I am pleased to have my very own copy of Invisible China, a remarkable travelogue just recently published. The authors, Colin Legerton and Jacob Rawson, both current postgraduate students, have produced a worthwhile and very readable narrative of their journeys through China’s minority ethnic communities. This informative but entertaining and accessible book recounts their journeys in 2006 and 2007 while providing valuable and accurate background information to the lay reader and remaining sensitive to the realities of life for the people they met along the way. The book consists primarily of a series of mini-ethnographies, eleven in all covering fourteen contemporary minority groups, plus two narratives of visits to peculiar sites of ethnic tourism. Legerton and Rawson spent more time than most travel writers among their communities of interest, but they have distilled their visits into short and easily digestible snapshots of minority life accompanied by insightful commentary on wisely-chosen topics. Here, as this is The New Dominion, I will focus on their pieces on China’s Northwest, including their two chapters on Xinjiang.

The book opens with a scene familiar to almost anyone who has lived in China since the 1980s: On a busy street corner under a hazy night sky, as a swirling mass of superficial human sameness throngs in and out of Mr. Li’s and KFC, a lone Xinjiang Uyghur man, doppa and all, tends his kebabs as they sizzle on a smoky and jerry-rigged grill. Here, the authors make an awful fuss about the man’s skin color and that of the Han Chinese around him. At first blush, this seems almost racist, as the authors use the man’s physical differences to emphasize the invisible cultural wall between him and his customers. In fact, this is an honest depiction of a moment shared by many Westerners who venture beyond the Green Zones in Beijing and Shanghai: This is the instant when, in some smoky and anonymous town, you meet someone who looks different, whose Chinese is almost as bad as yours, and who feels isolated and homesick – just like you! The outside Other and the inside Other share a secret wink, and sometimes a career is born. Kudos to the authors for communicating this sense of alienation, achieved elsewhere in the movie “Lost in Translation,” and of the discovery of an imagined new chosen people. This self-consciousness, perhaps the mark of a new generation of writers on Asia, pervades the book and lends it both a measured sensitivity to the voices of the “natives” and a self-reflective honesty about the author’s own perspective. Appropriately for a book about people who inhabit a nationalizing state and who only find a political voice through a system of regional autonomy, Legerton and Rawson set the tone by bringing into focus the truth of the awkward and the disjointed.

Legerton and Rawson’s work, as a travelogue, is a work of journalism. They achieve, however, much that most journalists writing in English do not or cannot when reporting on China by informing their assertions and observations with their educated understanding of the country and of the issues at hand and sensitivity born of experience. Before beginning their journeys, both authors spoke good Chinese, as well as Uyghur and Korean, and both boast backgrounds in China studies. As such, they are far more qualified commentators than most journalists or even diplomatic staff. They have also done their homework, as is apparent from the very accessible potted histories of each region they visit and group they encounter. These gloss over messy details, but do not oversimplify or misrepresent. Each chapter is careful and deliberate and avoids factual error, which shows both respect for the subject and a disciplined approach to research and writing.

This preparation allows them to better protect the identities of their informants and also to tell effective stories. Most journalists, turning a brief visit and a half-dozen conversations into a lengthy piece, depict the story of today’s Xinjiang simply as one of conflict between ethnic monoliths, one backed by the new Evil Empire. It is relatively easy to identify their few informants, who are naturally depicted as angry young separatists or unquestioning tools of the state. In contrast, the characters who appear in Invisible China are rarely caricatures, certainly no more so than some very real people. Legerton and Rawson may too readily project onto the people they met their desire to find the individuals in the machine. They describe one old and loquacious man as someone with “individual” opinions all his own (a social and psychological impossibility) in a country with claims to homogeneity.

Invisible China‘s chapters, although bite-sized, are each based on at least several days of intensive interaction in a given community. The chapters are divided roughly into two parts: The first hooks the reader in, while the second seeks to make a more nuanced polemical point about minority life through a narrative of encounters and conversations. The authors cram nothing down the reader’s throat, but instead try to stay out of the way of their interviewees’ stories, editorializing sparingly and appropriately.

