercised in colonial fashion by whichever faction ruled in Beijing. Uighurs established a kingdom

here in the late 8th century and controlled various areas until Genghis Khan's conquest nearly 500 years

later.

However, China paints the history of the region as one of substantial continuity and control. The

current period of Chinese control dates from the 1870s when Qing dynasty generals suppressed a

Muslim rebellion led by adventurer - and British agent - Yaqub Beg. The first systematic wave of Han

immigration reports back to that period . The province was incorporated into the Chinese empire in

1884. From 1911 to 1944, the region was dominated by rival warlords or occupied by other forces for

much of the first half of the 20th century. The Kuomintang did not establish its control of the region

after the 1911 nationalist revolution and the local Turkic elites declared an independent Eastern

Turkistan Islamic Republic. This occurred twice during the interwar period, before the Communist

revolution, out of the chaos of China's war with Japan, first in 1933 in Kashgar, and then in 1944 in the

Yili Valley with the help of Soviet agents.

As the Soviet Union drew closer to the Chinese Communists in 1948-49, the East Turkistan

Republic was dissolved. Following Mao Tse Tung's victory over the Nationalist forces in 1949,

Xinjiang was brought back into the Chinese fold through a combination of political astuteness and

military force. During the civil war, the position of the Chinese communist party was that ethnic groups

in regions such as Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang would be free to choose their own future. However,

Mao Tse Tung in 1949 in lieu of self-determination offered autonomous regions, provinces and

districts to the various ethnic groups with the promise to find in such context equality with the Chinese

majority . The Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) was proclaimed in 1955 but the

Communist pledge for autonomy has however only nominally been fulfilled. Ever since 1955 a

succession of non-Han leaders have chaired the regional government. In truth, real power has remained

with the Han controlled Communist Party and military. Most of the senior administrators, and all of the

military commanders in Xinjiang, are Han Chinese appointed by Beijing.

4. Episodes of Terrorism in Xinjiang

Since 2001 Chinese authorities have released reports on various aspects of alleged ongoing

terrorist activities in Xinjiang. The Uighur version of facts and episodes reported by the PRC is of

course very different. Independent verification of the claims made by either side remains impossible

due to the strict information control imposed in the region by official authorities.

A 21 January 2002 government report entitled ‘East Turkistan Terrorist Forces Cannot Get Away

With Impunity’, compiling data from 1990 to 2001, made “East Turkistan" terrorist forces inside and

outside China responsible for over 200 terrorist incidents in Xinjiang, resulting in the deaths of 162

people of all ethnic groups, including grass-roots officials and religious personnel, and injuries to more

than 440 people. This section draws heavily from the above mentioned official document.

The report claimed that arson, explosions, assassinations and kidnappings had continued

throughout the 1990s as well as attacks on police stations, military installations and government

officials. In the Chinese view such facts are irrefutable proof of the nature of the “East Turkistan”

forces as a terrorist organization that “does not flinch from taking violent measures to kill the innocent

and harm society so as to achieve the goal of splitting the motherland”. The ‘East Turkistan Islamic

Movement’ (ETIM), one of the more extreme groups founded by Uighurs, is often quoted by the

Chinese as responsible for the acts described in the report. Out of the terrorist incidents quoted, the

following are noteworthy.

4.1 Explosions

Bomb attacks have been among the most common violent crimes in Xinjiang also due to the

wide availability of explosives for construction projects. Incidentally, this confirms the Improvised

Explosive Device (IED) as the contemporary terrorist's tactic of choice. From Xinjiang there have so

far been no reports of suicide bombings, the hallmark of contemporary Islamic radicalism.

1 “ On February 28, 1991, an explosion engineered by the ‘East Turkistan’ terrorist organization

at a video theater of a bus terminal in Kuqa County, Aksu Prefecture, Xinjiang, caused the

death of one person and injuries to 13 others.

2 On February 5, 1992, while the Chinese people were celebrating the Chinese New Year,

terrorists blew up two buses (Buses No. 52 and No. 30) in Urumqui, the regional capital of

Xinjiang, killing three people and injuring 23 others. Two other bombs they planted - one at a

cinema and the other in a residential building - were discovered before they could explode, and

defused.

3 From June 17 to September 5, 1993, ten explosions occurred at department stores, markets,

hotels and places for cultural activities in the southern part of Xinjiang, causing two deaths and

36 injuries. Among them, the June 17 explosion at the office building of an agricultural

machinery company in Kashgar, demolished the building, killed two people and injured seven

others. An explosion on August 1 at the video theater of the Foreign Trade Company in Shache

County, Kashi Prefecture, injured 15 people; on August 19 an explosion in front of the Cultural

Palace in the city of Hotan injured six people.

4 On February 25, 1997, directing its terrorist activities to the capital of Xinjiang again, the ETIM

blew up three buses (Buses No. 2, No. 10 and No. 44) in Urumqui. Nine people died and 68

others were seriously injured in the incidents, among whom were people of the ethnic Uighur,

Hui, Kyrgyz and Han origins.

5 Between February 22 and March 30, 1998, ETIM set off a succession of six explosions in

Yecheng County, Kashgar Prefecture, injuring three people and causing a natural gas pipeline

to explode and start a big fire.

6 Early in the morning of April 7, 1998, the same terrorist organization engineered eight

explosions one after another at places such as the homes of a director of the Public Security

Bureau of Yecheng County, a vice-chairman of the Yecheng County Committee of the Chinese

People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and a deputy commissioner of Kashi

(Kashgar) Prefecture. The explosions injured eight people ”.

4.2 Assassinations

Chinese authorities claim also that ETIM and other terrorist groups have targeted their attacks at

officials, ordinary people and patriotic religious personages of the Uighur ethnic group, as well as the

ethnic Han people, killing them as “pagans”.

1 “On August 24, 1993, two ‘East Turkistan’ terrorists stabbed and seriously injured Abliz

Damolla, the imam of the Great Mosque.

2 On March 22, 1996, two armed and masked terrorists broke into the home of Hakimsidiq Haji,

vice-chairman of the Islamic Association of Xinhe County, Aksu Prefecture, and assistant imam

of a mosque, and shot him dead.

3 Early in the morning of April 29, 1996, a dozen ‘armed-to-the-teeth’ terrorists broke into the

homes of Qavul Toqa, deputy to the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region People’s Congress at

Qunas Village of Alaqagha Township in Kuqa County, and three other local Uighur grassroots

officials. Three of Toqa’s family died in the attack.

4 The ‘East Turkistan’ terrorist organization plotted the assassination of Arunhan Aji, executive

committee member of the Islamic Association of China and chairman of the Kashi Islamic

Association, on May 12, 1996.

5 Early in the morning of November 6, 1997, a terrorist group headed by Muhammat Tursun, at

the order of the ‘East Turkistan’ organization abroad, shot and killed Yunus Sidiq Damolla, a

member of the Islamic Association of China and of the Islamic Association of Xinjiang,

chairman of the Islamic Association of Aksu and imam of the Mosque of Baicheng County,

while he was on his way to the mosque to worship.

6 On June 4, 1997, four terrorists broke into the home of Muhammat Rozi Muhammat, an official

of Huangdi Village of Aqik Township in Moyu County, Hotan Prefecture, and killed him with

11 stab wounds.

7 On August 23, 1999, a dozen of terrorists led by Yasin Muhammat broke into the home of

Hudaberdi Tohti, political instructor of the police station of Bosikem Township in Zepu

County, Kashi Prefecture, killing Hudaberdi Tohti with 38 stab wounds and his son with a shot

to the head. Then the terrorists set Tohti’s home on fire, causing serious burns to his wife.

