Toy Factory Melee Set Off Western China Violence
Alan Chin for The New York Times
A shift change at the Early Light Toy Factory in Shaoguan, in the Guangdong province of southeastern China, where an ethnic riot between Chinese and Uighur workers in June killed two and wounded 120, sparking a much deadlier riot in Urumqi, in Xinjiang Province.
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By ANDREW JACOBS
Published: July 15, 2009
SHAOGUAN, China — The first batch of Uighurs, 40 young men and women from the far western region of Xinjiang, arrived at the Early Light Toy Factory here in May, bringing their buoyant music and speaking a language that was incomprehensible to their fellow Han Chinese workers.
“We exchanged cigarettes and smiled at one another, but we couldn’t really communicate,” said Gu Yunku, a 29-year-old Han assembly line worker who had come to this southeastern city from northern China. “Still, they seemed shy and kind. There was something romantic about them.”
The mutual good will was fleeting.
By June, as the Uighur contingent rose to 800, all recruited from an impoverished rural county not far from China’s border with Tajikistan, disparaging chatter began to circulate. Taxi drivers traded stories about the wild gazes and gruff manners of the Uighurs. Store owners claimed that Uighur women were prone to shoplifting. More ominously, tales of sexually aggressive Uighur men began to spread among the factory’s 16,000 Han workers.
Shortly before midnight on June 25, a few days after an anonymous Internet posting claimed that a group of six Uighur men had raped two Han women, the suspicions boiled over into bloodshed.
During a four-hour melee in a walkway between factory dormitories, Han and Uighur workers bludgeoned one another with fire extinguishers, paving stones and lengths of steel shorn from bed frames. By dawn, when the police finally intervened, two Uighur men had been fatally wounded and 120 other people were injured, most of them Uighurs, according to the authorities.
“People were so vicious, they just kept beating the dead bodies,” said one man who witnessed the fighting, which he said involved more than a thousand workers.
Ten days later and 1,800 miles away, the clash in Shaoguan provoked a far greater spasm of violence in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang region. On July 5, a demonstration by Uighur students protesting what they said was a lackluster investigation of the factory brawl gave way to a murderous rampage against the city’s Han residents, followed by killings carried out by the Han.
In the end, 192 people died and more than 1,000 were injured, according to the government. Of the dead, two-thirds were Han, the authorities said. Uighurs insist that the toll among their own was far higher.
Shaoguan officials, who said that the rape allegations were untrue, contended that the violence at the toy factory was used by “outsiders” to fan ethnic hatred and promote Xinjiang separatism. “The issue between Han and Uighur people is like an issue between husband and wife,” Chen Qihua, vice director of the Shaoguan Foreign Affairs Office, said in an interview. “We have our quarrels, but in the end, we are like one family.”
Li Qiang, the executive director of China Labor Watch, an advocacy group based in New York that has studied the Shaoguan toy factory, has a different view. He said the stress of low pay, long hours and numbingly repetitive work exacerbated deeply held mistrust between the Han and the Muslim Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking minority that has long resented Chinese rule. “The government doesn’t really understand these ethnic problems, and they certainly don’t know how to resolve them,” Mr. Li said.
In the government’s version of events, the factory clash was the simple product of false rumors, posted on the Internet by a disgruntled former worker who has since been arrested. A few days later, the authorities added another wrinkle to the story, saying that the fight was prompted by a “misunderstanding” after a 19-year-old female worker accidentally stumbled into a dormitory room of Uighur men.
The woman, Huang Cuilian, told the state news media that she screamed and ran off when the men stamped their feet in a threatening manner. When Ms. Huang, accompanied by factory guards, returned to confront the men, the standoff quickly escalated.
The Uighur workers have since been sequestered at an industrial park not far from the toy factory. Officials refused to allow a reporter access to the workers, and a large contingent of police officers blocked the hospital rooms where two dozen others were recovering from their wounds.
“They want to lead a peaceful life and not be bothered by the media,” Mr. Li, the Shaoguan official, said. He said the government of Guangdong Province, where Shaoguan is located, and the factory would provide them employment at a separate plant.
Officials at Early Light, a Hong Kong company that is the largest toy maker in the world, did not return calls seeking comment.
In the city of Kashgar, the ancient heart of Uighur civilization, the Shaoguan killings have inflamed longstanding anger over the way China manages daily life in Xinjiang. Many Uighurs complain about policies that encourage Han migration to the region and say the government suppresses Uighurs’ language and religion. When it comes to employment, they say coveted state jobs go to the Han; a 2008 report by a United States Congressional commission noted that government job Web sites in Xinjiang set aside most teaching and civil service positions for non-Uighurs.
“If we weren’t so poor, our children wouldn’t have to take work so far from home,” said Akhdar, a 67-year-old man who, like many others interviewed, refused to give his full name for fear of reprisals from the authorities.
According to government figures, more than 6,700 people left Shufu County, the suburb where many of the Shaoguan workers were recruited, for factory jobs this year in the more prosperous cities of coastal China, as part of a jobs export program intended to relieve high youth unemployment and provide low-cost workers to factories. Nearly 1.5 million Xinjiang residents are already employed outside the region. According to an article in the state-run Xinjiang Daily, “70 percent of the laborers had signed up for employment voluntarily.” The article, published in May, did not explain what measures were used to win over the remaining 30 percent.
But residents in and around Kashgar say the families of those who refuse to go are threatened with fines that can equal up to six months of a villager’s income. “If asked, most people will go, because no one can afford the penalty,” said a man who gave his name only as Abdul, whose 18-year-old sister is being recruited for work at a factory in Guangzhou but has so far resisted.
Some families are particularly upset that recruitment drives are directed at young unmarried women, saying that the time spent living in a Han city far away from home taints their marriage prospects. Taheer, a 25-year-old bachelor who is seeking a wife, put it bluntly. “I would not marry such a girl because there’s a chance she would not come back with her virginity,” he said.
