Understanding the Uighur Movement-1

[SwamyG]

Brhaspati ji' stance makes greater sense for India - create as many thorns as possible for Mao Country. But don't create a "Frankenstan" that will come back to haunt us. Unkil is embroiled with "frankenstans" it created in the past.

Considering that India has not been able to achieve much w.r.t Tibet having people who are more Indic than Xinjiang; how practical is it to open one more covert frontier. It is not evident from the media that Mao Country is facing enough takleef from Tibetans and/or that it considers India to be khuleefying it. In fact India went all the way to simmer down things just before Olympics. Our famous 'posts lifter' was recommending to keep Mao Country happy out on the Internet. Playing the devil's advocate, both China and India are not going to openly admit the dent India-Tibet relations have caused on the Chinese armor. But what do the gurus @ BRF feel? If we have not been able to khujleefy using Tibet, on what basis are we saying that we can Khujleefy using Xinjiang?

If India was a street rowdy, and we want to hire him to cause trouble to somebody; don't we look at his past experience and credibility before giving him the job? Or is the street rowdy so smart, effective & secretive that nobody knows the damage he can cause? That does not add up because unless somebody recommends that street rowdy why would we even hire him.

Avram: Good points regarding the killing of SL tamilians. LTTE remove RG from the picture and SL tamilians paid the price for it.

[ramana]

But what do the gurus @ BRF feel? If we have not been able to khujleefy using Tibet, on what basis are we saying that we can Khujleefy using Xinjiang?

Good question. Tibetians are constrained by DL's peaceful message. Uighers are not. They are doing a good job if they made Hu return form G-8 on the double.

Supporting Uighers is a consequence of mandala theory. "My enemy's enemy, is my friend!" We can take care of the friendly enemy later. Otherwise one will be in fear psychosis forever.

For all those who bring in Islam, the earlier invasions were more due to power vacuum in India. For eg. Timur invaded the Tughlaq Sultanate depite both being Muslims. Same with Babur or Nadir Shah.

Lets not be haunted by the historical ghosts and scare ourselves into inaction.

[Gerard]

Turkish PM told to take back Xinjiang genocide remark

[Pulikeshi]

India supports those who are willing to take it. The NA was opposed to the Talibanised Pashtun and its coincidental that they were Shia. They are also non-Pashtun. India did not support the Shia Pashtuns for they didn't want the support.

Ramana,

There is no coincidence here. The Shia currently represent the vestige of civilization before Islam swept the land. You see this in Iraq and in Iran among other places. The Sunni are fixing to reach a point of no return in their pursuit of purity. Am I generalizing - you bet I am! India has still not shown that it has the stomach for "getting dirty" outside its boundaries.

The US had TSP to play the "radicalized Sunni" game in Afghanistan against the Soviets.
Anyone, including India, who is dreaming of playing a similar game against China via the Uighurs will need a proxy.
This is what is missing in the strategery I've heard so far. For ex. can Russia or *stans play this game?

Lets not be haunted by the historical ghosts and scare ourselves into inaction.

No me, but it would be foolish to act with an unknown end goal (beyond mandala theory).
Of course all this is hot air - as GOI is probably started Chai-Biskoot with Uighurs as
the first rule of being an empire is to be short sighted, are we there yet?
As RayC said, I for sure am not privy to any knowledge beyond open source...

[SwamyG]

I agree with the Mandala theory. But it will hold good only if we can control the enemy of our enemy. When I asked my question I left one of the obvious things - religion of Uighurs. So Tibetans are peaceful because of DL ; and Uighurs are not because their culture is different + their religion. If that is the case, isn't it like feeding a snake hoping it will bite ONLY our enemy? And say the Uighurs win and secede from China; it means China could not handle them. Then why do we believe that we will be able to handle them?

Fear psychosis is one extreme; and Unkil's example of the usage of 'frankenstans' is @ the other extreme. And both can come back to haunt us. You talk about Power Vacuum in India; has that situation been rectified now? Sometimes calculated inaction can be made to work in our favor too. In that case it is actually an decision to do nothing and implementing (i.e. action) that decision.

It is my speculation that the current situation is because of some 'foreign hand'; why not allow that foreign hand to continue to do the khujlee. Do we know all the players who are playing? If not why want to join the game without knowing the playing field?

ps: From an Indian strategic point DL is standing between India and its goals then.

[enqyoob]

For all those who want to help/encourage the Uighurs to attain Shahadat / Le-Education / build muscles and get a tan breaking rocks in the Gobi Desert:

A Nobel Peace Prize for Twitter?

Mike McDonald By Mike McDonald | Comment

So Simple, So Smart. Get The Online Backup
That Gives You Both. Download a Free Trial
I have been covering Internet business and webmaster news for nearly 10 years now. If I have learned anything over the course of the past decade it is that you just never know what you can expect to see in Internet news every day. Most recent case in point, Twitter’s consideration for a Nobel Peace prize.

That's right. A Nobel Peace Prize. For Twitter. Mark Pfeifle at the Christian Science Monitor writes; "Without Twitter, the people of Iran would not have felt empowered and confident to stand up for freedom and democracy." As impressive as that sounds, I am left feeling a little suspect about the validity of the claim. Call me jaded, but I just really have a hard time thinking that proponents of democracy in the Middle East looked at Twitter and thought to themselves "Now's our chance!".

Don't get me wrong, I love Twitter. I use it all the time, but let's not get too carried away here folks. Does anybody really think Twitter is going to bring peace and democracy to the Middle East? Hey, I hope I'm wrong and it does, then it can move right on to ending hunger and curing cancer...