8 On February 3, 2001, a gang of terrorists broke into the home of Muhammatjan Yaqup, an

official at the People’s Court of Shufu County, Kashi Prefecture, killing him with 38 stab

wounds ”.

4.3 Attacks on Police and Government Institutions

According to the said government report, terrorist attacks were conducted against Police targets and

Government Institutions.

1 “On August 27, 1996, six terrorists dressed in combat fatigues drove to the office building of

the Jangilas Township People’s Government, Yecheng County, where they cut the telephone

lines and killed a deputy head of the township and a policeman on duty. Afterwards, they

kidnapped three security men and one waterworks tender in a village of the same township, and

later killed them in the desert 10 kilometers away.

2 Early in the morning of October 24, 1999, terrorists attacked the police station in Saili

Township, Zepu County, with guns, machetes, incendiary bottles and grenades. They shot one

member of a local security guard dead and wounded another, wounded a policeman and killed a

criminal suspect in custody ”.

4.4 Secret Training and Fundraising

China also claims that in order to train hardcore members and enlarge their organization, the

‘East Turkistan’ terrorist forces secretly established training bases in Xinjiang, mainly in remote parts

of the region.

1 “ In 1990, the ‘Shock Brigade of the Islamic Reformist Party’ has been said to have established

a base to train terrorists in the remote Basheriq Township, Yecheng County. Three training

classes were run there, with more than 60 terrorists having been trained, mainly in the theory of

religious extremism and terrorism, explosion, assassination and other terrorist skills, and

physical strength. Most of the trainees later participated in the major terrorist activities, such as

explosions, assassinations and robberies, from 1991 to 1993 in various parts of Xinjiang.

2 In February 1998, Hasan Mahsum, [the alleged ringleader of the ‘East Turkistan Islamic

Movement’ abroad, and since Dec.14 2003 the number 1 most wanted], sent scores of terrorists

into China. They established about a dozen training bases in Xinjiang and inland regions, and

trained more than 150 terrorists in 15 training classes. In addition, they set up large numbers of

training stations in scattered areas, each of them composed of three to five members, and some

of them being also workshops for making weapons, ammunition and explosive devices. The

Xinjiang police uncovered many of these underground training stations and workshops, and

confiscated large numbers of antitank grenades, hand-grenades, detonators, guns and

ammunition.

3 On December 30, 1999, the police discovered an underground hideout in Poskam Township,

Zepu County. In this hideout, which was 3 meters from the ground and measured 3 meters long,

2 meters wide and 1.7 meters high, they found tools for making explosive devices, such as

electric drills and electric welding machines, as well as blueprints and antitank grenades.

4 On February 25, 2000, the police arrested seven terrorists in the No. 3 Village, Kachung

Township, Shache County, and discovered a tunnel leading to an underground bunker beneath

the house of one of them, which was equipped with ventilation devices, water supply and

sewage systems. The police seized 38 antitank grenades, 22 electric detonators, 18 explosive

devices, 17 kilograms of explosive charges and more than 20 fuses from the bunker.

5 In August 2001, police discovered a four-meter-deep tunnel under the house of a terrorist in

Seriqsoghet Village, Uzun Township, Kuqa County, and confiscated 61 explosive devices from

the tunnel, which also contained various kinds of equipment for making arms and ammunition

”.

4.5 Plotting and Organizing Disturbances and Riots

In order to create an atmosphere of tension and fear, and extend its political influence, China

claims that the “East Turkistan” terrorist forces plotted and organized riots and disturbances many

times, by engaging in terrorist acts of beating, smashing, looting, arson and murder, which seriously

endangered social stability, people’s lives and property.

1 “ On April 5, 1990, a group of terrorists, aided and abetted by the "East Turkistan Islamic

Party," created a grave terrorist incident in Baren Township, Akto County, Xinjiang. They

brazenly preached a "holy war," the "elimination of pagans" and the setting up of an "East

Turkistan Republic". The terrorists tried to put pressure on the government by taking ten

persons hostage, demolished two cars at a traffic junction and killed six policemen. They shot at

the besieged government functionaries with submachine guns and pistols, and threw explosives

and hand-grenades at them”.

2 From February 5 to 8, 1997, the "East Turkistan Islamic Party of Allah" and some other terrorist

organizations perpetrated the Yining Incident, a serious riot during which the terrorists shouted

slogans calling for the establishment of an "Islamic Kingdom." They attacked innocent people,

destroyed stores and burned and otherwise damaged cars and buses. During this incident seven

innocent people were killed, more than 200 people were injured, more than 30 vehicles were

damaged and two private houses were burned down. The terrorists attacked a young couple on

their way home, knifing the wife to death after disfiguring her and severely injuring the

husband. A staff member of a township cultural station was stabbed to death and then thrown

into a fire “.

3 In particular, the Baren uprising in April 1990 initiated the cycle of violence during the 1990s

and is considered a watershed episode because of the amount of weapons and explosives, and

the foreign money and backers. At Baren, 50 Uighurs and several Chinese police were killed,

starting a process of increasing radicalization. Afterwards, 1000 Uighurs were rounded up in

Xinjiang by Chinese forces, and imprisoned. Baren became a symbol of the liberation struggle.

Bombings began in 1992 in Urumqui, and continued thereafter, reaching Beijing in 1997 when

two buses were bombed.

The Beijing bombings are significant in that they marked an expansion of the violent campaign

for independence in Xinjiang.

4.6 ‘East Turkistan’ terrorist incidents outside China.

The following episodes have been quoted:

1 “ In March 1997, ‘East Turkistan’ terrorists opened fire at the Chinese embassy in Turkey, and

attacked the Chinese consulate-general in Istanbul, burning the Chinese national flag flying

there.

2 On March 5, 1998, they launched a bomb attack against the Chinese consulate-general in

Istanbul.

3 In March 2000, Nighmet Bosakof, president of the Kyrgyzstan ‘Uighur Youth Alliance’, was

shot dead in Bishkek in front of his house by members of a terrorist organization named the

‘East Turkistan Liberation Organization’ because he had refused to cooperate with them.

4 In May 2000, members of the ‘Uighur Liberation Organization’ beyond the boundaries extorted

US$100,000 as ransom after kidnapping a Xinjiang businessman, murdered his nephew, and set

the Bishkek Market of Chinese Commodities on fire.

5 On May 25, 2000, terrorists attacked the work team of the Xinjiang People’s Government

which went to Kyrgyzstan to deal with the above case, causing one death and two injuries. The

culprits then fled to Kazakhstan, killing two Kazakhstan policemen who were searching for

them in Alma-Ata in September the same year.

6 On July 1, 2002, a Chinese diplomat posted in Bishkek and his driver were reportedly

assassinated”.†[With reference to this last specific episode, it is not yet clear who was

responsible for the assassination. However, two Uighur suspects were detained by the Kyrgyz

authorities and handed over to China].

The Chinese report is impressive in its detail. However, it is also impossible to get independent

confirmation of the official version of all the facts reported. Most of the incidents occurred several

years ago and Beijing has presented limited evidence to support its claim that they were carried out by

terrorist cells taking orders from Muslim radicals abroad. Exiled Uighur activists who monitor Xinjiang

said many of the attacks that China has blamed on terrorist cells are better described as violent crimes

committed by young, frustrated Uighur men.

The Uighur version of events, as told by foreign-based propaganda organizations, is evidently very

different, describing for instance, rallies as peaceful demonstrations opposing the Chinese repression of

the Uighur identity and religion that turn ugly because of Chinese provocation and use of force.

