China struggles to tame its 'Wild West'

By Huntly Collins

and Charles Desnoyers

Until the rise of sea routes in the 15th century, China's remote Xinjiang province was best known for its network of trails that carried goods between Asia and Europe, which became known as the Silk Road.

The region burst into the news this month when rioting by members of its Muslim Uighur minority left at least 184 dead. Most of the dead were Han Chinese, members of China's dominant ethnic group. As Uighurs rampaged through Urumqi, the provincial capital, they were met by stick-wielding Han vigilantes, Chinese riot police, and a government clampdown on Internet communications.

On the surface, the dispute stemmed from Uighur claims that Han Chinese had beaten a number of Uighur workers at a factory in southern China. But a much larger underlying question has wracked the province for almost 1,500 years: To whom does Xinjiang belong?

Xinjiang - which means "New Frontier" in Mandarin - is often referred to as China's Wild West. It is a land of sprawling desert basins and towering mountains. Four times the size of California, it borders eight countries.

Once largely populated by Uighurs and other ethnic groups that share a common Turkic ancestry, the region has become more and more Han as the Chinese Communist Party has embarked on a "Go west" campaign aimed at relocating Han from the east and developing Xinjiang's vast oil and gas reserves. In Urumqi, which was once majority Uighur, the population is now 70 percent Han.

Uighurs view themselves as the land's first and rightful inhabitants, and they regard Han as part of an oppressive foreign occupation. Han Chinese, by contrast, have long viewed Uighurs as barbarians who must be tamed and brought into the fold of Chinese civilization. It's similar to the conflict between Native Americans and American settlers in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The fault lines between Uighurs and Han Chinese were apparent during our research there in 2007. In Urumqi, a rapidly growing city of 2.3 million, the wealthiest neighborhoods, newest buildings, and best amenities were overwhelmingly in areas dominated by Han. Uighur sections, invariably marked by a local mosque, were shabby and overcrowded, though often bustling with small shops and stalls.

While commerce is booming in downtown Urumqi, which has a skyline of sleek, Chinese-themed office buildings, hundreds of young Uighur men sit in the alleyways of the Uighur sections, shut out of the emerging economy by a lack of education, job skills, and Mandarin literacy. The economic and social inequality has also proved to be a perfect recipe for the spread of HIV and AIDS through intravenous drug use, which is concentrated in the Uighur population.

The strained relations between Uighurs and Han are nothing new. Uighurs once had a powerful state that had been both an ally and enemy of China's Tang dynasty (618-907). An independence movement and Islamic revival in the mid-19th century was crushed by the Chinese general Zuo Zongtang.

In the 1930s and '40s, amid the political turmoil in China, the intrigues of the Soviet Union, and the pan-Turkic movement, there were short-lived, independent Republics of East Turkestan - the name the Uighurs still use to describe Xinjiang.

With the arrival of the People's Republic of China, however, a powerful Communist Party apparatus was put in place. In recent decades, in addition to encouraging massive Han immigration, the party has been clamping down on Uighur talk of separatism and otherwise attempting to "Sinicize" the region. At Xinjiang University, for instance, the Uighur language is no longer taught; even instruction on Uighur poetry is in Mandarin.

Why should Americans care about all this? For one thing, as China increases in wealth, power, and influence, it remains the world's largest authoritarian regime, and one that still does not adhere to international standards of human rights. How it deals with its minority groups - especially those, like the Tibetans and Uighurs, who aspire to greater autonomy - will have an enormous impact on the future of the country and the region.

What's more, China's role in the global war on terror and its efforts to suppress even a hint of radical Islam in Xinjiang may drive more moderate Uighurs to call for independence or jihad, perhaps opening up an entirely new chapter in that struggle. As for the region's Han inhabitants, their growing nationalism and perception of Uighurs as a "protected" minority will continue to spawn resentment.

In short, we should care that China's Wild West might soon resemble our own in some very unsettling ways.