Still, a few Uighurs said they were thankful for factory jobs where wages as high as $191 a month are double the average income in Xinjiang. One man, a 54-year-old cotton farmer with two young daughters, said he was ready to send them away if that was what the Communist Party wanted. “We would be happy to oblige,” he said with a smile as his wife looked away.
Once they arrive in one of China’s bustling manufacturing hubs, the Uighurs often find life alienating. Mr. Li of China Labor Watch said many workers were unprepared for the grueling work, the cramped living conditions and what he described as verbal abuse from factory managers.
But the biggest challenge may be open hostility from Han co-workers, who like many Chinese hold unapologetically negative views of Uighurs. Many Han say they believe that Uighurs are given unfair advantages by the central government, including a point system that gives Uighur students and other minorities a leg up on college entrance exams.
Zhang Qiang, a 20-year-old Shaoguan resident, described Uighurs as “barbarians” and said they were easily provoked to violence. “All the men carry knives,” he said after dropping off a job application at the toy factory, which is eager to hire replacements for the hundreds of workers who quit in recent weeks.
Still, Mr. Zhang acknowledged that his contact with Uighurs was superficial. When he was a student, his vocational high school had a program for 100 Xinjiang students, although they were relegated to separate classrooms and dorms.
If he had any curiosity about his Uighur classmates, it was quashed by a teacher who warned the Han students to keep their distance. “This is not prejudice,” he said. “It is just the nature of their kind.”
Zhang Jing contributed research
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
China Unrest Tied To Labor Program
China Unrest Tied To Labor Program
Uighurs Sent to Work in Other Regions
By Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
URUMQI, China -- When the local government began recruiting young Muslim Uighurs in this far western region for jobs at the Xuri Toy Factory in the country's booming coastal region, the response was mixed.
Some, lured by the eye-popping salaries and benefits, eagerly signed up.
But others, like Safyden's 21-year-old sister, were wary. She was uneasy, relatives said, about being so far from her family and living in a Han Chinese-dominated environment so culturally, religiously and physically different from what she was accustomed to. It wasn't until a local official threatened to fine her family 2,000 yuan, or about $300, if she didn't go that she reluctantly packed her bags this spring for a job at the factory in Shaoguan, 2,000 miles away in the heart of China's southern manufacturing belt.
The origins of last week's ethnically charged riots in Urumqi, the capital of China's Xinjiang region, can be traced to a labor export program that led to the sudden integration of the Xuri Toy Factory and other companies in cities throughout China.
Uighur protesters who marched into Urumqi's main bazaar on July 5 were demanding a full investigation into a brawl at the toy factory between Han and Uighur workers that left two Uighurs dead. The protest, for reasons that still aren't clear, spun out of control. Through the night, Uighur demonstrators clashed with police and Han Chinese bystanders, leaving 184 people dead and more than 1,680 injured in one of the bloodiest clashes in the country's modern history. Two Uighurs were shot dead by police Monday, and tensions remain palpable.
"I really worry about her very much," Safyden, 29, said of his sister, whom he did not want named because he fears for her safety. "The government should send them back. What if new conflicts happen between Uighurs and Han? The Uighurs will be beaten to death."
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Both Han Chinese, who make up more than 90 percent of the country's population and dominate China's politics and economy, and Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking minority living primarily in China's far west, say anger has been simmering for decades.
By moving Uighur workers to factories outside Xinjiang and placing Han-run factories in Xinjiang, Chinese officials say, authorities are trying to elevate the economic status of Uighurs whose wages have lagged behind the nationwide average. But some Han Chinese have come to resent these policies, which they call favoritism, and some Uighurs complain that the assimilation efforts go too far. Uighurs say that their language is being phased out of schools, that in some circumstances they cannot sport beards, wear head scarves or fast as dictated by Islamic tradition, and that they are discriminated against for private and government jobs.
Xinjiang's labor export program, which began in 2002 and has since sent tens of thousands of Uighurs from poor villages to wealthier cities, was supposed to bring the two groups together so they could better interact with and understand each other. The Uighur workers are lured with salaries two or three times what they could earn in their home towns picking cotton, as well as benefits such as training on manufacturing equipment, Mandarin language classes and free medical checkups.
Several Uighur workers said that they have prospered under the program and that they were treated well by their Han bosses and co-workers. Others, however, alleged that the program had become coercive.
In the villages around the city of Kashgar, where many of the workers from the Xuri factory originated, residents said each family was forced to send at least one child to the program -- or pay a hefty fine.
"Since people are poor in my home town, they cannot afford such big money. So they have to send their children out," said Merzada, a 20-year-old who just graduated from high school, and who, like all the Uighurs interviewed, spoke on the condition that a surname not be used.
A Uighur man named Yasn said his family had no choice but to send his sister, who had just graduated from middle school, to the eastern city of Qingdao to work in a sock factory last year because they could not afford the fine: "She cried at home every day until she left. She is a girl -- according to our religion and culture, girls don't go to such distant places. If we had it our way, we would like to marry her to someone or let her go to school somewhere to escape it," he said.
The Han Chinese owner of a textile factory in Hebei province that has been hiring Uighur workers from the program since 2007 said that in the first year the company participated, 143 female workers came to the company. Liu Guolin said he was surprised to see that they were accompanied by a bilingual police official from their home town who oversaw the details of their daily life.
"Without the policeman, I assume they would have run away from the very beginning. I did not realize that until the local officials revealed to me later. Only by then did I learn most of those girls did not come voluntarily," Liu said.
He said the security officer did not allow them to pray or wear head scarves in the factory workshops. He later learned that some of the girls were as young as 14 and that their ID cards had been forged by the local government.
Bi Wenqing, deputy head of the Shufu county office that oversees the Xinjiang labor export program, denied that any participants had been coerced or threatened with fines. However, he said that although the Uighur workers at the factories have the freedom to worship, the practice is not encouraged.
"We have been trying hard to educate them into disbelieving religion. The more they are addicted to religion, the more backwards they will be. And those separatists try to leverage religion to guide these innocent young Uighurs into evil ways," Bi said.
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The Xuri Toy Factory -- which makes electronic toys and travel bags -- once seemed a model for the export program.