5. The Separatists:

Organizations and Individuals

Uighur separatism represents a galaxy of uneasy scrutiny. There are nearly a hundred

organizations popping up from time to time claiming to represent different sections of the Uighurs in

Xinjiang as well as outside, and to be fighting on their behalf.† It is difficult to say whether all such

organizations exist in reality or whether many of these are merely ‘letterhead’ organizations, which

exist only on paper.† Co-ordination among the various ‘East Turkistan’ liberation groups is known to

be limited although Chinese Authorities claim there have been signs of recent consolidation.

5.1 Organisations active in Xinjiang

The organizations listed hereunder are known to be active in Xinjiang. Of these only the Eastern

Turkistan Islamic Party and the Home of East Turkistan Youth seem to be oriented towards religious

extremism and pan-Islamism.† The relative support enjoyed by these organizations amongst the local

people and their respective roles in acts of violence in Xinjiang are difficult to establish.

Some of these organizations have ideological and possibly even operational link-ups with the†

Hizb-e Tehrir (HT) or “Party of Liberation”, which projects itself as† the largest and the most popular

Central Asian Islamic movement with followings in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan and† which

has been fighting to establish an Islamic Caliphate in the historical region once known as Turkistan,

encompassing the XUAR and the Central Asian Republics (CARs) .

They are also reported to have links with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan which has renamed

itself since June, 2001,as the† Hizb-i-Islami Turkistan, or the Islamic Party of Turkistan, and reformulated

its objective as the creation of† an Islamic republic out of the five Central Asian Republics

and the XUAR of China.

Amongst the major terrorist/extremist organisations of Xinjiang identified so far are :

1 The East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM)

Public enemy nr.1 according to China, the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) is one of the more

extreme Uighur groups. An indication that ETIM is a special concern for Chinese authorities came on

15 Dec.2003 as the PRC Ministry of Public Security issued for the first time a most wanted list of

people dubbed Eastern Turkistan terrorist comprising 11 names belonging to four separatist groups all

based abroad. ETIM was prominent in the list .

The ministry’s statement said that in past six years ETIM had set up at least 10 terrorists training

camps. It alleged that by the end of 1999 it had more than 1000 members and had amassed 5.000 antitank

grenades. The movement was accused of organizing a series of robberies and murders in Xinjiang

in 1999 which left six people dead. The ministry said the organization had received several million US

dollars from Osama Bin Laden. It also accused the group of raising money by smuggling drugs and

weapons, kidnapping, blackmailing and robbery.

Chinese characterization of ETIM as a terrorist group is however not exclusive. In 2002, the

administration of U.S. President George W. Bush froze the group's U.S. assets. On Aug. 26, 2002,

Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage announced that Washington had placed the East Turkistan

Islamic Movement on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations. The group "committed acts of violence

against unarmed civilians without any regard for who was hurt," he said. Although ETIM has

traditionally focused on Chinese targets, the American administration explained that it may have had

plans to also attack American interests. The State Department said movement members attempted to

attack the U.S. embassy in Kyrgyzstan's capital, Bishkek, as well as other U.S. interests abroad. In May

2002, two members were deported to China for the plot. The group was not placed on the top priority

list of terrorist organizations but rather on the broader list of groups subject to financial sanctions.

State Department officials explained that they took a tougher line because of persuasive new

evidence that the ETIM has financial links to al-Qa’ida and has targeted American interests abroad. But

to Uighur separatist, who have felt bitterly disappointed by the shift in U.S. policy on Xinjiang, this

may have rather appeared as an obvious bid for closer relations with China which came at the time of

crucial UN Security Council negotiations over a resolution on Iraq and before Chinese President Jiang

Zemin’s scheduled October 2002 visit to President Bush’s Texas ranch.

Outside Xinjiang, ETIM cells are said to be operating in Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan,

Kazakhstan and Pakistan. U.S. officials claim that the group has a ‘close financial relationship’ with al

Qa’ida, based on information they received from militants being held at the U.S. naval base in

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. ETIM leader Hahsan Mahsum has denied any connections between al Qa’ida

and his group.

2 The Eastern Turkistan Islamic Party (Sharki Turkistan Islam Partiyesi)

ETIP was founded in the early 1980s with the goal of establishing an independent state of Eastern

Turkistan and advocates armed struggle.† Based in the cities of Kashgar and Hoten, is supported

mainly by religious fundamentalist elements, conservative forces and some farmers.†

3 The Eastern Turkistan Revolutionary Party (Sharki Turkistan Inkalavi Partiyesi)

Based in Urumchi and Ghulja, it claims the support of† writers, progressive students and other

intellectuals.†

4 The Eastern Turkistan Independence Organization (Sharki Turkistan Azatlik Teshkilati)

Centered in Hoten, it claims the support of some young farmers, unemployed Uighurs and young

officials.† SHAT’s members have reportedly been involved in various bomb plots and shootouts.

5 The Eastern Turkistan Grey Wolf Party (Sharki Turkistan Bozkurt Partiyesi)

It used to have some following in Urumchi, and it is believed in Xinjiang that the Uighurs descended

from a wolf - hence its name.† This party, reportedly backed by teachers, students and other

intellectuals, is said to be pan- Turkic oriented.†

6 The Eastern Turkistan Liberation Front (Sharki Turkistan Azatlik Fronti)

Reportedly has a presence in the cities of Turfan and Kumul and is supported by unemployed Uighur

youth, farmers and intellectuals.†

7 The Home of East Turkistan Youth

Branded as ‘Xinjiang's Hamas’, it is a radical group committed to achieving the goal of independence

through the use of armed force. It has some 2,000 members, some of whom have undergone training in

using explosive devices in Afghanistan.

8 The Free Turkistan Movement

Led by Zahideen Yusuf, the Free Turkistan Movement is Islamic fundamentalist. The group has

claimed responsibility for organizing the Baren uprising in April 1990.

9 Islamic Holy Warriors

Led by Ujimamadi Abbas, executed in October 2003 in Hotan, it is charged with involvement in the

separatist movement since 1995 and suspected of having played a key role in the violent riots of Yining

in 1997.

10 The East Turkistan Liberation Organization (ETLO)

ETLO is charged with crimes of arson. The Chinese authorities claim that in 1998, members of the

"East Turkistan Liberation Organization" who had infiltrated into Xinjiang after receiving special

training abroad, planned arson in some of the busiest areas of Urumqui.

5.2 Uighur organizations active outside Xinjiang

11 The Committee for Eastern Turkistan,

Based in Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan, is probably the most radical national movement in Central Asia. The

Committee has recently become more militant and has vowed to intensify its struggle in a bid to free

Xinjiang from growing Chinese influence. It was originally formed by Uighur guerrillas who fought

against the Chinese in the period of 1944-1949.

12 The Xinjiang Liberation Organization/Uyghur Liberation Organization (ULO)

Based in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, dispersed throughout the Uyghur diaspora in Central Asia. The

ULO claims responsibility for assassinations of “Uighur collaborators” in China and Central Asia.

13 United National Revolutionary Front of East Turkistan (UNRF)

The UNRF stridently opposes Sinification of Xinjiang, and is known to assassinate imams with pro-

China views. Based in Kazakhstan and originally moderate, claims it was radicalized in 1997 as a result

of the Chinese crackdown called "Operation Strike Hard".

14 Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU)

Probably the most important Islamic organization for influencing and recruiting Uighurs within the

Central Asian Uighur diaspora. IMU's roots go back to 1991 but it was formally founded in 1996 by

the Taliban as an armed auxiliary to itself. The IMU obtained financial support and training in al

Qa’ida camps, and operated in the Ferghana Valley. Most financing comes from control of heroin and

opium trade in Central Asia. The IMU links most directly in Xinjiang with the Islamic Movement of

Eastern Turkistan, providing military and financial assistance.

