The founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949 ushered in a new era of oppression to East Turkistan, as well as Tibet and to the rest of China for that matter.
After having established its power in East Turkistan, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) executed a large scale Han resettlement program in East Turkistan, which had resulted in a rapid demographic change with respect to non-Han and Han populations. In 1949 the total population of East Turkistan was roughly 4.2 million, but by late 1979 the Han Chinese people accounted for roughly half of the total population of 11 million (McMillen 1981, 66). In another statistical perspective, “[b]etween 1940 and 1982, … the Han’s percentage of [East Turkistan’s] population [increased] by a massive 2,500 percent. … while the Uyghur population followed a more natural biological growth rate of 1.7 percent” (Gladney 2004, 112-113).
The consolidation of CCP power in East Turkistan culminated in the formal establishment of the Production and Construction Corps (PCC, 兵团, bingtuan) in 1954, which consisted largely of demobilized People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers. East Turkistan Republic troops consisting predominantly of Uyghurs and Kazakhs, also known as Ili National Army, were incorporated into the PLA, and many of whom were demobilized and redeployed to settle on a network of paramilitary farms (the predecessor of the PCC), over whom the CCP had total control (McMillen 1981, 68). According to Cliff (2020, 3), the PCC was established as “a military-agricultural colony”, and it was the main propelling force behind the Han migration and in transforming the cultural landscape in East Turkistan. The PCC has continued to recruit up to the present more Han people from the interior of China to East Turkistan and lure them with social benefits that are largely not enjoyed by the Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples.
State-sponsored Han immigration into East Turkistan, a policy that was present in Qianlong and later Qing periods, was and continues to be one of the most effective policies of the Chinese Communist Party, creating a staunch Han constituency, which is considered by the party as a trustworthy force for stability in East Turkistan. This rationale though both present in some internal-circulation report and acknowledged by local party officials has never been the official reason for encouraging the massive Han immigration, while the manpower need for development has been the party’s official rationale presented to the public (Bovingdon 2010, 54).
In the 21st century the PCC has become a corporation, enabling the CCP to achieve an increasingly direct control over East Turkistan (Cliff 2009, 102). Furthermore, today’s PCC “retains only the slightest connection to the [People’s Liberation Army]” (ibid., 101). The PCC in its core continues to perpetuate the occupying and colonizing function in its nature (Cliff 2009).
Yi (2019, 54) argues that the root cause of the ongoing persecution of millions of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in East Turkistan can be attributed to “Chinese settler colonialism”, which is unfolded through the Production and Construction Corps (PCC) and ethnic Han migration to the region.
The central government in Beijing gave the “autonomy” status to East Turkistan in 1955, which is reflected in its official Chinese name: 新疆维吾尔⾃治区(Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region). However, the agency for independent actions regarding internal matters within East Turkistan was dead on arrival, for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) never intended to give the true autonomy to East Turkistan (Xinjiang). The Communist Party leaders considered Uyghurs as “politically untrustworthy”, thereby allocating minimum power to them (Bovingdon 2010, 47).
As a matter of fact, smaller regional subautonomous districts and counties were already being established in the spring of 1953. “The division of [East Turkistan] into a number of smaller autonomies was a stroke of administrative genius” (ibid., 44). This integrationist policy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) promoted and placed the idea that East Turkistan was home to thirteen ethnic groups to the foreground, “…counterbalancing the Uyghurs’ overwhelming political and demographic weight” (ibid., 45). Moreover, the party wanted to distance itself from the assimilationist policy of the Chinese Nationalist Party (GMD) and to counteract the separatism sentiments in some key frontier regions (Millward 2007, 243).
What was striking about this policy was the imbalance of power distribution, disproportionately allocated to the titular ethnic group in the subautonomous regions/districts. In fifteen out of twenty-seven subautonomous districts, the titular ethnic group accounted for less than half the population (Bovingdon 2010, 46), creating this imbalanced representations of power between Uyghurs and other ethnic groups . For instance, “in 2004 some 48,000 Mongols nominally 6 exercised autonomy in a region with more than 370,000 Uyghurs (and, due to steady immigration, more than 660,000 Hans)” (ibid.).
With respect to the Uyghur language, it was the communist regime who solely dictated the script variety of the Uyghur language. In 1956 the Chinese communist regime, following the footsteps of the Soviet, introduced a Cyrillic-based script for the Uyghur language when Uyghurs already had Arabic-based scripts, the aim of which to a large extent was to weaken Uyghurs’ Islamic connections. Then in 1960 following a dent in the ‘Sino-Soviet’ relations the Cyrillic-based script was superseded with the roman alphabet (with a few special letters), which could essentially be regarded as a ‘Pinyin-isation’ not a romanization of the Uyghur language (Millward 2007, 236). “Besides cutting off contact with Soviet Turkic peoples, one goal of this reform was to promote ‘fusion and assimilation’ of minorities by easing the introduction of Chinese vocabulary into Turkic languages” (ibid.). It is paramount to note that minority languages had not been taught for over a decade during the Cultural Revolution (Dwyer 2005, 36), e.g. the Uyghur language was not taught in Kashgar (Jarring 1986, 157).