In May, 818 Uighurs from Xinjiang joined the 18,000-person workforce. While the newcomers had limited Mandarin skills, the Uighurs and Han Chinese workers bonded over nightly dances that seemed to transcend lingual, cultural and religious barriers.
But the atmosphere started to become tense last month when a rumor spread about a rape at a toy factory. An anonymous message, posted on the Internet in June, stated that six Uighurs assaulted two Han female co-workers. No one seemed to know exactly who the alleged victims were, employees said, and police later said the story was made up by a disgruntled former worker. But suspicions festered.
When Huang Cuilian, a 19-year-old trainee who is Han, walked into the wrong dormitory and ran into two Uighur men on the night of June 25, she screamed, and a melee ensued. When other workers heard the commotion, a brawl broke out between the Han and Uighur workers. In the end, 120 were injured, and two Uighurs later died.
Information about the fight spread via the Internet and cellphones to the Uighurs' home towns in Xinjiang, and there were calls for other Uighurs to take action.
In the aftermath of the fighting, both Han Chinese and Uighur workers at the factory say they are afraid of each other.
Tursun, a 20-year-old Uighur man from Kashgar, said he had been lying in bed in the dormitory when "suddenly a bunch of Han Chinese broke into my dorm and beat me."
Liu Yanhong, a 23-year-old Han Chinese who works in the assembly department, said: "I still don't know if I can work together with them, after that thing happened. If they really come back, I will quit my job and go home."
Two days after the deadly riots in Urumqi, officials at the Xuri Toy Factory announced that they had come up with a solution to the ethnic tensions: segregation.
The company opened a new factory exclusively for Uighur workers in an industrial park miles from its main campus. They have separate workshops, cafeterias and dorms.
A Uighur employee named Amyna, 24, said the working conditions at the new factory are "not very good" and the living conditions also are "not very good." But at least, she said, "the Uighurs are living together and don't mingle with Han Chinese."
Researchers Zhang Jie, Wang Juan and Liu Liu contributed to this report.
Uighurs Sent to Work in Other Regions
By Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
URUMQI, China -- When the local government began recruiting young Muslim Uighurs in this far western region for jobs at the Xuri Toy Factory in the country's booming coastal region, the response was mixed.
Some, lured by the eye-popping salaries and benefits, eagerly signed up.
But others, like Safyden's 21-year-old sister, were wary. She was uneasy, relatives said, about being so far from her family and living in a Han Chinese-dominated environment so culturally, religiously and physically different from what she was accustomed to. It wasn't until a local official threatened to fine her family 2,000 yuan, or about $300, if she didn't go that she reluctantly packed her bags this spring for a job at the factory in Shaoguan, 2,000 miles away in the heart of China's southern manufacturing belt.
The origins of last week's ethnically charged riots in Urumqi, the capital of China's Xinjiang region, can be traced to a labor export program that led to the sudden integration of the Xuri Toy Factory and other companies in cities throughout China.
Uighur protesters who marched into Urumqi's main bazaar on July 5 were demanding a full investigation into a brawl at the toy factory between Han and Uighur workers that left two Uighurs dead. The protest, for reasons that still aren't clear, spun out of control. Through the night, Uighur demonstrators clashed with police and Han Chinese bystanders, leaving 184 people dead and more than 1,680 injured in one of the bloodiest clashes in the country's modern history. Two Uighurs were shot dead by police Monday, and tensions remain palpable.
"I really worry about her very much," Safyden, 29, said of his sister, whom he did not want named because he fears for her safety. "The government should send them back. What if new conflicts happen between Uighurs and Han? The Uighurs will be beaten to death."
ad_icon
Both Han Chinese, who make up more than 90 percent of the country's population and dominate China's politics and economy, and Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking minority living primarily in China's far west, say anger has been simmering for decades.
By moving Uighur workers to factories outside Xinjiang and placing Han-run factories in Xinjiang, Chinese officials say, authorities are trying to elevate the economic status of Uighurs whose wages have lagged behind the nationwide average. But some Han Chinese have come to resent these policies, which they call favoritism, and some Uighurs complain that the assimilation efforts go too far. Uighurs say that their language is being phased out of schools, that in some circumstances they cannot sport beards, wear head scarves or fast as dictated by Islamic tradition, and that they are discriminated against for private and government jobs.
Xinjiang's labor export program, which began in 2002 and has since sent tens of thousands of Uighurs from poor villages to wealthier cities, was supposed to bring the two groups together so they could better interact with and understand each other. The Uighur workers are lured with salaries two or three times what they could earn in their home towns picking cotton, as well as benefits such as training on manufacturing equipment, Mandarin language classes and free medical checkups.
Several Uighur workers said that they have prospered under the program and that they were treated well by their Han bosses and co-workers. Others, however, alleged that the program had become coercive.
In the villages around the city of Kashgar, where many of the workers from the Xuri factory originated, residents said each family was forced to send at least one child to the program -- or pay a hefty fine.
"Since people are poor in my home town, they cannot afford such big money. So they have to send their children out," said Merzada, a 20-year-old who just graduated from high school, and who, like all the Uighurs interviewed, spoke on the condition that a surname not be used.
A Uighur man named Yasn said his family had no choice but to send his sister, who had just graduated from middle school, to the eastern city of Qingdao to work in a sock factory last year because they could not afford the fine: "She cried at home every day until she left. She is a girl -- according to our religion and culture, girls don't go to such distant places. If we had it our way, we would like to marry her to someone or let her go to school somewhere to escape it," he said.
The Han Chinese owner of a textile factory in Hebei province that has been hiring Uighur workers from the program since 2007 said that in the first year the company participated, 143 female workers came to the company. Liu Guolin said he was surprised to see that they were accompanied by a bilingual police official from their home town who oversaw the details of their daily life.
"Without the policeman, I assume they would have run away from the very beginning. I did not realize that until the local officials revealed to me later. Only by then did I learn most of those girls did not come voluntarily," Liu said.
