Uighurs And China Explainer

Introduction
The Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR), a territory in western China, accounts for one-sixth of China's land and is home to about 20 million people from thirteen major ethnic groups. The largest of these groups is the Uighurs [PRON: WEE-gurs], a predominantly Muslim community with ties to Central Asia. Some Uighurs call China's presence in Xinjiang a form of imperialism, and they stepped up calls for independence--sometimes violently--in the 1990s through separatist groups like the East Turkestan Islamic Movement(ETIM). The Chinese government has reacted by promoting the migration of China's ethnic majority, the Han, to Xinjiang. Beijing has also strengthened economic ties with the area and tried to cut off potential sources of separatist support from neighboring states that are linguistically and ethnically linked with the Uighurs.

Intermittent Independence
Since the collapse of the Qing Dynasty in 1912, Xinjiang has enjoyed varying degrees of autonomy. Turkic rebels in Xinjiang declared independence in October 1933 and created the Islamic Republic of East Turkestan (also known as the Republic of Uighuristan or the First East Turkistan Republic). The following year, the Republic of China reabsorbed the region. In 1944, factions within Xinjiang again declared independence, this time under the auspices of the Soviet Union, and created the Second East Turkistan Republic. But in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party took over the territory and declared it a Chinese province. In October 1955, Xinjiang became classified as an "autonomous region" of the People's Republic of China.

Some Uighurs, nostalgic for Xinjiang's intermittent periods of independence, call for the recreation of a Uighur state. "The Central Asian Uighurs know a great deal about the two East Turkestan periods of sovereign rule, and they reflect on that quite frequently," says Dru C. Gladney, president of the Pacific Basin Institute at Pomona College. Many of these Uighurs say China colonized the area in 1949. But in its first white paper on Xinjiang, the Chinese government said Xinjiang had been an "inseparable part of the unitary multi-ethnic Chinese nation" since the Western Han Dynasty, which ruled from 206 BC to 24 AD.

Economic Development
Xinjiang's wealth hinges on its vast mineral and oil deposits. In the early 1990s, Beijing decided to spur Xinjiang's growth by giving it special economic zones, subsidizing local cotton farmers, and overhauling its tax system. In August 1991, the Xinjiang government launched the Tarim Basin Project (World Bank) to increase agricultural output. During this period, Beijing invested in the region's infrastructure, building massive projects like the Tarim Desert Highway and a rail link to western Xinjiang. In an article for The China Quarterly, Nicholas Bequelin ofHuman Rights Watch says these projects were designed to literally "bind Xinjiang more closely to the rest of the PRC."

Since 1954, China has also used the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC) to build agricultural settlements in China's western periphery.

Continue reading at CFR...

Here is a video of this weekend's riots in China:

A slideshow of the riots:

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A Han Chinese man carries a spiked steel bar while using his cell phone to take photos as he joins a mob of Han Chinese men attacking Uighur properties in Urumqi, western China's Xinjiang province, Tuesday, July 7, 2009.

Comments

[Tisori]

The economic resources and military might of the Chinese government will lead to the Ethnic Cleansing of the Uighur peoples similar to the extinction of the native Prussian tribes when the Teutonic Knights were invited by the 13th Century Polish nobility to Christianize (Catholic) the indigenous Prussians. The Knights military forces first subdued any active resistance and eventually terrorized the natives into feudal servitude and within 100 years there were no true Prussians alive!
Following the subjugation The German Holy Roman Emperors(O­tto's)colo­nized the land with hordes on Germanic peoples who were beholden to the Teutonic Knights for victorious fights with the Prussian and Lithuanian warriors who attempted defend their natural right to avoid feudalism and obedience to an alien presence.

[Urumqi]

Uighur Protesters March in Washington DC

See washingtonpost. article and Video
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/07/AR2009070702287.html?hpid=topnews

[rosychick]

THANKS for at least publishing the article on killings of more than 200 Chinese Muslims, who are fighting for their human rights and freedom for the last several decades.
The Western media was very upbeat and over-dramatic to publish political unrest of a losing party of Iranians, for 10 long days but did only lip service for this State sponsored terrorism and barbarism of China. It may be because of power of China or their economical relation with China or as usual their mindset that Muslims do not deserve human rights and freedom. We Muslims have hope that after Obama such thinking will be changed at least in the White House but regretfully Obama is no difference than any other President. After lecturing Muslims and giving them false hope, he remained silent on this and many such issues related to the Muslim sufferings.