The Xinjiang Riots, China, July 2009

Ruth is a lecturer and freelance writer who spent several years working and travelling around China. Her works include two books about student protests and the Tiananmen massacre. She visited Xinjiang several times, gaining valuable insights about the situation of the Uighurs in this disputed territory, and she keeps up to date with the ongoing disputes and conflicts in the area.

July 6^th 2009. I wake to hear news of rioting Uighurs in Urumqi and vicious attacks on Han Chinese living there. It's what I have been dreading for years and my heart sinks. I wonder what triggered the attacks and what the Words & pics: Ruth Cherringtonoutcome will be, but I do know many of the underlying causes of the ethnic unrest that has been simmering for years in the region.

Most people in this country, and probably in many others, were wondering who the Uighurs are, and where in the world Urumqi was - and indeed Xinjiang? And surely all people in China are Chinese, aren't they? So what are these ethnic minority people doing there, and why do they hate the Chinese so intensely that they were attacking them in the street? It was reported that there were over 150 deaths in those early days in July, and possibly many more. It's always hard to know with the Chinese what the truth is - remember Tiananmen Square, twenty years ago? Some estimates reckoned around 2000 people were killed over June 3^rd/4^th, but official Chinese estimates are far lower and many Western governments have revised their own figures downwards in an effort to make friendly overtones to the Chinese, and secure lucrative business deals.

It might come as a surprise for some to learn that there are over 50 minority groups in China and that the Han, the vast majority of the population, are the controlling force in the country. There are minority groups scattered throughout China including the Tibetans who, for some, should actually have their own independent state. But try telling that to the Chinese government who claim that Tibet has always been an integral part of China, and that their invasion in 1950 merely represented a liberation of the people there who suffered under feudalism and slavery. It depends on your viewpoint, and your historical stance, as to whether you see Tibet as part of China or not.

It's a similar situation for Xinjiang and the Uighurs who live there - except the Uighurs have had very little publicity, especially when compared to their Tibetan counterparts. The Uighurs also claim that they were invaded by the Chinese and that, going back in history, they had their own state as well as their own culture, language and religion. But the Chinese government insist that the Uighurs have always been, historically speaking, a part of greater China and that they too were liberated from the past by the communists after 1949. Many Uighurs don't accept this and have been, in their view, living under Chinese oppression for far too long and with very little external acknowledgement of their struggle. It has been dangerous to pursue any action that might be seen as sympathetic to the formation of an independent state, with the Chinese government labelling such activities as 'counter-revolutionary' and 'splittist'. These political crimes may be punishable by death.

The very name of this vast territory is now Chinese: Xinjiang means 'new frontier' and that is just what it was for the Chinese, back in the late 19^th century when they intended to clearly demarcate part of Central Asia so it wouldn't be taken by neighbours (including the expansionist Russia). There was a British presence in the area as well, part of what was termed the 'Great Game' with a small Consulate in Kashgar, a wonderful old city further westwards than Xinjiang's capital city of Urumqi which was once at the centre of the old Silk Road. For anyone interested, there is a beautiful book (*1) written by an English lady, Lady Macartney, who married the man who was to become Consul General in Kashgar. She documents some of their time in Kashgar (spanning over twenty years) which was, for fifty years, Britain's most advanced position in the Great Game with Tsarist Russia. She tells of the local people, mostly Uighurs and Chinese, who struggled to rule this place with Russia looking on and the British also trying to maintain a foothold in this isolated, yet strategically important place.

The colonial powers, including China, wanted to make sure they had secured territory and control in this part of Central Asia and also to have access to its rich natural resources. The Chinese were very successful in carving out this huge territory for themselves, thus extending their borders for well over 3000 miles to the West of Beijing and assimilating a number of ethnic groups who have very different backgrounds and cultures to the majority (and ruling) Han people, or those people who we normally associate with as being 'Chinese'.

But then again, remember that this is one view of history and the Chinese government and many Chinese people would claim that Xinjiang was always part of their territory. But if they weren't back then outnumbered by Han Chinese, the Uighurs must have once been the majority in their own land, which was called East Turkestan. There are other ethnic groups there too, including Kazaks, Tajiks and Tartars, who are linked with 'brothers' across the borders in countries that used to be part of the Soviet Union. Yes, it's a little complicated, but we can see that there are good reasons why Uighurs should feel aggrieved about being an assumed part of China, and about being termed a 'national minority group'.

There are over 6 million Uighurs who used to outnumber the Han Chinese in this region, but increasingly the central government has sent Han people to settle there from overcrowded areas of China (and there are plenty of those) to tip the balance in terms of demographics. There have been periodic outbreaks of unrest and violence in the region, for example in Spring 1990. An apparent Uighur plot was uncovered by the Chinese authorities in the small town of Baren, near Kashgar, which led to violence and a crackdown by the authorities. In the summer of that year, I was trying to buy a bus ticket for the three-day journey from Urumqi to Kashgar. I kept being refused one simply because I was a foreigner and the authorities didn't want me travelling independently to such a politically sensitive area. I was actually travelling with my new husband, a Uighur, who wanted me to meet his family and have a proper wedding ceremony in Kashgar. We persisted and I got on the bus, but at each stage we were pestered and halted and it was a struggle to get there.