He said the security officer did not allow them to pray or wear head scarves in the factory workshops. He later learned that some of the girls were as young as 14 and that their ID cards had been forged by the local government.
Bi Wenqing, deputy head of the Shufu county office that oversees the Xinjiang labor export program, denied that any participants had been coerced or threatened with fines. However, he said that although the Uighur workers at the factories have the freedom to worship, the practice is not encouraged.
"We have been trying hard to educate them into disbelieving religion. The more they are addicted to religion, the more backwards they will be. And those separatists try to leverage religion to guide these innocent young Uighurs into evil ways," Bi said.
ad_icon
The Xuri Toy Factory -- which makes electronic toys and travel bags -- once seemed a model for the export program.
In May, 818 Uighurs from Xinjiang joined the 18,000-person workforce. While the newcomers had limited Mandarin skills, the Uighurs and Han Chinese workers bonded over nightly dances that seemed to transcend lingual, cultural and religious barriers.
But the atmosphere started to become tense last month when a rumor spread about a rape at a toy factory. An anonymous message, posted on the Internet in June, stated that six Uighurs assaulted two Han female co-workers. No one seemed to know exactly who the alleged victims were, employees said, and police later said the story was made up by a disgruntled former worker. But suspicions festered.
When Huang Cuilian, a 19-year-old trainee who is Han, walked into the wrong dormitory and ran into two Uighur men on the night of June 25, she screamed, and a melee ensued. When other workers heard the commotion, a brawl broke out between the Han and Uighur workers. In the end, 120 were injured, and two Uighurs later died.
Information about the fight spread via the Internet and cellphones to the Uighurs' home towns in Xinjiang, and there were calls for other Uighurs to take action.
In the aftermath of the fighting, both Han Chinese and Uighur workers at the factory say they are afraid of each other.
Tursun, a 20-year-old Uighur man from Kashgar, said he had been lying in bed in the dormitory when "suddenly a bunch of Han Chinese broke into my dorm and beat me."
Liu Yanhong, a 23-year-old Han Chinese who works in the assembly department, said: "I still don't know if I can work together with them, after that thing happened. If they really come back, I will quit my job and go home."
Two days after the deadly riots in Urumqi, officials at the Xuri Toy Factory announced that they had come up with a solution to the ethnic tensions: segregation.
The company opened a new factory exclusively for Uighur workers in an industrial park miles from its main campus. They have separate workshops, cafeterias and dorms.
A Uighur employee named Amyna, 24, said the working conditions at the new factory are "not very good" and the living conditions also are "not very good." But at least, she said, "the Uighurs are living together and don't mingle with Han Chinese."
Researchers Zhang Jie, Wang Juan and Liu Liu contributed to this report.
The Echoes of Xinjiang
Op-Ed Contributor
The Echoes of Xinjiang
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By PHILIP BOWRING
Published: July 14, 2009
HONG KONG — The problems in Xinjiang could prove a bigger international headache for China than Tibet was. The latter attracted much Western attention, thanks in part to the appeal of the exiled Dalai Lama. But Tibet does not have the foreign linkages that Xinjiang’s Turkic and Islamic identity do.
Many Asian countries may find it difficult to ignore popular sentiment in favor of Uighur aspirations.
The comment by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, that Chinese policy in Xinjiang was “like a genocide” and that China should “abandon its policy of assimilation,” will ring in Beijing ears for a long time. However excessive his choice of words, Mr. Erdogan was in effect speaking for all Turkic people from the Mediterranean to central China.
China’s immediate Turkic neighbor, Kazakhstan, may be more discreet as it seeks to balance its relations with Russia and China.
But China’s President Hu Jintao should need no reminding of where the sentiments of Kazakhs likely lie, given two centuries of Russian attempts to integrate them into the Russian empire through Russian settlement.
The expansion of Han Chinese rule over that same period — to Manchuria, Mongolia and Taiwan — was largely achieved through migration. So it was only natural for Beijing to assume that the same could be achieved in Xinjiang, despite the late, postwar start.
But the process had already stalled before these riots as many Hans saw better opportunities elsewhere in China. China’s demographics no longer support Han expansion through migration.
It may not be too late for China to address Uighur grievances, but the Chinese Communist Party’s centralist tendencies and cultural chauvinism make it unlikely. The Chinese media’s presentation of the disturbances suggests that few lessons are being learned. Underlying issues go unaddressed, the Hans are presented as the main victims and Uighurs as ungrateful for the material progress that China has bestowed on what was once known as East Turkestan.
Then there is the Islamic issue. Central Asian Islam is mostly of a relaxed and unfanatical sort, but Muslim identity in Xinjiang has been strengthened both by restrictions on religious activities and by the rise in Muslim consciousness globally.
China has tried to pin the Al Qaeda label on Xinjiang separatists and will doubtless do so again — helped by Al Qaeda proclaiming that it will retaliate for the Urumqi killings.
But mainstream Muslims are also sounding aggrieved. In Indonesia, there have been demonstrations in support of the Uighurs.
Indonesia of course has its own ethnic separatist problem in Papua and lingering issues over the position of ethnic Chinese, so no Erdogan-style statements are likely from Jakarta. The same applies in Malaysia, where formal discrimination against non-Malays would make any protests seem hypocritical, and would spur Beijing into overt support for the Malaysian Chinese.
Yet in much of Southeast Asia, the Xinjiang issue is seen not so much as a religious matter as an ethnic one, and thus an issue that touches fears of China’s claims to the South China Sea and its island groups, and occasional Chinese media references to past “tributary” relationships with most of its neighbors.
None of this suggests that policies toward China will change because of the Uighurs, who remain a minor issue in the wider scheme of international affairs. But they are and will likely remain what East Timor once was to Indonesia — a “pebble in the shoe” for China’s diplomacy.
The Echoes of Xinjiang
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By PHILIP BOWRING
Published: July 14, 2009
HONG KONG — The problems in Xinjiang could prove a bigger international headache for China than Tibet was. The latter attracted much Western attention, thanks in part to the appeal of the exiled Dalai Lama. But Tibet does not have the foreign linkages that Xinjiang’s Turkic and Islamic identity do.
