East Turkestan independence movement

File:Flag of Xinjiang Uyghur (East-Turkestan).svg

Flag of the East Turkestan Republic. It was established in Kashgar in 1933.

The East Turkestan independence movement is a broad term that refers to advocates of an independent, self-governing Xinjiang, also referred to as East Turkestan. Currently the area is an autonomous region in the People's Republic of China.

Historical background

Prior to the 20th century, the cities of East Turkestan, hosting Turkic ethnies such as Uyghurs, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, Kazakhs and persophone Tadjiks, held little unified nationalistic identity. Identity in the region was heavily "oasis-based", that is, identity focused on the city, town and village level. Cross-border contact from Russia, Central Asia, India and China was significant in shaping each oasis' identity and cultural practices.

Under Manchu and Republic of China rule, a largely Uyghur- , but also multi-ethnic Turkic- , based identity began to coalesce. A rebellion against Chinese rule led to the establishment of the short-lived Turkish Islamic Republic of East Turkestan (1933-1934). With Soviet aid and Hui forces (a Muslim ethnic group in China), the Republic of China reestablished control over the region.

Ili, Tarbagatay and Altay Districts of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of People's Republic of China

During the Chinese civil war, East Turkestan once again rebelled and established an independent republic called the Second East Turkistan Republic (1944-1949), which existed in three northern districts (Ili, Tarbaghatai, Altai) of Xinjiang province of the Republic of China. After winning the Chinese civil war in 1949, the People's Liberation Army reasserted control of Xinjiang, ending its independence.

After the so-called liberation of "West Turkestan" (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) from the Soviet Union in 1989, calls for the liberation of East Turkestan from China began to surface again from many in the Turkic population.

Uyghurs

Those that use the term Uyghurstan tend to envision a state for the Uyghur people. Those groups that adopt this terminology tended to be allied with the Soviet Union while it still existed. Since then some of the leaders of these groups have remained in Russia, Kazakhstan or Kyrgyzstan, or have emigrated to Europe and North America (Canada and USA). It is worth noting that none of these identities are exclusive. Some groups support more than one such orientation. It is common to support both an Islamic and Turkic orientation for Xinjiang, for example, the founders of independent Republic in Kashgar in 1933 used names Turkic Islamic Republic of East Turkestan, Eastern Turkestan Republic and Republic of Uyghurstan at the same time.

Since 1995 the Chair of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization has been Erkin Alptekin, the son of the Uyghur separatist leader Isa Yusuf Alptekin.

Argument for East Turkestan independence

Flags of Turkey and Eastern Turkestan at Doğu Türkistan Vakfı-Kültür Merkezi (Eastern Turkistan Foundation-Cultural Center) in Fatih district, Istanbul.

Many Uyghurs are forced to assimilate to a Chinese way of life and feel threatened by the spread of Chinese culture. In Xinjiang, school instruction is in Chinese and very few pieces of literature are published in Uyghur or other Turkic languages . The Chinese government gives economic incentives for Han Chinese to move to Xinjiang . In 1949, 95% of Xinjiang was Uyghur, by 2003, this percentage dropped to 45% .

Many Uyghurs face religious persecution and discrimination at the hands of the Chinese authorities. Uyghurs who choose to practice their faith can only use a state-approved version of the Koran ; men who work in the state sector cannot wear beards and women cannot wear headscarves . The Chinese state controls the management of all mosques, which many Uyghurs claim stifles religious traditions that have formed a crucial part of the Uyghur identity for centuries. Children under the age of 18 are not allowed to attend church or mosque . The only nation that supports and sympathizes is India.

Argument against East Turkestan independence

China claims to have a historic claim on Xinjiang dating back two thousand years. East Asian migrants arrived in the eastern portions of the Tarim Basin about 3,000 years ago, while the Uighur peoples arrived after the collapse of the Orkon Uighur Kingdom, based in modern-day Mongolia, around the year 842. It fears that independence movements are largely funded and led by outside forces that seek to weaken China. It claims that they hide behind banners "human rights," "freedom of religion" and "interests of ethnic minorities" to escape blows dealt by the international struggle against terrorism. China points out that under China, Xinjiang has made great economic strides, building up its infrastructure, improving its education system and lengthening its people's life expectancy.

Groups

In general, the wide variety of groups who seek independence for Xinjiang can be distinguished by the type of government they advocate and the role they believe an independent Xinjiang should play in international affairs. Groups who use the term East Turkestan tend to have an orientation towards western Asia, the Islamic world, and Russia. These groups can be further subdivided into those who desire secularism, and identify with the struggle of secular Kemal Atatürk in Turkey, versus those who want an Islamic theocracy and identify with Saudi Arabia, the former Taliban government in Afghanistan, or Iran. In many cases the latter diminish the importance or deny the existence of a separate Uyghur ethnicity and claim a larger Turanian or Islamic identity. These groups tend to see an independent East Turkestan in which non-Turkic, and especially non-Islamic minorities, such as the Han Chinese would play no significant role.

