Xinhua reports that, around noon Beijing Time (10:00 AM Xinjiang time) on 18 July, Khotan City sustained a bombing attack that ended in a hostage rescue. The attack seems to have centered on a bazaar in the Narbagh (Na’erbage) area, near a police station and several government offices. Xinhua reports, and now so have international media, that four people were killed in the incident. Casualties include two of the hostages, one member of the People’s Armed Police, and one member of the “security defense teams,” ad hoc militias formed by the Party apparatus and police forces. One more member of the security defense teams was injured and hospitalized. Six people were eventually recovered successfully from the police station where they had been held as hostages by the attackers.

Initial reports suggested that 14 attackers had been killed. World Uyghur Congress spokesman Dilxat Raxit, reached for comment shortly after the incident, asserted that the incident was actually an attack by police on unarmed, peaceful protestors demonstrating in the bazaar over land rights. Shortly thereafter, the WUC’s narrative changed: A riot broke out, Dilxat said, when a group of Uyghurs had gone peacefully to the police station to demand the release of several prisoners.

Later, the Chair of the Press Office of the Xinjiang Regional People’s Government, Hou Hanmin 侯汉敏, provided a rather different narrative to the Huanqiu Shibao. According to Hou, Western media had rushed to link the Khotan incident to the Xinjiang or Uyghur independence movement. Yet, he proceeded to do just the same in recounting the following: First, the attackers, wielding bombs and Molotov cocktails, assaulted the Commerce Office and the Tax Office, located next to the police station, injuring two. Then, they burst into the police station and rushed to the second floor to hoist the “flag of separatism,” by which I presume he means the old baby blue moon-and-star. The attackers took control of the police station and held hostages until they were defeated in a clever attack by security forces. Hou provided no new numbers.

Note, please, that the map provided by the Epoch Times may be misleading. Indeed, the place they indicate at the site of the incident is what you get when you put “Khotan Narbagh Police Station” into Google Maps. However, that spot is not in Narbagh Village, nor is it near a tax office or a commerce office. The following map indicates a commerce office (yellow) and a tax office (blue) in Narbagh Village, though I cannot determine their proximity to a police station, nor to a bazaar. It has been reported that the incident took place in a heavily Uyghur part of the city, as well, which we might not be able to reconcile with the neighborhood of these offices.

View 18 July 2011 Khotan Incident in a larger map

I was suspicious of Dilxat Raxit’s initial account, which has now disappeared from BBC News’ website, in large part because it fit too neatly into popular contemporary notions of political repression in the West. Specifically, I recall the phrase “fired into the crowd.” Perhaps this was an embellishment by a journalist, but the narrative remains the same: Police shoot civilians demonstrating for freedom. It sounds too conveniently similar to what has actually happened every day for several months, now, across the Middle East. RFA has produced no news, and major Western media is regurgitating Xinhua, so that brings me to the official Chinese account.

The mention of the “flag of independence” makes me suspicious. Mostly, it reminds me of similar claims made about a protest in Khotan four years ago, which turned out to be, as far as anyone can tell, a demonstration about local issues and concerns about religious freedoms. Like most such events in Xinjiang and all over China, this probably has to do with some intractable local conflict or gross violation of basic human rights or dignity that has stirred up rage against the authorities. Did someone really fling a few Molotov cocktails just to go and raise a flag in the middle of the neighborhood police station? If so, it was a sad and futile gesture. If someone actually committed such a suicidal act, I suspect that it was motivated not by a dream of an independent state, but rather by the same sorts of problems that led Mohamed Bouazizi to immolate himself in Tunisia all the way back in January.

We don’t know much, what we do know smells funny, and everyone’s scrambling for a master narrative. As usual, it’s the news from Xinjiang.

Uyghur Scholar Kahar Barat

Wang Lixiong

Two extremely compelling and intriguing voices on Xinjiang issues today are those of Wang Lixiong and Kahar Barat. Married to Woeser, an outspoken Tibetan blogger and rights advocate, Wang Lixiong himself is extremely well versed in Tibet issues and one of the most (if not the most) sympathetic Han Chinese voices speaking out on ethnic issues, both pertaining to Tibet and Xinjiang, where his views were particularly enriched and deepened by conversations he had with a Uyghur cellmate during a stint in prison for photocopying “secret” Bingtuan documents – an experience documented in his 2007 book, My East Land, Your West Country . Kahar Barat is a Uyghur scholar and intellectual widely known throughout the Uyghur diaspora for his prolific writings on Uyghur history, culture, linguistics, as well as on modern Xinjiang issues. A favorite of mine, written in Uyghur and titled “Maymaq Uyghurlar,” or “Warped Uyghurs,” is a piercing commentary on how Uyghur artists themselves willingly package Uyghur culture for consumption by the more developed Han by uncritically embracing the image of the oblivious singing-and-dancing stereotype. “Maymaq Uyghurlar” will be translated into English here soon, but for now, here is a translation from Mandarin into English of part one of an interesting and illuminating interview of Kahar Barat by Wang Lixiong, conducted in Virginia not long after the riots last year.

In part one, Barat covers the considerable period of time from the Xiongnu up to the conversion of the region to Islam. Though a serious and clearly well-informed scholar, Barat doesn’t hesitate to make clear his opinions on the relative contributions Buddhism and its successor, Islam, made to the peoples and cultural legacies of the region. Barat further discusses at length the frequently controversial issue of “continuity” between the Uyghurs of the Uyghur Khanate in the 8th and 9th century and the people who have adopted the name “Uyghur” today, placing both within the framework of the gradual and inexorable Turkicization of the sprawl of grasslands stretching from Europe to Mongolia. Barat also shares some fascinating insights on the linguistic evolution of the term “Uyghur” and the complicated and obfuscating relationship the word had with the changing Chinese characters and dialects that recorded the word in the written record. There’s something fascinating to learn from this interview for historians, geographers, linguists, and anybody who can appreciate some good old fashioned Silk Road history. Translations of Parts 2 and 3 of the interview will follow shortly.

This is part of an interview that took place at the home of Kahar Barat of Virginia University in August of 2009, not long after the 7/5 Urumqi riots. This version of the the interview text has been proofread by Dr. Kahar Barat himself.

Kahar Barat is a historian, linguist, and expert on Central Asian history and culture. He is Uyghur, was born in Yili in 1950, earned a Master’s in Turkology from Central Minzu University, and received his doctorate in 1993 at Harvard after doing dissertation research on Central Asia and Altai. Having already taught and conducted academic research at Xinjiang University, at Harvard, Yale, and Indiana University in the US, and at Foguang University in Taiwan, Barat has now become involved in studying Middle and Early Chinese linguistics, Buddhism, phonetics, and other academic areas.

Religious Conversions

Wang Lixiong: Your doctoral dissertation at Harvard was titled “The [Huihu] Uygur¹ Xuanzang Biography Volume 9,” and we know that Xinjiang, which is primarily Muslim today, had for a period in history been predominantly Buddhist. Could you please tell us how long the Buddhist age of Xinjiang lasted?

Kahar: Over fifteen hundred years. The earliest Buddhist clerics and translators in China were all from Xinjiang, and the most ancient Thousand-Buddha Grottoes are also in Xinjiang, not in Dunhuang. The ones at Dunhuang are younger than ours by several centuries. The most ancient Thousand-Buddha Grottoes of ours were made in the 4th century. Buddhism’s entrance into China was through Central Asia. Now, Chinese scholars are saying Buddhism came in the 1st century AD. Where did it come from? Not through Xinjiang? We don’t have a solid basis for claims that Buddhism came in the first century, however, there is a record in the form of Buddhist relics and writings from the 3rd and 4th century.

Wang Lixiong: Buddhism existed in Xinjiang until what point?

Kahar: The 18th century. In the past I’ve investigated Badashi Valley in Hami Prefecture, and there Buddhism endured among the Uyghurs until the 18th century. According to folklore the King of Hami at that time was very angry, and said that the whole world had submitted to Allah, how are there still people worshiping Buddha? He dispatched mullahs to go over the mountains to build mosques and make them convert to Islam.