The IMU changed its name to the Islamic Party of Turkistan (Hezb-e Islami Turkistan) in June 2001.

The original goal of the IMU was to overthrow the Uzbek government and install an Islamic state in

Uzbekistan. When the IMU changed its name to the Islamic Party of Turkistan, its goal expanded to

creating an Islamic state for all of Central Asia and Xinjiang, which led to increased recruits of Uzbek,

Uighur, Chechen, Arab, and Pakistani members. The IMU subsequently broadened its activities beyond

Uzbekistan to attacks on surrounding countries. The total size of the IMU is estimated to be about

5,000 serving in the armed wing. The Uighur component is unknown but thought to be small.

5.3. Uighur “cyber - separatism”

Segments of the Uighur diaspora, particularly of the one settled in the Western countries, are

engaged in an advocacy action for the Uighurs’ separatist cause. Their activities are closely monitored

by China which charges that their promotion of the East Turkistan cause goes well beyond the simple

ideological support to trespass into the criminal field of terrorist abetting.

Pan-Turkic East Turkistan groups are based in Turkey, the United States and Germany. They are

active in orchestrating Uighur propaganda and – in the light of the restrictions posed by China to field

work in Xinjiang - represent a much sought, albeit biased, source of information for human rights

groups on what is happening in the province. Their activity appears to be mostly confined to web sites

and has therefore been heralded as a vocal but relatively un-effective ‘cyber–separatism’. Such groups

include:

1 The East Turkistan Information Center

ETIC runs a prominent Germany-based English-language news web site on Uighur affairs. China has

accused ETIC of secretly sending information on how to conduct violent terrorist activities back to a

network within the Chinese border, and claimed it was using its information role as a facade for these

activities.

2 The World Uighur Youth Congress (WUYC).

Chaired by Mehmet Toti, the organization comprises young people of Uighur origin from different

countries of the world. They are known for having arranged a World Uighur Youth Congress in the

Estonian capital of Tallinn in November 2000 as part of the conflict prevention conference organized

by the Unrepresented Peoples and Nations Organization (UNPO). They have been vocal in advocating

the attention of international organizations, particularly UNESCO, in the prevention of the destruction

of Uighur historic sites.

3 The East Turkistan National Congress

Presided over by Enver Can, it claims to be the only legitimate umbrella body of the Uighur people

abroad and the representative organ of the Uighur people to speak and act on behalf of that people in

the free world. It includes 18 organizations legally operating in 13 countries around the world. It claims

to abhor violence of terrorism as an instrument of policy and declares its unconditional adherence to the

internationally accepted human rights standards as laid down in the Universal Declaration of Human

Rights and International Covenant and Political Rights and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights;

adherence to the principles of democratic pluralism and rejection of totalitarianism and any form of

religious intolerance.

The first General Assembly, or National Congress, of the ETNC was held in 1992 in Istanbul. At the

second General Assembly, held in Munich in 1999, the East Turkistan National Congress was founded

as the international democratically elected representative body of the Uighur people.

4 The Uighur American Association (UAA)

The Uighur American Association renounces the use of violence to achieve political ends. The UAA

claims that Beijing's military approach to terrorism in Xinjiang is state terrorism, and is burying the

seeds for future violence among young Uighurs. As a lobbying group in the US, UAA has encouraged

the American public and government to think of the Uighurs with the same amount of sympathy they

accord Tibetans and others.

5.4 Most Wanted

On 15 Dec.2003 as the PRC Ministry of Public Security issued for the first time a most wanted list

of people dubbed ‘Eastern Turkistan terrorists’. The list comprised eleven names belonging to four

separatist groups all based abroad :

Hasan Mahsum,39

Topping the list is the alleged leader of ETIM. According to the profile released by the Chinese

authorities, Mahsum was a founder of the East Turkistan Islamic Movement. He was born in 1964 in

Xinjiang and was a first time arrested in 1993 for terrorist activities. After serving a three-year labour

re-education sentence, he went abroad in 1997 and founded the organisation.

Muhanmetemin Hazret, 53

Thought to be the leader of ETLO. The Group is accused of bombings and killings including the 2002

murder of a Chinese diplomat in Kyrgyzstan.

Dolqun Isa, 36

Thought to be the Deputy ETLO leader. Accused of masterminding explosions in Hotan.

Abudejelili Kalakash, 43

Leader of East Turkistan Information centre (ETIC) and member of the World Uighur Youth Congress.

Crimes said to include sending activist information via the Internet on making poisons and explosives.

The following individuals have also been charged with planning of terrorist acts, organizing

terrorists training abroad, weapons smuggling arson, killings and making explosives.

1 Abudukadir Yapuquan, 45

2 Abudumijit Muhammatkelim, 36

3 Adudula Kiaji, 34

4 Abulimit Turxun, 39

5 Hudaberdi Haxerbik, 33

6 Yasen Muhammat, 39

7 Atahan Abuduhani, 39

It is perhaps useful to include here the names of Uighur individuals apprehended and executed by

China. Their deaths at the hand of the Chinese has somewhat elevated them to a state of “martyrs” and

their example may therefore be present in the minds of other would be radicals.

Zahideen Yusuf

Leader of the Free Turkistan Movement is deemed to have been the force behind the Baren riots

of April 1990. The episode initiated a process of increasing radicalization of Uighurs. Yusuf is thought

to have smuggled and stockpiled weapons and to have been spreading the message of jihad beforehand.

Zahideen was killed in Baren. However, his memory is still nourished in the popular lore.

Ujimamadi Abbas

Executed in October 2003 in Hotan he was the leader of the militant group ‘Islamic Holy

Warriors’. According to Chinese charges, he had been involved in the separatist movement since 1995

and had played a key role in the violent riots of Yining in 1997. Abbas had sought refuge in Nepal in

2000 but was repatriated in 2002, under Chinese pressure, by the Nepalese authorities.

Uighur propaganda portrays Abbas as a peaceful political activist who nonviolently resisted

Chinese rule in East Turkistan. Uighurs have blamed the Nepali government for extraditing Abbas to

China in violation of the international law principle of non-refoulement and disregarding the refugee

status that had been granted to him by UNHCR officials in Nepal.

6. China’s counter- terrorist strategy: repression and diplomacy

As China perceives rising tide of terrorism and separatist movements within its own borders,

the PRC government has adopted a bi- dimensional approach in dealing with the issue . The first

dimension deals with prevention. This involves ad hoc domestic legislation and sweeping action on

terrorist activities by the law enforcement agencies. The second dimension concerns with isolating and

demonizing the separatist groups. This is done by a combination of domestic efforts to co-opt

“assimilated Uighurs” , and of diplomatic action aiming at isolating separatists by undercutting

whatever international support they can muster.

The crack down on Uighur separatism is in Xinjiang known as “Strike Hard! Maximum

Pressure!”. Such law-enforcement campaign is part and parcel of a wider national ‘Strike Hard’ highprofile

police initiative launched in 1996, as an answer to citizens' legitimate concerns about rising

crime. The ‘Strike Hard’ campaign never officially came to an end, though it has faded from the scene

in most urban areas. In minority areas, particularly in Xinjiang province, the ‘Strike Hard’ campaign

has continued in 2002 and 2003, and includes harsh measures against political activists.