Take, for example, Legerton and Rawson’s lengthy interactions with a pair of Tajik restaurateurs in Chapter 11. Here, the authors build up an honest and sympathetic depiction of their newfound friends, then draw on their own understanding to relate these individuals’ lives to questions of place, culture, and language in a believable and uncaricatured way. When interviewees are quoted in relation to more sensitive political problems, as in Chapter 10 on Uyghurs in Xinjiang, the authors wisely obscure their personal information and focus more on what those people say than how they can be classified or which side they are on. In Invisible China, people may be members of minority groups, but they do not simply represent them. This, and the authors’ clear concern for their interlocutors, as expressed in the afterword, demonstrate that Invisible China is informed by more than a thirst for adventure or profit or a well-intentioned Western concern for the rights of the oppressed Other.

Of course, a travel writer has the freedom to create composite characters or even fashion them out of whole cloth. As such, travelogues have a problem of credibility, and there is really no telling the degree to which Legerton and Rawson’s characters, who are in any case depicted very believably, actually exist. This is not academic work, and so the authors were not fettered in their research by those constraints placed upon scholars. This gave them the freedom to pursue, however superficially, topics otherwise unavailable to research, such as Arabic literacy and the central role of Mosque culture (and even the Old and New Teachings!) among the Dongxiang in Chapter 8. This piece acts as an interesting commentary on Chinese measures of literacy. In my opinion, Legerton and Rawson’s insistence on inserting parenthetical facts at appropriate moments in their narratives gives their work a certain credibility, as well as a scope beyond the strictly nominalist, and I look forward to the results of both authors’ current postgraduate work.

Invisible China is not free from tired tropes of the exotic. As with any old piece of Xinjiang travel writing, for example, exotic smells and colors abound, and cute little kids feature prominently. They compare Tashkurghan and its inhabitants to Europe and the Europeans. Mostly, however, the authors concentrate on lampooning or deflating the depictions of minorities found in Chinese media, as in Chapter 3, which focuses on the Mongols, and Chapter 6, on the Naxi. To their credit, they seem consciously to try to avoid making use of those same representations. Indeed, when a group exhibits some peculiarity, they usually leave it up to the members of that group to explain or comment upon it. Actually, the authors try very hard to avoid adopting anything like “flexible positional superiority,” with regard to anything but the PRC government and its representatives.

Invisible China closes with a thoughtful afterword, composed after the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Legerton and Rawson’s journeys in 2006 and 2007 had shown them China, and especially Xinjiang and Tibet, before the riots of 2008 and before the attacks in Xinjiang. I agree with their final conclusion that, for all of the talk of ethnic unity and the image of far-reaching state control, Beijing has yet to really approach its minority problems in a well-informed and constructive way, and that they might even lack the understanding and wherewithal to begin to do so. Throughout the book, the reader sees China in its odd little pockets, where the foreigner’s feeling of oppressive sameness begins to seem trivial and new old worlds flourish. Legerton and Rawson have chosen to focus on something that could easily be facilely political. They could have written a screed about minority oppression. They could have depicted the billboards and the propaganda as the ubiquitous signs of the omnipotent and malevolent state, but, in the villages on China’s borderlands, they seem like the laughable gestures of a distant power no longer interested in its neediest subjects. Of course, this is not the whole story – one need only look at Eric Mueggler’s The Age of Wild Ghosts, for one example, to see the hand of the state in borderland life – but the authors’ moderate and considered point is well-taken. There is more to minorities than ethnic conflict, and the state is often more blundering than it is malicious.

I should begin this review of Dr. Äsät Sulayman’s recent work, Özlük wä Kimlik, with a note on the translation of the title. Both özlük and kimlik can be translated, in a sense, as “identity”, which is the focus of the book: the experiences and formation of group and individual identity. Özlük, translatable as “selfhood” or “individuality”, carries a strong sense of self-reflection – it indicates an individual’s concept of his or herself. Kimlik, a term used for one’s public identity, including his or her official identity card, could be translated literally as “who-ness” – it is the identity of a person in reference to his or her surroundings and community. The subtitle, in Uyghur, translates as “looking at the depths of Central Asia from Europe’s shores”.

We can consider the book in these terms. Özlük wä Kimlik is, first of all, a personal memoir of the year Dr. Äsät (Eset) Sulayman, a professor at Xinjiang University and an influential intellectual voice, spent at Stockholm University in Sweden, where he studied, taught, and worked. While living there as an immigrant, away from his family and native land, he spent several months in the Royal Archives of Sweden and the archives of Stockholm University, cataloging the records of Swedish missionaries who operated in Xinjiang from 1892 through the late 1930′s, records previously left nearly untouched by researchers. This forms the other half of the book, detailing the lives of these missionaries and discussing the ways in which their activities, especially in the fields of printing and education, altered the evolution of Uyghur society.