Wang Lixiong: Which King of Hami was that?

Kahar: I’m not sure which one. There were Kings in Hami from 1697 up to 1930. When I say 18th century that’s a conservative estimate, it’s even possible that Buddhism in Xinjiang continued up to the 19th century. A copy of the “Golden Light Sutra” from the Kangxi Era written in Huihu Uyghur script was excavated in Gansu, this isn’t strange at all. According to my research, the Buddhism among the mountain villages was not the Huihu Uyghur Buddhism that came from Turpan, but rather was the Lama Buddhism practiced by Mongols and Tibetans. Local people told me that during the daytime they would worship at the mosque but after going home would secretly worship their own little Buddhist images. Later the mullahs (dispatched by the King of Hami) were gradually shooed away by the local people. Villagers even brought me to see the ruins of a mosque on a hill near the entrance of the village. Typical historical texts maintain that Xinjiang Buddhism ended in the 15th century, and that’s correct regarding the larger cities, but in the villages tucked away among the mountain valleys, it continued on as before for several centuries.

Historically speaking the stable eras in Xinjiang were quite long lasting. During the Buddhist period there were no wars, and according to Xuanzang’s written accounts, everyone was doing quite well. The King gave alms to the poor year after year, and several thousand people would be able to eat food donated to Buddhist monks as alms. Buddhism is a very benign religion, and as a result the crime rate among society was very low.”

Wang Lixiong: How did the conversion from Buddhism to Islam occur?

Kahar: Buddhism is a benign religion. Explorers have excavated monastic Buddhist clothing with bloodstains in Turpan coming from that period in history. Also, poems eulogizing Islamic holy war proudly write, “We destroyed the infidel temples of the Huihu Uyghurs, we shat and pissed on their shrines.”

Wang Lixiong: So you’re saying that the religious conversion relied on violence to be achieved?

Kahar: Yes. Islam first came through Kashgar via peaceful methods, through arriving missionaries, later, when expanding from Kasghar to Khotan, Turpan, and other places it was spread through holy war, brought with the sword.

Wang Lixiong: Which came first, the entrance of Islam into Xinjiang or the Mongol conquest of Xinjiang?

Kahar: The Islamic conquest came first. Islam arrived at Kashgar in the 10th century AD, but at this time it never went beyond the area from Kashgar to Khotan, and primarily existed in southern Xinjiang. After Islam had established a stable foundation in Kashgar, Kashgar dispatched troops to make war with Khotan, and they fought for 40 years. There weren’t any Mongols during that period. After being vanquished by Kashgar, Khotan’s millennia-old Buddhist dynasty was annihilated. However, Turpan remained a Buddhist state. Then the Khitan arrived, ruling over Xinjiang for 80 years, and after that, the Mongols. All those regions became part of Mongolian domains, however, the Mongols were also gradually assimilated by the local Turkic peoples.

Wang Lixiong: Did Islam continue to spread under Mongolian rule?

Kahar: After a century or two of Mongol rule, the upper strata of urban Mongol society gradually became Turkicized. They were the ones who brought soldiers to kill the Buddhist monks of Turpan and spread Islam to Turpan.

Wang Lixiong: In your view, was this religious conversion benificial or harmful?

Kahar: Islam arrived just as the Silk Road began disintegrated and as civilization was entering a dark age. Nevertheless, Islamicization strengthened the ethnic and cultural unity of the Uyghurs and made Uyghurs become a member of a powerful religious community.

Ancient Xinjiang Dynasties

Wang Lixiong: For many Han Chinese today the history of Xinjiang is entirely a blank space, they know it only as a region, and at most know a little about Zhang Qian and Ban Chao… from a territorial standpoint, did ancient Xinjiang exist as a single, intact unit, or was it rather divided into different countries? What approximately was the scope of its territory?

Kahar: Xinjiang existed in a divided state for two thousand years. High mountains, deserts, and poor transportation allowed several city-state polities to endure for several centuries, even a millennium. In 552, when the Western capital of the Göktürks² was established in Yanqi, the ultimate Turkicized fate of the Xinjiang area was sealed. By the 10th century, all of Xinjiang had already completely Turkicized, or Uyghur-ized if you will. Later, even the Mongol invasion was unable to transform the Uyghur and Muslim aspects of Xinjiang society.

The Huihu Uyghurs were a branch of the Göktürks. After the Göktürks, in 744 the Huihu Uyghurs carried on the great grassland empire for another century. After the Uyghur Huihu Khanate was destroyed in 846, the Turkic people would never again unite into a single great Khanate. However, practically speaking the grasslands from Mongolia to Eastern Europe had all fallen into the hands of Turkic peoples.

Wang Lixiong: After the Huihu Uyghur Khanate, would Xinjiang itself ever again be fully united under a single kingdom?

Kahar: Two major powers emerged in Xinjiang after the Huihu Uyghur Khanate. The first was the Gaochang Huihu Khanate based in Turpan. As several historical documents attest, its territory reached north to Balasagun, which is in Kyrgyzstan, and south to Shazhou, which is Dunhuang. Also, there was the Qarakhanid dynasty of Kashgar, which stretched to Turkmenistan. With a century or two of the Mongol invasion, the upper class of the local Mongols had completely Islamicized and Uyghur-icized. They established the Yarkand Khanate. Turpan was the older brother, Yarkand was the younger brother, they belonged to one family. There were both Islamic powers. There is a phenomenon particular to Central Asia significant to world history that has been neglected by the historian community: in the two millenia from the Xiongnu to the Manchu, pastoral-nomadic powers of the grasslands and settled city-state powers existed in parallel. Two types of culture, two types of societies prospered and existed together. For the most part, the horseback peoples were the colonizers and the settled city-states were permitted self-rule. This is the dual nature of Central Asian history. This is very infrequently seen in throughout the world.”

Wang Lixiong: Where was the heart of the Huihu Uyghur Khanate located?

Kahar: The center of the Huihu Uyghur Khanate was Kharabalghasun, located at Karakorum in outer Mongolia. The Huihu Uyghur Khanate founded five cities, adopted Manichaeism as the state religion, and also began opening up land for cultivation, setting it apart from the Turkic Khanates that came before and after it and illustrating a move towards a settled lifestyle. Recently twenty, thirty fortresses established by Huihu Uyghurs were discovered in Tuvan regions of southern Siberia. It’s possible that Tuvans are descended from the men under General Julumohe who fled north in 840 seeking asylum among the Kyrgyz. At that time the center of the Huihu Uyghurs was the Yenisaitula river area. “Tuva” is a inflexion of “tula.” Mongols today still call it the Tuva River.

Wang Lixiong: How are today’s Uyghurs and the Huihu Uyghurs related?

Kahar: The words Huihu and Huihe are Old Chinese, Uyghur is the modern word. Huihu represents the Buddhist era, Uyghur represents the Muslim era, these are differences in the wording of the Chinese characters. These really are one people, one thing. There are two reasons its written this way, first, during the Yuan Dynasty a new northern Mandarin appeared and began to replace medieval pronunciations from the Tang dynasty, and many things had to be transliterated once again. The two characters “Huihu,” used during the Tang Dynasty, were written in the Yuan dynasty using the three characters “Weiwuer,” and consequently it was the Chinese language and pronunciation itself that changed.

Wang Lixiong: In that case, did the name Uyghurs used to refer to themselves also undergo changes?

Kahar: There were some changes. It appears that in medieval times “Uyghur” had a glottal consonant and a labiodental: “Hudghur.” We don’t know when exactly the glottal consonant turned into a vowel, but judging from the change in Chinese characters from “Hui” to “Wei” it occurred at least sometime before the Yuan dynasty. The change in the labiodental “d” to the semivowel “y” happened after the 10th century. For example, the change from “adaq” to “ayaq” for the word “foot,” and the change from “adiq” to “ayiq” for the word “bear”, et cetera. The “Yugur”³ ethnicity is simply a Han Chinese mispelling. The “Yugurs” are Uyghur, and local Han Chinese represented their ethonym through the two Chinese characters “Yugu.”

