The securitization of the Uyghur question and its challenges.

• Author: Kanat, Kilic Bugra
• Position: Report

Although, the Uyghur question in China dates back to hundreds of years, one of the critical turning points of the issue took place after the establishment of the East Turkestan Republics in the 1930s and 40s. These republics later were taken over by China. Founded under the name of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), the new regime assured the cultural, social and political rights of Uyghurs and other minorities living in the area. However, the totalitarian system subsequently established by the communist state suppressed the entire Chinese nation and its minority regions. The Mao regime adopted policies for the homogenization of the society, where Muslim Uyghurs and their cultural and social differences were perceived as counter-revolutionary threats. As religious and cultural pressures peaked, Uyghurs, along with millions of other citizens became victims of hunger and outright famine as a result of the problematic economic policies of the central authority.

Later, the Chinese regime chose XUAR as a pilot region for both nuclear tests and a search for natural resources. In the run up to the end of the Cold War, the region was isolated from the world and Uyghurs existed under tremendous pressure and threat from the central authority. Temporary relief came alongside basic freedoms granted to the region in the early 1980s. These new freedoms were enacted as a result of major policy changes toward minority regions by the central authority. In fact as a result of changing policies in China as a whole, after the death of Mao, the XUAR region and its people took advantage of the limited liberalization policies in these years.

With the adoption of repressive policies in the XUAR 1949 onwards, a Uyghur movement emerged amongst the group's diaspora population with the goal of establishing an independent Eastern Turkestan Republic for Uyghurs. Cabinet members from the Republic of East Turkistan, which was previously established in 1944, settled in Turkey and the Central Asian Republics during the Cold War years, giving birth to the first diaspora movements of Uyghurs. In particular, Uyghurs who gathered around the political leaders, such as Isa Yusuf Alptekin, laid the foundation for an organization that was to become a source of inspiration for subsequent diaspora movements. However, these diaspora organizations suffered from financial and operational difficulties because of their continued isolation and systemic constraints in international relations.

Things in China changed dramatically with Tiananmen Square, the end of the Cold War, and the corresponding wave of independence for the Central Asian Republics. Together with the shattering of the Eastern Bloc, the events in Tiananmen Square created a climate of insecurity and paranoia among the policymakers in Beijing. In the last years of the 1980s, under pressure from rising public unrest, the Beijing government approached every hint of dissent as a potential destabilizer and threat to the survival of the regime.

For most of this period, foreign journalists and researchers were largely denied access to the region. There was not much information available due to the strict travel regulations and controlled access to information. Outside of the region, the problems of Uyghurs were only reported through anecdotal evidence. The Uyghurs and their cultural traits were seldom discussed in terms of relations with the greater Turkic world. Historical studies about the region became more prominent than studies about the contemporary situation of Uyghurs. Even in Turkey, the situation was not that different, the Uyghur issue, other than the work of newly established foundations of Uyghurs, first came to prominence via a Japanese production, the Silk Road Documentary.

The Internationalization of the Uyghur Question

The late 1980s were the years of transformation and change for much of the Eastern bloc. Communist regimes were overthrown or collapsed and new more democratic, liberal regimes began to be established. However, this trend did not expand to China; instead of liberalizing, the regime toughened existing policies toward Uyghurs during the late years of the Cold War. The changes in former communist countries spawned heightened fear of internal divisions and chaos in China. In order to prevent demands for political reform, the government increased its use of the repressive state apparatus and, especially in Uyghur populated regions, adopted micro-control policies towards minority communities. The Uyghur question became increasingly critical for the Chinese government. It was perceived as one of the priority issues for maintaining the security and stability of the regime and territorial integrity of the country. This change in perception of the Uyghur question in Xinjiang was the result of three realities:

The first was the end of the Cold War and collapse of the communism's role as the unifying ideology of the state of China. Both in XUAR and China in general, the legitimacy of the state had been dealt a major blow. This gave birth to an existential threat for the Chinese regime. The State tightened security measures and restricted freedoms for fear of a challenge to its legitimacy and losing its validity in the eyes of the Chinese public in general and among minorities in particular. Two issues accelerated the concerns of the state. Firstly, the fact that changes were taking place just across the border placed China in geographical proximity to the epicenter of a seismic earthquake in world politics and aggravated the establishment in Beijing. The XUAR felt extra pressure as a neighbor of the former Soviet Union and the newly established Central Asian republics. Additionally, Tiananmen Square remained a major trauma for Chinese state and society. It was perceived as an attempt to overthrow the government and spurred China's policy of zero-tolerance to dissents during this period. Moreover, the fact that one of the leaders of the student movement was a Uyghur only exacerbated sensitivity toward Uyghur-focused policies.

The second reason was the disintegration of the Soviet Union, which was successively followed by the declarations of independence from new Turkic Republics in Central Asia. The independence of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, both neighboring XUAR, deepened China's fear that a similar independence movement could occur within its own Uyghur population. The increasing social and cultural activities of a robust Uyghur diaspora living in the recently declared countries further exacerbated the PRC's anxiety. In particular,

Kazakhstan-based Uyghur diaspora groups tried to compensate for the years of suppression they suffered during the Soviet era by increasing cultural activities; China perceived these efforts as parts of the "separatist" and "divisive" uprisings on the other side of the border. This situation also raised the significance of the Uyghur question for the regional geopolitics and the security of China. From now on, the developments in the region started to be perceived from a wider regional perspective. What happened in XUAR was considered as part of a larger framework of developments taking place in Central Asia. This concern was in part responsible for the regionalization of the conflict and exaggerated and disproportional reaction of Chinese security forces to the demonstrations taking place in the Uyghur Autonomous Region.

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A third factor was the ethnic conflicts and struggles for independence unfolding in different parts of the world in early 1990s. The Chinese administration had, for years, tried to keep the Uyghur problem separate from ethnic and minority problems in other parts of the world; and denied the existence of an ethnic dispute in XUAR. However, the dramatic increase in the number of ethnic conflicts in different parts of the world turned the attention of some to this ongoing crisis in Uyghur Autonomous region. Increasing international scrutiny of the conflict in the region discomforted Beijing. Also, there was increasing concern that a spillover of ethnic conflicts into China could pave the way to the aforementioned division of the whole country. For the Chinese state, the way to pre-empt the emergence of these problems was through the implementation of oppressive policies.

In particular, ethnic clashes amongst different groups in former Yugoslavia generated major concerns for China, which is comprised of 56 minority groups. Also the conflict in Chechnya suggested to the Chinese administration that a minority ethnic group -regardless of the proportion of its demographic dimension to the general population- was capable of creating countrywide de stabilization. These conflicts were occurring among Muslim minority groups living under the rule of a non-Muslim majority controlled state, just as Uyghur populations were a Muslim minority in China. Furthermore, the government, which had for so long tried to isolate its Uyghur region, felt threatened by the Islamic world's public support for the forces in the Balkans and the Caucasus. For the Chinese authorities, such an escalation might connect the problem in the Uyghur Autonomous region to the whole Islamic world.

China paid great attention to the ethnic conflicts -particularly in the Balkans-at this point partly because of international reactions and interventions into these conflicts. China was deeply concerned by foreign intervention in Kosovo. Despite objections from Russia and China at the UN Security Council, the military intervention by an international force into a region experiencing ethnic conflict and its paving the way for the creation of new independent states, was a serious problem for both Russia and China that were similarly concerned for their own territorial integrity. According to the Chinese administration, the operation in the Balkans was setting a precedent in international norms, and substantially undermining the principles of...