Uighurs: A people under Attack (JR234)

 

Uighurs: A people under Attack (JR234)

Introduction

The Uyghurs are recognized as native to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in Northwest China. They are considered to be one of China's 55 officially recognized ethnic minorities. The Uyghurs are recognized by the Chinese government only as a regional minority within a multicultural nation. There are about 12 million Uighurs, mostly Muslim, living in north-western China in the region of Xinjiang, officially known as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR).

The Uighurs speak their own language, similar to Turkish, and see themselves as culturally and ethnically close to Central Asian nations.

They make up less than half of the Xinjiang population.

In recent decades, there's been a mass migration of Han Chinese (China's ethnic majority) to Xinjiang, and the Uighurs feel their culture and livelihoods are under threat.

Xinjiang lies in the north-west of China and is the country's biggest region. Like Tibet, it is autonomous, meaning - in theory - it has some powers of self-governance. But in practice, both face major restrictions by the central government. It is a mostly desert region, producing about a fifth of the world's cotton. It is also rich in oil and natural gas and because of its proximity to Central Asia and Europe is seen by Beijing as an important trade link. In the early 20th Century, the Uighurs briefly declared independence, but the region was brought under the complete control of mainland China's new Communist government in 1949.

Uighur  a Turkic-speaking people of interior Asia. Uighurs live for the most part in northwestern China, in the Uygur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang; a small number live in the Central Asian republics. There were some 10,000,000 Uighurs in China and at least a combined total of 300,000 in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan in the early 21st century.

 

The Uighurs are mainly a sedentary village-dwelling people who live in the network of oases formed in the valleys and lower slopes of the Tien Shan, Pamirs, and related mountain systems. The region is one of the most arid in the world; hence, for centuries they have practiced irrigation to conserve their water supply for agriculture. Their principal food crops are wheat, corn (maize), kaoliang (a form of sorghum), and melons. The chief industrial crop is cotton, which has long been grown in the area. Many Uighurs are employed in petroleum extraction, mining, and manufacturing in urban centers.

The chief Uighur cities are Ürümqi, the capital of Xinjiang, and Kashgar (Kashi), an ancient centre of trade on the historic Silk Road near the border between Russia and China. The Uighurs have lacked political unity in recent centuries, except for a brief period during the 19th century when they were in revolt against Beijing. Their social organization is centred on the village. The Uighurs of Xinjiang are Sunni Muslims

 

History

The Uighurs, Turkic nomads living north of the Gobi Desert, ruled over a powerful empire between 744 and 840. Its capital was Karabalghasun on the upper Orhon River in Mongolia. Although of nomadic origin, the Uighurs presided over flourishing commercial centers and agriculture. After their empire dissolved, a group of them who fled west created a new state centered in the oases north of the Taklamakan Desert and extending up into the mountains of the eastern Tien Shan. It would survive until nearly the end of the thirteenth century. The cosmopolitan culture and economic prosperity of these two Uighur states form a notable chapter in the history of the Silk Road.

The rapid rise of the Uighurs in the eighth century coincided with a period when the Tang dynasty in China was weakening. During the An Lu-shan rebellion against the Tang from 755-763, the Uighurs saved the dynasty and in return received rich payments of silk and other Chinese goods. The quantities of Chinese silk flowing into the northern steppes rivaled those that had been sent to the Xiongnu centuries earlier. The peak of Uighur power was under kaghan Mou-yü, who ascended the throne in 759.  His court and that of his successors was heavily influenced by Chinese culture, not the least of the reasons being the frequent marriages to Chinese princesses.

Mou-yü established Manichaeism as the state religion amongst the Uighurs. This dualist belief in the powers of good and evil and separation of matter from spirit had originated in Persia in the third century and was one of many foreign religious which made their way to China. The bearers of Manichaeism were the Sogdian merchants   from Central Asia, who became prominent in the Silk Road trade. Sogdians enjoyed some prominence at the Tang court, even though their religion was only just tolerated. Mou-yü's adoption of the Sogdians' faith in part reflects his desire to distance himself from the Tang and in part the reality of his heavy reliance on Sogdians for the creation of his state administration and for the trade on which Uighur prosperity depended. The Uighur scribal culture would later become the basis for writing Mongolian.