With evidence from these archive materials, Äsät Sulayman essentially argues that the introduction of printing technology to Xinjiang, coupled with the missionaries’ focus on primary education, aided the formation of a Uyghur intellectual class, as well as providing a foreign, Christian foil for an evolving local Turkic Muslim identity. He has since returned to this argument in a more focused academic work (also in Uyghur)¹. Apart from proselytizing largely unreceptive natives, many of whom received a “modern” or “scientific” education in their schools, the missionaries operated the only press in the region until 1938, producing texts beyond their own evangelical purposes, including some of the earliest printed works in Turki. Perhaps more importantly to the formation, codification, and promotion of a modern Uyghur language, the press produced early textbooks (including alphabet books) and grammars of “Altä Shähär Turki”. The story of Swedish or Scandinavian involvement in Xinjiang, dating back to the eighteenth century, forms the nominal backbone of the book, though it hardly makes its presence known in the text. True, Dr. Sulayman presents information about Swedish people in Xinjiang and analyzes the effects of their presence and activities, but, in terms of the book’s composition, the “cultural dialogue between Inner Asia and Scandinavia” is more of a general theme, incidental to the narrative, than it is a force to order that narrative or any argument.

Äsät Sulayman viewed the history he rediscovered through the eyes of an outsider in a strange land. It is his memories of life in Sweden that form the bulk of the book and that bring him to his final conclusions. His descriptions of the deepening Swedish winter and the people he encountered among the “fluttering” snowflakes become somewhat repetitive, but they are effective in framing the commonality he felt with other immigrants, even strangers, as well as with the Swedish, whose “national character” he spends a very long chapter describing and reassessing. He recounts, for example, his repeated need to explain where he is from, an experience common to Uyghurs who go abroad. How does one account for a Uyghur face and a Chinese passport? This constant defense of his own identity, as for many people who have lived abroad, causes him to reevaluate and reflect on it outside of the ever-present Chinese system of ethnic classification.

This, I believe, is Äsät Sulayman’s main point: Uyghur identity and history can be considered outside of the Chinese context. His points of cultural and historical comparison are located in Sweden and Xinjiang, respectively. When he speaks of his “homeland”, he clearly means “Xinjiang”, hardly making mention of China. Indeed, it seems that his natural place in Sweden’s international community is among Uzbeks and other Central Asians. He places Uyghur history and identity on the same level of importance as those of any other ethnic group or nation. His discussion of relative population size favorably compares the Uyghur population to that of most European countries, as does his contrast of the size of different language communities. The Uyghur community, in this narrative, does not simply generate or form within its test tube autonomous region. Rather, it is acted upon by and acts upon non-Chinese outsiders. This is, if not a direct challenge to or rejection of officially-approved accounts of Uyghur history and identity, a major paradigm shift in the more popular literature on ethnicity in China. In this mode, however, it remains very modernist in its outlook, never casting doubt on the naturalness or reality of ethnonational communities, no matter how they may be constructed. This is, I think, part of the book’s appeal to its target audience of at least moderately educated Uyghurs: it changes their ethnic world view in a way still seems logical and natural.

Özlük wä Kimlik, given its wide readership and popularity in the Uyghur intellectual world, has already changed and will continue to affect at least some of its readers’ attitudes towards the question of Uyghur ethnic identity. Äsät Sulayman, himself an historian of literature, recognizes and thinks in terms of intellectual, idealist history. This leads him, it seems, to begin to reassess accepted ethnonational narratives in China, which are overwhelmingly Marxist-materialist. The ideas of identity that he puts forth in this work, as well as its derivative papers, remind me a great deal of the theories of Frederick Barth, while his emphasis on print culture hints of Benedict Anderson, although he does not reference them – nor has he, to my knowledge, read them. This may be the book’s greatest contribution: a diversification of the popular discourse of Uyghur identity, a discourse that is currently primarily concerned, even among independence-minded Uyghurs, with elaborating the concrete trans-historical characteristics of a putative ethnonational group as defined by a state ethnological apparatus. It is, in a sense, a sign of a natural post-modern shift in thought arising from an awareness of and interest in history and literature, which are gaining more acceptance and intellectual freedom, along with anthropology, as fields of inquiry. Furthermore, this is a perspective that comes from (or appears to come from) within a group that regards itself as marginal, though the rejection of this marginal status seems to be a goal of Sulayman’s writing.