Some of the groups that support independence for East Turkestan have been labeled terrorist organizations by both the People's Republic of China, the United Nations and/or the United States. Many Uyghur organizations overseas are known to have small memberships of fewer than a dozen.

• World Uyghur Congress (Munich, Germany, member of the UNPO)
• Uyghur American Association (United States of America)
• Uyghur Canadian Association (Toronto, Canada)
• Sweden Uyghur Committee (Eskilstuna, Sweden)
• East Turkestan Information Center (Munich, Germany)
• East Turkestan Foundation (Istanbul, Turkey)
• East Turkestan National Freedom Center (Washington, DC)
• East Turkestan Culture and Solidarity Foundation (Kayseri, Turkey)
• East Turkestan Islamic Movement (also East Turkestan Islamic Party) (Formerly Afghanistan), identified as a terrorist organization by the governments of China, Kazakhstan, Pakistan and the United States, as well as the United Nations. Its existence has been questioned.
• East Turkestan Liberation Organization
• East Turkestan Islamic Party
• The Liberation Organization East Turkestan (Transnational Hizb ut-Tahrir)
• East Turkestan Solidarity Foundation (Istanbul, Turkey)
• East Turkestan Union (Munich, Germany)
• Kazakhstan Regional Uyghur (Ittipak) Organization (Almaty)
• Kyrgyzstan Uyghur Unity (Ittipak) Association (Bishkek)
• United Revolutionary Front for Eastern Turkestan (Unknown)
• Uyghur Association (Moscow)
• Uyghur Liberation Organization
• Uyghur Netherlands Democratic Union (the Netherlands)
• Uyghurstan Freedom Association (Almaty)

Recent events

There continues to be concern over tensions in the region, centering upon Uyghur cultural aspirations to independence, and resentment towards what Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch describe as repression of non-Han Chinese culture.

Conversely, many Han Chinese perceive PRC policies of ethnic autonomy as discriminatory against them (see autonomous entities of China). Independence advocates view Chinese rule in Xinjiang, and policies like the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps as Chinese imperialism. The US and the UN have labelled the East Turkestan Islamic Movement a terrorist group.

The tensions have occasionally resulted in major incidents and violent clashes during the PRC period. For example, in 1962, 60,000 Uyghur and Kazak refugees fled northern Xinjiang into the Soviet Union to escape the famine and political purges of the Great Leap Forward era; in the 1980s there was a smattering of student demonstrations and riots against police action that took on an ethnic aspect; and the Baren Township riot in April 1990, an abortive uprising resulted in more than 50 deaths.

A police roundup of suspected separatists during Ramadan resulted in large demonstrations that turned violent in February 1997 in an episode known as the Ghulja Incident that led to at least 9 deaths [2]. The Urumqi bus bombs of February 25, 1997, perhaps a response to the crackdown that followed the Ghulja Incident, killed 9 and injured 68. Despite much talk of separatism and terrorism in Xinjiang, especially after the 9-11 attacks in the United States and the US invasion of Afghanistan, the situation in Xinjiang was quiet from the late nineties through mid-2006.

Then, on January 5, 2007 the Chinese Public Security Bureau raided a suspected terrorist training camp in the mountains near the Pamir Plateau in southern Xinjiang. According to the reports, 18 terrorists were killed and another 17 captured in a gun battle between the East Turkestan Independence Movement and PRC forces. One police officer was killed and "over 1,500 hand grenades... were seized."

Olympics

In 2008, the Chinese government announced that several terrorist plots by Uyghur separatists to disrupt the 2008 Olympic Games involving kidnapping athletes, journalists and tourists were foiled. The security ministry said 35 arrests were made in recent weeks and explosives had been seized in Xinjiang province. It said 10 others were held when police smashed another plot based in Xinjiang back in January to disrupt the Games. However, Uyghur activists accused the Chinese of fabricating terror plots to crack down on the people of the region and prevent them airing legitimate grievances. Some foreign observers were also skeptical, questioning if China was inflating a terror threat to justify a clampdown on dissidents before the Olympics.

In the run-up to the Summer Olympics in Beijing, during which world attention was drawn by pro-Tibet protests along the Olympic torch relay, Uyghur separatist groups staged protests in several countries. According to the Chinese government, a suicide bombing attempt on a China Southern Airlines flight in Xinjiang was thwarted in March 2008.

Four days before the Beijing Olympics, 16 Chinese police officers were killed and 16 injured in an attack in Kashgar by local merchants. Chinese police injured and damaged the equipment of two Japanese journalists sent to cover the story. Four days later a bombing in Kuqa killed at least two people.

On August 27, two Chinese police officers were killed and seven more wounded near the city of Kashgar when their patrol was ambushed by at least seven militants, including one woman, wielding knives and automatic weapons. Apparently the patrol was lain upon in a corn field while acting on an erroneous tip from another woman that had been suspected of assisting militants. According to Uighur sources Chinese officials have been "cracking down" on ethnic Uighurs, detaining large numbers in recent weeks and view the incident as Uighurs resisting arrest. Reportedly, 33 people died in Xinjiang due to clashes in the month of August.