The Uighur language is part of the Turkic group of Altaic languages, and the Uighurs are among the oldest Turkic-speaking peoples of Central Asia. They are mentioned in Chinese records from the 3rd century CE. They first rose to prominence in the 8th century, when they established a kingdom along the Orhon River in what is now north-central Mongolia. In 840 this state was overrun by the Kyrgyz, however, and the Uighurs migrated southwestward to the area around the Tien (Tian) Shan (“Celestial Mountains”). There the Uighurs formed another independent kingdom in the Turfan Depression region, but this was overthrown by the expanding Mongols in the 13th century.

 

After the disintegration of this Uighur empire, some of its survivors created the kingdom of Kocho (Gaochang) (ca. 860-1284), whose urban centers were in the Turfan oasis north of the Taklamakan desert astride the northern branch of the Silk Road. This was a region that previously had been occupied by Indo-Europeans, whose language now was replaced by Turkic Uighur. The Uighurs of western Gansu and Xinjiang today are the descendants of the mixed ethnic population of the kingdom of Kocho.

The dominant religion in that region had long been Buddhism  Important Buddhist monasteries were located in and around the oases of Turfan. Their wall paintings providing striking evidence of the transmission and transformation of Buddhist art along the roads leading from India into China. Buddhism became the religion of the Uighur elite in the Kocho kingdom, although Manichaeism and Nestorian Christianity were prominent as well. The German archaeologists who excavated the Uighur ruins in the early twentieth century took back to Berlin some striking Manichean manuscript fragments and other evidence of what had once been a vibrant and truly cosmopolitan urban culture.

The penetration of Islam into the Tarim Basin (that is, the region around the Taklamakan Desert) was gradual. As early as 821 an Arab ambassador visited the Uighur capital at Karabalghasun. Islam spread east under the Karakhanids in the eleventh century (one of their capitals was Kashgar), but only much later would become the dominant religion of the Uighurs of Xinjiang in modern times.

Uighur nationalist historians in the People's Republic of China and the United States posit that the Uyghur people is millennia-old and can be divided into four distinct phases: Pre-Imperial (300 BC – AD 630), Imperial (AD 630–840), Idiqut (AD 840–1200), and Mongol (AD 1209–1600), with perhaps a fifth modern phase running from the death of the Silk Road in AD 1600 until the present. In brief, Uyghur history is the story of a small nomadic tribe from the Altai Mountains competing with rival powers in Central Asia, including other Altaic tribes, Indo-European empires from the south and west and Sino-Tibetan empires to the east. After the collapse of the Uyghur Khaganate in AD 840, ancient Uyghur resettled from Mongolia to the Tarim Basin, assimilating the Indo-European population, which had previously been driven out of the region by the Xiongnu. Ultimately, the Uyghurs became civil servants administering the Mongol Empire.

 

Chinese treatment of the Uighurs

China is facing mounting criticism from around the world over its treatment of the mostly Muslim Uighur population in the north-western region of Xinjiang. Rights groups believe China has detained more than a million Uighurs over the past few years in what the state defines as "re-education camps".There is evidence of Uighurs being used as forced labour and of women being forcibly sterilised.

The US has accused China of committing genocide and crimes against humanity through its repression of the Uighurs.

Large numbers of Han (ethnic Chinese) began moving into Xinjiang after the establishment of the autonomous region in the 1950s. The influx became especially pronounced after 1990, and by the late 20th century the Han constituted two-fifths of Xinjiang’s total population. Over time economic disparities and ethnic tensions grew between the Uighur and Han populations that eventually resulted in protests and other disturbances. A particularly violent outbreak occurred in July 2009, mainly in Ürümqi, in which it was reported that nearly 200 people (mostly Han) were killed and some 1,700 were injured. Violent incidents increased after that and included attacks by knife-wielding assailants and by suicide bombers. Chinese authorities responded by cracking down on Uighurs suspected of being dissidents and separatists. The authorities’ actions included shootings, arrests, and long jail sentences until 2017, when the Chinese government initiated a thorough crackdown on Uighurs in Xinjiang. Citing a need for greater security, the government set up cameras, checkpoints, and constant police patrols in Uighur-dominated areas. The most controversial governmental undertaking—which was met by protests from human-rights organizations—was the indefinite detention of up to one million Uighurs in “political training centres,” heavily fortified buildings that were likened to the reeducation camps of the Mao Zedong era. In August 2018 the United Nations called upon China to end the detention, but government officials denied the existence of the camps

 

The US has accused China of committing genocide against the Uighurs. According to international convention, genocide is the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group".