There u go. Unfortunately I have no idea what either Twitter or FaceBook are, except that they may be even better than BRF at being addictive. And may I stay that way...

[enqyoob]

As I see it, the most important point that has been made here is Avram's - that the Kazakhs and Russians don't see the Uighurs as Oppressed Freedom Fighters, but as pains who need to be kept down, and if it takes the PRC to do it, that's OK. So it would be completely foolish to go start supporting Uighur violence, next door to the Kazakhs. Continued violence in Xinjiang will surely spill into Kazakhstan, and if they don't want any part of it, they will see those fomenting the unrest as meddlers.

Interesting to see these notions of "covert" assistance by India to the Uighurs, that the PRC won't find out anything about.

The Turkish reaction is interesting, and the PRC official's visit there suggests that the situation in Xinjiang is far more serious than reported. Otherwise PRC would just ignore the Turks, or dismiss them with a "vely vely glave consequences" threat.

RayC: With all respect, you are the only postor here who has been casting all this in a religious light, and throwing around all sorts of personal "presumption"-based attacks at those who point out the fallacies in your posts. The rest of us see Islamist terrorism as a creation of the Pakistan Army, with absolutely nothing to do with any religion. Regarding the mobility of a force that has rail and road links right up to their border, vs. one that depends on mules and humans to carry stuff 20 km, I don't think my input is necessary to see the implications - there are plenty of historical examples. Cheers!

[RajeshA]

Anyone, including India, who is dreaming of playing a similar game against China via the Uighurs will need a proxy.

1. There is only one proxy that comes into consideration, and that is Turkey.

2. Turkey is big enough, aggressive enough, nationalist enough to be its own master, and need not be a proxy for anyone. If at all, it will play the proxy for USA to needle PRC.

3. India's job is simply to stay friendly with Turkey and give it airtime. Eventually to boost its resources, so that it can be more troublesome. We can share a forum with them based on common interest in preserving the old cultures of Central Asia.

We need not do more.

[shravan]

Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region “produced 27.22 million tons of crude oil and 23.59 billion cubic meters of natural gas in 2008,” which exceeded amounts from any other region in China. In January 2009, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) announced plans to “ramp up oil and gas production from two fields in the Junggar Basin in Xinjiang province.” Extraction of natural gas from Karamay was also expected to increase, from 3.4 bcm in 2008 to roughly 10 bcm by 2015. Sinopec also announced its intention to increase production at its Tahe field “from 6.59 million t/y this year to 10 million t/y in 2010.” This suggests that energy interests may drive Beijing to emphasize political consolidation over Xinjiang, which in turn may contribute to increased Uighur activism (including, among extreme sectors, violent activities).
---------

[ramana]

Our own SRR article shows up first in a google search on Xinjiang!

Xinjiang

Xinjiang, the land of the Taklamakan desert, home to the Uighur people may seem like an arid wasteland forgotten in the pages of time. However great resources lurk beneath the desert sands and profitable exploitation offers a chance for considerable fortunes. Xinjiang’s geography also offers many advantages. China is keenly aware of the strategic importance of the Xinjiang region. Xinjiang not only provides an avenue for gaining energy security but also an opportunity to engage regional powers like India and Pakistan, and a gateway to West Asia and Russia. For these reasons, China has invested considerable amounts of money in its infrastructure to avoid a repeat of regional history, when benign neglect of the province invited international challengers. From an Indian perspective, a deeper exploration of Xinjiang and the opportunities it may provide is desirable.

We used to think in those days!


Wiki article on Xinjiang points out it is India's neighbor in Ladakh.

(Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region) of the People's Republic of China and also claimed by the territory of Republic of China (current government ruling Taiwan). It is a large, sparsely populated area, spanning over 1.6 million km2 (comparable in size to Iran), which takes up about one sixth of the country's territory. Xinjiang borders the Tibet Autonomous Region and India's Leh District to the south and Qinghai and Gansu provinces to the southeast, Mongolia to the east, Russia to the north, and Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India to the west. It administers most of Aksai Chin, a territory formally part of Kashmir's Ladakh region over which India has claimed sovereignty since 1962.

"Xinjiang" or "Ice Jecen" in Manchu, literally means "New Frontier" a name given during the Manchu Qing Dynasty in China.[1] It is home to a number of different ethnic groups, many of them Turkic, the largest of which is the Uyghur people. Older English-language reference works often refer to the area as Chinese Turkestan[2], Sinkiang, East Turkestan, or Uyghuristan. More specifically, at times, the term East Turkestan only referred to Xinjiang area south of Tien Shan, North of Tien Shan was called Dzungaria (Zungaria). [3]

The east-west Tien Shan Mountains separate Dzungaria in the north from the Tarim Basin in the south. Dzungaria is dry steppe. The Tarim Basin is desert surrounded by oases. In the east is the Turfan Depression. In the west, the Tien Shan split, forming the Ili River valley......

[satya]

Not all the factions of CCP have a common goal . Uighur fall out was allowed to get out of hand 'deliberately' to settle scores and it was the reason President Hu rushed back . There's an intense power struggle going on for Hu is first from Chinese Youth Congress to become President and its not going down well with other deep rooted factions of CCP . PLA has become a power center in itself and was never under complete control of Hu irrespective of his numerous attempts . This is a first for PLA in becoming an ''independent power center'' for all earlier Presidents had it under their wings . Interesting times ahead only.

