TamingChina'sWildWest, Etnologia i antropologia, Antropologia polityczna
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]Taming China’s “Wild West”: Ethnic Conflict in Xinjiang
Matthew D. Moneyhon
*
Abstract
: This article examines the smoldering ethnic conflict in China’s far western, and predominantly
Muslim, province of Xinjiang. It stands as a first step toward understanding the separatist desires of
Muslim Uyghurs, with hopes of reconciling their cries for greater autonomy with the Chinese central
government’s iron-fisted control of the region. After examining the historical underpinnings of the “ethno-
genesis” of Uyghur ethnic identity, the article considers the current conflict through the work of Louis
Kriesberg, endeavoring to offer some prescriptive advice that may help to stifle the potentially devastating
force of ethnic separatism in China.
*
J.D.,University of Hawai’i, William S. Richardson School of Law, M.A. in Chinese Studies at the University of
Hawai’i at Manoa. The author is currently pursuing a Master of International Affairs from Columbia University
and has published several articles on the situation in Xinjiang, including most recently: “China's Great Western
Development Project in Xinjiang: Economic Palliative, or Political Trojan Horse?”
Denver Journal of
International Law & Policy
, Vol. 31, No. 3 (2003).
Introduction
Stand Up! I say; Raise your head and wipe your eyes!; Cut the heads off your enemies; Let the
blood flow! ---Abdukhaliq
1
In February 1997, as China’s dignitaries gathered to attend the state funeral of Deng Xiaoping,
bomb blasts ripped apart three buses in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur
Autonomous Region (XUAR).
2
These attacks were symbolically coordinated as the ultimate
demonstration of both contempt and disrespect for the Chinese central government. Ten days
later another bus bomb exploded in Beijing’s busiest shopping district. These bombings stand
as the high-water mark of Uyghur resistance against the iron-fisted Chinese control of the
region. The Uyghurs, the “indigenous” Muslim inhabitants of Xinjiang,
3
have long been
struggling for greater political autonomy. In recent years, however, their struggle has
increasingly employed violent means. For its part, the Chinese central government recognizes
Xinjiang as the number one internal threat to Chinese national security and stability.
4
In his article about the situation in Kosovo,
The Lesser Evil: The Best Way Out of the
Balkans
, Richard Betts notes: “Perhaps the best illustration by analogy of choices for Kosovo
comes from the untidy periphery of contemporary China. Is Kosovo’s future best exemplified
by Tibet, Hong Kong, or Taiwan?”
5
While this analogy is useful for Betts’ purposes, many
China watchers have approached this question from the opposite end of the looking glass.
1
This comes from the most famous poem of the most famous Uyghur poet, Abdukhaliq. In “Awaken! (
Oyghan
),”
(1933) Abdukahaliq laments the state of the Uyghurs and calls for them to rise up against their oppressors. Quoted
in Justin Jon Rudelson,
Oasis Identities: Uyghur Nationalism Along China’s Silk Road
, (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1997), p. 148. Violent sentiments similar to those expressed in “Awaken” still fuel the conflict in
Xinjiang.
2
Amy Woo, “China-Xinjiang: ‘Great Wall of Steel to Quell Ethnic Unrest”
Inter Press Service
, March 11, 1997,
see also “8 Separatists Executed In Chinese Northwest,”
Washington Post,
May 30, 1997.
3
This paper employs the modern definition of “Uyghur.” In addition to the Uyghurs, Xinjiang has long been
inhabited by the Muslim Kazakhs, Krgyz, and Tajiks. The Uyghurs believe that their ancestors were the
indigenous peoples of the Tarim Basin. Although often portrayed as a united front, the Uyghurs are divided by
religious conflicts, territorial loyalties, linguistic discrepancies, commoner-elite alienation, and competing political
loyalties. See
Dru C. Gladney, “China’s Interests in Central Asia”, in Robert Ebel & Rajan Menon eds,
Energy
and Conflict in Central Asia and the Caucasus
(New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000), pp. 211-213. See also
Rudelson,
Oasis Identities
, pp. 1-38, for a full discussion of the Uyghur ethnicity.
4
This statement reflects off-the-record comments of an American diplomat in 2000.