Foreign journalists have always found it difficult getting into Xinjiang and reporting anything from there, let alone moving further West. I once assisted a BBC journalist in doing some reporting from Kashgar, but we were followed by plain-clothes police officers all the time and, eventually, he was arrested and had all his material destroyed. The reports from Urumqi this July did mark something of a watershed in one sense - that we could see the riots on our screens. But we must remember that the Chinese allowed us to see Han being beaten by violent, out of control Uighurs and this is probably only one side of the story. I could write of beatings of Uighurs by the Chinese authorities and the tough crackdowns that follow any attempt to bring some publicity to their cause.

The past ten years have seen several million Han settle in the area, but this is not the first time people have been sent there by the State. During Mao's Cultural Revolution (1966-76) many young intellectuals were sent to this border region in order to help settle the area and spread Mao's version of socialism. They were never allowed back to their own homes and cities thousands of miles away. A very good Chinese friend of mine was born of Han parents in Xinjiang during this time and it was very difficult to raise her in the harsh conditions, so they sent her to Beijing to be brought up by her grandmother. She never really had any further contact with her parents. They were busy being 'pioneers' in the wild west of China and helping to raise the standard of development there. I cannot imagine how hard their lives were, dedicated to the cause of Mao's politics, even if they didn't have much choice in the matter. Going back even further, political dissidents and exiles were sent to this region, which is as far away as possible from China proper, to eke out a miserable existence or simply to die.

The use of Xinjiang as a 'dumping ground' for unwanted Han as well as a place of colonisation over centuries has, naturally, upset locals such as the Uighurs who claim this is their own territory. Their customs and traditions are very different to the Han. They look more Asiatic and speak a Turkic language, also called Uighur, which is very different to Mandarin. They are also followers of Islam and have had close links with countries like Turkey especially, because of the old Silk Road that passed through Kashgar and other cities in Xinjiang. In communist China, religion didn't go down too well, so many people have suffered over the decades because of that - sometimes even being executed for their faith. During the Cultural Revolution, other forms of nastiness were thought up for Uighurs, such as making them work on pig farms - something quite abhorrent for them.

The present day regime may claim a much more enlightened approach to the Uighurs, with this group being allowed more than one child per couple (which is the national policy elsewhere) in addition to being allowed to marry younger. The current regime also states that it has allowed the building of mosques and permits the local people to use their own language. But, in a society where the Han rule, anyone who wants to get on in life is best advised to learn Mandarin and be able to talk to the Chinese in their own tongue, otherwise they are very likely to be unemployed.

Traditional stereotypes of Uighurs always portray them as exotic, happy, dancing people who love to eat locally produced watermelon and wear colourful clothing. They have been unhappy for a long time, though, as more Han come to the region and the Uighur culture becomes threatened, with increasing legislation which restricts their way of life. One thing I used to love in Kashgar was hopping on the back of the donkey carts - the best way to get around the town. Many donkey carts were stopped, however, for apparent health and safety reasons. Mosques are closely surveilled and this surveillance has been given Western endorsement since 9/11. The Chinese government were only too keen to get on the anti-Muslim bandwagon at that point, claiming terrorists in their own lands.

There is no denying that some Uighurs would be willing terrorists and I am not suggesting this is the best way forward, just as attacking ordinary Han people on the streets of Urumqi can't be justified. But the sense of injustice, of being oppressed and of being controlled, has been growing in intensity for decades now. Plus, where do all the profits from Xinjiang's vast mineral and agricultural resources go to? Most Uighurs reckon they see little, if none, of it as this goes eastwards towards Beijing. Another source of concern has been the use of Xinjiang for nuclear testing over the decades. Some sources claim that there are clusters of cancer cases amongst local Uighurs as a result of this.

In summary, we see a complex picture of discrimination and oppression that goes a long way back. The actual trigger for this current bout of bloody unrest was the killing of a Uighur worker who had gone eastwards to find work in one of China's many factories. The circumstances remain unclear, but racial hatred may well have been the cause of the death of this man, at the hands of Han. When news reached Urumqi, revenge was sought. But by other accounts, the protests may have been planned for weeks before this incident. We will probably never know, but what we can be sure of is that this region is bound to hit the Western headlines again in the near future, and probably for similarly depressing reasons.

People chant 'Free Tibet', but few have been chanting 'Free East Turkestan'. I hope that, after this latest flare-up, at least a few more people understand where this place is and why the locals are revolting. They are probably now suffering in the post-riot crackdowns of which the Chinese regime is so fond, and this is something that I suspect we will hear very little about.

*1 - (An English Lady in Chinese Turkestan, Oxford University Press 1990)