[ramana]

Was Xinjiang under Hu's control? Was he the responsible person for the Uighers? It does make sense to ask where is Wen?

PLA till now had is leaders in the power circles. Not with this duo.

So a Hu and Wen power struggle might be going on. If Hu can control the situation then Wen is out along with who else?

[James B]

Was Xinjiang under Hu's control? Was he the responsible person for the Uighers? It does make sense to ask where is Wen?

PLA till now had is leaders in the power circles. Not with this duo.

So a Hu and Wen power struggle might be going on. If Hu can control the situation then Wen is out along with who else?

The power struggle is between Shanghai group led by Jiang Zemin and president Hu.

http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=3925

The power struggle in Beijing between China's military strongman, Jiang Zemin, and the country's two reformist government leaders, President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, is of momentous importance to the United States and East Asia.

To put it in simple terms, Jiang's faction represents an ideology of nationalism with a stress on the primacy of the military's needs to ensure a prosperous and strong nation. [1] Hu and Wen represent moderation and reform in society and politics, balanced and sustainable economic development across all geographic and demographic strata, and international cooperation and global coordination without the constant stress on "using force to resolve the Taiwan question".

[Suraj]

See Rahul M's document on Hu and the PLA in the PRC Political News thread.

Neither Hu nor Wen have the unqualified support of the PLA. Jiang earned the PLA's backing through his aggresive financial support to PLA modernization, for which the PLA formalized Jiang's contribution through their backing of his Three Represents theory.

Hu and Wen, on the other hand, are CPC party men; Deng picked out Hu early to be groomed into his current role. It's interesting that Jiang has still not walked away from power fully. While Deng too had strong backing from the PLA after Jiang took over, the two of them had similar mindsets. On the other hand, it appears there's friction between Hu/Wen and Jiang. Rahul M - interesting stuff for your document here.

[satya]

The power struggle between Shanghai Faction & CYC faction is a classic Class struggle ( CYC never tasted power = lower class in a society & other factions = Shanghai , princelings so on always in power = high class/ elites ) in simple words nothing more nothing less. This doesn't mean that CYC faction is all for peace , it only means they want a new Emperor & his set of policies constituting = harmonious society . CYC believes since it has seen the poor provinces more closely it understands them better but at same time they are rabidly fanatics . One should never forget CYC's role in Mao's cultural revolution , they still swear by it .

[Rishirishi]

But what do the gurus @ BRF feel? If we have not been able to khujleefy using Tibet, on what basis are we saying that we can Khujleefy using Xinjiang?

Good question. Tibetians are constrained by DL's peaceful message. Uighers are not. They are doing a good job if they made Hu return form G-8 on the double.

Supporting Uighers is a consequence of mandala theory. "My enemy's enemy, is my friend!" We can take care of the friendly enemy later. Otherwise one will be in fear psychosis forever.

For all those who bring in Islam, the earlier invasions were more due to power vacuum in India. For eg. Timur invaded the Tughlaq Sultanate depite both being Muslims. Same with Babur or Nadir Shah.

Lets not be haunted by the historical ghosts and scare ourselves into inaction.

I think it will be a grave mistake to support the Uighers. Why do we need to become the enemy of China, and how do we know that the same people do not find their way into India? China is watching India very carefully.

But an upprise is definately of interest, as it will drive a division between China and the Muslim world. Perhaps one can bribe conservative mullas to make fiery friday speaches. "spineless pak government fails to hand support to Uighers" type of material.

[enqyoob]

Analysis: Income gaps, corruption fuel China riots
By CHARLES HUTZLER, Associated Press Writer Charles Hutzler, Associated Press Writer Tue Jul 14, 3:00 pm ET

BEIJING – Widening income gaps, corrupt local administrations and policies that seem to favor the well-connected few over the disadvantaged many are fueling spasms of violence that spring up in cities across China.

In the most recent case, more than 180 people died in ethnic violence that convulsed a Muslim area of western China last week. The spark for the unrest in Xinjiang was a brawl between majority Han Chinese and Muslim Uighur factory workers 1,800 miles away.

Weeks earlier, tens of thousands of people swarmed into the streets of a city in the country's heartland, overturning police cars and torching a hotel. The trigger for those riots, which left hundreds injured in Shishou, was the supposed suicide of a hotel chef.

Though the events that precipitated the two riots were strikingly different, the underlying forces behind them were in many ways the same. In neither instance did people believe accounts from the government and police, and their disbelief soon tapped into long-standing grievances — Uighur unemployment in Xinjiang and corrupt, mafia-like government in Shishou.

Tens of thousands of what the government calls "sudden mass incidents" rock China every year, presumably soaring in number since Beijing stopped releasing the statistic publicly in 2005, when there were 87,000 of them. While loss of life is rarely on the scale of the Xinjiang riot, protesters often vent their rage on public property, burning government offices and cars.
All told, the violence underscores how unfair China seems to many Chinese, rife with inequities that frequently cause unrest to bubble up. Social justice, a phrase banned by Internet censors earlier this decade, is now in vogue as the communist leadership realizes leaving the tensions unacknowledged risks its credibility.

Beneath the friction is China's rapid transformation into a highly competitive society. In the headlong rush from a poor, centrally planned and largely rural economy into the world-beating manufacturing and trading giant the country now is, many Chinese have lost the secure lifetime jobs and social safety nets they enjoyed a generation ago.

.......
... distribution of wealth has grown increasingly uneven. The U.N. Development Program puts China on a par with Mexico...