Wang Lixiong: Were the ancient cities of Gaochang and Jiaohe Uyghur, or did they belong to outsiders?

Kahar: At their earliest stages Gaochang and Jiaohe weren’t Uyghur, they were founded by local aboriginals, they’re very ancient city states, two millenia old. Apparently their most ancient names involved the sounds *KU and *CHI, which probably is related to the later terms Guizi and Cheshi. “Gaochang” also is a transliteration of this. Later the Rouran and Gaoche would fight over this area. The Rouran most likely were an Altaic people. Many scholars assert a link between the Gaoche and the Huihu Uyghurs. After the Rouran defeated the Gaochang, they set up the Qu clan, half-Sinicized barbarians, as the Kings of Gaochang. They used Chinese characters but had their own spoken language. The Book of Zhou says this. Consequently Chinese texts and documents excavated in Turpan have soom extremely strange characters and sentences, and we suppose that they used Chinese to write, but the local language to read. Later it would all gradually Turkicize.

Wang Lixiong: Ah, that then explains how Jiaohe and Gaochang weren’t founded by Han Chinese, the Chinese texts excavated there actually were created and used by local barbarians…

Kahar: Correct. When the Qu clan migrated from Lanzhou they used Chinese characters but maintained a number of their own cultural characteristics. That being said, how much can they really have said to have “Sinicized”? We don’t know, because during the North and South dynasties, the Sinicization of the north was a process that continued over the course of several centuries.

After the Three Kingdoms, very few Han remained in northern China, and the Xianbei began to shift southwards towards the central plains of China, leading to the Sixteen States period, converting to Buddhism and the use of Chinese characters. Buddhism furthered their Sinicization and caused many tribes to abandon their own language. We don’t know what language they originally spoke, most likely it was similar to the Tuoba language. Tuoba belongs to the Altaic Turkic languages.

[1]:^ A note on how I’ve translated 回鹘: this may be a cause for confusion, particularly for our readers who are less familiar with Xinjiang history. These Chinese characters can simply be transliterated as Huihu, or they can be rendered as Uyghur, and both would be correct since these are the both words used to refer to the Uyghur Khanate, a political entity that existed in the 8th and 9th centuries. Nevertheless, I believe that in this interview to render it purely as “Huihu” would be to neglect the important ties with modern day Uyghurs being discussed, and to render it simply as “Uyghur” would cause a confusing overlap between references to the historical entity and references to Uyghurs of today. Therefore, the awkward convention I’ve decided to go with is the Huihu Uyghur (Khanate).

[2]:^ Another potential source of confusion: in Mandarin, both the broader concept of “Turkic” [peoples] and a specific Central Asian polity that existed from the 6th to 8th century, the Göktürks, are referred to with the characters 突厥, Tujue. These terms are very much related, and the Turkic peoples of history and today can be considered to have derived their ethonym from the Göktürks and their predecessors in a sense similar to how today’s “Han” collectively derive their ethonym from the Han Dynasty. Nevertheless, in Mandarin discussions it can get confusing separating references to “Turkic-ness” in general and the Göktürk Khanate. Here, I’ve translated direct references to the historical entity as “Göktürk.” There’s a bit of editorial liberty being taken here by doing so.

[3]:^ Barat is referring to the roughly fifteen thousand “Yugur” people that reside today in Gansu province. These Yugurs, also known in many Western texts as the “Yellow Uyghurs,” are the descendants of the Uyghurs who fled southeast after the fall of the Uyghur Khanate to the Kyrgyz. They’ve retained both their Turkic language, which has diverged from the Uyghur language in Xinjiang over the past millennium, and their Buddhist beliefs.

Recently, the following post, once found at this address, was passed on to me by a friend. It seems to have circulated on the Web since perhaps early November. It is a lengthy and impassioned plea for, at the very least, some respect and hope for the people of Xinjiang of all stripes, who, the author argues, have endured countless hardships for the benefit of their fellow citizens in the East. The author expresses despair at the dashed hopes of the Opening Up of the West and anger at the cancer left by atomic bomb tests in Lop Nor.

The whole document has a feeling of the old Yip Harburg song, “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” “Once I built a railroad…”

My English translation is a little hurried. Comments are welcome.

Also, does anyone else think that the author must be from Korla?

今天的十大头条： 新疆人，对不起，谢谢你

Today’s Top Ten Leading Stories: Xinjiang People, I’m Sorry, Thank You

对不起，谢谢你
新疆的石油运走了，
新疆的天然气运走了，
新疆的棉花运走了，
新疆的钾盐运走了，
新疆的黄金运走了，
新疆的和田玉运走了
……

I’m sorry, thank you

Xinjiang’s oil was transported away,

Xinjiang’s natural gas was transported away,

Xinjiang’s cotton was transported away,

Xinjiang’s leopoldite was transported away,

Xinjiang’s gold was transported away,

Xinjiang’s Khotan jade was transported away

…

原子弹却降临在新疆了
……

The atomic bomb was indeed tested in Xinjiang

…

新疆，一百六十万平方公里的土地，一千九百万各族人民.我们世世代代生活在那片土地
上.我们骄傲，我们自豪.没有理由，就因为那片土地叫新疆.

Xinjiang, an area of 1 600 000 square kilometers, 19 000 000 people of every ethnic group. We have lived on that patch of earth for generations. We are proud, we feel proud. There is no reason, just that that patch of earth is called Xinjiang.

这片占祖国六分之一版图的土地，承载着什么，又蕴藏着什么.这里有四十七个民族的儿
女，或耕耘，或牧羊，或买卖，或采矿.千年的腥风血雨，早已被坎儿井的清清流水洗得
干干净净；千年的历史沧桑，早已被天山上的雪莲花薰陶得浓郁幽香.新疆人，无论什么
民族什么宗教信仰，都渴望自己的家乡能够拥有平等的发展机会与空间.

This patch of earth that occupies one-sixth of the area of our ancestral country, what does it contain, and what does it hide. Here there are the sons and daughters of forty-seven minzu, working the fields, or shepherding sheep, or buying and selling, or mining. One thousand years of bloody history have long since been washed clean by the clear flowing waters of the karez; one thousand years of great historical changed have long since been purged by the snow lotuses and Coumarouna odorata of the Tianshan until they are sweetly fragrant. Xinjiang people, no matter what their minzu or religious beliefs, all hope that their home can have the opportunity and time to develop fairly.

西部大开发，一个曾经让我们振奋不已的口号.一时间，就连塔克拉玛干边缘的万年荒山
上，也用白色的石头拼出了大字：西部大开发，新疆是重点，巴州要大干！

The Great Opening Up of the West, a slogan that once endlessly inspired us. At one time, even upon the mountains around the edge of the Täklimakan, uncultivated for untold ages, we used white stones to spell out big characters: The Great Opening Up of the West, Xinjiang is the focus, Bazhou will make a big effort!

曾经告诉过我们，创世未有的发展机遇降临在了我们的头上；曾经告诉过我们，克服与忍
受暂时的损失与困难，因为长远的幸福是属于我们的；曾经告诉过我们，资源埋在地下永
远变不了金钱；曾经告诉过我们，大型基础设施建设会带动新疆人的就业；曾经告诉过我
们，长长的管子把石油天然气送到了内地，长长的管子还会将大把大把的税收送到新疆人
的手中……

Once they told us, an opportunity for development the likes of which the world had never seen had fallen on our heads; once they told us, endure and withstand temporary loss and hardship, because long-term fortune belonged to us; once they told us, resources buried underground would never become money; once they told us, the construction of large-scale basic-level facilities would spur the employment of Xinjiang people; once they told us, long pipes would take oil and natural gas to the Interior, long pipes might still bring piles of tax revenues to Xinjiang people’s hands…

曾经……

Once…

新疆是一个什么样的地方？涓涓细流会将天山与昆仑山的雪水送到牧区农场，一眼望不到
边的大草原，遍布着牛羊……新疆，就是这样一个地方，绿洲农业，咱不靠天吃饭，旱涝
保收；高山草甸牧业，咱不愁一个月不下雨草场就会旱死.新疆没有发生过饥荒，三年自
然灾害时期，内地人就是扒在火车车厢底下也要来新疆，就算是在星星峡被当作盲流拦住
遣返回原籍，也要在半道上跳下火车徒步进新疆.新疆，就是这样，那里有土地，那里有
雪水，那里，有希望.