It follows reports that, as well as interning Uighurs in camps, China has been forcibly mass sterilising Uighur women to suppress the population and separating Uighur children from their families.

On his final day in office under the Trump administration, US Secretary of state Mike Pompeo said: "I believe this genocide is ongoing, and that we are witnessing the systematic attempt to destroy Uighurs by the Chinese party-state."

A UN human rights committee in 2018 said it had credible reports the Chinese were holding up to a million people in "counter-extremism centres" in Xinjiang.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute found evidence in 2020 of more than 380 of these "re-education camps" in Xinjiang, an increase of 40% on previous estimates media caption In 2018, the BBC found all reporting was tightly controlled

Earlier, leaked documents known as the China Cables made clear that the camps were intended to be run as high security prisons, with strict discipline and punishments.

People who have managed to escape the camps have reported physical, mental and sexual torture - women have spoken of mass rape and sexual abuse.

In December 2020 research seen by the BBC showed up to half a million people were being forced to pick cotton. There is evidence new factories have been built within the grounds of the re-education camps.

 

Anti-Han and separatist sentiment rose in Xinjiang from the 1990s, flaring into violence on occasion. In 2009 some 200 people died in clashes in Xinjiang, which the Chinese blamed on Uighurs who want their own state. But in recent years a massive security crackdown has crushed dissent.

Xinjiang is now covered by a pervasive network of surveillance, including police, checkpoints, and cameras that scan everything from number plates to individual faces. According to Human Rights Watch, police are also using a mobile app to monitor peoples' behaviour, such as how much electricity they are using and how often they use their front door.

Since 2017 when President Xi Jinping issued an order saying all religions in China should be Chinese in orientation, there have been further crackdowns. Campaigners say China is trying to eradicate Uighur culture.

 China says the allegations are  are completely untrue.It says the crackdown is necessary to prevent terrorism and root out Islamist extremism and the camps are an effective tool for re-educating inmates in its fight against terrorism. It insists that Uighur militants are waging a violent campaign for an independent state by plotting bombings, sabotage and civic unrest, but it is accused of exaggerating the threat in order to justify repression of the Uighurs.

China has dismissed claims it is trying to reduce the Uighur population through mass sterilisations as "baseless", and says allegations of forced labour are "completely fabricated

Muslim in China

  Islam was once highly regarded by Chinese emperors. From written records and imperial edicts engraved on steles (standing stone slabs monuments) it is clear that these Islamic communities enjoyed the favor of the emperors—especially during the Tang (618-907 AD), Yuan (1271-1368), Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1912) dynasties. Islam was looked on favorably by the imperial court because of its ethics, which—as far as the emperors were concerned—promoted harmonious and peaceful relations between the diverse peoples in the imperial territories.

Today, Suzhou is a vibrant, wealthy city of 12 million people only 20 minutes by high speed train from Shanghai. What remains of “Islamic Suzhou” lies just outside the city wall to the north-west. There is only one active mosque: Taipingfang, in the northern commercial and entertainment district of Shilu.

Taipingfang was restored in 2018 and is where local and visiting Muslims go to pray. It’s in a busy part of the neighborhood, squeezed in a tiny alley, surrounded by small restaurants and hotels, canteens, food stalls, and butchers catering to Uighur and Hui Muslims. The butchers of Taipingfang—like those in Beijing’s Niujie area where the majority of the city’s Muslim minority lives—are popularly thought to sell the best meat.

Before 1949, Suzhou had at least 10 mosques of various sizes and social importance. Many of them were vast buildings with precious furniture and sophisticated decorations, while others were smaller intimate prayer rooms. One of them was a women’s mosque presided over by a female imam.