After Xinjiang's communal eruption last week, ....government officials said much of the violence was perpetrated by people from southern Xinjiang — a euphemism for the Uighur migrants who flock to the regional capital of Urumqi looking for work and often take low-paying jobs as fruit peddlers.

....A fledgling middle class, worried over their futures, is also mounting protests.
A week before the Xinjiang riot, the hottest topic on the Internet — the most freewheeling public forum in China — was outrage over a top-scorer in the ultra-competitive college entrance exam. The 17-year-old Han Chinese student's family falsely listed him as a minority, entitling him to 20 extra points and giving him a boost in landing places in top schools. The subterfuge, discovered by education officials, cut across notions of fairness in a society that for hundreds of years has seen standardized exams as a channel for merit-based advancement.

Han Chinese tend to view ethnic minorities as privileged groups, generally exempt from the disliked one-child family planning limits and helped by reserved spots for government jobs and in universities.
Meanwhile, ethnic minorities see themselves as underprivileged, many of them poorer than the Han Chinese and with lesser education and language skills that make it harder to compete. It's worse for the Tibetans and the Uighurs, who see the Han as elbowing into what they regard as their homelands.

Government rhetoric .. immediately branded last year's uprising in Tibetan areas and this month's riot in Xinjiang as the work of terrorists, separatists and malign foreign forces, suggesting a plot to carve up China. Such language obscures these groups' grievances over government policies and feeds stereotypes among some Chinese that the Uighurs were ungrateful for the state's largesse.

The approach is unlike Beijing's treatment of unrest elsewhere in China, in which officials express sympathy and then often funnel cash payments to quiet the disgruntled unemployed laborers, dispossessed farmers and others at the center of local protests.

The strategy is known as "spending money to buy stability." Over the past month, state media has begun to question the tactic, running articles adding a modifier to the phrase: "spending money to buy temporary stability."

___

EDITOR'S NOTE — Charles Hutzler is The Associated Press bureau chief in Beijing and has covered China for more than a decade.

[enqyoob]

Perhaps one can bribe conservative mullas to make fiery friday speaches. "spineless pak government fails to hand support to Uighers" type of material.

AllahoAkbar, RishiRishi! The mullahs of BENIS stand ready to assist in exactly such a great and Holy jihaad!

[brihaspati]

ramana wrote
For all those who bring in Islam, the earlier invasions were more due to power vacuum in India. For eg. Timur invaded the Tughlaq Sultanate depite both being Muslims.

Tinur did not show any inclination to setup any government in India. His campaign was officially that the Muslim Delhi Sultanate was too tolerant toward its Hindu subjects. Timur repeatedly writes in his memoirs of his specific disdain for the 'idolatrous' Hindus.
[Tuzk-e-Taimuri‎] Here goes his own motivations for coming to India:

"In a short space of time all the people in the Delhi fort were put to the sword, and in the course of one hour the heads of 10,000 infidels were cut off. The sword of Islam was washed in the blood of the infidels, and all the goods and effects, the treasure and the grain which for many a long year had been stored in the fort became the spoil of my soldiers. They set fire to the houses and reduced them to ashes, and they razed the buildings and the fort to the ground....All these infidel Hindus were slain. Their women and children and their property and goods became the spoil of the victors. I proclaimed throughout the camp that every man who had infidel prisoners should put them to death, and whoever neglected to do so should himself be executed and his property given to the informer. When this order became known to the ghazis of Islam, they drew their swords and put their prisoners to death.

One hundred thousand infidels, impious idolaters, were on that day slain. Maulana Nasiruddin Umar, a counselor and man of learning, who, in all his life, had never killed a sparrow, now, in execution of my order, slew with his sword fifteen idolatrous Hindus, who were his captives....on the great day of battle these 100,000 prisoners could not be left with the baggage, and that it would be entirely opposed to the rules of war to set these idolaters and enemies of Islam at liberty... no other course remained but that of making them all food for the sword."

As per Malfuzat-i-Timuri, Timur targeted Hindus. In his menoirs he writes "Excepting the quarter of the saiyids, the ulama and the other Musalmans, the whole city was sacked". In his descriptions of the Loni massacre he wrote, "Next day I gave orders that the Musalman prisoners should be separated and saved." [Malfuzat-i Timuri, aka Tuzuk-i Timuri: The Autobiography or Memoirs of Emperor, from: Elliot and Dowson : The History of India, as Told by Its Own Historians. The Muhammadan Period. ]

Incidentally, Timur-the-Lame has a significant role in the promotion of Islamization among the Uyghurs, under the variious Chagatai regimes who were sometimes allied aometimes in war with the Timurid regimes. It was under this influence that the Buddhist ildate portion of the Uyghurs were finally converted giving a bulk of the base for "Mughulistan". It was this base which supplied the final "Mughal" conquest of India.

[enqyoob]

Oh! Look at this! Mexico has hired Chinese Xylons from Xinjiang!

[RayC]

RayC: With all respect, you are the only postor here who has been casting all this in a religious light, and throwing around all sorts of personal "presumption"-based attacks at those who point out the fallacies in your posts. The rest of us see Islamist terrorism as a creation of the Pakistan Army, with absolutely nothing to do with any religion. Regarding the mobility of a force that has rail and road links right up to their border, vs. one that depends on mules and humans to carry stuff 20 km, I don't think my input is necessary to see the implications - there are plenty of historical examples. Cheers!

First of all, I did not want to reply in the open forum, but it appears that you are making a habit of it. So here goes my reply, just to take a leaf off you!