Many Asian countries may find it difficult to ignore popular sentiment in favor of Uighur aspirations.
The comment by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, that Chinese policy in Xinjiang was “like a genocide” and that China should “abandon its policy of assimilation,” will ring in Beijing ears for a long time. However excessive his choice of words, Mr. Erdogan was in effect speaking for all Turkic people from the Mediterranean to central China.
China’s immediate Turkic neighbor, Kazakhstan, may be more discreet as it seeks to balance its relations with Russia and China.
But China’s President Hu Jintao should need no reminding of where the sentiments of Kazakhs likely lie, given two centuries of Russian attempts to integrate them into the Russian empire through Russian settlement.
The expansion of Han Chinese rule over that same period — to Manchuria, Mongolia and Taiwan — was largely achieved through migration. So it was only natural for Beijing to assume that the same could be achieved in Xinjiang, despite the late, postwar start.
But the process had already stalled before these riots as many Hans saw better opportunities elsewhere in China. China’s demographics no longer support Han expansion through migration.
It may not be too late for China to address Uighur grievances, but the Chinese Communist Party’s centralist tendencies and cultural chauvinism make it unlikely. The Chinese media’s presentation of the disturbances suggests that few lessons are being learned. Underlying issues go unaddressed, the Hans are presented as the main victims and Uighurs as ungrateful for the material progress that China has bestowed on what was once known as East Turkestan.
Then there is the Islamic issue. Central Asian Islam is mostly of a relaxed and unfanatical sort, but Muslim identity in Xinjiang has been strengthened both by restrictions on religious activities and by the rise in Muslim consciousness globally.
China has tried to pin the Al Qaeda label on Xinjiang separatists and will doubtless do so again — helped by Al Qaeda proclaiming that it will retaliate for the Urumqi killings.
But mainstream Muslims are also sounding aggrieved. In Indonesia, there have been demonstrations in support of the Uighurs.
Indonesia of course has its own ethnic separatist problem in Papua and lingering issues over the position of ethnic Chinese, so no Erdogan-style statements are likely from Jakarta. The same applies in Malaysia, where formal discrimination against non-Malays would make any protests seem hypocritical, and would spur Beijing into overt support for the Malaysian Chinese.
Yet in much of Southeast Asia, the Xinjiang issue is seen not so much as a religious matter as an ethnic one, and thus an issue that touches fears of China’s claims to the South China Sea and its island groups, and occasional Chinese media references to past “tributary” relationships with most of its neighbors.
None of this suggests that policies toward China will change because of the Uighurs, who remain a minor issue in the wider scheme of international affairs. But they are and will likely remain what East Timor once was to Indonesia — a “pebble in the shoe” for China’s diplomacy.
Parliament asks China to send delegation to Xinjiang
Parliament asks China to send delegation to Xinjiang
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
ANKARA – Daily News Parliament Bureau
Turkish Parliament Speaker Köksal Toptan has asked China to allow a parliamentary delegation to visit the Xinjiang autonomous region, where two weeks of unrest between ethnic Uighurs and Han Chinese have claimed the lives of at least 184 people.
Toptan made the request during a meeting with current and former Chinese ambassadors to Turkey, namely Gong Xiaosheng and Aiguo Song, late Monday, the Daily News has learned from reliable sources.
“We are concerned about the incidents. We want to visit the area and see what happened with our own eyes,” Toptan told ambassadors. According to sources, the Chinese envoys positively responded to the request but said they first had to ask Beijing for approval. If the Chinese government allows Parliament to send a delegation, a small mission would be established.
Toptan also asked the ambassadors for an open and comprehensive investigation and punishment for those responsible. “Some Chinese officials’ statements that said capital punishment would be given to those who took part in such riots did escalate our concerns. Security forces should not use disproportionate force against the demonstrators. The violations of fundamental human rights make us more nervous,” Toptan stated, according to sources who were familiar with the talks.
The parliament speaker repeated Turkey’s official position on the territorial integrity and political unity of China. “Such problems should be resolved within the territorial integrity of China,” he noted.
China was also planning to allow a group of journalists to visit the area and conduct interviews with local people in order to compile stories
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
ANKARA – Daily News Parliament Bureau
Turkish Parliament Speaker Köksal Toptan has asked China to allow a parliamentary delegation to visit the Xinjiang autonomous region, where two weeks of unrest between ethnic Uighurs and Han Chinese have claimed the lives of at least 184 people.
Toptan made the request during a meeting with current and former Chinese ambassadors to Turkey, namely Gong Xiaosheng and Aiguo Song, late Monday, the Daily News has learned from reliable sources.
“We are concerned about the incidents. We want to visit the area and see what happened with our own eyes,” Toptan told ambassadors. According to sources, the Chinese envoys positively responded to the request but said they first had to ask Beijing for approval. If the Chinese government allows Parliament to send a delegation, a small mission would be established.
Toptan also asked the ambassadors for an open and comprehensive investigation and punishment for those responsible. “Some Chinese officials’ statements that said capital punishment would be given to those who took part in such riots did escalate our concerns. Security forces should not use disproportionate force against the demonstrators. The violations of fundamental human rights make us more nervous,” Toptan stated, according to sources who were familiar with the talks.
The parliament speaker repeated Turkey’s official position on the territorial integrity and political unity of China. “Such problems should be resolved within the territorial integrity of China,” he noted.
China was also planning to allow a group of journalists to visit the area and conduct interviews with local people in order to compile stories
Exiled Uighur leader says 'no thanks' to Al Qaeda
Exiled Uighur leader says 'no thanks' to Al Qaeda
Posted 3 hours 42 minutes ago
The exiled leader of China's Uighur minority has firmly distanced herself from Al Qaeda, condemning the group's threats to attack Chinese interests in retaliation for the Muslims' deaths.
Rebiya Kadeer, the Washington-based head of the World Uighur Congress, said she opposed the use of violence in her campaign to bring greater rights for the ethnic group in China's north-western Xinjiang province.
