Xinjiang Briefing

Xinjiang Wind Farm
Photo Credit: Greenpeace.org

Der Spiegel:

"China is sending more troops to the mostly Muslim province of Xinjiang in the far west of the country. Concerns are rising in Beijing of ethnic unrest in the border region. Its plans for economic development there may be in trouble."

Main points:

• China's strategy of dealing with rebellious provinces such as Tibet and Xinjiang is to try to change their ethnic composition by overwhelming them with settlers from heartland provinces. Add massive economic development, and China effectively colonizes the province and reduces the chances of revolt.

• But this isn't working in Xinjiang. The ethnic Chinese settlers, like all colonists, have become the favored elite. Meanwhile, intense economic and racial discrimination has transformed the Uighurs into ghettoized and impoverished minority in their own homelands. This kind of strategy isn't going to turn Xinjiang into a docile province--it's going to transform it into a Chinese West Bank.
  

• Despite intense Chinese repression, the Uighurs have already created potent physical and cultural temporary autonomous zones (TAZ).
  

• The main Uighur separatist group, the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), has a number of bases from which they conduct guerrilla attacks against the Chinese. They haven't made the jump to terrorism inside the Chinese heartland yet, but the Chinese are frightened enough of the possibility--they've banned liquids from airplane flights since 2003, and security is tightening around Beijing.

• Uighur cultural identity is becoming a rallying point, with separatist activism taking place both within Xinjiang and on pro-Uighur websites.

Chechen Terrorists
Photo Credit: Mosnews.com

• China is trying to appropriate an American "brand," the War on Terror, by portraying itself as engaged in a heroic struggle against Islamic Uighur terrorists with alleged links to Al-Qaeda. This is a tactic that both Russia and Ethiopia have used to great effect. Russia cast its punitive war against Chechen separatists as a struggle to eliminate Islamic terrorism, and anti-terrorist rhetoric also underscored Ethiopia's conflict with Somalia's then-governing Islamic Courts Union in Somalia.

• This branding benefits China, Russia, and Ethiopia because it adds legitimacy to rather brutal regional counterinsurgencies with little connection to the War on Terror. Although the Chechens may have loose links to Al-Qaeda, the Chechen wars are essentially separatist conflicts that concern Russia's sphere in influence in the Caucus, not Al-Qaeda's war against America.

• The Ethiopian invasion of Somalia had its roots in the two nations' historic geopolitical rivalry, not transnational terrorism. The Ethiopians saw a unified Somalia as a threat to their national interests and invaded to crush the ICU and install a friendly puppet regime, the UN-backed Transitional Federal Government. Although the Chinese have portrayed the Uighurs as Al-Qaeda affiliates, there is little evidence to suggest that the Uighurs are anything other than traditional nationalist guerrillas.
  

• All of these conflicts have involved substantial human rights abuses. But in each case, Washington has allowed these authoritarian states to tap into our "brand." The State Department designed the ETIM as a terrorist group to appease the Chinese. Letting others appropriate our "brand" for their own ends only associates us with their unsavory actions. With our "brand" very unpopular as it is, we should zealously guard it from those seeking to exploit it.
  

Shanghai Skyline
Photo Credit: GVSU.edu

• Ironically, China's labeling of Uighur guerrilla actions as "terrorism" may prove to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. As Chinese policies continue to alienate the Uighurs, militant Islam will grow attractive to them. And if China is intent on aligning itself as a part of the American-led War on Terror, it is not inconceivable that it, like other American allies, will become a target for terrorists. If Al-Qaeda seeks to strike inside China, it already has an aggrieved population of Muslims ready to assist it.