Sino-Pakistan relations and Xinjiang's Uighurs: Politics, trade, and Islam along the Karakoram Highway

Asian Survey

Volumn 45, Issue 4, 2005, Pages 522-545

  Haider, Ziad ^a  

^a Henry L Stimson Center   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

INTERNATIONAL TRADE; POLITICAL CONFLICT; POLITICAL RELATIONS; TRADE;

ASIA; CHINA; EASTERN HEMISPHERE; EURASIA; FAR EAST; PAKISTAN; SOUTH ASIA; WORLD; XINJIANG UYGUR;

EID: 27644511455     PISSN: 00044687     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1525/as.2005.45.4.522     Document Type: Article

References (60)

1. Mahnaz Isphani, Roads and Rivals: The Political Uses of Access in the Borderlands of Asia (New York: Cornell University Press, 1989), p. 200.
2. Ibid., p. 203.
3. Xinjiang is expected to become China's second largest oil production center and largest natural gas production center by 2005, leading officials to dub it the "Sea of Hope." "Xinjiang to Become China's 2nd Largest Oil Production Center," People's Daily, December 2, 2000, .
4. Human Rights Watch, In the Name of Counter-Terrorism: Human Rights Abuses Worldwide, April 1, 2003, .
5. Justin Rudelson, Oasis Identities (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), p. 34.
6. The PCC controls 48% of the region, including 30% of all arable and irrigated land today. Whereas in 1950 the area was home to only 300,000 Han, in 2000 more than 2.4 million Han Chinese were employed by the PCC in addition to the 4.6 million other Han settlers arriving there via the railroad to seek employment in the rapidly industrializing region. Uighur-American Organization, Han Settlement Still Pouring into Western China's Xinjiang Region, August 2000, .
7. Chien-Peng Chung, "China's 'War on Terror': September 11 and Uighur Separatism," Foreign Affairs 81:4 (July/August 2002).
8. June Teufel Dreyer, China's Political System (New York: Addison Wesley Longman, 2000), p. 292.
9. Rudelson, Oasis Identities, p. 129.
10. Author interview with Radio Free Asia's Dolkun Kamberi, Washington, D.C., March 2003.
11. Xing Fengsu [Sexual customs] (Shanghai: Shanghai Cultural Publication Society, 1989).
12. Rudelson, Oasis Identities, p. 129.
13. Author interview, Urumqi, August 2002.
14. Mike Jendrzejczyk, "Condemning the Crackdown in Western China," Asian Wall Street Journal, December 16, 2002, .
15. The policy has five priorities (1) improving infrastructure, (2) protecting the environment, (3) strengthening agricultural development, (4) adjusting the rural economic structure, and (5) developing science, technology, and education.
16. Congressional-Executive Commission on China, Statement by Nuri Turkel Before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, April 10, 2003, . Nuri Turkel is the General Secretary of the Uighur American Association.
17. Dreyer, China's Political System, p. 292.
18. The Jamiat-i-Ulema Islami is one of Pakistan's largest religious parties that subscribes to the strict puritanical Wahabi version of Islam and was a close ally of the Taliban. Ahmed Rashid, Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), p. 140.
19. Ibid., p. 204.
20. According to Cooley, China joined the anti-Soviet coalition during the Soviet-Afghan War for a number of reasons, including a desire to improve ties with the United States. It concluded a number of agreements with the U.S. aimed at providing Chinese arms to the fighters in Afghanistan. China agreed to let U.S. planes fly arms for the mujahideen through Chinese airspace, in addition to the transfer of materials along the Karakoram Highway. Aside from providing arms, China also set up camps in Xinjiang to train Uighur fighters and had up to 300 instructors and advisors stationed at camps in Pakistan at one point in the mid-1980s for such training. John Cooley, Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America, and International Terrorism (Sterling, Va.: Pluto Press, 2002).
21. Rashid, Jihad, p. 204.
22. Ibid., p. 176.
23. "Powell: U.S. Ready to Fund 'Irreversible' Dismantling of North Korean Nukes," Radio Free Asia, August 12, 2004, .
24. "Separatist Leader Handed Over to China," Dawn (Karachi), May 28, 2002, .
25. Human Rights Watch, In the Name of Counter-Terrorism: Human Rights Abuses Worldwide, April 1, 2003, .
26. Ibid.
27. Chien-Peng Chung, "China's 'War on Terror': September 11 and Uighur Separatism," Foreign Affairs 81:4 (July/August 2002).
28. Ahmad Faruqi, "China Card Could Yet Triumph Musharraf," Asia Times Online, April 5, 2003, .
29. "China and the Taliban: Some Facts," Strategic Affairs, April 5, 2003, .