"I do not believe violence is a solution to any problem," Ms Kadeer said in a statement.
"Global terrorists should not take advantage of the Uighur people's legitimate aspirations and the current tragedy in East Turkestan to commit acts of terrorism targeting Chinese diplomatic missions or civilians."
Algerian-based offshoot Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has threatened to target Chinese interests, according to international consultancy Stirling Assynt.
Hundreds of thousands of Chinese work in the Middle East and North Africa, including 50,000 in Algeria, estimated the group, which has offices in London and Hong Kong providing risk advice to corporate and official clients.
It marks the first time Osama bin Laden's network has set its sights on the Asian power, which has sought warm relations with the Islamic world.
China has accused Ms Kadeer of masterminding recent violence in Xinjiang and said she is backed by "terrorists."
Ms Kadeer denies the charges and US legislators have introduced a resolution demanding that China stop its "slander" of the 62-year-old former businesswoman and mother of 11, who spent six years in a Chinese prison.
Chinese authorities have said that riots in the Xinjiang city of Urumqi by Uighurs on July 5 left 184 people dead, most of whom were China's dominant ethnic group Han and more than 1,600 injured.
Uighur leaders accuse Chinese forces of opening fire on peaceful protests and say that Uighurs have been killed in subsequent mob attacks.
Uighurs generally practice a moderate brand of Islam influenced by Sufi mysticism and earlier shamanistic traditions.
- AFP
Posted 3 hours 42 minutes ago
The exiled leader of China's Uighur minority has firmly distanced herself from Al Qaeda, condemning the group's threats to attack Chinese interests in retaliation for the Muslims' deaths.
Rebiya Kadeer, the Washington-based head of the World Uighur Congress, said she opposed the use of violence in her campaign to bring greater rights for the ethnic group in China's north-western Xinjiang province.
"I do not believe violence is a solution to any problem," Ms Kadeer said in a statement.
"Global terrorists should not take advantage of the Uighur people's legitimate aspirations and the current tragedy in East Turkestan to commit acts of terrorism targeting Chinese diplomatic missions or civilians."
Algerian-based offshoot Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has threatened to target Chinese interests, according to international consultancy Stirling Assynt.
Hundreds of thousands of Chinese work in the Middle East and North Africa, including 50,000 in Algeria, estimated the group, which has offices in London and Hong Kong providing risk advice to corporate and official clients.
It marks the first time Osama bin Laden's network has set its sights on the Asian power, which has sought warm relations with the Islamic world.
China has accused Ms Kadeer of masterminding recent violence in Xinjiang and said she is backed by "terrorists."
Ms Kadeer denies the charges and US legislators have introduced a resolution demanding that China stop its "slander" of the 62-year-old former businesswoman and mother of 11, who spent six years in a Chinese prison.
Chinese authorities have said that riots in the Xinjiang city of Urumqi by Uighurs on July 5 left 184 people dead, most of whom were China's dominant ethnic group Han and more than 1,600 injured.
Uighur leaders accuse Chinese forces of opening fire on peaceful protests and say that Uighurs have been killed in subsequent mob attacks.
Uighurs generally practice a moderate brand of Islam influenced by Sufi mysticism and earlier shamanistic traditions.
- AFP
Why the West is silent on rioting in Xinjiang
Frank Ching
Why the West is silent on rioting in Xinjiang
When China slapped Tibet, the world shouted. But things change
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail Last updated on Tuesday, Jul. 14, 2009 03:01AM EDT
The rioting in Xinjiang last week echoed violence in Tibet last year but, interestingly, the international reaction has been very different.
Last year, Western countries put pressure on Beijing to hold a dialogue with representatives of the Dalai Lama, with French President Nicolas Sarkozy even threatening to boycott the Beijing Olympics if China refused. Beijing's protestations that Tibet was an internal Chinese affair were disregarded.
This time, however, the Western response is muted. The United States has adopted a mild tone, with President Barack Obama merely calling on all parties in Xinjiang “to exercise restraint.” The European Union has gone even further, taking the position that violence in Xinjiang “is a Chinese issue, not a European issue.” Serge Abou, the EU's ambassador to China, said Europe also had its problems with minorities and “we would not like other governments to tell us what is to be done.”
While there are similarities between events last year in Tibet and those in Xinjiang this month, the world has changed: China is now seen as an indispensable partner of the United States and Europe, both of which are facing a financial crisis. Beijing's diplomatic assistance in resolving the Iranian and North Korean nuclear issues is also seen as too important to put in jeopardy.
What reaction there has been came mainly from Muslim countries. The Saudi-based Organization of the Islamic Conference, which represents 57 Muslim governments, condemned what it called the excessive use of force against Uyghur civilians. At least 184 people, both Uyghurs and Han Chinese, have been killed.
The OIC statement declared: “The Islamic world is expecting from China, a major and responsible power in the world arena with historical friendly relations with the Muslim world, to deal with the problem of Muslim minority in China in broader perspective that tackles the root causes of the problem.”
The country that has taken the strongest position is Turkey, whose people share linguistic, religious and cultural links with the Uyghurs. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan actually went so far as to characterize what has happened as “a kind of genocide” and said his country would bring the matter up in the United Nations Security Council.
Since then, China's Foreign Minister has spoken on the telephone with his Turkish counterpart and apparently invited Turkey to send journalists to Xinjiang. This would be good if the journalists would be allowed not only into Urumqi but to other areas as well, such as Kashgar, where foreign journalists are currently barred.
While Indonesian Muslims have voiced support for the Uyghurs, with about 100 attending a mass prayer session in Jakarta on Sunday, the government itself has not taken a position, even though Indonesia is the world's largest Muslim country.
One problem for the Uyghurs is that the world at large knows little about them. Events of the past week have served to publicize their cause. Hitherto, publicity on Uyghurs has focused on the 22 who were held by the United States in Guantanamo, but a link to terrorist suspects is not likely to gain them public support.