In 1984, during a period of relatively relaxed minority policies, Chinese authority reinstated the slightly modified Arabic-based script for the Uyghur language. These script reforms under the PRC can be regarded as indicators of general situation in East Turkistan, where each change in the writing system reflects the vicissitudes of PRC minority policy toward Turkic peoples in East Turkistan (Millward 2007, 237).
The Cultural Revolution (1957-1978) marked drastic shifts in politics in China as well as in East Turkistan, which stirred chaos in the social and cultural spheres. In East Turkistan there was an upsurge in cultural intolerance from within the Chinese Communist Party, radiating outward towards various ethnically Turkic groups, where differences between Turkic peoples and the majority Han Chinese were deemed deviant, so the project of cultural homogenization gained extra momentum with the aim of achieving assimilation. It is worth mentioning that East Turkistan suffered more damage in its economy than other parts of China did during the Cultural Revolution (Millward & Tursun 2004, 96).
Following the rift in Sino-Soviet relation in the late 1950s, the CCP purged many non-Han political elites in East Turkistan, most of whom ended up in thought-reform labor camps (Millward & Tursun 2004, 93). We can draw parallels between the thought-reform labor camps and today’s internment camps in East Turkistan, where the official motto of the latter resonates with that of the former: “transformation through education” (教育转化). The representation rate of Uyghurs in the government fell drastically by around 25% in the decade following 1965, and the representation was absent in the regional government in 1969 (ibid., 97).
Backed by the “Leftist” cultural program, the intolerance and active attack on non-Chinese culture were prevalent in the capital area and some smaller cities and villages where most Uyghurs lived. “Difference … became a sign of backwardness” (Bovingdon 2010, 51). For example, some anecdotal accounts claim that the burning of Qur’an and some other holy texts took place, religious elders were humiliated in the streets, some Islamic sites of significance were either closed off or desecrated, pigs were intentionally kept in mosques, Uyghur girls’ long hair cut short, and traditional clothes were banned (Millward & Tursun 2004, 97). Mao’s minions, or Red Guards, forced many Muslims to raise pigs, with the aim of achieving “rapid and thorough assimilation” (Bovingdon 2010, 52). This cultural conformity campaign of the CCP impacted Uyghurs and other non-Hans the most during the cultural revolution, not only was it an assault on their social spheres, but also on their identities.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that a large number of ethnically Turkic peoples in East Turkistan, as peoples elsewhere in China proper for that matter, felt indignation at the rampant Maoist Cultural Revolution, alienating a significant segment of the population, which forced the CCP to re examine its integrationist policies after the Cultural Revolution. Some re-evaluations were reflected in Deng Xiaoping’s reforms (1978-1988), creating a long overdue temporary breathing room for both economy and ethnic cultural practices. The temporary loose grip on the latter was in fact economically anchored, encouraging tourism in East Turkistan and other minority regions throughout China, where various ethnic groups were allowed to practice their cultural traditions, while at the same time promoting tourism (Gladney 2004, 110). Restrictions on Islamic practices were also lifted in this period, e.g. reopening mosques, and allowing travels to other Islamic countries.
The 1980s were by no means a peaceful period in East Turkistan. There were signs of social unrest, fraught with ethnic/interethnic conflicts. There were student demonstrations that demanded ‘freedom’, ‘democracy’ and ‘equality between the nationalities’ . Their slogans also confronted the issues of nuclear testing in Lop Nor (health concerns regarding the local Turkic peoples), influx of Han people to East Turkistan, and the birth control (family planning/birth restrictions) policy that targeted minorities. Alexis-Martin (2019, 152-53) argues in her paper that “the colonization of Uyghur lands and their use by the PRC for nuclear weapon testing are representative of a mode of nuclear imperialism that treated Uyghur life as worthless”. With respect to limiting the population growth, Uyghurs and other non-Han minorities had been exempted from the CCP’s birth control policy that was rolled out in the early 1980s, but gradually it also applied to them, starting in 1987 with Uyghur party officials and later enforced to the whole minority populations within a few years’ time (Bovingdon 2010, 58-59).
