Xinjiang, central asia and the implications for china's policy in the islamic world

The China Quarterly

Volumn 133, Issue , 1993, Pages 111-129

  Harris, Lillian Craig ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 34248241347     PISSN: 03057410     EISSN: 14682648     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S030574100001821X     Document Type: Article

References (55)

1. Interview with Middle East specialists, Beijing Institute for International Strategic Studies November 1990.
2. A Middle East Society of China was establshed in July 1982 at a symposium in Kunming. Described by Xinhua as the first of its kind in China, the meeting attracted 100 Chinese Middle East specalists who discussed the situation in the Gulf, Middle -East petroluem and co-ordination of research. (“Middle East Society of China established,” NCNA 072010, 20 July 1982.)
3. Private communication from a Western diplomat in Beijing, March 1992. China's belief in the vulnerability of the CIS is openly established. According to Beijing Review (BR), “Should economic reform fail in Russia, a chain reaction might ensue. As warned by many experts, there is a limit to the people's patience. Once their patience wears off, large-scale social turmoil could sweep the CIS” (“CIS faces uncertain future,” BR, 23-29 March 1992, p. 12).
4. Interview at China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, Beijing, March 1992.
5. Xinjiang: The Land and the People (Beijing: New World Press, 1989), p. 34.
6. See, for example, Joseph F. Fletcher, “China and Central Asia, 1368-1844,” in John King Fairbank (ed.), The Chinese World Order: Traditional China's Foreign Relations (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968).
7. “It is only in Ibn al-Athir that we find an accurate account of the conflict between the Arabs and the Chinese [in 751] which decided the face of the Western part of Central Asia. Neither Tabari nor the early historical works of the Arabs which have come down to us in general make any mention of this, while Ibn al-Athir's statement is completely confirmed by the Chinese History of the Tang Dynasty.” W. Barthold, Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion, 2nd ed. (London: Oxford University Press, 1928), p. 3.
8. Thomas J. Barfield, The Perilous Frontier: Nomadic Empires and China, 221B. C. toA.D. 1757 (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1989), pp. 131 and 153.
9. Jack Gray, Rebellions and Revolutions: China from the 1800s to the 1980s (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 93.
10. In March 1992 a Chinese Ministry of State Security circular claimed both the independent state of Mongolia and the Mongol-inhabited region of Russia as Chinese territory (Reuter in Ulan Bator, “Beijing lays claim to entire Mongol Region,” The Guardian, 30 April 1992).
11. Essential reading for anyone seeking a grounding in the history of modern Xinjiang includes A. Doak Barnett, China on the Eve of Communist Takeover (New York: Praeger, 1963), ch. 17.
12. Allen S. Whiting and Sheng Shih-ts'ai, Sinkiang: Pawn or Pivot? (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1958).
13. Owen Lattimore, Pivot of Asia (Boston: Little, Brown and Co), 1950.
14. Among valuable recent studies are Linda Benson, The Ili Rebellion: The Moslem Challenge to Chinese Authority in Xinjiang, 1944-1949 (Armont, NY: M.E. Sharpe 1990; Andrew Forbes, Warlords and Muslims in Chinese Central Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986)
15. Donald H. McMillan, Chinese Communist Power and Policy in Xinjiang, 1949-1977 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1979).
16. Whiting and Sheng Shih-ts'ai, Sinkiang, pp. 117-18.
17. Comment by official of Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences, Urumqi, April 1992. The Chinese assault on indigenous history and literature in Xinjiang has been thorough. After visiting Xinjiang in September 1990, William Peters observed: “In Xinjiang around Khotan apart from a few monuments and ruined cities all traces of the Buddhist ascendancy described by Fa-Xian in the 4th century, or of the kingdoms of Yutian and Kustana, or of the Karoshthi and Sanskrit literatures, or of the links with the Scythian kingdoms or the Kushans have been obliterated; little hint remains of different religions, languages, peoples, to ask about them invites rebuff” (William Peters, “Central Asia and the Minority question,” Asian Affairs (U.K.), June 1991, p. 155).
18. See for example, “Report on development of Xinjiang energy industry,” in FBIS-CHI (Beijing Xinhua), 11 February 1992, p. 39
19. “Oil exploration boosts Xinjiang ethnic economy,” in FBIS-CHI (Beijing Xinhua), 19 February 1992, p. 67.
20. Donald H. McMillen, “Xinjiang and Wang Enmao: new directions in power, policy and integration?” The China Quarterly, No. 99 (September 1984), pp. 575-76 and 581.