This perspective seems to be reinforced by the couching of intellectual inquiry within the structure of a personal narrative. This is reminiscent of a very common strategy for Uyghur writers who want to communicate about history – history is novelized (as in Iz, Oyghanghan Zemin, Ana Yurt, and other books) and, thus, protected from certain kinds of censorship. Äsät Sulayman is doing the same here, I think, with experimental ideas about history and identity that are not otherwise ready for academia.

Özlük wä Kimlik: Yawropa Qirghaqliridin Märkiziy Asiya Chongqurluqlirigha Qarap is an interesting piece of writing by any measure, as well as a possibly very important and influential work in the Uyghur intellectual work. Indeed, its place as a classic is assured, and not just by Dr. Äsät Sulayman’s well-established reputation – the book’s first and second printings, totaling several thousand copies, both sold out quickly, and the book is now a hard-sought favorite in Ürümchi used-book stores.

¹Äsät Sulayman. “‘Qäshqär basma buyumliri’ wä ötkünchi däwrdiki Uyghur tili mädäniyiti – Chaghatay tilidin hazirqi zaman Uyghur tiligha mäzgilidiki ‘ötkünchi däwr Uyghur tili’ wä uning tarixiy, ijtima’iy, mädäniyät arqa körünüshi” in Shinjang Pedagogika Uniwersiteti Aliy Zhurnali (Pälsäpä – Ijtima’iy Pän Qismi), No. 4, 2007, pp. 1-11.

James Millward has done the Xinjiang studies community a great service by authoring the first comprehensive historical survey that takes this region as its primary focus without adopting any explicit political thesis. This contribution is a significant step towards validating Xinjiang studies as a valid field of academic inquiry. In addition to this noble deed, Eurasian Crossroads offers much more to both the general reader and non-specialist, particularly those interested in political history.

As befits any historical survey, the organizing principle of the work is a chronological progression that begins with the prehistorical era with the Tienshanosaurus and concludes in the present day with a discussion of noted individuals like Adil Hoshur. Millward divides his book into eight substantive chapters: Ancient Encounters (earliest times – 8^th century), Central Eurasia Ascendant (9^th – 16^th centuries), Between Islam and China (16^th – 19^th centuries), Between Empire and Nation (late 19^th century – early 20^th century), Between China and the Soviet Union (1910s – 1940s), In the People’s Republic of China (1950s – 1980s), Between China and the World (1990s – 2000s), and Conclusion: Balancing Acts. As these chapter titles suggest, the breadth of coverage is only achieved through substantial reduction in its depth. This trade off comes as the cost of more thoroughly discussing events prior to the late nineteenth century, which only occupy approximately one-third of the book.

This book is best used as a substantial piece of background reading for those who seek some information about the historitcal background of today’s complication political situation or an introductory level history text. Readers approach the work for these purposes stand to benefit the most from its content. However, all readers will likely be grateful to Millward for included an extensive timeline as an appendix, which reports contemporary events in “Northern Xinjiang, Southern Xinjiang and Nearby Regions.” This straightforward chronicle of events is an excellent map through the very complex territory that is the history of Xinjiang.

Unfortunately, Eurasian Crossroads also suffers from some significant defects – although these shortcomings will not seriously compromise the book’s value to all except the most serious of the book’s readers. The most serious lacuna in Millward’s work is readily apparent after perusing the bibliography or reading the text: there are essentially no Turkic or Persian language primary sources and very few Russian or Japanese language secondary sources. Millward goes very far on the basis of previously published sources in English and Chinese, but does not go the extra mile to explore local primary sources or a rich body of secondary literature on his own. The discussion of the 14^th – 19^th centuries, which features a most cursory overview of the Chagataids and Khojas in Kashgaria, could certainly be enriched by considering to a primary material such as the chronicle of Shah Mahmud Churas or the Tarikh-i Kashgar. Moreover, secondary material written by non-Anglophone authors available in French, Russian and Japanese also remains beyond the purview of the book. This limitation to the sources is unfortunate precisely because scholars writing in these languages have produced some of the best available scholarship relating to the 14^th-19^th centuries. The lack of any mention of these sources suggests a related shortcoming of Millward’s book that is relevant to most readers; namely, without integrating (or at least acknowledging) as much relevant primary and secondary material as possible Eurasian Crossroads falls short of being an excellent introduction to the growing body of relevant literature. This book easily could have been an excellent survey of the field as well as a solid survey of historical events, but it is not.