Rebiya Kadeer, the U.S.-based Uyghur activist accused by Chinese officials of instigating the violence, is seeking American support for her cause and has urged the United States to open a consulate in Urumqi. This, she said, “would be a clear signal that the United States is not indifferent to the oppression of my people.” China has denied a request for an American consulate in Tibet and is unlikely to allow one in Xinjiang.
The Urumqi events were followed by demonstrations, mostly by ethnic Uyghurs around the world. Eggs were hurled at the Chinese consulate-general in Los Angeles, while the one in Munich was attacked by home-made gasoline bombs. (Munich is also home to the headquarters of the World Uyghur Congress, of which Ms. Kadeer is president.)
Demonstrations were also held in Turkey, the Netherlands, Norway, Australia, Japan and Sweden. Ms. Kadeer herself led a protest march in Washington to the Chinese embassy.
The Uyghurs lack a charismatic figure such as the Dalai Lama to lead them. But China, perhaps unwittingly, may provide the solution. It is likening Ms. Kadeer to the Dalai Lama, saying they are both “separatists.” The People's Daily has actually called her the “Uyghur Dalai Lama” and warned the Nobel committee not to award her the Peace Prize. Beijing may not realize it, but likening Rebiya Kadeer to the Dalai Lama may actually win her supporters in the West.
Frank Ching is author of China: The Truth About Its Human Rights Record.
Why the West is silent on rioting in Xinjiang
When China slapped Tibet, the world shouted. But things change
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail Last updated on Tuesday, Jul. 14, 2009 03:01AM EDT
The rioting in Xinjiang last week echoed violence in Tibet last year but, interestingly, the international reaction has been very different.
Last year, Western countries put pressure on Beijing to hold a dialogue with representatives of the Dalai Lama, with French President Nicolas Sarkozy even threatening to boycott the Beijing Olympics if China refused. Beijing's protestations that Tibet was an internal Chinese affair were disregarded.
This time, however, the Western response is muted. The United States has adopted a mild tone, with President Barack Obama merely calling on all parties in Xinjiang “to exercise restraint.” The European Union has gone even further, taking the position that violence in Xinjiang “is a Chinese issue, not a European issue.” Serge Abou, the EU's ambassador to China, said Europe also had its problems with minorities and “we would not like other governments to tell us what is to be done.”
While there are similarities between events last year in Tibet and those in Xinjiang this month, the world has changed: China is now seen as an indispensable partner of the United States and Europe, both of which are facing a financial crisis. Beijing's diplomatic assistance in resolving the Iranian and North Korean nuclear issues is also seen as too important to put in jeopardy.
What reaction there has been came mainly from Muslim countries. The Saudi-based Organization of the Islamic Conference, which represents 57 Muslim governments, condemned what it called the excessive use of force against Uyghur civilians. At least 184 people, both Uyghurs and Han Chinese, have been killed.
The OIC statement declared: “The Islamic world is expecting from China, a major and responsible power in the world arena with historical friendly relations with the Muslim world, to deal with the problem of Muslim minority in China in broader perspective that tackles the root causes of the problem.”
The country that has taken the strongest position is Turkey, whose people share linguistic, religious and cultural links with the Uyghurs. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan actually went so far as to characterize what has happened as “a kind of genocide” and said his country would bring the matter up in the United Nations Security Council.
Since then, China's Foreign Minister has spoken on the telephone with his Turkish counterpart and apparently invited Turkey to send journalists to Xinjiang. This would be good if the journalists would be allowed not only into Urumqi but to other areas as well, such as Kashgar, where foreign journalists are currently barred.
While Indonesian Muslims have voiced support for the Uyghurs, with about 100 attending a mass prayer session in Jakarta on Sunday, the government itself has not taken a position, even though Indonesia is the world's largest Muslim country.
One problem for the Uyghurs is that the world at large knows little about them. Events of the past week have served to publicize their cause. Hitherto, publicity on Uyghurs has focused on the 22 who were held by the United States in Guantanamo, but a link to terrorist suspects is not likely to gain them public support.
Rebiya Kadeer, the U.S.-based Uyghur activist accused by Chinese officials of instigating the violence, is seeking American support for her cause and has urged the United States to open a consulate in Urumqi. This, she said, “would be a clear signal that the United States is not indifferent to the oppression of my people.” China has denied a request for an American consulate in Tibet and is unlikely to allow one in Xinjiang.
The Urumqi events were followed by demonstrations, mostly by ethnic Uyghurs around the world. Eggs were hurled at the Chinese consulate-general in Los Angeles, while the one in Munich was attacked by home-made gasoline bombs. (Munich is also home to the headquarters of the World Uyghur Congress, of which Ms. Kadeer is president.)
Demonstrations were also held in Turkey, the Netherlands, Norway, Australia, Japan and Sweden. Ms. Kadeer herself led a protest march in Washington to the Chinese embassy.
The Uyghurs lack a charismatic figure such as the Dalai Lama to lead them. But China, perhaps unwittingly, may provide the solution. It is likening Ms. Kadeer to the Dalai Lama, saying they are both “separatists.” The People's Daily has actually called her the “Uyghur Dalai Lama” and warned the Nobel committee not to award her the Peace Prize. Beijing may not realize it, but likening Rebiya Kadeer to the Dalai Lama may actually win her supporters in the West.
Frank Ching is author of China: The Truth About Its Human Rights Record.
China's Urumqi tense after police shooting
China's Urumqi tense after police shooting
By Dan Martin – 12 hours ago
URUMQI, China (AFP) — Heavily armed security forces were out in force in China's volatile Urumqi on Tuesday close to where police shot dead two Muslim Uighurs who state media said were calling for jihad.
Large groups of police armed with semi-automatic weapons and batons were deployed close to the scene of Monday's violence, where Chinese authorities said police shot and killed two Uighur "lawbreakers" and wounded another.
The shootings showed the capital of the northwest Xinjiang region remained a powder keg more than a week after ethnic unrest on July 5 left at least 184 people dead, despite an ongoing security clampdown.
An Algerian-based Al-Qaeda affiliate meanwhile called for reprisals against Chinese workers in north Africa, according to an intelligence report by London-based risk analysis firm Stirling Assynt.