“These issues reflect not religious concerns per se, but rather concerns about the treatment and survival of Uyghurs as a nation” (Millward 2007, 282). Furthermore, Millward (ibid., 281) informs us that “movements for rights or independence in twentieth-century [East Turkistan] do not fit the commonly held notion of ‘Islamic jihad’.”
The period 1991-2005 witnessed a rekindled ethnic minority opposition to the Chinese regime in East Turkistan, accompanied by a familiar counteraction pattern of the communist party: “outright repression, cooptation, Han in-migration and economic development” (Clarke 2007, 283).
Demonstrations, unrest, and some violent incidents continued into the 1990s in East Turkistan. Two major events at the beginning of the 1990s triggered a shift in CCP’s minority policy towards non-Han peoples in East Turkistan, which became less tolerant than its previous minority policy in the 80s. These two major events were the Baren Uprising in the April of 1990 and the collapse of 9 the Soviet Union in 1991. The former had a general popular support at the time, where one of the motives for this uprising could be ascribed to the CCP’s birth control policy targeting Uyghurs and other minority families (Millward 2007, 327), in addition there were also other contributing factors like nuclear weapons testing and the export of resources to other parts of China. While the latter event, the Soviet disintegration, came both as a shock and an economic opportunity for the Communist Party.
The former Soviet states, like Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, whose peoples are historically and linguistically closely related to the Turkic peoples in East Turkistan, gained their independence following the disintegration of the Soviet Union. This newly gained independence from their imperial power made the Communist Party uneasy, in that East Turkistan might head towards its independence from its imperial power that is China.
Religious activities were yet again restricted, heavily scrutinized, and in some cases banned by the Chinese regime. Imams had to get state approval, only those who were deemed patriotic and politically aligned with the Communist Party could retain their positions, a practice that has continued up to the present day in East Turkistan. Qur’an schools were closed down and all private scriptural study sessions were prohibited and stamped as illegal religious activities (Bovingdon 2010, 67). In 1991, 10 percent of circa 25000 Islamic clerics failed to retain their positions after a scrutiny conducted by communist officials (Harris 1993:120–21, cited in Bovingdon 2010, 66). The construction of many mosques were halted and many existing mosques at the time were closed down as the crackdown on Islam continued. Despite the fact that the freedom to believe and not to believe is constitutionally anchored, party cadres and students continue to involuntarily abnegate their right to believe.
The Chinese Communist Party reasserted its key elements of integrationist policies over the 1991-1995 period, e.g. with its continued support and encouragement of Han in-migration, and by adopting an economic development stratagem whose objective was to further incorporate East Turkistan into China proper, and simultaneously establishing a bond with other Central Asian states through trade (Clarke 2007, 283; Millward 2007, 289).
A good deal of social unrest and protests took place in 1995 and 1996 in East Turkistan, and in the wake of them was a threefold political counter-reaction: (i.) an internal CCP document was issued on 19 March 1996, warning of and tightening measures for controlling various ethnic and religious activities, as well as ‘foreign forces’ (e.g. foreign separatist organizations); (ii.) the effecting of the bilateral security treaty on 26 April 1996, signed by China, Kazakhstan, Kirghizstan, Tajikistan and Russia; (iii.) the first proclamation of the ‘Strike Hard’ campaign (严打yándǎ ), clamping down on crime and “separatism and unlawful religious activities”. The intent of this campaign was not a general crackdown on crime per se, but rather a clampdown on unofficial political organizations and religion, targeting politically active separatists in East Turkistan, Tibet and Inner Mongolia, while linking separatism with “unlawful religious activities” (Dillon 2019, 58-59). It has been estimated that thousands are detained by the police every year in East Turkistan for “illegal religious activities”, based on local media reports that had been closely monitored by Human Rights Watch, where official statistics are rarely made public (HRW 2005, 6). The tactics by which the Chinese regime seeks to have total control over Uyghurs’ belief system are punitive in nature, which is a step beyond suppression, seemingly motivated to re-engineer the religious identity of Uyghurs so that it harmoniously fits into the state narrative (ibid., 7).
The CCP set out to achieve with its second counter-reaction, among other objectives, a crackdown on Uyghur political dissident activities in the Central-Asian states, and it succeeded. Kazakhstan and Kirghizstan started extraditing Uyghur suspects to China upon Beijing’s request, leaving only Uyghur cultural organizations operational within the legal framework under state supervision, while banning all other Uyghur political organizations (Millward 2007, 337). It is worth emphasizing that some of these wanted Uyghur suspects had been executed upon their return to China (Becquelin 2004a, 41). The last-mentioned counter-reaction, the ‘Strike Hard’ campaign in 1996, resulted in several thousands of arrests in East Turkistan, not due to a sudden upsurge in crime, but due to this campaign itself, for there was “a political premium on speed and quantity of arrests and convictions” (Millward 2007, 331).