The women’s mosque, Baolinqian, was one of a cluster of four mosques was built during the Qing Dynasty, all connected to the wealthy Yang family inside the city walls in the north-western part of the city. Built in 1923, it was established by initiative of three married women from the Yang family who donated the building and raised funding from other Muslim families to turn it into a women’s mosque. During the Cultural Revolution (1966 to 1976), the mosque’s library, containing holy scriptures, was damaged and the building was turned into private houses. Nothing remains today to show it was a mosque.

Another Yang family mosque, Tiejunong, was built over three years during the reign of the Qing emperor Guagxu, from 1879 to 1881. It was the biggest in Suzhou with an area of more than 3,000 square meters, featuring seven courtyards. The main hall for Friday prayers had 10 rooms and could hold more than 300 people. The courtyard included a minaret and a pavilion in which was housed an imperial stele.

Now a middle school, Tiejunong is recognizable from the external architecture and an ancient wooden engraved side door. Beyond a monumental entrance, there is still the idea of the main courtyard surrounded by trees. Now there is a huge football field, and the trees on the sides of the walkway are still visible from their chopped trunks. The ablution area covered by blue tiles clearly shows the past presence of a mosque.

Tiankuqian Mosque was built in 1906 and is now inhabited by poor city residents—most likely as a result of the practice during the Cultural Revolution of reallocating large, aristocratic or religious buildings as living accommodation for indigent families. The mosque used to cover an area of almost 2,000 square meters, with a main hall, a guest hall, and ablution room.

The structure of the main hall was like a large lecture place, containing—as the local historical records report—a ginkgo wood horizontal plaque written in calligraphy by master Yu Yue. Because many Muslim jade workers had businesses in the same district, donations made the mosque the most prosperous in the whole of China. And, in the 1920s, a school teaching Islamic and Confucian texts was opened there.

Many of the mosques had affiliated schools teaching the Arabic language and Islamic writings to the children of the Muslim communities. Suzhou is one of the first cultural centers where Islamic scriptures were published in the Chinese language. Translations from Persian into Chinese were made by the 16th-century Suzhou scholars, Zhang Zhong and Zhou Shiqi, making the city an early hub of Islamic intellectual culture.

But it was an Islamic hub hybridized in its Chinese context, a process described in Jonathan Lipman’s book, Familiar Strangers: A History of Muslims in Northwest China. Islamic texts were taught alongside Confucian ones, giving birth to an eclectic corpus of Islamic writings.

The oldest Suzhou mosque, Xiguan, takes its name from the adjacent Xiguan bridge in the center of the old city. It was built in the 13th century during the Yuan dynasty, probably financed by the prominent Muslim Sayyid family, and its influential Yunnan’s provincial governor, Sayyid Ajall Shams al-Din Omar al-Bukhari (1211-1279).

The mosque was later incorporated into a government building during the Ming dynasty, so only written accounts remain of its existence in local Chinese records. This suggests—and it is already a well-known historical assessment—that the Yuan dynasty favored Muslims from Central Asia in its administration and government service. This significant population group was much later, in the 1950s, classified within China as the Hui minority and constitute about half of China’s Muslims today.

Traces of the past

The Cultural Revolution effectively banned Islam in China, as religions of any kind were considered tools to oppress and silence the peoples’ needs. As a result, little remains of these religious buildings today. But the traces that do still exist—a door, a stone, the structure of the façade, or simply a known address, written in an archive—are symbolic representations of a past life. These are clues to the diverse social context and spiritual geography that these places inspired and were part of.

As the American sinologist, Frederick Mote—a professor of history at Princeton University—argued, Suzhou’s past is embodied in words, not stones, and the fragments of Suzhou Islamic communities can be pieced together with the help of historical written records. These records of a diverse past are equally important to the future in a country where religions—every religion—are strictly controlled by the state due to what the authorities consider as their potential destabilizing political powers.

The recent reports of efforts of ideological re-education performed by local authorities towards the Uighur population in north-western China make the situation even more complex and worth further observation and research.