The New Dominion

Nur Bekri, Chairman of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, while speaking with reporters this Friday again identified amorphous “Western hostile forces” as the immediate and most pressing threat to stability in Xinjiang.

As I’ve observed several times before, it’s always interesting to see how strategic media organizations are when releasing information about Xinjiang simultaneously both in English and in Chinese. Bekri’s words on the stability of Xinjiang were deemed worthy enough to translate into English by the folks over at China Daily, and their coverage can be found here where the writer spun the story as a concerned regional leader warning his constituents and the people of China that the worse is yet to come.

The security situation in China’s northwestern region Xinjiang will be “severer” this year, the regional governor said here Friday.

“The (security) situation will be more severe, the task more arduous, and the struggle more fierce in the region this year,” Nur Bekri, chairman of the Xinjiang regional government, said on the sidelines of the annual parliament session.

This characterization of course is not incorrect – “brace yourselves, people of Xinjiang” is certainly part of the message here, and it doesn’t take a genius to ferret out the political advantages of constantly telling the populace that the menacing enemy is just around the corner and is this close to ruining your lives. Rather, this English version of Bekri’s words is a tad incomplete. The China Daily does insert one quote of Bekri’s thoughts on the origins of these seditious activities.

The “three forces” have foreign backings, he said, adding they could not survive without foreign support.

“They don’t want to see Xinjiang’s prosperity,” he said.

However, missing from this English version of events us Nur Bekri’s unambiguous declaration that Western hostile forces are what everyone should be worrying about here. Over at Tian Shan Net, you can read a more complete account of what Nur Bekri told reporters.

现在的新疆经济发展、民族团结、社会稳定、边防巩固，呈现出令人鼓舞的大好局面。但是，西方敌对势力一刻都没有放松和停止对我进行分裂破坏活动。今年是新中国成立60周年，也是新疆和平解放60周年，“三股势力”决不会善罢甘休，我们面临的反分裂形势更加严峻，任务更加繁重，斗争形势将更为激烈。

Today’s Xinjiang has seen encouraging developments in economic growth, ethnic unity, societal stability, and the strengthening of border defense. Nonetheless, Western hostile forces have not spared a single moment in carrying out splittest, destructive activities against us. This year is the 60th anniversary of the founding of New China, and is also the 60th anniversary of Xinjiang’s peaceful liberation, the “Three Forces” will certainly not stand idly by, and the anti-splittest situation we face will be more severe, the task more arduous, and the struggle more fierce.

Assuming that the English-language publications of the China Daily are meant for Western readers, it appears that the editors did us all the favor of tastefully removing the phrase “Western hostile forces” to spare us from the rather alarming accusation Bekri is making.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but the modern Chinese conception of “the West” does not include international Islamist terrorist networks such as Al-Qaeda. Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York, the government’s outward strategy in regard to local discontent in Xinjiang was to paint the whole thing as a part of global Islamic extremism, culminating the successful persuasion of the US State Department to designate the East Turkestan Islamic Movement as a terrorist group. Many Xinjiang scholars and academics mark this domestic characterization of discontent in Xinjiang as a sort of paradigm shift, since before 2001, when by objective measures violent activities were far more numerous, the governmental strategy was to simply hide the incidents as much as possible and claim total peace and stability as the norm in Xinjiang.

This, however, marks the second time since his ascension to the chairmanship of Xinjiang that Nur Bekri either sloppily or intentionally peppers his discussion of violent incidents in Xinjiang with the phrase “Western hostile forces” (西方敌对势力). The first time was back in September when Bekri delivered a massive speech to party officials in which he again identified “Western hostile forces” as the origin and financial backers of the “three forces” (of terrorism, separatism, and religious extremism) within Xinjiang, which, in turn, are what brought about the violent criminal acts Xinjiang saw before and during the Olympics. In it, “Western forces”, the “Three Forces”, and international Islamic organizations like Al-Qaeda were mentioned with equal fervor and frequency; this time, as Bekri spoke briefly with reporters no mention of Al-Qaeda and the like occurred at all.

It certainly is up in the air how representative Bekri’s speeches and interviews are of general thinking among party leadership in Xinjiang, and certainly two instances do not by any means constitute a trend, but nonetheless I find it interesting how much polemic flak “Western forces” receive in Bekri’s rhetoric as opposed to extremist Islam which since 2001 has been identified by the government as the origin and backer of violence in Xinjiang. At the very least we may be seeing a tendency on the part of one high ranking Xinjiang official to – again, either because of semantic sloppiness or because of a deliberate agenda – blur the boundary between diasporic Uyghur organizations such as the World Uyghur Congress and individuals such as Rebiya Kadeer, which belong to the “Western hostile forces” rubric, and organizations such as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement which, according to the government, are Islamic extremists with ties to Al Qaeda. To Bekri it appears that “Western hostile forces” take precedence over Islamic extremist ideology infiltrating from Central and Southern Asia. At the most, we could possibly be seeing another gradual shift in the way governmental officials think about discontent in Xinjiang – though, of course, before I can take my speculation that far we’ll simply  have to wait and see more of what Nur Bekri and other governmental leaders have to say about the issue.