What kind of place is Xinjiang? Brooks and streams may carry the meltwaters of the Tianshan and Kunlun Mountains to pastures and fields, a grassland the edge of which the naked eye cannot see, covered in cows and sheep… Xinjiang, it’s just this kind of place. Oasis agriculture, we don’t depend on Heaven to eat, the harvest is protected through draught and flood. Animal husbandry in the mountain grasslands, we don’t worry if the ranges dry out after a month without rain. Xinjiang has never had a famine, a three-year period of natural disasters. People from the Interior even want to cling to the bottoms of train cars to come to Xinjiang. Even treated in the Starry Gorge [a gorge in the Hexi Corridor] as aimless migrants, barred, and made to return to their place of origin, they want to jump out of the train on the way and walk into Xinjiang. Xinjiang, it’s like this. There is land there, there is meltwater, there is hope.

我们觉得自己生活得很幸福.

We felt that we lived happily.

可是，突然有一天，人家告诉我们，人家来帮咱们了，咱们的生活会更好更好了！这个时
候，我们心存感激，我们同样被从那种平静的生活中唤起而后振奋，因为我们被告知
，会有更大的希望！

But, suddenly one day, someone told us, there’s someone coming to help us, our life is going to be better, better! At this time, we felt appreciative. We, too, were stirred up and excited out of that peaceful and tranquil kind of life of ours, because we were signaled, we may have even more hope!

……

…

一晃八年了.

All of a sudden, eight years passed.

当初为我们憧憬过美好蓝图的人啊，你们在哪儿呢？

Those of you who looked forward to a beautiful blueprint for us, where are you?

请来看看我们的新疆.

Please come and look at our Xinjiang.

西部大开发，究竟是什么？

The Great Opening Up of the West, what is it really?

资源，包括那些具有战略意义的能源，被那条长长的管子送到了沿海地区.这，我们不计
较.可是我们又得到了什么？就业机会吗？看看那些从事新疆能源开发的企业，不都是内
地的大型企业吗？咱们新疆人的孩子，又何曾享受过这样的就业机会.西安石油学院毕业
的新疆孩子，想要进新疆的石油单位工作那是难上加难.因为这些待遇优厚的工作岗位，
全部都被这些内地企业自身的员工所占据.你可以随便去一家石油石化单位听听，遍地北
京口音、东北口音、山东口音，就是没有新疆口音.那咱们新疆的孩子能在石油单位找到
工作吗？不是不可以，而且还基本专业对口：加油站给汽车加油.带动相关产业的发展吗
？要知道，西气东输的管道，是在宝鸡生产的.高水准的生活吗？你知道在上海一方天然
气是多少钱吗？一块二；你知道在新疆一方天然气是多少钱吗？一块二毛五.而你知道新
疆人的工资水准是多少吗？一个教龄三十年的中教高级教师，月薪不过两千五，这还是
06年加薪后的工资；一个五十岁的正厅级干部，月薪加补贴不过三千块.那么普通老百姓
呢？工人、农民、一般公务员呢？我们在消化着巨大的剪刀差，我们在默默无闻得为东部
的大发展埋单.

Resources, including those power sources which hold a military significance, have been taken away by those long, long tubes to the coastal regions. This, we don’t bicker about. But what have we then received? Employment opportunities? Look at those enterprises that handle the exploitation of Xinjiang’s resources, aren’t they all big companies from the Interior? The children of we Xinjiang people, how then have they enjoyed these kinds of employment opportunities[?] Xinjiang kids who graduate from Xi’an Oil Institute, if they want to enter a Xinjiang oil work unit, that’s harder than hard. Because these generously-paying work positions, all of them have been taken by those big companies from the Interior’s own employees. You can go to any oil work unit and have a listen, it’s all Beijing accents, North-Eastern accents, Shandong accents, but there are no Xinjiang accents. So can kids from our Xinjiang find work in an oil work unit? It’s not that they may not, and what’s more they are proficient in the most basic profession: putting gas in cars at gas stations. Does this spur the growth of related industries? You have to know, the pipe that take Western gas to the East, this was built in Baoji [a city in Shaanxi with an amusing name]. And a high standard of living? Do you know how much a cubic meter of natural gas costs in Shanghai? 1.2 RMB. Do you know how much a cubic meter of natural gas costs in Xinjiang? 1.25 RMB. And do you know how much the standard salary of a Xinjiang person is? A high-level middle-school teacher with thirty years’ experience, his or her monthly salary is not above 2500, and this is after the pay raise in ’06. A fifty-year-old main-office-level [正厅级?] cadre, his or her monthly salary is not above 3000 RMB. So what about regular everyday people? Workers, peasants, normal service personnel? We are digesting an enormous disparity. Unknown to the public, we are paying the bill for the great development of the East.

乌鲁木齐与库尔勒，一北一南，南北疆的领头城市.让我们来听听这两个城市老百姓的故
事.

Ürümchi and Korla, one in the South, one in the North, the leading cities of North and South Xinjiang. Let us listen to the stories of the everyday people of these two cities.

乌鲁木齐，一个人口二百万的大城市，却拥有着一个长期困扰老百姓生活的难题：打车难
.上下班的高峰期，老百姓往往站在零下二十多度的严寒里，半个小时打不上一辆车.你要
问出租车都到哪儿去了？问一百位司机九十九个都会告诉你：加气站排队加气呢！乌鲁木
齐的出租车烧液化气，新疆是产油的地方，怎么会缺液化气呢？独山子石化的同志们会耐
心的告诉你：新疆同胞们，咱们忍忍吧，新疆的石油和天然气得保证西气东输和内地大城
市用油的需要……当北京的出租车换上了大排量的伊兰特时，当上海居民的厨房里冒出了
纯蓝的灶火时，请想想，生产石油与天然气的新疆人民，还在寒风里站着；新疆的司机，
还排在一眼望不到头的长队里焦急的等待，而这些司机，也得吃饭也得买房也得供孩子上
学，他们本来可以拉活的时间，白白的耗在了等待上……

Ürümchi, a city with a population of 2 000 000 [actually around 3 500 000, now], indeed has a difficult long-term problem for the lives of everyday people: it’s hard to get a cab. At rush hour when people get on and off work, everyday people often stand in the more-than-negative-twenty-degrees bitter cold. Even after half an hour, they cannot get a cab. Want to ask where the cabs have gone? Ask one hundred drivers and ninety-nine will tell you: they’re in line at the gas station to get gas! The cabs of Ürümchi have been converted to run on natural gas, but Xinjiang is a place that produces oil, so why convert them to run on natural gas? The comrades at Dushanzi Petroleum will patiently tell you: Xinjiang siblings, let’s sit tight, eh? Xinjiang’s oil and natural gas have to guarantee the transportation of Western gas to the East and the oil-use needs of the big cities in the Interior… When the taxis of Beijing are traded for great lines of Elantras, when in the kitchens of Shanghai a pure blue stove-flame is lit, please think, the people of Xinjiang who manufacture oil and natural gas are still standing in the bitter wind. Xinjiang’s drivers are still waiting impatiently in a line, the end of which cannot be seen, and these drivers, they also have to eat and give their children schooling. When they could be making a living, they are wasting their time pointlessly waiting…

