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Royal Dutch/Shell
26 March 2003
XINJIANG
The Uygurs’ Doomed
Quest for
Autonomy/Independence
Willem van Kemenade
Willem E.C. van Kemenade
• Analyst/Consultant, China/East Asia, International Crisis Group,
Brussels
• Adjunct Professor, EU China Junior Managers Training Programme,
Beijing; Maastricht School of Management , Outreach Programmes
in China; China-Europe International Business School, Shanghai.
• Author “China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Inc., The Dynamics of a New
Empire”, New York 1997, 1998, 1999;
Syllabus International Political Economy China & East Asia,
Shanghai 2000.
• Special Contributor “The Washington Quarterly”
website: willemvk.org
e-mail: [email protected]
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“We must turn the small handful of national
splittist elements into ‘rats running across the
street’ where everybody cries `kill them’.”
Abulahat Abdurixit, Chairman of the
Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region
Government
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Selected Figures
• 1.66 Million Sqkm., Population: 18.3 m
• Uygur: 47.5 %; Han-Chinese: 39 %; Kazakh: 7.3 %; small
numbers of Mongols, Kyrgyz, Uzbek, Hui.
• Life-expectancy for Uygurs: 63, for Han 70
• Agriculture: Cotton, sugar beets, fruits raisins.
• Industry: Textiles, food-processing, leather, paper, sugar,
carpets, oil
• GDP: Yn. 148.54 billion ($ 17.97 billion) = 1.57 % of National
GDP of Yn. 9.434 trillion ($ 1.142 trillion)
• Treasure trove of minerals: 2.12 billion tonnes of oil and 280
billion cubic metres of natural gas, 27.1 per cent and 22.1 per
cent respectively of national reserves.
• Top cotton producer, growing one third of the national crop.
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Nationalities, Languages and Dialects of China
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How Stable is Xinjiang ?
• Xinjiang’s leaders warn regularly that China will not make the
same mistakes as the Soviet-Union, which introduced illconceived political reforms that eroded government-authority
and encouraged ethnic and religious groups to agitate for their
own communal, nationalistic and separatist goals.
• Xinjiang’s links with the Chinese Empire, although not
continuous, are much longer and stronger than those of Russia
with the former Soviet Republics of Central Asia.
• Considering the deep troubles in former Soviet Central Asia, the
economic decline, the civil war in Tajikistan, the problems with
Islamic radicalism, a large number of Uygurs claims to be very
happy to be part of China.
• The simple Han approach is: "There's a lot of us, Han, but only
a few of them, Uygurs. "They have got to accept our rule.”
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Background to Xinjiang’s “Terrorist Threat”
Sino-Pakistani-American Anti-Soviet Axis 1980~1989:
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China joined the US-led “Holy War” against the Soviet-occupation of
Afghanistan in 1980 and later paid a price for this.
Central tenet of US-China coalition was construction of two electronic
intelligence stations in Xinjiang, monitoring Soviet missile tests and
communications after Khomeiny’s men seized the CIA-installations in Iran.
The US and China jointly trained Uygur recruits to fight the Soviets. No
indications have come to light that the Chinese considered the possible
blowback on China of this risky policy.
Mainly Chinese arms were brought in by Pakistan’s ISI to supply Afghan,
Arab and other Muslim volunteers to fight the Soviets. The Uygurs later
returned to Xinjiang where their discontent with Chinese rule now
culminated in an organized secessionist, occasionally terrorist movement.
China sent 300 instructors to training-camps in Pakistan and later set up
camps in Xinjiang as well, training 55.000 in total without specifying their
ethnicities.
John K. Cooley, Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and
International Terrorism, London 2000, Chapter 4.
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Beijing Response to “September 11”
• “Political Re-education Campaign” for 8.000 imams: tighten
controls on religious activities and sever ties between mosques
and alleged separatist activities.
• Imams are required to attend seminars, participate in
ideological discussions and individual consultations with a
special focus on "anti-splittism”. "Each session is a 20-day
programme aimed at re-establishing correct ideological
understanding and improving the political qualities of the
religious leaders," Xinhua quoted officials as saying.
• "These lessons are essential to the long-term stability of
Xinjiang as they will guide our students away from ideological
confusion and mistakes," Xinhua said.
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US China “Cooperation” on Terrorism
• A State Council Report on January 21, 2002, one month before
president George W. Bush’ visit to Beijing, blamed "East
Turkestan" forces for more than 200 incidents between 1990
and 2001, resulting in 162 dead. It said bin Laden's al-Qaeda
had provided training, financial and material aid to them.