Overall, Eurasian Crossroads is a first attempt at writing a relatively balanced, scholarly historical survey of Xinjiang and is an excellent quick reference for anyone looking to contextualize contemporary political developments in a historical context. The field still appears open, however, for a more comprehensive survey of events prior to the rise of Yaqub Beg and for a lengthy critical review of historical scholarship relating to Xinjiang.

The following is a translation of Abdurehim Ötkür’s 1985 historical novel Oyghanghan Zemin, Chapter One, pp. 9-14. New readers are encouraged to start from the beginning, Chapter One, Part One. This translation is presented for information and entertainment purposes only. It is also a work in progress — comments are welcome, especially on the (questionable) quality of the translation.

As time passed, some changes in Fan Yaonan’s temperament began to appear. To speak in terms of the psychologists’ analyses, he was beginning to turn from an extrovert into an introvert. That is to say, rather than talking about the absolute necessity of establishing Republican law in Xinjiang, realizing equality for ethnic groups, completely ending corruption, and developing education, he began, like a man who has lost something, to talk to himself and to move about quietly. Yang Zengxin, having heard news of his rival’s situation, was pleased with his talent. Cackling, he said, “Well done, gold! What an exceptional thing you are! As you melt in the fire, you make those who melt you themselves melt away, don’t you! It seems it is true: the mouth that has eaten is ashamed.”

In fact, underneath Fan Yaonan’s quietude, there smoldered an explosive force. Looking at this with a wise eye, underneath this quiet man’s silent surface, a powerful, surging force was gaining strength, like an ocean undulating harder by the moment, or like a hunter holding his breath, waiting among the trees for the moment to take the clever fox with a single bullet.

As a result of the magnificent revolutionary war against the northern warlords throughout the country, in the summer of 1928, the Beijing warlord government was overthrown. However, the fruits of the revolution’s success were picked by the Nationalists under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek, and they established the Nanjing government. The strongest warlords committed themselves to the Nanjing government. Finally, Yang Zengxin, having not given up on being a free ruler as he was before, also began to move towards commitment to the Nanjing government, hoping to save his own local regime. He also got to work drawing up the membership of the new regional Xinjiang government; Fan Yaonan was not part of it. This news put salt in Fan’s wounds, enraging him. He moved immediately to action.

The center of Fan Yaonan’s action was Ürümchi’s Teknikum of Russian Governmental Law. Yang Zengxin, with the goal of nurturing his own loyal diplomatic officers, had himself founded the school and taken on the role of its honorary director. On behalf of Yang Zengxin, Fan Yaonan also acted as the school’s chief invigilator. The Headmaster of the school, Zhang Zhongshi, was Fan Yaonan’s most loyal comrade. As such, this teknikum was under Fan Yaonan’s direct influence.

The very next day at that teknikum there was to be held the graduation ceremony of the first class of students. There was one young Uyghur man among the graduates, as well. This slender-figured, pale-faced young man from Turpan’s name at school was Yu Wenning, and his own name was Yunus. Usually, ethnics called him Yunusbäg. One day before the ceremony, in the morning, Fan Yaonan and Headmaster Zhang Zhongshi called Yunusbäg to their own office to entrust him with giving a speech in the students’ name at the event.

“I will do this poorly,” said Yunusbäg, his face reddening.

“No. You are, like a seed of wheat among the barley, the only Uyghur at this school. What’s more, your studies are excellent,” said Fan Yaonan, smiling.

“Let’s do it like this,” added Headmaster Zhang Zhongshi. “I will help you write the text.”

“When you speak,” said Fan Yaonan, laughing, “don’t forget to first bow deeply to General Yang, nor, in your speech, to praise General Yang’s noble moral virtues!”

Yunusbäg, executing a well-mannered bow, exited the office.