库尔勒，一个新兴的石油城市，南疆经济的桥头堡，塔里木油田指挥部所在地.石油人来
了，我们端着哈达欢迎您！指挥部建设需要用地，可以！您知道现在塔里木油田指挥部的
所在地过去是什么吗？是上千亩的良田，是库尔勒的各族人民世世代代耕作的良田.祖国
需要，石油人需要，我们无怨无悔，献出了这片沃土.可是，时至今日，塔指的一栋栋高
楼大厦建起来了，五星级公寓建起来了，塔里木油田的一口口油井喷油了，塔里木大气田
的天然气送到东方了，有谁想过那些失去土地的农民现在在干什么？那么请到库尔勒的街
头看看吧.扫大街的环卫工人，清一色的少数民族职工，问问他们原来是干什么的？他们
会遥望一片繁华的塔里木油田指挥部，告诉你，那里曾是我的家.这还是解决了就业的，
那些数以千计的失去土地的农民呢？他们没有技术没有知识，库尔勒的环卫战线也不可能
安排那么多的人.请到库尔勒河的葵花桥头看看吧.每天早晨，都有黑压压一片的壮劳
力，集中在这里，被需要临时工的老板们挑来挑去，幸运的，被挑中，干一天临时工，挣
些前，第二天早晨继续到这里来撞运气；不幸的，过了中午还没有被挑走，就只好回家饿
肚子，祈祷真主明天能赐给他一个临时工的机会……

Korla, an up-and-coming oil city, the bridgehead of the Southern Xinjiang economy, the place of the headquarters of Tarim Oilfields. The oil men came, we welcomed you with qadaqs! [a blue scarf given by Mongols to guests] The Headquarters needed land to be constructed, sure! Do you know what the current location of the Headquarters used to be? It was thousands of mu of good farmland, the good farmland worked by generations of the people of Korla of all kinds. The ancestral countries needs, the oil men need. We didn’t complain or regret. We gave up this patch of fertile land. But, up until the present day, the big buildings and towers of the Tarim Oilfields Headquarters were built, five-star apartments were built, the oil wells of the Tarim oilfields spurted oil, and the natural gas of the Tarim natural gas fields was sent to the East. Has anyone thought of what those people who lost their land are doing now? Then please go to the streets of Korla and have a look. The sanitation workers who sweep the streets, all of them minority workers, ask them, what did they used to do? They may look at the glorious Tarim Oilfields Headquarters in the distance and tell you, that was once my home. Is this solving the employment problem, those thousands of workers who lost their land? They have neither craft nor knowledge, nor can Korla’s Sanitation Front arrange so many people. Please go to the head of the Kuihua Bridge over the Korla River and have a look. Every day in the early morning, there are endless and dense mobs of strong laborers. They concentrate there, picked out by bosses in need of temporary labor. The lucky ones, picked out, do a day of temporary work, earn some money, and, on the next day, return here to try their luck. The unlucky ones, who have not been picked out by after noon, have to go home hungry and pray that, tomorrow, they will be granted a temporary work opportunity.

这还只是能源.其他资源呢？黄金呢？钾盐呢？玉石呢？

This is all still just energy. What about other resources? Gold? Leopoldite? Jade?

大规模的开发，富起来的到底是谁？

Large-scale exploitation, who’s really getting rich?

西部大开发，过了八年了，我们为什么只看到一个个资源项目上马，却很少看到科教文化
卫生人才方面的扶持与投资？要开发一个地区，资源是一条路；可是资源开采完了呢？我
们还能拥有什么？没有科教与人才的积累，到底还有多大的发展空间？

The Great Opening Up of the West, it’s been eight years. Why have we only seen a few resource projects get going, but not seen any assistance or investment in terms of popular science, culture, sanitation, or training? In order to open up a region, resources are one road, but what about when the resources are all exploited up? What can we have? Without an accumulation of popular science and talented people, how much room is there then for development?

你可曾知道，堂堂新疆大学历史系的学生们在校图书馆里竟然找不到《万历十五年》这样
非常普遍的书籍？你可曾知道，堂堂华夏第一州–巴音郭楞蒙古自治州，竟然没有一所
正规的图书馆、博物馆？大城市如此，小城市与农村又是怎样？西部大开发，为什么我们
很少见到这样的项目与投资？

Are you aware that the students of the great Xinjiang University’s History Department cannot find extremely common books like Wanli Shiwu Nian in their library? Are you aware that the great First Prefecture in China, Bayingolin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture, still has not a single regular library or museum? Big cities are like this, so what can small cities and villages be like? The Great Opening Up of the West, why do we so rarely see projects and investment like this?

新疆人，老实巴交的新疆人，被内地人动不动就称作野蛮人的新疆人……就这样默默无闻
的承受着一切……换个角度思考，如果北京的出租车司机成天排队加不上油，会是怎么样
？如果山东的农民成批成批的失去土地，就像库尔勒的农民那样，还会不会如此沉默的承
受一切？

Xinjiang people, honest Xinjiang people, Xinjiang people who cannot move for the Interior people are who are called barbarous… Unbeknownst, they have borne all of this… Thinking about it from another perspective, if Beijing’s taxi drivers were in line all day and could not get gas, what would it be like? If the peasants of Shandong lost their land bit by bit, just like the peasants of Korla, would they still quietly bear all of this?

前两天，把原子弹空投到日本领土的美军飞行员去世了.又一次引发出关于核武器的大规
模讨论.在一次次的讨论中，你们可曾想过，在遥远的罗布泊，曾经露天爆炸过原子弹？
在美丽的孔雀河－塔里木河流域，曾经无数次的进行过地下核试验？当看到新疆刮起沙尘
暴的新闻后，你们第一个想到的肯定是：新疆那个荒凉的地方……有谁想过，从罗布泊刮
来的沙尘暴，会给世世代代居住在那里的老百姓吹来什么？

Two days ago, the American pilot who dropped the first atomic bomb on Japanese soil passed away. [The pilot, Paul Tibbets, died on 1 November 2007, dating this document to perhaps 3 November.] This once again attracted a large-scale discussion of atomic weapons. In the course of one such discussion, did you perhaps think how, in distant Lop Nor, an atomic bomb was once tested in the open? How, in the beautiful Kongque River – Tarim River Basin, there were once conducted countless underground nuclear tests? After seeing the news of the sand storms in Xinjiang, what you first thought was certainly: Xinjiang, that desolate place… Who thought, the sands that storm from Lop Nor, what will they blow to generations of people who live in that place?

一个个身边的亲友倒下了……问问原因，不是肺癌就是食道癌.新疆是著名的长寿之乡，
祖祖辈辈生活在辽阔农村的百姓，呼吸着新鲜空气，吃着五谷杂粮，周围没有任何现代工
业的痕迹，怎么会一个又一个的患上癌症呢？你们可曾知道，就在罗布泊地区的巴音郭楞
蒙古自治州，进入八九十年代以来，已经成为癌症重灾区.胡总去探望艾滋病人了，温总
去河南艾滋病村了，这是时代的进步，这是party和go-vern-ment的关怀.可是，一个因为
长期受到核辐射而成为癌症重灾区的地区，却为何从来没有被报道过，从来没有人正面回
答这个问题？

Some close friend or relative has fallen… You ask the reason, and, if it’s not lung cancer, it’s esophageal cancer. Xinjiang is a place of famed longevity, and the generations of everyday people that live in the expansive villages, breathing fresh air, eating fresh grain, with no traces of modern industry around them, how does one after another get cancer? As you may know, in Bayingolin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture in the area of Lop Nor, since the beginning of the eighties or nineties, it has already become a cancer disaster area. President Hu always goes to visit AIDS patients, Premier Wen goes to AIDS Village in Henan. This is a generational improvement, this is the party and go-vern-ment showing they care. But, a place that has long received nuclear radiation and become a cancer disaster area, but why has it never been reported, why can no one ever answer this question directly?

一次核试验，中国人民从此站起来了，不用受纸老虎的威胁了；可是千千万万个无辜又无
知的新疆人却倒下了，可悲的是，就连他们自己，也并不知道这究竟是为了什么，更何况
他人？

One atomic test. The people of China from this point on stood up. They no longer had to accept the menace of the paper tiger. But countless poor and ignorant Xinjiang people fell. What is lamentable is that, even they themselves did not know why this was, much less anyone else?