2
Indeed, fears of an “Asian Kosovo” in Tibet, Taiwan, or most realistically, Xinjiang, send
spine-tingling chills throughout the Chinese security community.
6
When the United States
entered Afghanistan in 2002, reports indicated that China moved up to 40,000 troops into
Xinjiang to quell separatist activities and maintain security in the region.
7
This deployment,
dramatic by any standards, fits into Beijing’s campaign to erect a “great wall of steel” against
separatists in Xinjiang and demonstrates the central government’s seriousness about the
Xinjiang problem.
8
Fears of a domino effect that would send ripples of instability throughout
Tibet, Taiwan, and Inner Mongolia, have prompted China’s leaders to take dramatic steps to
ensure that this smoldering situation does not erupt into a large scale conflict.
Louis Kriesberg’s examination of how emerging conflicts become overt provides a
comprehensive theoretical framework for understanding the situation in Xinjiang. Starting
from the fundamental recognition that struggles need not be waged violently or destructively,
9
examining Xinjiang through Kriesberg’s lens lays out a framework for both preventing further
escalation in Xinjiang and moving towards a win-win resolution. Kriesberg emphasizes that in
order to minimize the negative and maximize the positive aspects of a situation, it is imperative
to have an understanding of the sources of a particular conflict as well as “its process of
escalation, deescalation, and settlement.”
10
A critical evaluation of the historical roots underlying the contemporary situation in
Xinjiang helps provide “a context and a way of interpreting current inequalities and
5
Richard K. Betts, “The Lesser Evil: The Best Way Out of the Balkans”,
The National Interest
, Summer 2001, p.
59.
6
One of the primary objectives of the Great Western Development Plan, a program to promote greater economic
prosperity in China’s western poverty belt, confronts the disturbing possibility of a “Chinese Kosovo”:
The aim of the government’s program to develop China’s western provinces is to prevent China’s foreign enemies
using poverty to create a Kosovo-style crisis in the region . . . Providing ethnic minorities in those regions with
more economic development would help guarantee the inviolability of China’s borders and political and social
stability in the region
.
“The Hinterland: Plan to Avoid ‘Asian Kosovo’”,
China Economic Review
, March 13, 2001.
7
“China Moves Four Army Divisions Into Xinjiang to Quell Separatists”,
Japan Economic Newswire
, Jan. 12,
2002. Even more recently, the U.S. invasion of Iraq provoked new concerns that separatist groups such as the East
Turkestan Islamic Movement might seize this opportunity to make trouble in Xinjiang. Ching Cheong, “Chinese
Leaders Put Military on War Alert; It wants to Prevent Separatists and Others From Exploiting Gulf Situation to
Create Social Disorder”,
Straits Times
, Mar. 22, 2003.
8
Amy Woo, “China-Xinjiang: ‘Great Wall of Steel to Quell Ethnic Unrest
”
,
Inter Press Service
, March 11, 1997.
9
Kriesberg makes this point with a nod to Morton Deutsch, who has written extensively on this issue. Louis
Kriesberg,
Constructive Conflicts: From Escalation to Resolution
, (New York: Roman & Littlefield, 1998) p. 21.
See also
Morton Deutsch,
The Resolution of Conflict: Constructive and Destructive Processes
(New Haven,
Conn.: Yale University Press, 1973).
10
Kriesberg, Constructive Conflicts, p. 4.
3
differences.”
11
To that end, the second section of this paper provides a brief historical
overview of the Xinjiang situation. The third section moves from the historical underpinnings
to an examination of the Xinjiang problem through Kriesberg’s foundational conditions for
social conflict. After exploring the “tinder and spark” underlying a potential flare-up in
Xinjiang, section four highlights several resolution strategies and impediments to peaceful
forward progress. Using Kriesberg to analyze the Xinjiang conflict is an attempt to bridge
conflict resolution theory and practice, while also advancing understanding of the challenging
and complex situation in Xinjiang.
Background: The Xinjiang “Problem”
Given that “conflict” has many different meanings (both connotative and denotative), the
definition of the term “conflict” serves as the necessary point of departure for any theoretical
discussion of conflict. Kriesberg employs a relatively expansive definition: “a social conflict
exists when two or more persons or groups manifest the belief that they have incompatible
objectives.”