If you will recall, I had mentioned off the open forum that it is my training that prevents me from washing dirty linen in public!

I am afraid I am not the one who started the religion angle.

If you observed asprinzl's post, where he was amazed that we are supporting the Uighurs on this forum when Pakistan and Muslims have wreaked havoc on India. I only said that geostrategy is beyond religion. So spare me your accusation.

Anger has no place in deciding national policies.

I am afraid, there is enough proof in this forum to show that 'rest of us' do not see Islamist terrorism as the sole creation of the Pakistani Army and instead see it as the creation of the religion. It is not that I have surfaced on this forum by magic overnight!

I am afraid, you continue to be in a delusion that the Tibetan Railway is right next to the border. I have even appended map links for your benefit including the relief map. As far as my knowledge goes, it terminates at Lhasa. And again as far as my knowledge goes and what I have seen from the northern most post of the Indian Army off the Tibetan Plateau, I was not able to see Lhasa from there either.

Now, if you do not understand the 20 km issue, what can I do?

I am amused that you find my contentions fallacious! What makes you or others the sole dispenser of 'facts'?

I beg to disagree that there is any 'attacks' made by me. It is just that I am not an expert in obfuscating with fancy footwork and words what I want to state.

I am writing in this open forum, just to dispel your accusation that others who do not have the access privilege to the Moderators Forum do not feel that my non reply is proof that you are correct with your facts.

I will not reply any further on this issue and you can write what you want.

[brihaspati]

I understand the need for "clearance", but is there anything specific about "20"? Would it not depend on the terrain and type of "reception" being prepared for the unannounced guests? I mean it could be more or less than 20 depending on the situation?

[RayC]

It varies from place to place.

It depends on the Threat Analysis and the mode in which that threat is to be met.

While one may decry the GOI and feel that the defence forces are totally incompetent, it may not be the case.

It will be appreciated that somethings do not get placed in the open forum for obvious reasons.

For instance, on the Rajasthan border, the Munnabao-Khokrapar rail link was not there till quite recently, when it was reconstructed as a CBM.

[brihaspati]

It will be unfair to presume that the "commons" blame the defence setup or declares them incompetent. Far from it. Even the GOI is not dubbed a fool or incompetent in the sense that they do not have the intelligence to come to normal and logical conclusions in their assessments. The more common premise is that the GOI somehow chooses not to act. Or it muzzles up the defence forces. Or it handicaps the defence forces by not equipping them properly (not releasing and spending money in proper time for example) or by not setting clear political objectives in connection with military objectives. With a few exceptional rare periods of clarity and purpose, mostly under "charismatic individuals", the GOI has not shown inclination to act - that at least is the apparent scenario. The commons could be wrong, but it is the task of the GOI to show and convince otherwise.

[RayC]

http://www.uygur.org/wunn04/01_08.htm

[RayC]

Deadly Uighur riots may force policy debate in Beijing

The Communist Partyhas swung between hardline policies that aim to crush dissent and weaken ethnic identity and softer approaches that attempt to make minorities feel they can have a dual identity, both Chinese and Tibetan or Uighur


Emma Graham-Harrison / Reuters

Beijing: The script is jarringly familiar. Bodies lie on riot-scarred streets of an ethnic minority area, troops fan out, unrest rumbles on and Beijing denounces overseas enemies bent on splitting China.

Less than 18 months ago, when the violence was in Tibet, China’s response appeared knee-jerk — a harsh crackdown and tight security ever since.
But as discontent played out in energy-rich Xinjiang this week, analysts say there was almost certainly a parallel round of debate taking place within the secretive Communist Party — about where policy on ethnic minorities went wrong........

But two explosions of deadly rioting barely over a year apart are an embarrassing public challenge to the rule of a government that has brooked little dissent since taking power in 1949........

The Communist Party has for decades swung between hardline policies that aim to crush dissent and weaken ethnic identity and softer approaches that attempt to make minorities feel they can have a dual identity, both Chinese and Tibetan or Uighur.
Those who favour a more conciliatory approach will now likely use the explosions of violence as evidence that Beijing cannot rule its vast hinterlands by coercion alone.
But China has poured cash into Xinjiang and Tibet along with its troops and many Han Chinese think that with development subsidies, the construction of schools and clinics and some affirmative action, the government has already done enough.

“In the past, there have been policies in favour of minorities, but many minorities have not been able to take advantage of these policies,” said Bo Zhiyue, a China politics expert at Singapore’s East Asian Institute.

“I don’t think there’s a fundamental policy problem, but it’s a fundamental governance issue,” he added, expressing a view shared by much of China’s elite................

Uighurs, however, say they have been left behind economically as Han Chinese dominate development opportunities, are unhappy that they cannot practise their religion as they wish and resent an inflow of migrants from the rest of China.....

Many Uighur intellectuals are now convinced that a future as a genuinely autonomous part of China could be better than independence.....

But for Beijing, genuine autonomy is not really an option because of the precedent it could set for other parts of the country to break away from central control.......

Besides stirring up questions about domestic management of minority areas, the riots have put Xinjiang on the world stage, but it is unlikely to turn into another foreign policy headache.
Until now, the oil-rich region has been less of a worry for China’s diplomats than Tibet, because the Uighurs and their plight have a low profile both in the West and Muslim nations.......................

Besides stirring up questions about domestic management of minority areas, the riots have put Xinjiang on the world stage, but it is unlikely to turn into another foreign policy headache.

Until now, the oil-rich region has been less of a worry for China’s diplomats than Tibet, because the Uighurs and their plight have a low profile both in the West and Muslim nations...........................