新疆的石油运走了，
新疆的天然气运走了，
新疆的棉花运走了，
新疆的钾盐运走了，
新疆的黄金运走了，
新疆的和田玉运走了
……

Xinjiang’s oil was transported away,

Xinjiang’s natural gas was transported away,

Xinjiang’s cotton was transported away,

Xinjiang’s leopoldite was transported away,

Xinjiang’s gold was transported away,

Xinjiang’s Khotan jade was transported away

…

原子弹却降临在新疆了
……

The atomic bomb was indeed dropped in Xinjiang

…

新疆，是祖国版图不可分割的一部分；新疆人，是十三亿中国人的一部分.我们渴望祖国
的富强，我们祝福兄弟省市人民的富足，但，我们也是人，我们也有不高的要求：新疆与
新疆人，能够得到公正与公平的发展机遇，能够从这片土地所赐予我们的宝藏中得到实惠
的利益，能够有一个更为美好的明天，和祖国人民一样，在资源枯竭之后，仍然留有希望
.

Xinjiang, it is an inseparable part of the map of the ancestral country; Xinjiang people, they are part of the 1.3 billion Chinese people. We hope for the fortune and strength of the ancestral country. We congratulate the people of our brother provinces and cities on their wealth. However, we are also people. We also have requirements that are not high: Xinjiang and Xinjiang people, if they are able to receive an equitable and fair opportunity for development, if they can receive some practical benefit from the treasures of ours that are taken from this patch of land, if they can have a better tomorrow, as the people of the ancestral country, and after the resources are exhausted, yet leave behind a little hope.

朋友们，无论你在祖国的何处，当你享受这阳光下的和平的时候，请你想想那些为祖国的
和平而无知的承受着原子辐射的新疆人，对他们说一声：对不起……

Friends, no matter where you are in the ancestral country, when you share in this peace in the sunlight, please think of those Xinjiang people who, unbeknownst, for the peace of the ancestral country received radiation from the atomic bomb, and say to them, I’m sorry…

朋友们，无论你在祖国的何处，当你享受充足的能源供应与高速经济发展带来的实惠的时
候，请想想那些为另一部分人先富起来而默默承受着所有阵痛的新疆人，收起曾经对新疆
人的种种歧视与不屑，收起那些”援助新疆，支援边疆”得了便宜还卖乖的”豪言壮语”，对
他们说一句：谢谢你！

Friends, no matter where you are in the ancestral country, when you share in the practical benefit that comes from the sufficient provision of resources and the high speed of economic development, please think of those Xinjiang people who, unbeknownst, endure pains for another group of people to become wealthy first. To those who have received all kinds of discrimination and disdain against Xinjiang, who have been cheated and bamboozled by the “grandiloquence” of phrases like “assist Xinjiang, support Xinjiang”, say to them, thank you!

我们的要求并不高，一千九百万新疆人民，在无力改变现状与全局时，在仍然需要长时间
为东部的发展做出牺牲时，只需要得到别人真诚的尊重，只想听到一句诚心的：

Our requirements are not very high. 19 000 000 people, at a time when they are powerless to change the present and overall situation, at a time when they still need to sacrifice for a long time for the development of the East, only need to receive others’ sincere respect. They only need to hear one sincere:

新疆人，对不起，谢谢你.

Xinjiang people, I’m sorry, thank you.

On the 16th, The Opposite End of China uncovered a Hindustan Times article on an alleged plot by Uyghurs to disrupt the Olympic torch relay in New Delhi. In the end, the torch bearers saw an unusually high number of Tibet protesters (logical, given India as the home of Tibet’s exile community and government), but no major disruptions a la Paris and nothing coming from any Uyghur activists. What’s interesting, however, was the unintentional “experiment” set up by Indian intelligence forces, giving all of us an opportunity to compare and contrast how India and China deal with East Turkestan “plotters,” respectively. Within limits, of course. Even within the few paragraphs of the Hindustan Times article we can detect a slightly greater willingness to be transparent with the alleged plot – 5 Uyghurs, along with their names, and also the path they took through Nepal into India, as gleaned from their passports. A sharp contrast to the way plots hit the press in China. Granted, there are a lot of details missing here, but I’m assuming that’s because its not as big a deal in India, rather than deliberate concealment.

Speaking of plots and concealment, via the Foreign Policy Association’s Central Asia Blog we find a brief article by Hudson Institue scholar Richard Weitz on the recent Olympic terrorism plot unveiled and busted by Chinese authorities a few weeks ago. Real or not real? In a weirdly structured article Weitz spends ten paragraphs giving the usual “Xinjiang background” spiel, which is understandable since presumably most of his intended readers are not familiar with Xinjiang, but then he spends a hasty two paragraphs on the terrorist plot, basically saying since Xinjiang is of high strategic value, it is in China’s best interest to fabricate the terrorist plot, ergo, the terrorist plots were probably fabricated. Patrick Frost at the CA Blog argues that while the logic of skepticism is sound, the threat of terrorism in Xinjiang is real especially given the track record of violent terrorism in Xinjiang: with 200+ recorded incidents in the past few decades, surely some were fabricate, but conversely, surely some were real, correct? Between Frost and Weitz, I think the Chinese government’s strategy in withholding proof and evidence becomes a little more clear: by doing so, we’ll never know if it was a legit terrorist crackdown, nor will we know if it was a fabrication. I’m sure some sort of ancient Chinese wisdom (Sun-Tzu probably, if I bother to look) dictates that it is better for the others to not know either way than to know for certain something is real or not real.

Time Magazine journalist Simon Elegant (What an awesome name. Sounds like a video game character, to be frank.) apparently rushed to Khotan sometime after hearing about the protests that occurred about a month ago. I don’t know he did it, but from the looks of his publications he’s there right now. So for your perusal, here’s “In China’s Wild West.” Naturally written with a more journalistic sort of tint, Elegant’s article nonetheless does capture the post-demonstration haze lingering over Khotan through interviews with both Chinese and (courageous) Uyghurs. Elegant offers some firsthand knowledge corroborating RFA’s claims that the death of a prominent jade trader and philanthropist, Mutallip Hajim, was the trigger for the demonstrations. Curiously, this very same article was published twice on Time’s website, the most recent one being the one linked above, which seems to be a hasty replacement for the still reachable old version, whose text is the same but with the title of “The Other ‘Tibet.’” GROAN. Maybe the journalist caught himself and found the title too tacky and cliche, but if you’re going to rebrand your article, don’t forget to take down the old one!

Professor James Millward has written an excellent article for Open Democracy containing advice on how China should approach public relations crises like the string of Olympic torch fiascoes that have occurred over the past few weeks. While the article isn’t a Xinjiang article per se, Millward himself is a Xinjiang scholar and I must proudly say that his reasonable and on-the-mark advice probably sprung forth from his unique perspective on the Chinese situation. The Xinjiang perspective, of course! No need to discuss what Millward said here because Dave’s done a good job of doing that already over at Mutant Palm.

Not to be outdone by Time Magazine, Reuters has also sent a correspondent to scan the aftermath of the Khotan demonstrations. Lindsay Beck’s article, “Restive Xinjiang: China’s next trouble spot after Tibet?” (GROAN) can be found at this link. Like Elegant, Beck uses some firsthand anecdotes and interviews to sort of ferret out the situation in Khotan. Unlike Elegant, Beck states quite clearly in her article that Xinjiang is unlikely to become the next Tibet (Yay?), wisely referring to the words of Xinjiang scholars like Nicholas Bequelin and anonymous (heh heh).

According to a report on the website of the Middle East Media Research Institute’s (MEMRI) “Islamist Websites Monitor Project”, a video of the execution of three Chinese hostages, allegedly produced by the “Islamic Party of Turkestan” (IPT), was posted on the website Al-Hesbah on 9 April 2008. We have thus far been unable to locate the video itself, despite having a fluent speaker of Arabic search through the Al-Hesbah site. However, we are left with the still image of three men, apparently stripped and photographed from the shoulders up, with the Uyghur word zärbä زەربە “a knock, blow” superimposed. This image has reappeared on a Uyghur-language site claiming to be that of the Islamic Party of Turkestan. (A much more complete site, possibly official, can be found here.) It seems to have appeared on that site in the last month.