“This young man,” said the academic official Zhang, gesturing towards the door with his eye, “as you know, is meant to be the possessor of exceptional talents. Looking at his composition and oratory, after four years, I could no longer tell he was an Uyghur. The way I look at it, Uyghurs seem an extremely industrious, skilled, well-tempered, intelligent, clever people. Great people may emerge from among them. Unfortunately, they take no interest in educating their children. They’re driven away from school. Even the most prominent ones press poor children into service, paying them to go in their children’s place.”

Fan Yaonan, with a cry of “Hey, brother,” interrupted the Headmaster and said:

“This is all a tragedy stemming from our policies. The people of Xinjiang are being sacrificed to the Honorable General Yang’s policy of keeping them in a state of ignorance. So tell me, is there any public school that teaches in local ethnic students’ native language, or a course preparing teachers to teach at such a school?! No! Even if exceptional figures among the local people, say, people like Mäxsut Muhiti in Turpan and Abduqadir Damolla in Qäshqär, do something and open a new school, what slander does our government not stick to them?! What inconveniences do they not pass along? What’s more, where’s the use in splitting up Uyghurs who’ve studied in Chinese-language xuetang to be translators in governors’ offices? From what I hear, Uyghurs say ‘The only thing worse than the governor is his translator.’ This saying didn’t come from nothing. So, why wouldn’t they get their children interested in learning! Alright, let’s leave it at that and come to our own work. Have all of the invitations to the ceremony been distributed completely?”

“Yes.”

“And that business, is everything in place?”

“Every matter is in place. I ask that His Excellency the Mayor be reassured.”

“May God will it. Today is Saturday, and tomorrow is Sunday. May the God of Heaven grant that this Sunday come to be an unforgettable day in history!”

After they had whispered with each other for another short while, Fan Yaonan returned to his own house and, after lunch, having arrived of his own volition at a desire to see Tahirbäg, came again to that garden courtyard.

Tahirbäg was renting some rooms in this courtyard. When he told Fan Yaonan the news that Mäxsut Muhiti was, too, in Ürümchi, Fan Yaonan immediately invited him to call Muhiti over, as well. So, the three of them sat for some hours, conversing happily while drinking a little tea. In the course of the conversation, Fan Yaonan’s eye came to alight once again on that photograph on the wall. That photograph, taken at the conclusion of the Xinhai Revolution, on the First of January, 1912, when for the first time a republic was founded in China, was a souvenir photograph of the Sun Zhongshan, elected to the office of President, with his minority ethnic delegates. Since Tahirbäg had been the head of this delegation, in the picture, he sat next to Sun Zhongshan.

Looking at the picture, Fan Yaonan said:

“I’m seeing this picture in your house for the third time, and each time I look at it, I become awash in different impressions. You were the first among the Uyghurs to visit Mr. Sun Zhongshan, and you must have been the first Uyghur Mr. Sun Zhongshan had ever seen. Isn’t that right?”

“Indeed,” said Tahirbäg. “I, too, whenever I see this picture, I remember Mr. Sun Zhongshan with deep respect. But I feel terribly regretful that his promises to us were never fulfilled.”

“You’re right,” said Fan Yaonan. “According the Republic’s program, our Mr. Sun didn’t put his heart into realizing local autonomy for minority ethnic groups, developing the economy, and causing education to bloom.”

“I think,” said Mäxsut Muhiti, interrupting, “when people like General Yang are at the head of a regime, though Sun Yat-sen may be fated to live to be a hundred, realizing his ideals would be impossible. This is because, wherever a stone lies on the road, it will eventually be an obstacle to the cart.”

Fan Yaonan, listening with care to his words said with slightly broken Chinese pronunciation, suddenly came to life, as though he had found something in his soul:

“You’re both absolutely right. You’re right,” he said, patting Mäxsut Muhiti on the shoulder.

“From what I hear from some people,” said Tahirbäg, howling a little, “General Yang wants to say that he is waiting to make Xinjiang an inseparable part of the Republic of China, and that, without him, this will be difficult – that, otherwise, it will be like the land was taken and run off with by thieves. Speaking in moderation, this may be true, but, if the man who was Xinjiang’s General hasn’t kept a tight hold on this land, if it is stolen, then, Yang Zengxin, no longer a tyrannical warlord, would end up having to sell the land, of course! That would be no bad crime against humanity!”

