It's Already Arrived
By Eugene Leger

With wide-ranging estimations of between 20 and 100 million Muslims living in the mainly western provinces of the People's Republic of China, one is less surprised at the recent attack on police in the Xinjiang province town of Kashgar. But read about the PRC's boast of busting "Islamic terror groups" on July 15 and you start seeing the picture of an ongoing struggle that seems to be coming to it's media culmination as 08-08-08 looms.

Depending on whom you trust as a source of information, there has been either a struggle against religious and ethnic repression by an ever-growing ethnic Han population which control the regional [1], or Xinjiang province is the center of an Islamic extremist uprising aimed at using the Beijing Olympics as a platform for its Jihad [2]. The latter view is shared by both the PRC security apparatus and one arm of the United States government which lists the East Turkestan Islamic Movement as a terrorist organization "linked to al-Qaida" [3].

China's first and only "Terrorist List" was announced in December 2003 specifically because of militancy in the Kashgar region of Xinjiang [4], but according to several "NGOs" the PRC is simply trying to paint a picture that would justify a more strident repression of ethnic minorities; a view not dissimilar to those supporting Tibetan efforts at autonomy. The mission statement of the The World Uyghur Congress "is to promote democracy, human rights and freedom for the Uyghur people and use peaceful, nonviolent, and democratic means to determine their political future.

By representing as the sole legitimate organization of the Uyghur people both in East Turkestan and abroad, WUC endeavors to set out a course for the peaceful settlement of the East Turkestan Question through dialogue and negotiation." [5] According to the WUC prior to the annexation of East Turkistan(sp?) by the PRC following the Communist Victory in 1949, there were 200,000 ethnic Han Chinese in the region; based on the latest PRC census information the current population of 18.62 million has an ethnic Han component of some 7.49 million. Through a policy of immigration into East Turkestan, not unlike that in Tibet, the PRC is gradually tilting the ethnic scales; however, representatives of the Uyghur population, the largest group of Muslims in Xinjiang province, there actually are between 15 and 20 million ethnic Uyghurs alone, plus the other largely Muslim peoples of Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, Tatars and Tajiks decent [6].

Being the most populous country on the planet, the PRC also is the most diverse in it's ethnic make up with 56 different groups between the PRC and Taiwan and at least 8 ethnic groups not officially recognized by the PRC government. With more attention being turned toward China on the eve of the Olympic Games a greater insight into political conflicts within the PRC is being gained, and while the west generally has given an ear to Tibetan liberation groups, the U.S. in particular seems to be echoing the PRC line regarding "terrorist activites and groups".

Yitzhak Shichor, Professor of East Asian Studies and Political Science at the University of Haifa, Israel and Senior Research Fellow at the Harry S Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, maintains that the PRC has, since 9/11, made a concerted effort to link independence movements among ethnic Uyghurs and other Muslims to al-Quaeda. While Professor Shichor, who was the first westerner shown an english translation of the PRC-produced documentary, "On the Spot Report: The Crimes of Eastern

Turkestan Terrorist Power", believes there have been instances of violence perpetrated at the hands of the Muslim populations, the PRC's efforts to term this as "terrorism" amounts to hyperbole and a blatant effort to justify a continued crackdown on political movements aimed at regional autonomy. Starting in 2001 the official PRC releases refer to militant groups as "East Turkestani" whereas official documents never acknowledged the existence of such a region prior, always referring to the area by it's provincial name in an effort to ignore any political aspirations that ran afoul of offical PRC policy [7].

What is interesting is the fact that while the CIA World Factbook lists Falun Gong and the China Democracy Group as "political pressure groups" identified by the PRC government, "no substantial political opposition groups exist" [8]. This seems to contradict the U.S. State Department which listed the East Turkestan Islamic Movement as a "terrorist organization" in 2002 [9]. One could argue that while Tibetan independence movements enjoy a certain cause celeb among western governments, while being denounced as dangerous secessionists by the PRC, the continued anti-Islamic, especially political Islam, sentiment in the west make politically active Muslim minorities potential targets in the "worldwide war on terror". It just seems that the posture being adopted by the U.S. in particular is contrary to their policy in Afghanistan when the USSR was propping up its puppet government. Then the U.S. is known to have supplied armaments and logistical support to mujahideen and taleban "freedom fighters" as an affront to Soviet control. While some would say this policy of the U.S. failed and is now back-firing on them, some more cynical may surmise that the "Islamic Extremist" has been manufactured to be the international enemy against which all states who see eye-to-eye with the U.S. are willing to throw their military and political might against. This would provide convenient cover to invade any state that had strategic or economic importance and a vocal indigineous Muslim population.

Compared to past relations, the U.S. has maintained a certain criticism of the PRC's human rights record, while steadily increasing trade and the accompanying dependence that the U.S. consumer economy has on PRC-produced goods. It will be interesting to see, as the U.S. and other western powers develop their views on Islamic activism/militancy inside the PRC, how China's "anti-terrorist" activities dovetail with those of the west. Will we see a Chinese contingent fighting alongside European and North American troops in Afghanistan? When and if large Muslim states sway political Islam, will China see it's "national security" tied to fighting these tendencies as the U.S. has, especially in Pakistan? As the PRC learns the ropes of international diplomacy, as late as yesterday U.S. president Bush was still admonishing the PRC for its human rights record (something that doesn't happen to other repressive regimes, such as Saudi Arabia, which enjoy more favourable status with the U.S.), we could very easily see our first Chinese blue hats, as the PRC, ostensibly communist, joins in the fight to make the world safe for big business and combat grass roots nationalistic efforts.

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1 http://www.powerset.com/explore/semhtml/East_Turkestan_Liberation_Organization?query=East+Turkestan+Liberation+Organization
2 http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h2D3Grd7JskivDXYqzIPHoL2KAgwD91UPLMO0
3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Turkestan_Islamic_Movement
3 http://www.tkb.org/Group.jsp?groupID=4347
4 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3319575.stm
5 http://www.uyghurcongress.org/En/AboutWUC.asp?mid=1095738888
6 http://www.uyghurcongress.org/En/AboutET.asp?mid=1107905016
7 http://www.silkroadstudies.org/new/docs/CEF/Quarterly/May_2006/Shichor.pdf
8 https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ch.html
9 http://www.cfr.org/publication/9179/

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