{"id":17833,"date":"2010-03-19T21:06:16","date_gmt":"2010-03-19T19:06:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishforum.com.tr\/en\/content\/?p=17833"},"modified":"2023-04-15T19:19:37","modified_gmt":"2023-04-15T16:19:37","slug":"xinjiang-where-chinas-worry-intersects-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2010\/03\/19\/xinjiang-where-chinas-worry-intersects-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Xinjiang \u2013 Where China\u2019s Worry Intersects the World"},"content":{"rendered":"

The recent killing of a Uighur terrorist in Afghanistan has brought new focus on the ethnic group in China\u2019s western border region.of Xinjiang. The situation of the Uighurs \u2013 an ethnic Turkic, Muslim minority \u2013 reveals much about China\u2019s internal conduct and external worries, according to China expert Christopher M. Clarke. Hailing from Xinjiang province, Uighurs have seen their majority in that province erode and income inequality expand as Beijing populated the area with Han Chinese and supported the growth of state-owned enterprises. There is little wonder that violence erupts in the province. But even without such violence, China would still be leery of developments in Xinjiang, which borders a number of unstable Central Asian states as well as Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan. Plus, the province hosts vast natural resource wealth and many nuclear testing installations. Any one of these situations could add to the vulnerability of the province. China has attempted to ease tensions in the region, cooperating with neighbors over natural resource exploration. But the US military presence in Afghanistan adds a further wrinkle to an already crumpled tapestry. In the end, Xinjiang is likely to remain a sore spot for Beijing as it worries about pressure from all sides regionally and tries to dampen unrest internally. \u2013 YaleGlobal<\/p>\n

Xinjiang \u2013 Where China\u2019s Worry Intersects the World<\/strong><\/p>\n

Regional instability adds to concerns about restive Muslim minority<\/strong><\/p>\n

Christopher M. ClarkeYaleGlobal , 19 March 2010<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Boiling anger: A Uighur protester confronts Chinese security forces in Urumqi, July, 2009.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

WASHINGTON: The February 15 killing of militant Uighur leader Abdul Haq al-Turkistani by an American drone in the border regions of Pakistan highlights China\u2019s continued sensitivity about its remote and vulnerable western region, Xinjiang. It also brings into focus the role of the Afghanistan-Pakistan region as an international sanctuary for Islamic militants and the reasons for China\u2019s worries about social stability and potential terrorist threats in Xinjiang. China\u2019s neuralgia about security in Xinjiang will continue \u2013 and perhaps even increase \u2013 as big power competition for influence and resources in Central Asia and its ties to the rest of the world continue to expand.<\/p>\n

China\u2019s troubles with the minority Uighurs are not new. But with the break up of the Soviet Union and the rising Islamist Taliban in once Soviet-occupied Afghanistan, the regional dynamic has changed. Since the early 1990s, China has faced recurrent waves of unrest in Xinjiang and widespread acts of violence, some of which seem to have been terrorist acts by disgruntled Uighurs.\u00a0The 2008 attempted hijacking of an airplane in China by three people armed with flammable liquid was one of the latest \u2013 and scariest \u2013 examples. There also have been several attacks against perceived Uighur collaborators in China and against Chinese interests outside the country. The capture of Uighurs fighting against coalition forces in Afghanistan, some two dozen of whom were imprisoned in Guantanamo, also indicate that China faces a real threat of terrorist acts against its interests at home and abroad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
C<\/strong>hina\u2019s neuralgia about security in Xinjiang will continue as big power competition for influence and resources in Central Asia and its ties to the rest of the world continue to expand.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The Chinese, however, have aroused skepticism by dubiously attributing dozens of explosions and incidents of civil unrest to instigation by \u201cEast Turkistan terrorist forces.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Officials, for example, blamed an August 2008 attack on a military police unit out for its morning jog, in which 16 officers were killed, on a Uighur terrorist group, despite the fact that the officers apparently were run down by a truck and attacked by a taxi driver and a vegetable vendor, hardly the modus operandi of a sophisticated terrorist organization.\u00a0Even last July\u2019s massive race riot in Urumqi \u2013 set off\u00a0by rumors that a Uighur woman had been raped and several Uighur men killed by Han Chinese in far-away Guangdong \u2013 was labeled as an \u201corganized, violent action against the public\u201d and an act of terrorism.<\/p>\n

So, while China does face periodic upsurges in politically motivated violence by Uighurs, one has to ask, why?\u00a0The answer: Beijing has engaged in a systematic, multi-decade program of marginalizing Uighurs in their own homeland, fostering economic growth that favors the Han majority of eastern China and that encourages the exploitation of Xinjiang\u2019s wealth of natural resources for Han areas.\u00a0Beijing has organized and encouraged an influx of Han into Xinjiang, changing the ethnic ratio since 1949 from about 5 percent Han to more than 40 percent today.\u00a0Moreover, Uighur culture and the Muslim religion are contained under tight restrictions.\u00a0Beijing proudly points out that Xinjiang in recent years has been among the fastest growing economies in the country, with per capita income higher than all regions except China\u2019s southeast coast.\u00a0Most of that growth, however, has accrued to State-owned enterprises, Han entrepreneurs, or the government; not to Uighurs. And income inequalities there have actually expanded significantly in recent years. The region also suffers from some of the worst environmental degradation in China.\u00a0It is hardly surprising that frustration occasionally boils over into civil unrest \u2013 or that such conditions breed terrorist groups intent on taking action against the regime.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
B<\/strong>eijing has engaged in a systematic, multi-decade program of marginalizing Uighurs in their own homeland, fostering economic growth that favors the Han majority.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

