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China's policy towards Uighur nationalism 1

2006; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 26; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13602000600738731

1469-9591

Eric Hyer,

Diaspora, migration, transnational identity

Abstract Abstract This paper seeks to place China's policy toward its Uighur Muslim minority in Xinjiang in a broader context. In the post-Soviet period, the dynamics of Eurasia has fundamentally changed. The independence of the Central Asian states that were part of the Soviet Union had a demonstrable effect on the Uighurs of China. As a result, Uighur nationalism became a force with which the Chinese authorities had to contend. Chinese authorities consider China a multi-ethnic state of Han Chinese and various minorities, and any nationalist or independence movements are considered illegitimate because China does not recognize the right of national self-determination and adheres strictly to a policy of assimilation. Concerns over growing Uighur nationalism impinge on China's policy of economic expansion and its growing energy needs that make Central Asia a strategic region. In the past decade, China has developed better relations with its Central Asian neighbours based on such strategic interests. By developing these ties, it is seeking to form alliances in order to dampen the development of Uighur nationalism, block Russia from reasserting its influence in the region, and prevent the United States and its allies from excluding China from its security and economic ambitions in the region. Notes 1. This paper in its original version was presented at the "2005 Middle East and Central Asia Politics, Economics, and Society Conference", University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA, 8–10 September 2005. 2. Use of the term minzu causes confusion. Often translated as "nation" in English, it is more accurately translated as "ethnic group". Although the term guojia can also be translated as "nation" it is more accurately translated as "nation-state". Thus, using the term minzu wenti to mean "nationalities question" is misleading because in Chinese the term has the connotation of relations among ethnic groups, all considered to be "Chinese", and includes no notion of a right to "nationhood". 3. See June Teufel Dreyer, China's Forty Millions: Minority Nationalities and National Integration in the People's Republic of China, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976; Wolfram Eberhard, China's Minorities: Yesterday and Today, Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1982; Thomas Herberer, ed., Ethnic Minorities in China: Tradition and Transform, Papers of the 2nd Interdisciplinary Congress Sinology/Ethnology, St. Augustine, 1st edn., Aichen: Edition Herodot im Rader Verlag, 1987; and Linda Benson, The Ili Rebellion: The Moslem Challenge to Chinese Authority in Xinjiang, Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1990. 4. Joseph Rothschild, Ethnopolitics: A Conceptual Framework, New York: Columbia University Press, 1981, pp. 1–3. 5. 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Zhang Wenmu, "America's oil geostrategy and the security of Tibet and Xinjiang: considering new trends in U.S. foreign policy toward South and Central Asia", Zhanlue yu guanli (Strategy and Management), No. 2, 1998, pp. 100–101. (Zhanlue yu guanli (Strategy and Management) is not an "official" publication, but is published by the China Institute for Strategy and Management, an organization that has close ties to the PLA and strategic circles in China). For an analysis of geopolitics see J. Richard Walsh, "China and the new geopolitics of Central Asia", Asian Survey, Vol. 33, No. 3, March 1993, pp. 272–284; and Keith Martin, "China and Central Asia: between seduction and suspicion", RFE/RL Research Report, Vol. 3, No. 25, 24 June 1994, pp. 26–36. 48. Zhang, "America's oil geostrategy", op. cit., pp. 103–104. 49. N. Becquelin, "A New Xinjiang", op. cit., p. 13. 50. Ronald N. Montaperto, "Whither China? Beijing's policies for the 1990s", Strategic Review, Vol. 20, No. 3, Summer 1992, p. 30. 51. C. Harris, "Xinjiang, Central Asia and the implications for China's policy", op. cit., pp. 127–128.