The language on the IPT seal graphic, the word on the video still, and the IPT site – including Romanization, font, and other linguistic clues – suggest that these were all produced by Xinjiang Uyghurs. The IPT site features several photos of Hasan Mahsum, the alleged founder of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) Shärqiy Türkistan Islam Härikiti, the “Dongyiyun” blamed by the PRC government for many expressions of discontent. He was killed in Pakistan in October 2003.

The name “Islamic Party of Turkestan” is problematic. Some sources suggest that the IPT is the new face of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), an organization established in the summer of 1998 in opposition to Uzbekistan’s secular government, but which was active in Uzbek areas of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, as well. One of its co-founders, Juma Namangani, is meant to have founded this new group, called Hezb-e Islami Turkestan in Persian, in Afghanistan in 2001. Since this new group’s focus includes all of Central Asia and Xinjiang, it may be an umbrella organization for the Islamic Movement groups that sprang from the IMU, such as the Islamic Movement of Tajikistan. Namangani died in 2001, and the IMU is believed to have fractured and mostly disintegrated.

The site and the seal associated with the video are clearly labeled IPT Türkistan Islamiy Partiyisi, rather than “Islamic Party of East Turkestan” Shärqiy Türkistan Islamiy Partiyisi or as a product of ETIM, either of which would suggest a specific concern for Uyghurs and Xinjiang. However, they maintain some of the same imagery as ETIM, focusing, at least visually, on Hasan Mahsum. If this really was produced (and recently) by the IPT, could this indicate an attempt to reach out more directly to discontented Uyghurs?

Recently, we reported on a Chinese press release asserting the involvement of Hizb ut-Tahrir (HUT), an Islamic movement with a largely Central Asian and Pakistani base, in the March protests in Khotan. Since the IPT, as originally formed, may now be a very weak and diffuse group, could it now be linked with HUT? HUT is known to have a slight “technological” bent, using the internet and various media to spread its beliefs. (The IPT website appears to be registered in Karachi, Pakistan.) However, HUT disavows violence.

Could we just be looking at a video from years before, recycled by another terrorist group, or even an individual (or government) with hidden aims? The “other” IPT website seems like an official face for their organization — so why doesn’t it have this video, or would they want it to? Also, MEMRI is an itinerant collector of Islamic media, but they have an apparent anti-Islamic bias and may make mountains out of electronic molehills. We encourage any readers, especially with a knowledge of Arabic, to look into the provenance of the video in question.

In the meantime, all we have is a seal, a video still, and a mostly-empty website. More importantly, perhaps, we have the suggestion of a video of Chinese people being killed in the name of Uyghur Muslims. This is a powerful image in the hands of anyone concerned.

Some sources consulted:

Fredholm, Michael. 2007. Islam and Modernity in Contemporary Central Asia: Religious Faith versus Way of Life: A Study of Four Radical Disruptions (Asian Cultures and Modernity: Research Report No. 14, January 2007). Stockholm: Stockholm University.

——. 2006. Islamic Extremism as a Political Force: A Comparative Study of Central Asian Extremist Movements (Asian Cultures and Modernity: Research Report No. 12, October 2006). Stockholm: Stockholm University.

Shichor, Yitzhak. 2006. “Fact and Fiction: A Chinese Documentary on East Turkestan Terrorism” in China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly, Volume 4, No. 2, pp. 89-109.

The International Herald Tribune spotted a Chinese language press release in which Chinese authorities fascinatingly attribute the protests in Khotan as well as various forms of unrest and troublemaking in Kashgar, Urumqi, and Kizilsu Prefecture to the international Islamic political organization Hizb ut-Tahrir, or the “Party of Liberation.” Hizb ut-Tahrir, or HUT (kind of like Jabba) has garnered quite the reputation in Central Asian nations as a rallying point for Muslims bearing religious grievances against oppressive, secularist governments. HUT has an elaborate set of written guiding principles, and allegedly one of these embraces non-violent means as the only proper means to attain the group’s goal of restoring the Caliphate, thus, their main methods remain limited, on the surface, at least, to the propagation of the “right ideas” through lectures, sermons, booklets, and pamphlets. There have been several instances where violent activities were attributed by governmental authorities to HUT, but as usual the facts surrounding the case always get sucked into the abyss of propaganda and ulterior motives so the extent of the actual involvement on the part of the accused in the incidents remains nebulous at best – a situation quite familiar to anyone who has been following unrest in the West of China over the past month.

I managed to find the article mentioned by the Herald Tribune here at Tianshan net. It’s quite brief, so here’s a quick translation under the break.

Illegal Demonstrations in Khotan, lawfully dispersed by authorities, were planned by Hizb ut-Tahrir

From the evening of March 22nd to March 23rd, Hizb ut-Tahrir distributed and posted reactionary leaflets in an integrated operation occurring in Khotan, Kashgar, Urumqi, Kizilsu Kyrgyz Autonomous Prefecture, and other areas, with the goal of inciting the masses into demonstrating on the streets. The three successive, illegal demonstrations which occurred in Khotan from 2:50 to 4:15 on the afternoon of the 23rd were planned by Hizb ut-Tahrir and were swiftly halted by authorities within the scope of the law.

The relevant governmental departments are presently investigating the splittest elements who masterminded the incident.

The guiding principles of Hizb ut-Tahrir include the elimination of secular regimes, and the establishment of a unified, religious governmental structure, and the restoration of the Islamic Caliphate under sharia law. The world publicly recognizes Hizb ut-Tahrir as an extremist organization, a significant number of countries have designated it as a terrorist organization, and countries across the globe have adopted active measures to combat their activities. Hizb ut-Tahrir’s efforts to instigate and bewitch the masses into establishing a sharia-law Caliphate are against Chinese law.

Nice and to the point, eh?

This is the first attempt by the Chinese government to link unrest to Hizb ut-Tahrir that I’m aware of. It represents a significant and curious clarification of previous allegations of international involvement in Xinjiang incidents, the vast majority of which have involved a hazy specter of “international terrorism” or exile Uyghur organizations whose goals and aspirations remain quite distant from those of religious organizations. Authorities in China may be coming to the realization that in order to lend a greater air of credibility to their place in the global war on terror, they need a more well-defined enemy to point to, and as EurasiaNet’s archives amply demonstrate, HUT is an organization that leaves enough of a paper trail to be accused of seditious activities and also has a set of religious guiding principles extremist enough to convincingly sell them as a threat to national security – which is what practically every Central Asian country has done and what China appears to be doing right now.

By pointing a finger at distinctly Central Asian Islamic extremist group (HUT didn’t start in Central Asia, but it has received the most traction there), China also is framing its local War on Terror as a phenomenon belonging quite clearly to the realm of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a mutual-security organization a la NATO whose two big players are Russia and China and whose remaining members are located cozily in between the two behemoths in Central Asia. Accusing HUT, legitimately or otherwise, of stability threatening activity is an exercise that has already been practiced several times in the ‘stans, and by participating in that discussion China is not only lending credibility to the former claims of Central Asia’s despots but also is energizing the core message of SCO joint military operations such as the annual “Peace Missions”, which have all been conducted quite unambiguously against a fictional “terrorist/separatist” enemy.

I think this represents a significant change of course in the way China talks to the world about its “Islam” problem. Let’s keep an eye on whether or not this shiny, new bad guy will reorient China away from Western forces, engaged with Middle Eastern, “Al Qaeda” style extremism, towards Russia and Central Asia, who are dealing with Central Asian “flavored” extremism.

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According to the linked articles, the house raids in Ghulja were part of a secret operation that Chinese police spokespeople were unwilling to divulge any information about. Eyewitnesses report digging, as if searching for weapons, and also the detainment of several individuals. The Reuters article was unable to provide any reason for the 70 detained Kashgarliks except for increased anxiety as the Olympic Torch Relay draws near.