• Beijing’s charges referred to small scale bombings of buses,
markets, government institutions, riots etc., but not a single
larger scale, highly organized terrorist attack.
• In July, China Central TV showed a programme, claiming that
hundreds of Uygurs had been trained in Osama bin Laden’s
camps in Afghanistan. Evidence were statements by defectors.
• In October 2002, Beijing claimed that more than a dozen
Uygurs were captured in Afghanistan and detained in the US
Terrorist Detention Center in Guantanamo, Cuba.
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The East Turkistan Islamic Movement
• After “September 11”, China warned the Bush Administration
that ETIM had ties to Al Qaeda.
• The US, in response, in August 2002 put ETIM on the global
terrorist list. No real evidence, only vague generalisations were
given. The listing was widely seen as a sop to soften Chinese
opposition to the impending US-led war on Iraq.
• Many US experts and even some Chinese question the extent of
ETIM’s terrorist activities and its links to global terrorism.
• US information is coming from a handful of Uygurs, captured in
Afghanistan and now detained in Guantanamo, Cuba.
• The Chinese have presented their campaign against Uygur
separatists as a flank in America’s global war on terrorism and
have persuaded the Americans to drop their long-standing
protest against Chinese human rights violations in Xinjiang.
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US ostracism of ETIM
No Licence to China
• In December 2002, US Assistant-Secretary of State for Human
Rights Lorne Craner visited China and told Beijing that “the US
rejected the notion that Uygurs are terrorists”.
• He passed on a message from president George Bush that “no
nation can use the war on terror as an excuse to repress its
minorities”.
• Prior to his visit which included Xinjiang, Craner met with the
“Uygur American Association” and promised to press China to
release political prisoners such as Rebiya Kadir.
• Craner’s trip has given the Uygurs hope that Washington hasn’t
abandoned them and dispelled the suspicous feeling some felt
after the US put ETIM on the global terrorist list in September.
• Within a week after Craner’s visit, Party-Secretary Wang Lequan
vowed to intensify the crackdown on the three evils of
terrorism, separatism and extremism.
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Evaluation of the Uygurs’
“Terrorist Threat”
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Experts reject the Chinese assertion that there is a terrorist, or even a
cohesive separatist movement. Dru Gladney, a specialist in Chinese
Muslim minorities at the University of Hawaii says: “This is mostly social
and civil unrest by disorganized, disgruntled, fairly impulsive young
men, not a widespread movement”.
Significantly, Gladney notes that despite many incidents of ethnic and
civil unrest in the region, not one significant terrorist attack against any
strategic infrastructure target (oil refinery, pipeline, railroad, dam or
bridge) has been documented, nor have any local or international
incidents been positively identified with any international Uygur or
Islamic organisation.
A big explosion of a military truck in Urumqi in 2000 with 67 dead, was
initially suspected to be a terrorist attack, but it appeared to be a case
of gross mismanagement by the PLA.
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Xinjiang’s Economy
• Xinjiang has two parallel economies:
– The regular, regional economy.
– The Xinjiang Construction and Production Corps Economy, (since
1998 “Corp”) Economy, a PLA-run “state within the state”.
• The XUAR- economy is deeply polarized. Uneven benefits of
development aggravate antagonism between native Uygurs and
Han-settlers and threaten the development of the promising
energy sector.
• Few Uygurs are part of the senior levels of the modern sectors
of the economy: oil, gas, mineral wealth. One reason is lack of
access to first rate education. Another may be deliberate
exclusion based on security considerations and cultural factors.
• The government actively promotes internal and cross-border
trade and economic development, while at the same time
keeping tight political controls, both with the active cooperation
of neigboring governments.
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Xinjiang’s Foreign Trade and Investment
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TOTAL FOREIGN TRADE 2001: $ 1.771 bn. A decrease of 22.64 %
Exports
668 m.
,,
44.48 %
Imports
1.102 bn. Increase of 4.1 %
Major Trading partners: Kazakhstan (31 %), Hong Kong (9.69%),
US (8.83 %), Russia
• Major Exports: Tomato Ketchup, mechanical/electronic products,
footwear, cotton, yarn, garments, chemicals, mine products,
furniture;
• Major Imports: Scrap steel and iron, copper, barley, polyethylene
• FOREIGN INVESTMENT: Aggregate total $ 407 m.
• 2001: Hong Kong $ 69.5 m.; Taiwan $ 23.97 m.; Japan $ 5.17 m.