The call came from Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the Stirling report said. It is the first time Osama bin Laden's network has directly threatened China or its interests, it noted.
Xinjiang is a huge mountainous region bordering eight countries, including Pakistan and Afghanistan. Its Muslim Uighur community has long chafed at Chinese rule.
Foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said China would take all precautions to protect its overseas interests, while not commenting directly on the alleged Al-Qaeda threat.
"We will keep a close eye on developments and make joint efforts with relevant countries to take all necessary measures to ensure the safety of overseas Chinese institutions and people," he said.
The spokesman also appealed for understanding from the Muslim world over China's handling of the unrest, while denying accusations from Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that Beijing was guilty of "a kind of genocide."
"We hope that the relevant Muslim countries and Muslims can recognise the nature of the July 5 incident in Urumqi," Qin told reporters.
"The incident ... was aimed at sabotaging China and sabotaging ethnic unity. It was orchestrated by the three forces (of terrorism, religious extremism and separatism) in and outside of China."
On Tuesday, shops in the Uighur district close to the site of Monday's police shootings were slow to open and a major mosque near where the attack happened was shut early Tuesday with security guards outside.
One businessman said he was not opening his clothing stall.
"It is too tense right here. How can I make money with no customers around?" the man from the ethnic Hui minority told AFP.
By the afternoon, Uighur merchants selling goods ranging from carpets to shoes lined the roads close to the scene of the violence, although the city's grand bazaar remained closed.
Police checked the bags of some pedestrians in the area, according to an AFP reporter at the scene.
The latest shooting was the first time the government said security forces had killed anyone since the unrest broke out, despite claims by exiled Uighurs that many people had died in the clampdown.
State news agency Xinhua Tuesday released its first detailed report of the event, saying the three Uighur men had tried to incite other Muslims to launch a "jihad", or holy war, and attacked a mosque guard before police shot them.
A government statement released in Urumqi Monday said the police intervened when the three men attacked a fellow Uighur.
But two Uighurs who said they witnessed the incident from 50 metres (yards) away told AFP that the trio had been trying to attack security forces.
"They hacked at the soldiers with big knives and then they were shot," one of the witnesses told AFP.
Before Monday's shootings, security forces had worked hard to regain control of the city, and many shops outside the Uighur district had reopened and traffic had returned to the streets.
The initial unrest of July 5 saw Uighurs attack Han Chinese, according to the government and witnesses interviewed by AFP, in the worst ethnic violence to hit the country in decades.
Thousands of Han Chinese retaliated in the following days, arming themselves with makeshift weapons and marching through parts of Urumqi vowing vengeance against the Uighurs.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
By Dan Martin – 12 hours ago
URUMQI, China (AFP) — Heavily armed security forces were out in force in China's volatile Urumqi on Tuesday close to where police shot dead two Muslim Uighurs who state media said were calling for jihad.
Large groups of police armed with semi-automatic weapons and batons were deployed close to the scene of Monday's violence, where Chinese authorities said police shot and killed two Uighur "lawbreakers" and wounded another.
The shootings showed the capital of the northwest Xinjiang region remained a powder keg more than a week after ethnic unrest on July 5 left at least 184 people dead, despite an ongoing security clampdown.
An Algerian-based Al-Qaeda affiliate meanwhile called for reprisals against Chinese workers in north Africa, according to an intelligence report by London-based risk analysis firm Stirling Assynt.
The call came from Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the Stirling report said. It is the first time Osama bin Laden's network has directly threatened China or its interests, it noted.
Xinjiang is a huge mountainous region bordering eight countries, including Pakistan and Afghanistan. Its Muslim Uighur community has long chafed at Chinese rule.
Foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said China would take all precautions to protect its overseas interests, while not commenting directly on the alleged Al-Qaeda threat.
"We will keep a close eye on developments and make joint efforts with relevant countries to take all necessary measures to ensure the safety of overseas Chinese institutions and people," he said.
The spokesman also appealed for understanding from the Muslim world over China's handling of the unrest, while denying accusations from Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that Beijing was guilty of "a kind of genocide."
"We hope that the relevant Muslim countries and Muslims can recognise the nature of the July 5 incident in Urumqi," Qin told reporters.
"The incident ... was aimed at sabotaging China and sabotaging ethnic unity. It was orchestrated by the three forces (of terrorism, religious extremism and separatism) in and outside of China."
On Tuesday, shops in the Uighur district close to the site of Monday's police shootings were slow to open and a major mosque near where the attack happened was shut early Tuesday with security guards outside.
One businessman said he was not opening his clothing stall.
"It is too tense right here. How can I make money with no customers around?" the man from the ethnic Hui minority told AFP.
By the afternoon, Uighur merchants selling goods ranging from carpets to shoes lined the roads close to the scene of the violence, although the city's grand bazaar remained closed.
Police checked the bags of some pedestrians in the area, according to an AFP reporter at the scene.
The latest shooting was the first time the government said security forces had killed anyone since the unrest broke out, despite claims by exiled Uighurs that many people had died in the clampdown.
State news agency Xinhua Tuesday released its first detailed report of the event, saying the three Uighur men had tried to incite other Muslims to launch a "jihad", or holy war, and attacked a mosque guard before police shot them.
A government statement released in Urumqi Monday said the police intervened when the three men attacked a fellow Uighur.
But two Uighurs who said they witnessed the incident from 50 metres (yards) away told AFP that the trio had been trying to attack security forces.
"They hacked at the soldiers with big knives and then they were shot," one of the witnesses told AFP.
Before Monday's shootings, security forces had worked hard to regain control of the city, and many shops outside the Uighur district had reopened and traffic had returned to the streets.
The initial unrest of July 5 saw Uighurs attack Han Chinese, according to the government and witnesses interviewed by AFP, in the worst ethnic violence to hit the country in decades.
Thousands of Han Chinese retaliated in the following days, arming themselves with makeshift weapons and marching through parts of Urumqi vowing vengeance against the Uighurs.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
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