In February 1997, the second major uprising transpired with popular support in East Turkistan’s northern city of Ghulja, popularly known as the Ghulja uprising and massacre among Uyghurs (see Millward 2007, 331-334; Dillon 2019, 67-70). This uprising was yet another major challenge to the Chinese rule after the Baren uprising in 1990. “[It] was clearly the product of a chain of events that began much earlier and was symptomatic of both the government’s repressive methods and the Uyghurs’ exasperated responses” (Bovingdon 2010, 125). “The region-wide crackdown following the events of February 1997 became almost a permanent feature of life throughout [East Turkistan]” (Millward 2007, 334).
In the period 1980 to 1997, there had been many protests and demonstrations born out of discontent and injustice among Uyghurs against the Chinese rule in East Turkistan, during which the Chinese regime only yielded four times to the matters raised in the protests (see Bovingdon 2010, 128-29). In all other documented cases, the responses from the regime had been either deafening or negatively overwhelming; instead of listening to the public outcry and changing its policies accordingly, the CCP often fired back with more intensified repressive and integrationist policies (e.g. by increasingly restricting religious activities) in East Turkistan (see Bovingdon 2010, 129). Uyghurs have no right to express their discontent in public, if they do, they would face harsh punishment from the regime. As a matter of fact, the regime “equate any expression of dissatisfaction (buman qingxu), even metaphorical or ironical, with separatist thought (fenlie sixiang)” (Becquelin 2004a, 44).
The period 1996 – 2004 saw at least one extensive political campaign yearly , each led to hundreds of arrests, where the judicial proceedings were rushed, which in turn resulted in expedited convictions that were based on the Chinese Communist Party’s “two basics” principle: “basic truth” and “basic evidence” (ibid., 41).
In the following eight years since 1997 there had been neither massive incidents of social disturbances nor large-scale demonstrations in East Turkistan. Despite the relative calm that followed, the Communist Party leadership could not ignore the gravity of the conflicts transpired over the course of the last decade of the twentieth century. The only viable solution/policy the CCP could get behind was the economic development of East Turkistan. Great Development of the Western Regions (西部⼤开发xībù dà kāifā ) as a policy initially emerged in 1999, and was implemented in March 2000. These western regions include East Turkistan, Tibet, Inner Mongolia, as well as other provinces that are geographically located in western China.
To put it in a nutshell, this ‘develop the west’ program, what Becquelin (2004b) calls a “staged development”, would transfer the remaining development capacity from the coastal provinces of China to its western regions and provinces. Although this economically-oriented development program of the CCP sounds reasonable enough at a superficial level (i.e. poverty alleviation), the underlying issues that would ensue, that this vast project would (inevitably or not) give rise to, become a matter of concern. This ambitious project entails an enormous transfer of resources, including manpower, raising concerns about the further population dilution of the ethnic minority areas by a massive Han Chinese resettlement program (Dillon 2019, 75).
The influx of Han migration to East Turkistan has been continuous ever since the founding of the PRC. The Han population grew a staggering 31.6% between 1990 and 2000 in East Turkistan, which was almost exactly double the growth rate of non-Hans (Bovingdon 2010, 57). “Many analysts have concluded that officially supported Han migration constitutes China’s primary policy instrument for assimilating its border regions” (Gladney 2004, 112).
As a matter of fact, Li Dezhu (2000, cited in Becquelin 2004b:373–74), the head of the State Ethnic Affairs Commission of the PRC, stated outright in his writing that the government was actively engaged in the Han migrations to the ethnic minority areas in the name of strengthening national unity, a policy he termed as “homogenization” (凝聚化 níngjùhuà ). “This hidden agenda has exacerbated conflict between Han and non-Han and has not led to the stability that it was designed to produce” (Dillon 2019, 81). The Chinese regime has practiced preferential treatments toward Han migrants, luring them with state-sponsored subsidies and attractive resettlement policies in East Turkistan, which arouses even more indignation in Uyghur people. For instance, the regime would hand out subsidies to college graduates from China proper if they immigrated to East Turkistan, and top party officials would make recruitment trips (Bovingdon 2010, 57).
It has been assumed within the Communist Party that if the economic development in East Turkistan grows to match that of the coastal provinces in eastern China, then all inter-ethnic tension and ethnic separatism will disappear or at least the good economy will render them insignificant. However, China’s Develop the West policy fails to address “the cultural and ethnic superstructure” (Dillon 2019, 88).
Source: “The persecution of Uyghurs in East Turkistan” Authors: Erkin Kâinat; Adrian Zenz; Adiljan Abdurihim
Link: https://www.utjd.org/register/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/the_persecution_of_uyghurs_hard_copy.pdf