6.1 Domestic measures

In the wake of the Sept.11 attacks, Chinese authorities undertook a number of measures to

improve China’s counterterrorism posture and domestic security.† These included increasing its

vigilance in Xinjiang and increasing the readiness levels of its military and police units in the region.†

China also bolstered Chinese regular army units near the borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan to

block terrorists fleeing from Afghanistan, while strengthening overall domestic preparedness.† At the

request of the United States, China conducted a search within Chinese banks for evidence to attack

terrorist financing mechanisms. Despite the current ongoing stabilization of Afghanistan under the

government of Hamid Karzai, military vigilance at the eastern tip of the Wakhan corridor, the stretch of

mountainous territory that provides Afghanistan with a border with China, remains high.

Chinese Authorities also felt the need to upgrade criminal legislative provisions with the

specific aim of targeting terrorism-related crimes. On 29 December 2001, the Standing Committee of

the National People's Congress (NPC - China's legislature) adopted amendments to the Criminal Law

of the People's Republic of China. The stated purpose of the amendments, which entered into force the

same day, was to ‘punish terrorist crimes, ensure national security and the safety of people's lives and

property, and uphold social order’.

However, human rights group are concerned that the new provisions enlarge the scope of

application of the death penalty in China and may be used to further suppress freedom of expression

and association. Human rights activists are concerned that the new provisions introduced on ‘terrorist’

crimes, enlarge the scope of the death penalty, and that both the new and existing provisions on such

crimes are vaguely worded and may criminalize peaceful activities and infringe unduly upon rights

such as freedom of expression and association.

As far as the responsibilities of the law-enforcement agencies are concerned, China’s 2002

White Paper on national defense identified the fight against terrorism as one of the major peacetime

tasks of the paramilitary People's Armed Police (PAP). The Paper stated that specific anti-terror

missions of the PAP included “performing anti-attack, anti-hijacking and anti-explosion tasks”. This

appears to be an enlargement of the PAP traditional mandate, as the force, established in 1982, has in

the past primarily been charged with guard duties and internal security.

It is worth recalling the specific anti-terrorist activity carried out in Xinjiang by the pseudomilitary

Bin Tuan organization, formally known as the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps

(XPCC). The Bin Tuan was formed in the 1950s when Chinese troops were relieved of combat duties

and drafted into agricultural development projects. It was disbanded in 1975 but re-established in 1981

and retains a somewhat misleading military designation as the Xth Agricultural Division. The XPCC

numbers about 2.28 million people, including about 1 million workers. Despite its alleged non-combat

status, the XPCC has served as an effective arm of the PLA in countering unrest in Xinjiang over the

years and played a key role in ending the 1990 Baren uprising. Among the overall XPCC

responsibilities are management of the Chinese detention camps.

6.2 China’s anti-terror diplomacy

It is widely held that Sept.11 marked a watershed in the anti-terrorism postures and policies of

states worldwide. China's initial response to the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, DC was

one of deep shock, sincere sympathy, and condolences. Chinese officials strongly condemned the

September 11 attacks and announced China would strengthen cooperation with the international

community in fighting terrorism on the basis of the UN Charter and international law.† China voted in

support of UN Security Council resolutions after the attack.† Its vote for Resolution 1368 on

Afghanistan marked the first time it has voted in favor of authorizing the international use of force.†

China and the United States began a counterterrorism dialogue in late-September 2001, which

was followed by further discussions during, the State Department's Counter-Terrorism Coordinator,

Ambassador Francis Taylor, trip in December 2001 to Beijing.† The profile of US-Sino anti-terrorism

co-operation was raised with the Government of China approving the establishment of an FBI Legal

Attaché in Beijing and agreeing to create US-China counterterrorism working groups on financing and

law enforcement. Sino-American co-operation was extended and pursued with increasing intensity and

manifest satisfaction on the U.S. part.

The PRC has typically sought international cooperation in preventing terrorist organizations in

Islamic countries from providing support to separatist groups operating within China. Beijing has

reached out to states in the region suspected of providing havens for terrorist organizations. For

instance, China maintains a close relationship with Pakistan, a country whose role in the war on terror

is sometimes seen as ambivalent.

China has taken a constructive approach to terrorism problems in South and Central Asia,

publicly supporting the American–led coalition campaign in Afghanistan and using its influence with

Pakistan to urge support for multinational efforts against the Taliban and al Qa’ida.† Similarly, Beijing

is believed to have pressured Pakistan to crack down on Muslim groups it suspects of arming

fundamentalists in Xinjiang. The PRC special relationship with Pakistan has not refrained the Chinese

government from taking action against the possible spread of Islamic fundamentalism at the hands of

Pakistanis in Xinjiang. According to journalistic reports in late December 2003, 700 Pakistani traders

were expelled from Xinjiang. Beijing has also restricted visas for Pakistanis wanting to travel to

Xinjiang along the Karakorum Highway and taken measures to prevent Muslim Uighurs from traveling

to Pakistan and Afghanistan to attend Islamic madrassas (religious schools).

Moreover, Beijing has been particularly interested in developing ties with the authorities in

neighboring states to restrict the operations of Islamic separatist groups who maintain the independence

campaign safe from Chinese intervention.

6.3 Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)

China has in particular, sought closer cooperation with the governments of the Central Asian

Republics. Anti-terrorism has increasingly become a major focus of the Shanghai Cooperation

Organization (SCO) that includes China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The

organization was born in 1996 as the ‘Shanghai Group’ comprising Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan,

Kazakhstan, Russia and China and was formed in part in an effort to overcome lingering suspicions

between Beijing and its ex-Soviet neighbors, to create a more stable border area, and promote intraregional

progress through trust and co-operation.

After a five-year embryonic phase, the post 9/11 scenario, substantially revolutionized by

American political and military influence in the region, provided the urge for an upgrade of cooperation

among the partners of the organization and for the institutionalization of collective

mechanisms. A Charter was signed in June 2001 as well as a declaration and an agreement on

terrorism, separatism and extremism. The Charter has come into effect in September 2003, following

ratification by four countries.

Permanent bodies have been created: a Secretariat was inaugurated in Beijing on January 15

2004 and an anti-terrorist institution in Tashkent is expected to be opened within June 2004

(Uzbekistan joined SCO in 2001). Such body had been originally planned to be hosted by Tajikistan in

its capital Bishkek, but Tashkent was eventually chosen to accommodate Uzbekistan’s status and for

symbolic reasons, as that country feels that it is the primary target of terrorist activities in Central Asia

(particularly by the IMU) .

Although the organization aims at developing an equally strong articulate “second track”

mainly covering economy and trade, security is bound to be one of the main components of the SCO.

Anti-terrorist and military exercises were conducted in the summer of 2003. Named “Cooperation

2003”, the anti-terrorist exercise saw more than 1,000 soldiers from Russia, Kyrgyzstan and

Kazakhstan launch a mock battle to rescue air passengers held by a gang of international terrorists.

In a second stage of the exercise on August 11-12, Chinese forces in Xinjiang practiced

hostage-release techniques and the destruction of a terrorist base. The drills were the first of their kind

within the framework of the SCO, and the first time the PLA had taken part in such a large - scale joint

anti-terrorism exercise . While the Chinese stress that the SCO is not a military alliance and does not

target any third country, the organization is “both responsible and effective in making contributions to

the international anti-terrorism campaign”, and as such, proved to be a critical part of Chinese efforts to

stem and eradicate external links to domestic separatist and terrorist cells.