China’s global clout, and its general refusal to comment strongly on internal affairs of other countries, may also mute leaders of Muslim majority nations who want Chinese investment.
But though individual nations have remained largely silent, or echoed China’s position of “non-interference”, the Saudi-based Organisation of the Islamic Conference, a league of 57 Muslim nations, condemned excessive use of force against Uighur civilians and urged China to investigate

http://www.livemint.com/2009/07/1011384 ... force.html

[Gerard]

China pleads for understanding as al-Qaeda vows revenge over Uighur deaths

"Chop off their heads at their workplaces or in their homes to tell them that the time of enslaving Muslims has gone," read one posting. It is the first time that any al-Qaeda group has threatened China or its interests and illustrates the high price that Beijing may pay for the riots in Urumqi,

[RayC]

China pleads for understanding as al-Qaeda vows revenge over Uighur deaths

"Chop off their heads at their workplaces or in their homes to tell them that the time of enslaving Muslims has gone," read one posting. It is the first time that any al-Qaeda group has threatened China or its interests and illustrates the high price that Beijing may pay for the riots in Urumqi,

It sure has made China jittery.

It will have a serious effect on China's attempt to make economic and strategicfootprints all over Asia and Africa.

For the first time, if I am not mistaken, China has cared for other nation's opinion over her actions.

[Prem]

Wonder how many Jihaids in TSp wil be willing to take revenge on Chinese ..in exchange for few laks of PKRs.

[Yayavar]

I think it will be a grave mistake to support the Uighers. Why do we need to become the enemy of China, and how do we know that the same people do not find their way into India? China is watching India very carefully.

But an upprise is definately of interest, as it will drive a division between China and the Muslim world. Perhaps one can bribe conservative mullas to make fiery friday speaches. "spineless pak government fails to hand support to Uighers" type of material.

Irrespective of everything -- lip-service, passive or active or neutrality from India on Uigher issue -- does China need to be become an enemy? You probably mean it might be incited to make even more aggressive moves. Has it not been supporting Pak and NE insurgencies for years now?

[RayC]

Analysis: Income gaps, corruption fuel China riots

By CHARLES HUTZLER – 7 hours ago

BEIJING (AP) — Widening income gaps, corrupt local administrations and policies that seem to favor the well-connected few over the disadvantaged many are fueling spasms of violence that spring up in cities across China.......

Though the events that precipitated the two riots were strikingly different, the underlying forces behind them were in many ways the same. In neither instance did people believe accounts from the government and police, and their disbelief soon tapped into long-standing grievances — Uighur unemployment in Xinjiang and corrupt, mafia-like government in Shishou.


All told, the violence underscores how unfair China seems to many Chinese, rife with inequities that frequently cause unrest to bubble up. Social justice, a phrase banned by Internet censors earlier this decade, is now in vogue as the communist leadership realizes leaving the tensions unacknowledged risks its credibility.

Beneath the friction is China's rapid transformation into a highly competitive society. In the headlong rush from a poor, centrally planned and largely rural economy into the world-beating manufacturing and trading giant the country now is, many Chinese have lost the secure lifetime jobs and social safety nets they enjoyed a generation ago.

As standards of living have risen, so have aspirations — and frustrations when outside factors like kickbacks and nepotism further unlevel the playing field.......

After Xinjiang's communal eruption last week, in which Uighurs attacked Han Chinese and ransacked their shops and then Han groups retaliated, government officials said much of the violence was perpetrated by people from southern Xinjiang — a euphemism for the Uighur migrants who flock to the regional capital of Urumqi looking for work and often take low-paying jobs as fruit peddlers.......

A week before the Xinjiang riot, the hottest topic on the Internet — the most freewheeling public forum in China — was outrage over a top-scorer in the ultra-competitive college entrance exam.

The 17-year-old Han Chinese student's family falsely listed him as a minority, entitling him to 20 extra points and giving him a boost in landing places in top schools. The subterfuge, discovered by education officials, cut across notions of fairness in a society that for hundreds of years has seen standardized exams as a channel for merit-based advancement.

Fairness is more complicated when different ethnic groups are involved. Han Chinese tend to view ethnic minorities as privileged groups, generally exempt from the disliked one-child family planning limits and helped by reserved spots for government jobs and in universities.

Meanwhile, ethnic minorities see themselves as underprivileged, many of them poorer than the Han Chinese and with lesser education and language skills that make it harder to compete. It's worse for the Tibetans and the Uighurs, who see the Han as elbowing into what they regard as their homelands.......

It immediately branded last year's uprising in Tibetan areas and this month's riot in Xinjiang as the work of terrorists, separatists and malign foreign forces, suggesting a plot to carve up China. Such language obscures these groups' grievances over government policies and feeds stereotypes among some Chinese that the Uighurs were ungrateful for the state's largesse......

The approach is unlike Beijing's treatment of unrest elsewhere in China, in which officials express sympathy and then often funnel cash payments to quiet the disgruntled unemployed laborers, dispossessed farmers and others at the center of local protests.

The strategy is known as "spending money to buy stability."....

More at:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/art ... AD99EDBG05

[rsingh]

Cross post RamaY said

Looks like Chinese stand to loose more economically then India. B Verma argument was based on "attacking India in order to ease the internal tensions..........use nationalism to make people forget hardships". I belive if China really does this.............it may even disintegrate her because you can not feed billions on nationalism alone for long. Any misadventure from Chinese will bring economy down. Guys yellowing pants over thought of China attacking are taking Indian soft power for granted. Anywhere in world aam admi prefer an Indian to a Chini. ...........and China is China because of it external trade.