Fan Yaonan, hearing these words, became even more lively, holding Tahirbäg’s hand and saying, “Excellent opinion, excellent opinion.” He wanted to say something, but swallowed the words that come and stood on the tip of his tongue and turned to the bookshelves. The bookshelves were full of all manner of books in Chinese and in Russian, as well as those printed in the presses of Tashkent, Qazan, and Istanbul. On the oval table before the window with a few journals lay some issues of Pravda, Qizil Özbekistan, and Dagongbao, printed in Tianjin.

>> Read Chapter 1, Part 3…

Xinhua Network News Xinjiang Channel 新华网新疆频道

• 30 December 2007: Authors celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Xinjiang Writers’ Association on the 27th of December. The Association started in 1957 with only 50 members; today, 2000 authors are members.
• 31 December 2007: Three climatologists wrote a treatise on global warming’s effects on China’s Northwest for the Economic Consultation Newspaper. The summary is as follows: “As a result of global warming, our country’s Northwestern region is currently undergoing a transformation from a warm, dry climate to a warm, wet climate, and so in the future this arid area may become relatively moist. Experts believe climatic transformation will have a major practical and strategic impact on the local ecology, on regional economic development, and on other relevant factors. The Northwestern region ought to actively carry out responsive measures to exploit changing ecological resources, simultaneously taking advantage of the situation yet preventing and avoiding harmful side effects, thus bringing about better and faster economic and social development.” Seems to me that they’re saying “if global warming makes the Taklamakan Desert into a thriving oasis… more power to it!” Though I admit I haven’t read the full text, which is available through the above link.
• 31 December 2007:Regional Social Sciences Union held its annual meeting in Urumqi on the morning of the 29th. 200 scientists attended, revealing research results from 2007 and exchanging academic information.
• 31 December 2007: The Regional People’s Inspection Agency’s Anti-Corruption Bureau announced that this year special investigation operations lead to the conviction of 13 individuals working in the field of health care, including the Regional Health Department Financial Regulations Bureau Chief Chen Jianguo (sentenced to 10 years imprisonment) and the former president of Kashgar Prefecture People’s Hospital Zhu Zhong (sentenced to 14 years).
• 31 December 2007: The Party Secretary of Aletai Prefecture divulged on the 29th that the regional government has already approve the upgrade of Beitun (Beitun in Google Earth) to full city status and will also invest 400 million yuan to help bring about this status change. Beitun, which is the headquarters of the 10th Division of the XPCC, previously only held township status. Intensive urban planning projects aimed at remodeling Beitun began on April of 2007 and was carried out by both Chinese and British engineers.
• 31 December 2007: Qadir Qurban, a Uyghur computer specialist at the Changji police department, has become a candidate for Olympic torchbearer. Qurban was recommended by the Changji Hui Autonomous Prefecture for his efforts in bringing about stability via the implementation of the latest crime fighting theories and technologies. As the torchbearer selection process continues to unfold, Qurban works out daily and continues to pour efforts into his work, knowing that at the very least he can contribute by helping quash any preemptive efforts to hamper the Olympics through his technological work.
• 1 January 2008: This New Years a number of shopping centers passed out discount cards which triggered an upsurge of “panic buying,” leading a Xinhua writer to conclude that holiday frenzy shopping at extremely crowded shopping centers has turned to a new consumerist tradition in Urumqi.
• 1 January 2008: Surveys conducted and funded by the China Petroleum Tarim Oilfields Company and China Petroleum Northwest Oilfields Company have confirmed 974.1 billion cubic meters of proven natural gas deposits in Aksu Prefecture, enough to fill energy quotas for 200 million residents.
• 2 January 2008: On the morning of the 2nd, Urumqi International Airport had to close for the second time within a month due to heavy fog. Several hundred passengers were affected by the delays.
• 3 January 2008: The Central Propaganda Ministry, the National Broadcasting Headquarters, the Regional Party Committee and the Regional Government in cooperation with local industries are carrying out the “TVs for Ten Thousand Homes” project, which will provide 273 thousand 53 cm color TVs to low-income, rural households across Xinjiang. Akto County (a place known for being a hotbed of resistance) resident and program beneficiary Maimaiti Wushou’er gushed, “I didn’t expect that during Qurban festival I’d be sitting on my kang watching television, I must thank the party and the government for their care and consideration. Now I’ll definitely study with enthusiasm party policies, science, and cultural knowledge, and soon I’ll be able to cast off this poverty.” Imagine that! Maybe America can learn a thing or too from China: televisions, not bombs.