• The Army Corps has its own considerable foreign trade figures,
amounting $ 654 m. in 2001.
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Economic Development and Ethnic Issues
• Due to their exclusion from the Han-economy, the Minorities are losing
interest in learning Chinese but study Urdu, Farsi and Turkic languages
instead. They trade mainly with Central and South Asia strengthening
their common identity with the Muslim world, separate from China.
• Ironically it is China’s reintroduction of the Arab script, and its fullscale
opening of the borders that have led to the revival of the Uygurs’
Islamic identity.
• And it is the China-sponsored grand-scheme of “Western Development”
that is bringing more and more Han-immigrants to Xinjiang, thus
aggravating tensions.
• These trends are not conducive to making economic growth reduce
ethnic tensions in the Region and leave the authorities with a dilemma
as to how to ensure stability.
• The most likely solution is increased immigration of Han in a manner
similar to Inner Mongolia so that a Han-majority in the end will
overwhelm the Natives and indigenous demands become increasingly
less relevant.
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“Economics” First will not Work
• In an unprecedented speech in January 2003, partysecretary Wang Lequan warned that giving priority to
economic development would not solve the problem
of instability in the region.
• “Some people mistakenly hold the idea that the
problem of stability will disappear as soon as the
local economy developed and people’s livelyhood got
better. This is an extremely wrong and dangerous
idea”.
• “Xinjiang must treat both the symptom and root
causes in destroying the ethnic separatist forces.
Xinjiang must preemptively and aggressively attack
and annihilate the three evil forces without mercy”.
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“The Corps”, now “The Corp”
• Initially formed from both demobilized KMT and PLA soldiers the
“Xinjiang Production & Construction Corps” now has 2.8 million
members, 14% of the population. In the 1990s the XPCC
produced a third of Xinjiang’s cotton and farmed 20% of its land
devoted to grain. It controlled a quarter of Xinjiang’s large and
medium enterprises and in 1998 traded 19% of Xinjiang’s
exports and imports. With total output valued at 16.35 billion
yuan in 1998 it made up approximately 15% of Xinjiang’s
economy.
• It has its own police-force and judicial organs and a militia of
100.000 men.
• It is exclusively Han, is not under the XUAR government but
under the central government in Beijing and can be seen as
similar to other great colonizing corporations such as the English
and Dutch East India Companies.
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The Town of Korla
• Xinjiang has a number of pioneer settler towns, developed by
the “Corps”, comparable to the “frontier towns” in the American
Wild West, developed by the cowboys.
• The largest one is Korla (Chinese: Ke-Er-Le), main town of the
Bayingol Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture.
• During the first phase from 1950-1954, the Corps dug 620 km
of underground irrigation channels in the desert.
• In the early '50s, Korla covered 1.5 square kilometres, with one
street of houses made of earth and a dozen workshops and a
population of 27,000. Now it covers 7,117 sq km, with a
population of 320,000, 69 per cent of them Han, including
40,000 members of the Corps who farm 60,000 hectares.
• The Uygurs accuse the Han of destroying Xinjiang’s ecology by
farming in areas with insufficient water.
• Nearby is Lop Nor, China’s nuclear test-area and the ancient city
of Loulan, now center of one of China best wine-growing areas.
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WTO Impact on Xinjiang
• WTO Accession and “Western Development Strategy” are
considered “Second Opening and Reform” since the West was
not really opened in 1979.
• Two major industries for Xinjiang are “Black and White” - Oil
and Cotton.
– In the past only production of crude. Because of remoteness to
markets, price could never be competitive. Only way to survive
WTO from now is to build processing industries to have added
value.
– The cotton price has been fixed by the government in recent years
and was not flexible and competitive. Supply exceeded demand.
Cotton Association was established in June 2002 to formulate a
strategy and fix production volume and try to bring this in line with
the global free market. This will take 3 to 5 years of growing pain.
– Other products with high potential for export are wine, dairy, ecofruits.
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Recommendations
• Beijing should encourage public sector corporations, oil
companies and government agencies to increase their hiring of
ethnic minorities.
• Quotas for Uygur admission into colleges and government
positions should also be expanded and enforced.
• The government must allocate funds among Han and Uygurs
fairly.
• Cleaning up the area around China’s nuclear test-site at Lop Nor
in the Taklimakan Desert, where soil and groundwater pollution
are causing birth defects and health problems among the local
populations would be important steps.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS, July/August 2002.
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