[shravan]

China's Strategic Challenges Go Well Beyond the Uighurs

Rioting last week between ethnic Han Chinese and ethnic Uighurs in China's Xinjiang Province left 180 people dead and 1,000 injured. Chinese police and paramilitary forces arrested 1,500.

The Beijing government insistently weighs media coverage of China. The ethnic clashes so troubled Chinese President Hu Jintao that he left the G-8 economic summit. Hu's hasty departure, in front of the cameras of every global news organization, indicates how serious the Chinese government views the violence in its far northwestern province.

Though officially designated the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, the region is not autonomous and, as time passes, less Uighur. Beijing dominates provincial politics, which is one reason the region's 9 million Uighurs chafe. For the Turkic and predominantly Sunni Muslim Uighurs, Beijing's policy of "Sinicization" is a key source of friction. The policy promotes the centralization of Chinese state authority on China's periphery, in the "delicate" border areas that make Beijing very nervous.

The migration of ethnic Han Chinese is another facet. The Han and Han sub-groups are the dominant ethnic group in China, and to ethnic Uighur activists, the slow but massive Han migration into Xinjiang amounts to cultural and ethnic drowning, and eventual Uighur assimilation as the Han population swells.

The Tibetans make the same accusation for the same reasons. Tibetans have rioted -- in 2008, 200 Tibetans died in a Beijing-ordered crackdown.

Uighurs, like Tibetans, have had their own state. An East Turkestan Republic briefly existed in the 1940s as distracted Chinese nationalists and communists fought the Japanese and their own civil war. The victorious communist army returned in 1949, and East Turkestan disappeared from the map. It has not disappeared from Uighur memory, however, as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) indicates.

ETIM is a testament to Uighur desperation. It is an al-Qaida affiliate. Radical Islamists offer money, weapons training and promises. Follow Osama bin Laden, and when he establishes the global caliphate, Islamist Uighurs will rule a revived East Turkestan, just like Spanish Muslims will reconquer Spain. The four recently released Guantanamo Bay Uighurs (arrested in Afghanistan, now starting a restaurant in Bermuda) likely fell for such propaganda.

In the wake of the riots, al-Qaida's North African affiliate, al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), is threatening to attack Chinese workers in Africa. The Uighurs have received some ethnic support from very distant but concerned cousins. A senior Turkish government official has demanded that Turks boycott Chinese-made goods because of the Chinese crackdown. Turkey has a record for supporting the rights of ethnic Turkic peoples throughout Asia.

Turkey is also a member of NATO -- an American audience may not immediately note that fact, but Beijing's foreign ministry does.

Which leads to the strategic issues that pulled President Hu from the G-8 summit.

As the minorities on the periphery see it, China's "Han core" is fighting a slow war of expansion. Beijing, however, scans its borders and sees challenges and threats. Vietnam remains a latent enemy. In 1979, China and Vietnam fought a brief but bloody border war. The South China Sea is a potential war zone, as Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, China and -- yes -- Taiwan -- have conflicting claims. Taiwan is an armed thorn. Beijing's generals have been telling the world the mainland will acquire Taiwan -- preferably by diplomacy, but by force if required.

The Koreas pose problems. North Korean nukes rattle East Asia. China fears a collapse in Pyongyang would have dire economic consequences but -- worse, from Beijing's perspective -- could produce a United Korea. Imagine a super-South Korea, modern, wealthy, militarily capable and biting into China like a bulldog.

Japan, Russia, Mongolia: The Japanese are ancient antagonists, Russia occupies Siberia (which China claims the czars stole), and the Mongols want to be U.S. allies.

As for Central Asian Turkic peoples, Beijing fears the collapse of the Soviet Union is not complete, at least in terms of ethnic political aspirations. The Uighurs are symptomatic.

China's absorption of Tibet remains incomplete, and south of Tibet lies India. India and China fought a war in 1962.

China's Han? Perhaps the core is not so solid. Chinese Han regions (e.g., Guangdong in the south) see differences in language, culture, history and economic development.

President Hu, call your office.

[p_saggu]

I think the process of undermining the chinese with an Islam vs China war has begun already. There are some suggestions that the west wants peace with the warring Islamic groups so that they may be directed at China.
China remains the unfinished business of the cold war - It was china all along that the US forces faced, all the way back to Korea and Vietnam.

China has to be concerned.

[kmkraoind]

X-Post from PRC Political thread

Shot Uighurs called for holy war, says China

[RayC]

shravan

Interesting commentary!

[RajeshA]

Islamism Diversion Project Theory

The West has used Jihadis before to attack another Superpower, the Soviet Union, and it worked. Why cannot the West use the same tactics again? Sure it can.

The West's capacity to play dirty-games is endless, and the West's capacity to wrap everything up in candy-floss is also endless.

If we remember, the George W. Bush's first Administration started with a stand-off with China with an American surveillance plane forced to land in Hainan. A few months later, came 911 and USA turned its ire against the Islamists. But let's be honest. America is best when confronted with a conventional foe, with a Nazi Germany, or a Soviet Union, or a China. That is when America makes its leaps forward.

Asymmetric warfare with a bunch of Bedouins running amok in deserts or Arabia, or in the mountains of Hindu Kush increases the distraction field of American Military. Lots of hot spots spread all over the globe, may seem to favor the global spread of American might, but it also opens up so many battlefields, which become a drain on American potency.