7. Xinjiang : radical Islam’s next tinderbox?

Muslim communities are found in almost every part of China from Guangdong and Fujian

where Muslim sailors and merchants first came ashore to the far north-eastern provinces of Liaoning

and Heilongjiang. However, the deepest impression left by Islam has been in the remote North-West,

along the Silk Road. According to the 1999 census, China has more than 17 million Muslims. The Hui,

ethnically and linguistically of Chinese stock, are the largest officially recognised Muslim group at

about 8.6 million. Hui minority populations are found throughout China and they do not have a

traditional territorial homeland. There are however, significant concentrations of Hui in their own

autonomous region, Ningxia, as well as in Gansu and Qinghai provinces, which lie to the east of

Xinjiang in central China. Conversely, Turkic Islam in China is however, clearly associated with the

territory of Xinjiang where the native Uighur population practices a moderate form of Sunnism

veneered by Sufism.

The challenge to state authority posed by Islam’s blurring of the lines between the spiritual and

the secular is well known and has determined in China as elsewhere, areas of conflict between the

Chinese State and its Muslim citizens. Such conflict is at its most intense when religion is laced with

nationalism. This is precisely the combination most feared by the government in Beijing.

To address such challenge the PRC has systematically sought to manage and control religious

activities throughout China, ostensibly to safeguard national unity and stability. Religious practice has

been put under vigilance in the XUAR, as in other parts of China, since the 1950s. The Cultural

Revolution was particularly hard for all religious groups in China, Christians, Buddhists and Muslims.

In Xinjiang and throughout China, mosques were destroyed or closed and ancient religious sites

desecrated. After Deng Xiao Ping took power, the situation improved rapidly for the Muslims.

Mosques were rebuilt or reopened and greater interaction between China's Muslims and the wider

Islamic community was permitted.

However, in the late 1980s and the 1990s, in sync with the growing separatism menace, the

Chinese government responded by restricting contacts between its Turkic Muslims and visitors from

the Middle East. By the early 1990s, mosque construction and renovation was curtailed, public

broadcasting of sermons outside mosques was banned, and religious education was proscribed. Only

religious material published by the state Religious Affairs Bureau was allowed, religious activists were

purged from state positions and Haj pilgrimages were tightly controlled and limited to participants over

50 years of age. Despite such measures, Chinese Muslim participation in the annual Haj pilgrimage to

Mecca grew steadily from the mid-1980s, exposing many ordinary people to international Islamic

thought and political developments. Similarly, foreign Muslims were allowed to visit Islamic sites in

China, creating a greater awareness of the wider Muslim community. Uighur participation in the

Islamic vision of a Muslim Central Asia was strengthened when the Karakorum Highway, linking

Pakistan to China, was opened in 1986. Since then the route of the Haj - an obligation for devout

Muslims - would always include a stop-over in Pakistani religious schools (deenie madaress [ar.]) on

the way to Saudi Arabia. In this manner, thousands of Uighurs developed connections with Pakistani

religious schools and organizations.

The first serious outbreaks of violence directed at the Chinese authorities occurred in the 1990s

in response to the imposition of the above described restrictive measures and reflected the local

communities' anger and frustration at Beijing's about-turn on greater religious freedom. Chinese control

has intensified in the XUAR since October 2001. Today China sees Islam’s revival in Xinjiang, part of

a wider Islamic revival in Central Asia, as the chief obstacle to Uighur assimilation and to

modernization of the region. However, while there is a growing conservatism in the province external

observers feel that it is not the Taliban style of Wahabbi Islam that the Chinese government seems to be

afraid of. Moreover, the indigenous Sufi tradition appears to be a spiritual obstacle to the spread of

unbridled fundamentalism. It has been observed for centuries that Sufism, a form of Islamic mysticism

preaching direct communion with God, has been the most tolerant expression of Islam incorporating

Buddhist, Shaman and even Christian beliefs .

Possibly because of Sufism, a major influx of radical Islam has not yet encroached on the

mainstream Uighur population. There are therefore few indications that Xinjiang will become a hotbed

of Islamic radicalism or even a haven for al Qa’ida. Among the Uighurs, few have any sympathy for

the fundamentalist society of a Taliban type. Music and alcohol are not unfamiliar in Uighur areas, and

women aren't sequestered (purdah) as in many other Muslim societies. Furthermore, independent

observers and experts point out that Uighur identification with Islam and their religious practices are

based primarily on ethnic identity and cultural heritage, and have little in common with the forms of

Islam preached by Wahabbi schools in some countries. Direct contact between Xinjiang and Saudi

Arabia (where 10.000 Uighurs are thought to be living) has been limited. Before Beijing tightened the

reins on the area, it has been reckoned that only about 6,000 Uighurs a year ever went on the Hajj

pilgrimage - an obligation for devout Muslims - compared to some 30,000 from Malaysia, a Muslim

country similar in population size to Xinjiang.

Rather hypothetical is also a possible Uighur-Hui connection as the Hui and the Turkic Muslims

have different relationships with the Han Chinese and the two groups are not natural allies. The former

are frequently referred to as "Chinese Muslims" and are culturally closer to the mainstream Chinese

community. The Hui have no inherent connection with the Turkic-origin Islamic groups but have often

served as a bridge between them and Beijing. The Hui lack the sense of group identity that sustains the

Uighur separatist movement and have not been implicated in anti-Chinese violence in Xinjiang.

Does the above rule out all possibility of Xinjiang turning into another Ferghana Valley, the

Central Asia hotbed of Islamic radicalism? Not entirely. The Chinese authorities have the not so

unreasonable concern that due to a presumed – although not entirely proved - connection between

veterans of the Afghan war and separatists in Xinjiang, that the independence movement is being

armed and influenced by outside powers. The Afghan war should not be underestimated in terms of the

impact it has had on disaffected Islamic youth. As an ideological event, the Afghan conflict clearly had

a powerful effect on those who now seek to create an Islamic state in East Turkistan. A number of

Xinjiang Muslims are known to have trained and fought alongside the Mujahideen in Afghanistan

together with other committed revolutionaries from a number of Islamic states.

It is therefore plausible that some of the Xinjiang Muslims who fought in Afghanistan have

returned to take up arms against the Chinese. Certainly, radical Islamic international contacts were

consolidated in Afghanistan and the end of that conflict has created a pool of well-trained, religiously

motivated, fighters and a vast amount of surplus weapons. There is a virtually uncontrollable trade in

weapons from Afghanistan to the border regions of Pakistan, Kashmir, Tajikistan and to criminal

elements elsewhere in the region. Smuggling of all kinds of contraband is endemic throughout the area

and centuries-old tribal connections make it unreasonable to dismiss the influence of “outsiders” in the

Xinjiang conflict.

It therefore remains to be proved that the separatist movement in Xinjiang is being managed or

manipulated by foreigners. As far as clues of a possible radicalization are concerned, many Uighurs

have for instance, little knowledge of what has been the litmus test of Muslim zealotry, the Palestinian

issue. Moreover, while in all the statements that have attributed to bin Laden since 9/11 he has

repeatedly tried to rally Muslims by mentioning the injustices done to Muslims in places like

Palestinian territories, Chechnya and Iraq, he has never mentioned East Turkistan.

In short, whereas there has clearly been a growing awareness of their ethno-religious roots

amongst the Muslims of Xinjiang in recent years, it is not apparent that this can be equated with the

beginning of an Islamic fundamentalist movement. The increase in Muslim unrest in Xinjiang indicates

that the roots of widespread discontent and unrest among Uighurs, appear to lie in current socioeconomic

inequalities rather than in the influence of foreign Islamist movements .