12
He notes, however, the wide range of definitions both in common usage and
academic discourse: “In common speech and in academic analysis, social conflict sometimes
means parties having incompatible positions, sometimes it refers to parties thinking they have
incompatible goals, sometimes it means parties trying to coerce each other, and other times it
means parties using deadly violence against each other.”
13
In fact, a brief examination of the
historical underpinnings of the current situation in Xinjiang demonstrates that the Xinjiang
conflict actually fits into all of these definitions.
The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), an area once called the “pivot of
Asia,”
14
occupies approximately one-sixth of China’s landmass, contains some of the world’s
largest oil deposits, borders eight countries
(Mongolia, Russia, Kazakstan, Krygyzstan,
Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India), and houses China’s nuclear test site, Lop Nor. In
addition to its vast resources and strategic significance, Xinjiang (literally “New Frontier”) is
11
Ibid
,
p. 47.
12
Ibid,
p. 2.
13
Ibid,
p. 3.
14
Owen Lattimore, Pivot of Asia: Sinkiang & the Inner Asian Frontiers of China & Russia (Boston: Little, Brown,
1950).
4
home to approximately eight million Muslim Uyghurs.
15
In recent years the Uyghurs, one of
China’s fifty-five recognized ethnic minorities,
16
have rallied around a steadily solidifying
ethno-political identity. In the early 1990s the calcification of Uyghur identity combined with
the dissolution of the Soviet Union spurred Uyghurs into action. Calls for greater autonomy
ultimately culminated in a number of violent clashes between Uyghur groups and Han Chinese
authorities. A brief examination of the historical interaction between the Uyghurs and Han
Chinese provides context for the current situation and helps illuminate why the potential for
future conflict still exists.
Although there are differing narratives on how Xinjiang fell under Chinese control, Qing
Dynasty (1644-1911) colonialism incorporated the region into the Chinese empire in 1759.
Chinese rule initially meant few changes for the inhabitants of the area now known as Xinjiang,
but periodic rebellions, often materializing as Islamic “holy wars” against the Chinese
infidels,
17
demonstrate that the region did not accept Chinese domination happily. While China
has nominally controlled the region since the Qing Dynasty, on two different occasions local
leaders threw off Chinese rule and established short-lived independent states in Xinjiang.
18
Since the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) marched into Xinjiang in 1949, however, China
has maintained strong political control. Uyghur-Han ethnic tensions have always lurked below
the surface, but until recently they never manifested in violent resistance. In the early 1990s
Uyghur grievances increasingly materialized in the form of public protest and sporadic
violence. From the bus bombings in both Xinjiang and Beijing, to assassinations of Han
Chinese officials, Uyghur resistance to Chinese rule has turned deadly. Abulahat Abdurixit,
chairman of the XUAR government, admitted in 1999 that “since the 1990s, if you count
explosions, assassinations and other terrorist activities, it comes to a few thousand incidents.”
19
15
Xinjiang Tong Ji Nian Jian, 1997, p. 50.
16
Central Intelligence Agency, World Fact Book, at
recognized majority nationality, comprise approximately 91.9% of China’s almost 1.3 billion people.
17
See
Donald H. McMillen,
Chinese Communist Power and Policy in Xinjiang, 1949-1977
(Boulder, Colorado:
Westview Press, 1979), p. 7.
18
In 1862, a massive uprising led by Yaqub Beg wrested control from the Qing authorities and established an
independent Kashgar Emirate that lasted until Yaqub Beg’s death in 1877. The Kashgar Emirate has been called
the “greatest Turkic threat ever to the Chinese leadership.” Rudleson,
Oasis Identities
, p. 27. The even shorter-
lived East Turkestan Republic (1944-49) stands as the most significant independence movement in the region in
the last 100 years. Just after the communists marched into the region in 1949, however, leaders of the East
Turkestan Republic died in a mysterious plane crash as they were on their way to meet with communist leaders.
Ibid,
p. 30.
19
Nicolas Becquelin, “Xinjiang in the Nineties”,
China Journal
, July, 2000 p. 87.
5
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