30. Sultan Ahmed, "Pakistan Missing Vast Opportunities in Xinjiang," Dawn, March 3, 2003, .
31. "China, Pakistan Highlight Cooperation in Beijing," People's Daily, November 4, 2003, .
32. "Continuing Unrest in China," Security and Political Risk Analysis (SAPRA), March 14, 1999, .
33. "China, Pakistan Highlight Cooperation in Beijing," People's Daily, November 4, 2003.
34. According to a 2002 U.N. global drug report, the number of registered drug addicts in China has risen more than 1,000% from 70,000 in 1990 to 901,000 in 2001, though experts place this number at over four million. "Global Illicit Drug Trends 2002," Report by the United Nations International Drug Control Program (Vienna: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2002).
35. Ahmed Rashid, From Deobandism to Batken: Adventures of an Islamic Heritage, Central Asia-Caucusus Institute Forum, , accessed April 10, 2003.
36. "China's Xinjiang Region Plans to Deal 'Hard Blow' to Drug-Related Crimes," BBC Monitoring Service, February 24 2002, .
37. Author interview, Kashgar, August 2002.
38. "Continuing Unrest in China," SAPRA, March 14, 1999, .
39. China U.N. Theme Group on HIV/AIDS for the U.N. Country Team in China, "HIV/AIDS: China's Titanic Peril," 2001 Update ofthe AIDS Situation and Needs Assessment Report (Beijing: UNAIDS, 2001).
40. Joan Kaufman and Jun Jing, "China and AIDS - The Time to Act Is Now," Science Magazine 296 (2002), pp. 2339-40.
41. UNESCO, The Globalization of the Drug Trade (UNESCO, April 1999), , accessed April 10, 2003.
42. Alim Seytoff, "AIDS Epidemic Among Xinjiang's Uighurs," Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst, , accessed April 1, 2003.
43. East Turkestan Information Center, Uighur Community Centers in Pakistan Closed by Authorities, December 2000, .
44. Amnesty International, Pakistan: Transfer to U.S. Custody Without Human Right Guarantees, , accessed March 25, 2003.
45. Uighur American Organization, "Appeal to Pakistan: Stop Deporting Uighurs to China," Letter to the Pakistani Ambassador to the United States, Maleeha Lodhi, , accessed March 25, 2003.
46. "Separatist Leader Handed Over to China," Dawn, May 28,2002, .
47. "China's Top 'Terrorist' Killed in Pak Army Raid," The Nation (Lahore), December 23, 2003, .
48. "China Seeks International Support in Counter Terrorism," People's Daily, December 16, 2003, .
49. Uighur American Organization, Musharraf Backs China Crackdown (2001), , accessed March 25, 2003.
50. "China, Pakistan Highlight Cooperation in Beijing," People's Daily, November 4, 2003, .
51. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, China-Pakistan Joint Declaration: 2003/11/04, November 5, 2003, .
52. Council on Foreign Relations, Terrorism: Question and Answers, East Turkestan Islamic Movement, April 10, 2003, .
53. The Shanghai Five is a powerful rising regional alliance of China, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan formed in 1996 to improve regional relations, in addition to combating international terrorism, drug trafficking, arms smuggling, and Islamic fundamentalism. The group expanded to include Uzbekistan in 2001, evolving into the SCO. Pakistan's reasons for wanting to join the SCO may range from economic concerns with gaining access to energy sources in Central Asia to political goals of improving ties with member states who view it with distrust for its prior support of the Taliban, which in turn supported other Islamic movements in the region. Bruce Pannier, "Pakistan: Most Shanghai Forum Countries Welcome Membership Request," Radio Free Europe, , accessed March 20, 2003.
54. Chien-Peng Chung, "China's 'War on Terror': September 11 and Uighur Separatism," Foreign Affairs 81:4 (July/August 2002).
55. Uighur American Organization, Letter to the Pakistani Ambassador in the United States, , accessed March 26, 2003.
56. Rudelson, Oasis Identities, p. 62.
57. Rudelson, Oasis Identities, p. 48.
58. For more on the Gwadar Port, see Ziad Haider, "Baluchis, Beijing, and the Gwadar Port," Georgetown Journal of International Affairs 6:1 (Winter/Spring 2005), .
59. The Pakistan-China Friendship Forum was established during then-Pakistani Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali's March 2003 visit to China. The Forum facilitates a deepening of bilateral relations and makes recommendations to both governments, many of which were incorporated in the China-Pakistan Joint Declaration in November 2003.
60. Kamal Matinuddin, "Pak-China Friendship Forum," The News (Pakistan), November 15, 2003.