21. See articles by Professor Yin Ding in Pai Sing Semi-Monthly, Hong Kong, 1 November 1991 (quoted in “Central Asia and China's borderlands: a new world trouble spot?” China Insight April/May 1992)
22. “Nuclear pollution and human rights violations in Xinjiang,” in Minzhu Zhongguo, February 1992 (in JPRS-CAR, 11 June 1992, p. 81).
23. “Li Peng addresses national conference on nationalities affairs,” Xinhua home. service, 20 February 1990 in SWB FE/0696, 23 February 1990, p. B2/1.
24. Peters, “Central Asia and the minority question,” p. 153.
25. Zhengming (Hong Kong), February 1992, p. 27.
26. “Une nouvelle ‘Grande Muraille’ pour proteger le Xinjiang.” Le Monde, 12 January 1992.
27. Jasper Becker, “Separatists step up struggle for motherland,” The Times, 3 March 1992.
28. “Xinjiang chairman cites activities of ‘splitists’,” FBIS-CHI, 9 March 1992, p. 77 (Urumqi Xinjiang Television Network, 6 March 1992).
29. “Tomur Dawamat urges crackdown on separatism,” FBIS-CHI, 18 March 1992, p. 59 (Hong Kong Zhongguo tongxun she, 17 March 1992).
30. “Fifteen reportedly executed in Urumqi,” FBIS-CHI, 7 February, 1992, p. 56 (Hong Kong AFP, 6 February 1992, quoting Xinjiang Legal Daily, 25 January 1992).
31. “Song Hanliang attends meeting on ethnic work,” FBIS-CHI, 14 February 1992, p. 51 (Urumqi Xinjiang Television Network, 13 February 1992).
32. There is controversy about the number of Muslims in China. According to the official 1990 census there were only 17,597,370. (See BR of 24-30 December 1990). However, a 1949 total of 20 million Chinese Muslims has been broadly accepted as a reasonable estimate though it was not substantiated by census figures. Basing his argument on a mid-1950s claim of 40,000 mosques by the Chinese Islamic Association, Clyde-Ahmad Winters argued in the late 1970s that there could not be less than 40 million Muslims in China (Clyde-Ahmad Winters, Mao or Muhammad: Islam in the People's Republic of China (Hong Kong: Asian Research Service, 1979). Others, including Chinese and Middle Eastern Muslims, claim even higher figures.
33. For the response to an internal document issued in late 1991 ordering a general crackdown on those making use of “nationality or religious issues,” see Chu Che, “CPC's ironhanded policy toward nationality and religion,” Zhengming (Hong Kong), 1 January 1992, pp. 12-13, in FBIS-CHI, 9 January 1992, p. 25.
34. See, for example, Dru Gladney, Muslim Chinese: Ethnic Nationalism in the People's Republic (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), p. 3.
35. “Central Asia and China's borderlands,” p. 3.
36. Lincoln Kaye, “China feels the chill,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 9 January 1992, p. 14.
37. Interview with members of administration and faculty, Xinjiang Theological Seminary, Urumqi, April 1992.
38. John Obert Voll, “Soviet Central Asia and China: integration or isolation of Muslim societies,” in John L. Esposito (ed.), Islam in Asia: Religion, Politics, and Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 131.
39. Raphael Israeli, “Muslims in China: Islam's incompatibility with the Chinese order,” in Raphael Israeli and Anthony H. Johns (eds.), Islam in Asia Vol. II: Southeast and East Asia (Jerusalem: The Hebrew University, 1984), pp. 275-304.
40. “Song Hanliang reports on Party tasks for 1990s,” FBIS-CHI, 30 March 1992, p. 70.
41. “Northwest to revise Silk Road,” BR, 14-20 September 1992, p. 7.
42. “Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations and Trade spells out new measures on trade with CIS,” Ching Chi Tao Pao (Hong Kong), No. 11, 23 March 1992, p. 20, in FBIS-CHI, 3 April 1992, p. 7.
43. Liu Hong, “Ministry forges ties with former Soviet republics,” China Daily Business Weekly, 22-28 March 1992, p. 1.
44. “Xinjiang benefits from opening up to outside,” Beijing Xinhua in English, in FBIS-CHI, 9 March 1992, p. 78.
45. “Xinjiang releases statistics on economic growth,” FBIS-CHI, 21 July 1992, p. 61 (Urumqi Xinjiang Television Network, 17 July 1992).
46. “Thriving west China border trade,” BR, 1-7 June 1992, p. 30.
47. Interview with trade official, Urumqi, April 1992.
48. Interview at Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, March 1992.
49. Zhang Xiaodong, “Central Asia on the rise,” BR, 3-9 August 1992, pp. 12-13.
50. Interview at China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, Beijing, March 1992.
51. Gladney, Muslim Chinese, p. 52.
52. Interview with Israeli diplomat in Beijing, March 1992.
53. See Ronald N. Montaperto, “Whither China? Beijing's policies for the 1990s,” Strategic Review (Summer 1992), p. 30.
54. Zhang Xiaodong, “Central Asia on the rise,” p. 13.
55. Yuan Ming, “‘Historic missed opportunity’ recalled,” Minzhu Zhongguo (Democratic China), February 1992 (JPRS-CAR, 11 June 1992, p. 81).