• 3 January 2008: Full-scale construction work on the Kashgar-Khotan railroad will begin this year. Surveying investigations and planning for this new railroad was conducted in 2007; now, the projects 6.5 billion yuan worth of construction investments will be directed towards the actual implementation of a new 775 kilometer railroad connecting Kashgar city with Minfeng in Khotan prefecture. The railroad is expected to begin operation in 2010.
• 4 January 2008: The city of Urumqi recently began the first “National Causes of Pollution Survey which will attempt to clarify the data available on pollutant producers in Urumqi by investigating the amount of pollutants, their sources, the directions by which they spread, their regional distribution, the current condition of pollution prevention systems, and expenses being put into pollution management. The data produced by the survey will form the foundation for upcoming pollution management reform.
• 4 January 2008: In 2007 Xinjiang companies extracted 26.4 million tons of crude oil and 21.2 billion cubic meters of natural gas, making Xinjiang the number 1 gas and oil producer in the country. According to current estimates, 20.8 billion tons of crude oil and 10.8 trillion cubic meters of gas are yet to be exploited.
• 5 January 2008: Nur Bekri, acting chairman of the XUAR, made an appearance at the regional Minority Elementary and Middle School Bilingual Training Evaluation and Feedback Meeting. Bekri, who as a high-ranking Uyghur member of both the regional government and the regional party probably underwent bilingual education himself, emphasized the importance of the continuing growth of bilingual education and ensured continuing support on behalf of the government for the program.
• 5 January 2008: The 36th meeting of the 10th Regional People’s Congress Standing Committee occurred on the morning of the 3rd. The primary topic of hand was preparations for transition to the 11th Regional People’s Congress, whose first meeting is rapidly approaching.
• 5 January 2008:As part of the “Fewer Children, Quicker Prosperity” project of the regional Population and Family Planning Committee, over 50 thousand households were each awarded 3000 yuan for voluntary renouncing their right to have a 3rd child. Left unstated in the article is the fact that minorities in rural jurisdictions are permitted to have 3 children per household, so the beneficiaries of this program are probably all non-Han.
• 5 January 2008: Starting from the 6th, the China Southern Airlines route between Urumqi and Dushanbe, Tajikistan will be transformed from a chartered flight to a regularly scheduled and operating flight. The route opened in 2004 but was chartered and therefore prices were often high and flights operated on an erratic schedule. After the 6th, both prices and times for the route are expected to stabilize.
• 5 January 2008: Thanks to rapidly increasing trade between China and Central Asian nations, the export volume of Alashankou, (Alashankou in Google Earth) a trade center located on the border with Kazakhstan on Bortala Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture, surpassed 50 million tons before the close of 2007, officially making it the busiest land-based railroad “port” in the nation.

Other

• 2 January 2007: David Challenger with CNN travel writes a standard-fare travelogue of his trip to Turpan. Though most of the writing is typical first impression descriptions many Xinjiang enthusiasts and scholars have long moved past – “The people were intriguing; Chinese were evident, and of course Uighurs, who looked like a cross between Mongols and Afghanis” – it is nonetheless interesting to see Xinjiang make a blip on a top-level American news network.
• 3 January 2007: Fresh produce industry website Fresh Plaza writes on the growing jujube industry in Gansu in Xinjiang. The jujube industry is expected to expand to over 3 million acres, which will make it the largest jujube base in China.
• 4 January 2007: China View runs aEnglish translation of the Xinhua article above regarding Xinjiang becoming the nation’s top oil/gas producer.
• 4 January 2007: Rocky Mountain News reporter David O. Williams makes some observations about the ski industry’s gradual shift of focus from the United States to Asia. With the skiing and snowboarding industry on the decline in the US, many American ski moguls are turning Asia’s vast untapped markets and prime skiing mountains. Ping Tian resorts near Urumqi are examined as a case study in this move; currently Ping Tian has many Americans on their team to help develop the resort into a top notch resort, including ski trainers who are passing on their skills to (former) Kazakh herdsmen.