OpkeHessip just published a detailed analysis of the most recent media coverage of unrest in Xinjiang and makes a point that I also hold with conviction, namely, that spurious comparisons between Tibet and Xinjiang are invalid for a whole slew of reasons, one of the most prominent being historical factors creating fractured groups of Turkic peoples inhabiting the Jungharia and Tarim Basins and only recently united under the name “Uyghur” on one hand, and a culturally integrated Tibetan people who share a cornerstone in history, religion, and spiritual leadership on the other hand. Really, you should give his analysis a good look over or two. The visual element that I’ve supplied above I feel serves to reinforce the fact that in Xinjiang, where there is unrest, we’re dealing with isolated pressure points that make a pop that doesn’t resonate with other localities, whereas in Tibet there’s more if a unified network where stress on one side of the structure inevitably leads to creaking and snapping throughout the whole caboodle.

Xotän (Hoten, Hétián, 和田, Khotan) is not a very nice place to be, these days. First, there were the recent earthquakes that destroyed thousands of structures and left their residents homeless. Now, the Chinese authorities have confirmed that a protest took there on 23 March 2008, possibly continuing into 24 March, around the time of the earthquakes.

The incident was first reported by the leader of the Uyghur World Congress, Dilshat Rishit, and by Radio Free Asia, which has followed the story closely. They reported that at least 600 Uyghurs, mostly women, joined the protest. Multiple hypotheses were advanced for the protestors’ anger: firstly, a potential ban on the wearing of headscarves in the workplace and, secondly, an alleged PRC policy that takes young Uyghur women to work in the Chinese Interior as low-cost laborers. It was reported that several hundred individuals had been taken into custody following the protest. This report was picked up today by the International Herald Tribune, which received official confirmation that an incident occurred, at the very least a small protest. An official from the Xotän Regional Administrative Office asserted that the protest was not about headscarves or somesuch, but that it was, rather, a response to the continued rioting in Greater Tibet. This is the first real hint we have seen that any trouble in Xinjiang may be related to the unrest in Tibet. The New York Times has also picked up the story, but has been thus far unable, it seems, to dig up any new information. Radio Free Asia, curiously, suggested that the protest came about as a result of the 3 March revelation of the death of a jade trader in police custody, Mutällip Hajim. This sparked broader protests concerning the status of political prisoners and cultural and religious freedoms. If the RFA report is correct, the protests may have lasted even longer than has been reported.

The main protest is meant to have started from Xotän’s Lop Bus Station and proceeded to the Grand Bazaar. RFA claims that another protest that took place at a market in Xotän’s Qaraqash County was confirmed by that area’s Chinwagh police station.

Let’s start with news analysis. I am having trouble finding information about the protest from anywhere but Radio Free Asia. Even the IHT’s news comes primarily from that organization. The positioning of the story concerning Mutällip Hajim’s body, twenty-five days post-mortem and one day before the protests were covered, seems awfully convenient. I am in no way suggesting that RFA has fabricated this story. However, they certainly own its discourse. Has anyone found any on-line “twitters” or an official PRC news story? I can’t seem to.

So, what was this protest really about? I’m going to bet it was all of the above: a dead pillar of the community set the tone of tension with the police and government. I suspect that the implementation of “second-type bilingual education” – Mandarin-only by 2011 – has doubtless raised the hackles of many locals. There is certainly pressure on Muslim women not to wear the veil in the workplace, but I am not aware of an official policy against it at this time. Finally, there’s been a story, I think half truth and half boogeyman folktale, about programs to bring young Uyghur women into the Interior to work and be abused for a long time, now. You regularly see stories in Xinhua about new initiatives that give jobs or scholarships to young Uyghur women, often to work in the tourist industry. My favorite was a “longest hair” contest that would give sixty minzu girls from Qumul/Hami an education and jobs in the tourism industry. Many localities engage in both local and national initiatives to send groups of workers to factories in the Interior. My sense is that Xotän Uyghur women felt that their religious identity was being infringed upon and staged a protest similar to ones now seen in Turkey or, perhaps, in reaction to the “unveiling” of Muslim women in Soviet Central Asia.

We can only hope that more concrete information will come to light in the near future. If this really is related to Tibet, I think it may be the first manifestation of Tibetan-Uyghur political sympathy in the PRC itself.

The United States Geographical Survey has a handy .kmz file which displays real-time earthquake data when launched in Google Earth. Since the file is constantly updating, I took the liberty of isolating the Xinjiang earthquakes (it’s public domain!) and putting them right in this little file here. As you can see, although media outlets are vaguely pinpointing the earthquakes in Khotan or Yutian Counties, in reality the epicenters were high in the mountains straddling Xinjiang and Tibet, a very sparsely populated strip of land in an already sparsely populated part of China, which explains why Chinese media outlets are reporting no injuries and little damage beyond a few collapsed structures.

And this, of course, is good news. But I can’t help but note on the side that in the Chinese world view, a dizzying cascade of ill omens (say, for example, the roof being on fire, or, barely averted disasters in the heavens, or, of course, earthquakes literally sitting on the boundary between two trouble spots) usually is interpreted as the harbinger of chaotic change in the near future. In the old days, that meant dynastic change. Nowadays? Who knows.

It also would be unfair to omit the fact that in the Chinese world view, “near future” can be anywhere from next month to two hundred years from now. Well, time will tell.

March 22 Update: Xinhua has released a report in English regarding the earthquake. After the day was done, the final tally was 12 earthquakes total, including the big one that started it all. The article claims that 44,000 people were “affected” (without elaborating), that 2,200 houses were damaged or destroyed resulting in 10 million yuan of damage, but that no people were injured or killed.

However, even in a place as far flung as Xinjiang “conventional” destinations can form and routes that originally seemed “off the beaten path” are suddenly shared with other tourists, both Westerners and, nowadays, hordes of baseball-cap toting, middle-aged, pudgy Chinese tourists dutifully following some twenty-something year old tour guide with a flag and a megaphone. Kashgar, for example, once touted as a remote backpacker’s paradise, is now succumbing to a burgeoning tourist industry, an expanding “new town” which threatens the medieval-ish old city, and a comprehensive tiling project which promises to improve Kashgar’s dirty alleys with the studded concrete tiles you can find on every other sidewalk in every other city everywhere in China.

But there is another part of Xinjiang that remains relatively untrodden, and that is the southern fringe of the Taklamakan. For now, the cities in this area remain left out of the railways that link Urumqi to Kashgar, exempting them from the influx of population and tourists that have left their mark on more easily accessible destinations. They retain the remote charm that once was attributable to Xinjiang in general, and remain rather stalwart centers of Uyghur traditional culture. These destinations are ideal for travelers and researchers who are searching for a better preserved Uyghur cultural context, but the downside of heading so far away from the beaten path is that there is little practical information about these cities to access.

Except for one website, which I had the luck of stumbling upon recently. First, some disclosure: I do acknowledge the irony of criticizing the negative effects unleashed by an unchecked, disrespectful tourist deluge, then going on to share a website that enables tourists to explore an “untouched” area. But I’ll say here that I have enough faith in my readers to believe that none of you are industry or development tycoons planning on dragging hordes of tourists through the homes of Uyghurs or building a giant resort on top of a Uyghur residential area. Call it blogger’s arrogance, to be so presumptuous about our readership. But I really don’t think I’m off the mark!

The site is called, simply enough, “Central Asia Traveler,” and is run by a person who goes by “Cat,” the acronym of aforementioned page title. Check it out when you have the chance. CAT has incredibly detailed and exhaustive travel information for the cities of Niya/Minfeng, Cherchen/Qiemo, Charkilik/Ruoqiang, Keriya/Yutian, and Khotan/Hetian, cities for the most part neglected by tourists and guidebooks alike. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve got a winning destination of its got completely different Chinese and Uyghur names, which seems to be the case for most Nanjiang cities.

Furthermore, the CAT website is linked frequently to Cat’s flickr website, a similarly exhaustive album that gives a pretty decent visual summary of these cities. Who wouldn’t want to go to these places?

A Mosque in Keriya, Xinjiang

Montage of Cherchen, Xinjiang

Niyaliqs arrive at the Sunday Bazaar

So what are you waiting for? Collect the information you need and head on down to Nanjiang!