July 2009 riots

On 5 July 2009, riots broke out in Xinjiang's capital city, Ürümqi, involving anywhere from 1,000 to 3,000 Uyghurs. The riots were rumored to have started over the killings of two Uyghurs in a factory in Shaoguan, Guangdong. At least three Han civilians were killed, according to Xinhua. Xinhua said more than 20 others were injured and that many motor vehicles were burned. Police attempted to quell the riots with tear gas, water hoses, armored vehicles, and roadblocks.

See also

• Active autonomist and secessionist movements in China
• East Turkestan Islamic Movement
• East Turkestan Liberation Organization
• Inner Mongolian People's Party
• International Tibet Independence Movement
• 2008 Uyghur unrest

Further reading

• Burhan S., Xinjiang wushi nian [Fifty Years in Xinjiang], (Beijing, Wenshi ziliao, 1984).
• Clubb, O. E., China and Russia: The 'Great Game’. (NY, Columbia, 1971).
• Forbes, A. D. W. Warlords and Muslims in Chinese Central Asia: A Political History of Republic Sinkiang, 1911-1949 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1986).
• Hasiotis, A. C. Jr. Soviet Political, Economic and Military Involvement in Sinkiang from 1928 to 1949 (NY, Garland, 1987).
• Khakimbaev A. A., 'Nekotorye Osobennosti Natsional’no-Osvoboditel’nogo Dvizheniya Narodov Sin’tszyana v 30-kh i 40-kh godakh XX veka' [Some Characters of the National-Liberation Movement of the Xinjiang Peoples in 1930s and 1940s], in Materially Mezhdunarodnoi Konferentsii po Problemam Istorii Kitaya v Noveishchee Vremya, Aprel’ 1977, Problemy Kitaya (Moscow, 1978) pp.113–118.
• Lattimore, O., Pivot of Asia: Sinkiang and the Inner Asian Frontiers of China (Boston, Little, Brown & Co., 1950).
• Rakhimov, T. R. 'Mesto Bostochno-Turkestanskoi Respubliki (VTR) v Natsional’no-Osvoboditel’noi Bor’be Narodov Kitaya' [Role of the Eastern Turkestan Republic (ETR) in the National Liberation Struggle of the Peoples in China], A paper presented at 2-ya Nauchnaya Konferentsiya po Problemam Istorii Kitaya v Noveishchee Vremya, (Moscow, 1977), pp.68–70.
• Taipov, Z. T., V Bor'be za Svobodu [In the Struggle for Freedom], (Moscow, Glavnaya Redaktsiya Vostochnoi Literaturi Izdatel'stvo Nauka, 1974).
• Wang, D., 'The Xinjiang Question of the 1940s: the Story behind the Sino-Soviet Treaty of August 1945', Asian Studies Review, vol. 21, no.1 (1997) pp.83–105.

Wang, D., 'The USSR and the Establishment of the Eastern Turkestan Republic in Xinjiang', Journal of Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, vol.25 (1996) pp.337–378.

• Yakovlev, A. G., 'K Voprosy o Natsional’no-Osvoboditel’nom Dvizhenii Norodov Sin’tzyana v 1944-1949', [Question on the National Liberation Movement of the Peoples in Xinjiang in 1944-1945], in Uchenie Zapiski Instituta Voctokovedeniia Kitaiskii Spornik vol.xi, (1955) pp.155–188.
• Wang, D., Clouds over Tianshan : essays on social disturbance in Xinjiang in the 1940s, Copenhagen, NIAS, 1999
• Wang, D., Under the Soviet shadow : the Yining Incident : ethnic conflicts and international rivalry in Xinjiang, 1944-1949》Hong Kong, The Chinese University Press , 1999.

External links

• Additions to Terrorist Exclusion List (US department of State)
• BBC: Islam in China

Uyghur organizations

• Uyghur American Association
• Uyghur Human Rights Project
• World Uyghur Congress
• The Turkistan Newsletter
• East Turkistan Information Center
• East Turkistan National Freedom Center
• Swedish Uygur Committe

Other

• Terrorism - In the Spotlight: ETIM
• US Treasury Dept. on Addition of ETIM to Terrorist List
• "China 'foils Olympic terror plot'". BBC News. 2008-04-10. Retrieved 2008-08-05.
• Ansari, Fahad The Plight of the Uighurs: China’s Muslims Suffering As Much As the Tibetans Islamicawakening.com (Retrieved on 04/08/2008)
• Al Jazeera: China’s Uighurs face fasting restrictions also here
• China vows "preemptive strikes" on Xinjiang separatists - Reuters
• El-Kaissouni, Azizudin East Turkistan: China’s Forgotten Muslims IslamOnline.net (Retrieved on 04/08/2008)