7.1 Conclusion

Although the word “terrorism” is used frequently and its practice is generally opposed, there is

no universally accepted definition in general use or in treaties and laws designed to combat it. States

and commentators describe as “terrorist” acts or political motivations that they oppose, while rejecting

the use of the term when it relates to activities or causes they support. This is commonly put as “one

person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter” (Reagan).

In a recent report, the UN Special Rapporteur on terrorism noted that the issue of “terrorism”

has been “approached from such different perspectives and in such different contexts that it has been

impossible for the international community to arrive at a generally acceptable definition to this very

day”. The Special Rapporteur also pointed out that ''the term terrorism is emotive and highly loaded

politically. It is habitually accompanied by an implicit negative judgment and is used selectively”.

Recent attempts to finalize the UN Convention on ‘terrorism’ have stalled, inter alia, owing to

disagreements about the definition.

Beijing's framing of Muslim unrest in Xinjiang as “terrorism” appears to be a case in point as

radically divergent interpretations of the current Uighur struggle are given by the Chinese government

and by the Uighurs themselves.

However framed, I would argue that such unrest has been until now motivated less by Islamic

fundamentalism than secular demands. At the same time this could change as -with the exception of the

moral support provided by international human rights activists - Islamist groups appear to provide the

only allies that the Uighurs can count on. Shunted by their historically traditional patrons (firstly

Russia), Uighurs have been keenly disappointed by America eagerness for Chinese support in their

anti-terror drive. Moreover, the military action in Iraq by the United States and Britain has spent the

little political capital left and enjoyed in Xinjiang by America, as that action has generated fierce

hostility. It is no therefore surprise that Uighurs would now look at the Islamic ummah as a provider of

support, both material and moral, to the separatist quest. This could increase in the future as the

Uighurs’ sense of despair becomes more acute.

Until now claims that Xinjiang separatist groups, including the ETIM, significantly threaten

Chinese control of the region appear not entirely convincing; such groups are simply too small,

scarcely coordinated and dispersed to wage an organized campaign. It has been observed that although

there are periodic riots, infrequent bus bombings and frequent fistfights between Uighurs and Hans,

resistance against Chinese government control is generally passive.

One important outcome of the ongoing crisis in Xinjiang is China's Muslims growing

significance to China's internal and international relations. This is bound to affect Beijing’s relations

with key countries in the Middle East. Chinese ties to countries like Iran, Iraq, and Libya have been

driven by a host of geo-strategic, energy, commercial, and foreign policy considerations.

Unrest in Xinjiang stems from the concurring effects of cultural/religious policing and

demographic alteration. Beijing's attempts to Sinify the region through the strict control of religion,

assembly and language, as well as through the encouragement of Han Chinese settlements in the

region, have fomented anti-régime sentiment.

The perception that the evident economic development of the region has been unequally

benefiting Hans and Uighurs breeds per se hostility. Beijing’s challenges in Xinjiang stem from its

difficulty – critics say unwillingness - to redress such inequality and to address the basic aspirations of

national minorities such as the Uighurs.

At the end of the day the root causes of terrorism in Central Asia - and to large extent also in

Xinjiang - are poverty and backwardness. The best long-term policies are therefore poverty reduction

strategies. On this account the People’s Republic of China policy of economic development of Xinjiang

represents a positive strategic course and an opportunity. In Xinjiang the People’s Republic of China

has scored remarkable albeit uneven success in overcoming the region’s economic and cultural

backwardness. However, it has so far done that by privileging a top-down approach to the economic

development of the region’s resources.

A segment of local population, the so called “assimilated” Uighurs, has been increasingly

recognizing the necessity of embracing and adapting to the Han driven socio-economic change. While

some Uighurs seek full independence, assimilated Uighurs may simply content themselves with greater

autonomy and better protection. However, they risk to remain caught between the local ethnic

extremism of the separatist fringes and the Han settlers’ prejudices.

As noted in this paper, Xinjiang has so far been spared the tragic hallmark of terrorism by Islamic

fanatics - suicide bombing. However, disruption of the traditional transmission of Uighur culture risks

to create a class of young men all too available for mobilization by Islamic fanatics. Among them, the

high rate of unemployment and the feeling of extreme alienation - if not outright despair – may make

young Uighur men receptive to recruitment by groups of violent Islamic fanatics. Moreover, according

to some analysts, the combustible political situation combines today with the circumstance that the

region is the second most HIV/AIDS infected in China. As the local healthcare system appears to be

failing to adequately care for them – with the Uighurs perceiving as deliberate the central government’s

lack of response to AIDS - it has been argued that the situation could soon provide a lethal hotbed for

the recruit of suicide bombers . The involvement of female suicide bombers in April 2004 terrorist

attacks in Uzbekistan – an absolute first in Central Asia - rings therefore an ominous alarm bell .

With Beijing's management of the situation in Xinjiang having profound ramifications for the

domestic, regional and international security, the so called “fourth generation” of the Chinese

leadership is called to important decisions in the context of the international war on terror.

7.2. Sources

Bibliography:

On Xinjiang:

1 G. Fuller- S. Frederick Starr, “The Xinjiang Problem”, Central Asia Caucasus Institute, Paul H.

Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, The Johns Hopkins University , Washington

2003

2 Tyler Christian, “Wild West China: The Taming of Xinjiang”, London 2003

3 “Guide to Xinjiang”, Hong Kong Tourism Press 2001

4 Dillon Michael, “Central Asia: the View from Beijing, Urumqui and Kashghar", in Security

Politics in the Commonwealth of Independent States: The Southern Belt , London 1997

5 Dillon Michael, “Ethnic, Religious and Political Conflict on China's Northwestern Borders: the

Background to the Violence in Xinjiang”, Boundary and Security Bulletin Vol 5 No 1 Spring

1997

6 Dillon Michael, “Chinese Muslims and Religious and Ethnic Conflict in North-West China”,

China Study Journal Vol 9 No 1 April 1994

7 Dillon Michael, “Xinjiang: Ethnicity, Separatism and Control in Chinese Central Asia”,

Durham East Asia Papers No 1 January 1995

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Survey vol XXVI no. 7 July 1986

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11 Rudelson Justin Jon, “Oasis Identities: Uyghur Nationalism Along the Silk Road” New York

1997

12 Quesnel Remi, “Wang Lixiong, Un Intellectuel Atypique,” Perspective Chinoises, nr.79,

Sept.Oct.2003

13 Wang David G., “Clouds over Tianshan. Essays On Social Disturbance in Xinjiang in the

1940s”, Copenhagen 1999

14 “Xinjiang Today”, New World Press, Beijing 1988

15 “Xinjiang Uigur Autonomous Region” in: “Modern China”, Graham Hutchings, Penguin