That many of China\u2019s problems with terrorism and unrest are largely of its own making has reduced international trust and sympathy for the situation.\u00a0China\u2019s concerns also have both shaped its approach to the broader region and reduced China\u2019s willingness to cooperate with the US in counter-terrorism, negatively affecting the overall US -China relationship.<\/p>\n

Xinjiang, more than any other area of China, is strategically vulnerable, partially as a result of its location in one of the most fractious neighborhoods outside the Middle East. Representing one-sixth of China\u2019s territory, Xinjiang is rich in oil, gas, and mineral deposits and contains numerous sensitive military installations, including some of the country\u2019s premier nuclear research and testing facilities.\u00a0It borders the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, all of which are less than politically stable.*<\/p>\n

Complicating China\u2019s relations with the Central Asian states is the fact that as many as 500,000 Uighurs \u2013 and sizable populations of other Chinese \u201cminorities\u201d \u2013 live across relatively porous borders and engage in extensive trade and contacts.\u00a0Several of these countries contain anti-China Uighur separatist organizations, both peaceful and terrorist.\u00a0And China is very afraid of the potential contagion of \u201ccolor revolutions\u201d from Central Asia \u2013 like the 2005 \u201cTulip Revolution\u201d in Kyrgyzstan \u2013 destabilizing China\u2019s control in Xinjiang. Uighur activities \u2013 including violent attacks \u2013 have complicated China\u2019s relations with Turkey, a country with which China seeks closer relations but where public and official sentiment is highly critical of China\u2019s treatment of the ethnically-related Uighurs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
X<\/strong>injiang, more than any other area of China, is strategically vulnerable, partially as a result of its location in one of the most fractious neighborhoods outside the Middle East.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

To control this potentially chaotic situation and to manage Sino-Russian competition for influence, China launched the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which includes Russia, China, the Central Asian republics, and a growing number of observers from around the region.\u00a0China has pushed hard to keep the focus of the SCO on cooperative activities against the \u201cthree evils\u201d of \u201cseparatism, fundamentalism, and terrorism,\u201d a fear all the member states have in common.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0Along some of Xinjiang\u2019s most remote and sensitive borders are Tibet, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the disputed state of Kashmir \u2013 any one of which could quickly embroil China in an international crisis. China also tested its \u201call-weather\u201d friendship with Pakistan pressuring Islamabad to crackdown on Uighur militants seeking refuge in Pakistan.\u00a0Pakistan reportedly has responded by sending a number of Uighur militants to China for prosecution. Its recent stepped up attacks on terrorist groups \u2013 and especially the killing of Abdul Haq and more than a dozen other Uighur militants \u2013 \u00a0has among other\u00a0things assuaged relations with China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
T<\/strong>he US intervention in Afghanistan in October 2001 introduced another variable of vulnerability for China with regard to Xinjiang.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The US intervention in Afghanistan in October 2001 introduced another variable of vulnerability for China with regard to Xinjiang.\u00a0In the conflict that followed, global support for Al Qaeda drew in more militants to the region, including some Uighurs (as Abdul Haq\u2019s death proved) but it also changed the strategic landscape for China. The introduction of massive US\u00a0forces into the region, and especially the use of bases such as Manas in Kyrgyzstan, raised visceral and long-standing fears of encirclement by a hostile US\u00a0intent on \u201cdividing and Westernizing\u201d China.\u00a0Beijing has put pressure on Central Asian neighbors to expel or severely limit any US military presence and has refused to allow US forces to use Chinese territory for staging or overflights in the war in Afghanistan.\u00a0China is also working hard to enhance cooperation with its neighbors on energy exploration, exploitation, and transportation as a way of keeping the US and Russia from monopolizing Central Asia\u2019s voluminous oil and natural gas resources.<\/p>\n

These competing interests, and the residual worry that the US and Russia seek to supplant or minimize Chinese influence in Central Asia will continue to contribute to Beijing\u2019s neuralgia about assuring stability in its far Western extremity, even if the real terrorist threat to China has diminished.<\/p>\n

\n

* Beijing is some 1,500 miles from Xinjiang\u2019s capital, Urumqi; Urumqi is nearly another 700 miles from Kashgar on the far Western border.\u00a0By contrast, Kashgar is only 250 miles from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan and 500 miles from Kabul.
\n——————————————————
\nDr. Clarke is an independent China consultant.\u00a0He retired in 2009 after 25 years as a China analyst and head of the China Division of the State Department\u2019s Bureau of Intelligence and Research.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The recent killing of a Uighur terrorist in Afghanistan has brought new focus on the ethnic group in China\u2019s western border region.of Xinjiang. The situation of the Uighurs \u2013 an ethnic Turkic, Muslim minority \u2013 reveals much about China\u2019s internal conduct and external worries, according to China expert Christopher M. Clarke. Hailing from Xinjiang province, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":24668,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[146],"tags":[1856,1804,1897,370],"class_list":["post-17833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-china","tag-east-turkestan","tag-east-turkistan","tag-eastern-turkistan","tag-uighurs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}