Now what have we heard lately:
1. Barack Hussein Obama bringing the war in Iraq to a close.
2. Barack Hussein Obama renewing American friendship with Turkey.
3. Barack Hussein Obama kissing Muslim a$$ in Cairo.
4. Barack Hussein Obama forcing Pakistan to divert its animosity from India away towards the challenges from Taliban, practically forcing an ally of China to do its bidding, and to change its rhetoric accordingly. India restarting talks with Pakistan, so that America supplants China as the big chief in Islamabad. It also involves forcing Pakistan to do the curbing of anti-American elements in the Pushtun badlands, so that America has to do less killing of Muslims. It involves making Pakistan the shield
5. Barack Hussein Obama putting Israel on a short leash, and getting serious about stopping settlement activity.

There will be many examples one would see of America bringing its war with Islam to a closure. They found out long ago, that they cannot win the GWoT the conventional way. It is all about trying to divert the exhaust pipe away from the West. Islamism cannot be put back into the bottle. Even if America withdraws to its boundaries, it will go after it. Diversion is the only route to peace, for the giant to catch its breath. So the question for America is where to divert the exhaust, the sewage, the flood. If you can't kill the monster out to eat you, to save yourself you will have to arrange for another source of meat for the monster.

India should be worried, that USA does not choose to somehow divert the exhaust pipe towards India. It has sufficient assets in India to play around with our easily combustible social fabric. America could play the communal card, something which was the preserve of political parties in India up till now. No wonder GoI is playing meek and friendly towards America. Because whosoever America chooses now as the sink for Islamic exhaust, will be for a long time to come, be fully fracked. So GoI restarts talks with Pakistan. We have even heard the likes of Rajnath Singh and others in BJP trying to make love to Pakistan!!! America has already played around with the idea of pushing Kashmir into the mix, and as they say, 'All options are on the table'. So we have reason to be scared.

The Iranians are another possible target for Salafi madness. It has to be remembered that the world's attention was focused on Iran and its bungled election. May be it was also to weaken the Iranian establishment just enough to make Iran a more attractive target for the Salafis, who could look at Iran as something doable. That struggle in Islam is however a long story and would not have preoccupied political Islam completely. They still need to fight the Kufr to establish their Islamist credentials. However the Iranian Shia chapter is not completely closed. Weren't the Saudis willing to allow Israel to undertake aerial attacks against Iranian nuclear facilities!

The Russians too are wary, so they have agreed to provide America with as much transit America needs to supply its Afghanistan operations. Sure there may be a plethora of reasons for that, but Russians too want to avoid that instead of taking the Islamists head-on as was the policy of the Bush Administration, the Obama Administration decides that Russia can be a juicy target for its Islamism Diversion Project.

So whether the show in Urumqi was stage-managed, or only air-time was made available to the Uyghurs, it opens up a new option, of diverting the exhaust pipe, the monster towards America's primary adversary, People's Republic of China, an adversary America does not want to attack head on, because of the economic factors. Let's also not forget to what extremes America went to not deliver the Guantanamo Bay Uyghur inmates to PRC. They are now happy in Bermuda.

The GWoT against Islamic terrorism is now taking a turn, and BHO may have found an option in Urumqi. Now the question is whether AQIM will deliver. Also something to observe would be to what level the Hisb-ut-Tahrir and other groups sitting pretty in Londonistan would become involved in an anti-PRC campaign. The Chinese Muslims in Indonesia, a country once home to BHO, are already calling for Jihad against PRC.

Interesting times ahead.

My humble prescription would be:

India should befriend its Deoband as soon as possible. Get India to be declared Dar-ul-Islam. Get all sorts of Muslim groups to come out on the streets and protest PRC actions against the Uyghurs, and their lack of religious freedoms. Basically to play our own Islamism Diversion Project, and tell America that they would not be able to make India a target of their diversion, for we can play the same games one can play in London and Washington, and Kashmir is not for the West to decide.

Sounds abhorrent and despicable perhaps on BRF, but one needs to weigh the alternatives. BTW, I myself feel crazy for making this suggestion.

[Philip]

I'm sure that the Uighar's "brethren" in Af-Pak and elsewhere along wiht concerned friends from the west,will loan them an ungodly quantity of IEDs and other arms with which to conduct military strikes against Chinese military and para-military forces.A guerilla campaign of sabotage and atttacks against PRC adminstration's interests will keep the PRC busy in the province for decades.The longer the PRC infuriates the locals,the more support they will receive from the Islamic states .

[RajeshA]

LeT active again: UN Official

"Lashkar-e-Taiba tactics is quite obvious. It is trying to increase tensions between India and Pakistan at a time when they and their associates are particularly under pressure in western Pakistan," said Richard Barrett, Coordinator of the UN Security Council's al-Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Monitoring Committee.

"They may do that again," Mr. Barrett said, adding that this is the real risk. Mr. Barrett along with Chairman of the Security Council's al-Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Committee, Thomas Mayr-Harting, the Austrian Ambassador, addressed a joint press conference at the UN headquarters in New York.

Folks, the Indian Home Ministry's warning and the UN official's anticipation of another terror strike by the LeT show the next strike is imminent. It could be a Southern city, one that has escaped so far.

Can it simply be, that PRC too is trying to divert the world's attention from East Turkestan, and has asked its Pakistani friends to launch another LeT attack on India. A possible backlash against IMs or a bloody media trail would be just the right thing, and everybody would have forgotten the Uyghur deaths in Urumqi.

[shravan]

^^ You are Reading too much into it...