Books, London 2001

On China

1 Benewick Robert and Donald Stephanie, “The State of China Atlas”, London 1999

2 Yabuki S. and Harner S.M, “China’s New Political Economy,” Oxford 1999

3 “China’s Minority Nationalities”, Foreign Languages Press, Beijing 1989

4 “China’s Great Leap West”, Tibet Information Network, London 2000

5 World Bank (the), “China 2020 Development challenges in the new century”, Washington 1997

6 MacKerras C. and McMillen D. H. (eds.), “Dictionary of the Politics of the People’s Republic

of China”, London 2001

7 Starr J. B., “Understanding China”, London 2001

On Chinese Muslims

1 Dillon Michael, “China’s Muslims,” Oxford 1996

2 Dillon Michael, “Muslims in China”, in The Muslim Almanac: History, Cultures and Peoples of

Islam, Detroit 1995

3 Dillon Michael, “Muslim Communities in Contemporary China: The Resurgence of Islam After

the Cultural Revolution”, Journal of Islamic Studies Vol 5 No 1 January 1994

4 Dillon Michael, “Muslims in Post-Mao China”, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs Vol 16 No

1 1996

5 Dreyer T. June, “China’s Forty Millions”, Cambridge MA 1976

6 Gladney Dru C., “Ethnic Identity in China. The Making of a Muslim Minority Nationality”,

Orlando 1998

7 Gladney Dru C., “Muslim Chinese. Ethnic nationalism in the People’s Republic”, Cambridge

MA 1996

8 Lipman Jonathan N., ”Familiar Strangers. A History of Muslims in Northwest China”,

Washington 1997

9 Rech Ernesto, “L’Islam nella Cina Attuale”, Cina Ismeo, Rome 1957

10 Safran William (ed), “Nationalism and Ethnoregional Identities in China, London 1998

On Central Asia

1 Rashid Ahmed, “Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia”, Yale 2002

2 Rashid Ahmed, “Taliban: Islam, Oil and the New Great Game in Central Asia”, I.B. Tauris,

London 2000

3 Rashid Ahmed, “The Resurgence of Central Asia: Islam Or Nationalism?”, Oxford University

Press, Karachi 1994

4 Kenneth Weisbrode, “ Central Asia: Prize or Quicksand” ,London 2001

5 Roy Olivier, “La Nouvelle Asie Centrale”, Paris 1997

6 Bertsch Gary K., Craft Cassady, Jones Scott A. and Beck Michael (eds), “Crossroads and

Conflict. Security and Foreign Policy in the Caucasus and Central Asia”. London 2000

7 M. Holt Ruffin and Daniel Waugh, “Civil Society In Central Asia”, Center for Civil Society

International 1999

8 “Calming the Ferghana Valley: Development and Dialogue In The Heart of Central Asia,

Center For Preventive Action New York, 1999

9 Kulchik Y., Fadin A. and Sergeev V., “Central Asia After the Empire”, London 1996

On energy issues

1 “The Geopolitics of Energy into the 21st Century, CSIS Strategic Energy Initiative, Washington

2000

2 Ebel Robert and Menon Rajan (eds), “Energy and Conflict in Central Asia and the Caucasus,

Oxford 2000

On Islam in Central Asia:

1 Botiveau Berbard and Cesari Jocelyn, “Geopolitique des Islams”, Paris 1997

2 Esposito J. L., “The Oxford History of Islam“, Oxford 1999

3 Lacoste Y. (ed), “Dictionnaire de Geopolitique”, Paris 1993

4 Lapidus Ira M.” Storia delle Societ‡ Islamiche”, Turin 2000

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Reports, articles and other documents

1 China’s first White Paper on Xinjiang, issued by the Information Office of the State Council

issued a white paper on 26.5.2003 http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2003-

05/26/content_887198.htm

2 "Patterns of Global Terrorism" report, released April 2003 by the U.S. Secretary of State and

the Coordinator for Counterterrorism

http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2002/

3 The War on Terrorism: China's Opportunities and Dilemmas" by Jing-dong Yuan, Monterey

Institute of International Studies, September 25, 2001:

http://cns.miis.edu/research/wtc01/china.htm

4 Radical Islamization In Xinjiang – Lessons From Chechnya? “ by Matthew Oresman and

Daniel Steingart Central Asia –Caucasus Analyst Wednesday/July 30, 2003:

http://csis.org/china/030605.cfm

5 “HIV/AIDS As a Regional Security Threat”, by Justin. J. Rudelson, paper presented at the

forum organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, “The Role of Xinjiang in

China-Central Asia Relations”, Washington D.C. 5 June 2003.

http://csis.org/china/030605.cfm

6 “Forum 18”, Survey of religious freedom in Xinjiang, Oslo, 23 September 2003:

http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=143

7 Center for Defense Information (CDI), Terrorism Project: "In the Spotlight: East Turkistan

Islamic Movement (ETIM)", 9 Dec.2002, http://www.cdi.org/terrorism/etim.cfm

8 Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty (RFERL), Paul Goble, 5 June 2001, " Russia: Analysis From

Washington -- Another Islamic Threat In Inner Asia?",

http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2001/06/05062001102225.asp

9 Federation of American Scientists (FAS),John Pike, 5 Dec.1999, "Uighur Militants Committee

for Eastern Turkistan", http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/uighur.htm

10 Amnesty International Report on the People's Republic of China, 22 march 2002 "China's antiterrorism

legislation and repression in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region",:

http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/engASA170102002?OpenDocument&of=COUNTRIES%

5CCHINA?OpenDocument&of=COUNTRIES%5CCHINA

11 Center for Contemporary Conflict, Strategic Insight, by Gaye Christoffersen, 2 Sept.2002

Constituting the Uyghur in U.S.-China Relations: The Geopolitics of Identity Formation in the

War on Terrorism, http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/rsepResources/si/sept02/eastAsia.asp

12 South Asia Analysis Group, by B. Raman, 24. 07. 2002: US & “TERRORISM IN

XINJIANG”, http://www.saag.org/papers5/paper499.html

13 World Socialist Web Site, By John Chan, 8 August 2002 “China’s "War on Terrorism"—

Brutal Repression Of Ethnic Unrest in Xinjiang”,

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/aug2002/chin-a08.shtml

14 Washingtonpost.com "In China's West, Ethnic Strife Becomes 'Terrorism'" By Philip P. Pan,

Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, July 15, 2002; Page A12

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42152002Jul14?language=printer

15 Speech of Lorne W. Craner, Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor,

Xinjiang University, Urumqui, China, December 19, 2002 ,

http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/rm/16222.htm

16 Asia Times, “China Intensifies Its 'Terror' Crackdown, by Antoaneta Bezlova, 15 Nov. 2001,

http://www.atimes.com/china/CK15Ad01.html

17 Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty (RFERL), China: Beijing Cracking Down On Uighur

Muslims, by Bruce Pannier, 18 Oct.2001,

http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2001/10/18102001074432.asp

18 “Canadian Security Intelligence Service ,Islamic Unrest in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous

Region”, by Dr. Paul George, Spring 1998, http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/com73e.htm

19 AFP, 09/12/2002, "Terrorism Emerges as Major Security Threat in Chinese White Paper":

http://coranet.radicalparty.org/pressreview/print_right.php?func=detail&par=3825

20 Uyghur -American Association: http://www.caccp.org/et/ www.taklamakan.org

21 East Turkistan Information Center, http://www.uygur.org/english.htm

22 “Cyber-separatism and Uyghur Ethnic Nationalism in China”, Dru. C. Gladney, paper

presented at the forum organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, “The

Role of Xinjiang in China-Central Asia Relations”, Washington D.C. 5 June 2003.

http://csis.org/china/030605.cfm

23 Uighurs Need Not Apply" by Bruce Gilley, Far Eastern Economic Review, 23 August 200

24 “Burying Seeds for Violence- Xinjiang" by Ruth Ingram, The Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst,

21 November 2001

25 “Islamic Extremism in Xinjiang - an overstated case ?" by Kate Westgarth, in China Review

(Great Britain-China Centre), Spring 2002, pp.10-11

26 “The Economic Motivations of Xinjiang Wahabism" by Felix Chang, The Central Asia-

Caucasus Analyst, 13 February 2002.

27 Rashid Ahmed, “Unstable Fringe”, Far Eastern Economic Review 9 Sept. 1999

28 Rashid Ahmed and Lawrence S.V. , “Joining Foreign Jihad, Far Eastern Economic Review, 7

Sept. 2000

29 Starr Frederick, “Making Eurasia Stable”, Foreign Affairs 75/1-1996.