Photos of the hustling bazaar, breathtaking natural scenery, as well as colourful souvenirs at my home together brought me back to my journey to Xinjiang almost five years ago. It was when we followed the path of the Ancient Silk Road, discovering the corners that might sound unfamiliar for many of us. China, nowadays, attempts to revive the past glory of the Silk Road in the region by advocating the “One Belt One Road” strategy. However, through the camera lens and first-hand interaction with the locals, is Xinjiang really blessed with the rosy picture of all ethnicities being respected and living without fear in all aspects?
1. Population
When we were on our way to Shihezi, Mr Chen, our tour guide, told us 90% of the city’s population is Han Chinese, which many came to better Xinjiang’s development from other provinces. The city, thereby, witnessed two important stages of a massive inflow of Han Chinese immigrants to Xinjiang. The first one was after the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, directed by a state-owned Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC) in which its headquarter was based Shihezi. Another time that marked the second milestone of the influx of the Han population was after the government promoted the economic initiative “Development of the West” in the late 1990s. The Han Chinese population, therefore, has surged from 6% of the region’s population in 1949 to about 40% today, including Mr Chen and his family. (Castets, 2006)
According to the government, the massive flow of Han Chinese benefited the overall development and better integrate Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Take Shihezi as an example, it has become a focal point of Xinjiang’s development since the 1950s, ranging from wheat production, cotton and textiles to coal and electric-power generation. However, every coin has two sides. If one side of the coin represents the great increase of the Han Chinese population, the other side represents the ingenious fear of the decline of the Uyghur culture due to the threat of assimilation. We were surprised that Shihezi is no different from any other Chinese city nowadays. With a vast majority of people is Han Chinese, the street signs and slogans are mostly used in Chinese rather than the Uyghur language.
2. Language
Mr Chen, our tour guide, continued on a bus, “China is ethnically equal and respects the way of life of other ethnic groups. The government is already promoting bilingual education for students in Xinjiang – by teaching both Mandarin Chinese and Uyghur language in class.”
In the evening, the chattering in Uyghur filled the summer air and some ladies were enjoying their traditional dance, swaying their bodies with an accompaniment of lighthearted Uyghur music. However, when I talked to an Uyghur the next day, he admitted that the Uyghur language is very difficult and will take years to learn well at the university. As the school mainly focuses on instruction primarily in Mandarin Chinese, his teenage brother couldn’t even properly pronounce “computer” in the Uyghur language. While for some, they believed learning their mother tongue is useless as what they only want is to get a promising job nationwide in the future, which only requires good Mandarin proficiency.
Despite the implementation of “Two language education”, this program only strengthens the government’s plan to place primacy on Mandarin Chinese at the expense of other ethnic minority languages. In 2018, Uyghur officials even started to make statements that it was no longer patriotic to speak Uyghur. (Byler, 2019)
3. Religion
Hardly could we spot men with long beards and veiled women during our week-long visit to Xinjiang. Feeling curious, I asked a lady whether each male was allowed to keep their beard. She replied only elders like her grandfather were allowed but not young people and refused to explain more. The Chinese officials have become especially concerned by the popularization of the beard-growing and burqa veils that cover the entire head. In the government’s eyes, these deem to be a sign of extremism and backwardness. These styles of Islamic veiling, Chinese authorities insist, are “outward manifestations of Islamic extremism.” It is no wonder that Xinjiang’s government ramped up its effort and passed an anti-extremism law that forbids people from growing long beards and wearing veils in public starting from March 2017.
Places of worship also became targets for the government to instil citizens’ loyalty to the Party and ethnical unity. All mosques and religious groups require official recognition and all activities must be approved by the government. One patriotic banner next to a mosque wall in Illi, Xinjiang reads: “Show your gratitude to Xi Jinping, to the Communist Party and to the great motherland”, and urges, “Every ethnic group needs to be holding each other like pomegranate seeds.” Not just in Illi, but also in Urumqi too. A billboard next to a mosque in Urumqi encouraged people to “be closer to the Party like to their mother”. Mr Chen, our guide and also a member of the Communist Party, seemed to be content with the propaganda and added the Party does allow religious freedom in Xinjiang, as long as people are loyal and aren’t criticizing the regime.
4. A Police State?
As we strolled inside the bazaar in Urumqi, the deafening chaos lingered as voices from the shopkeepers yelled prices and were advertising their goods, ranging from carpets from Central Asia, exquisite decorations to a broad variety of raisins to us. The public order was relatively stable and there weren’t any terrorist attacks during my trip. The government, however, stressed that the region needed to continue fighting the “three evils” of separatism, terrorism, and religious extremism at all costs. Don’t be surprised that the authorities have established a high-tech monitoring net across the region, installing CCTV cameras, mobile police stations and checkpoints in almost every entrance of the hotel, convenience store and important tourist spot.
Under this kind of suppressive environment, people tend to express their thoughts more carefully. Once, my friend met a shopkeeper and asked her why there were so many police in Xinjiang. She immediately changed the subject and asked him if he likes the bottle of water that she was selling. She told him all ethnic groups are united together and didn’t want to respond more than that. However, Mr Chen, our tour guide, offered another perspective as to why the police were stationed everywhere in Xinjiang. It was the government’s firm response to a rash of barbaric attacks by the Islamic extremists and separatists in recent years. In his opinion, close surveillance is necessary for keeping peace and stopping terrorism from spreading in the region.
5. How do the Uyghurs view the Chinese government?
How each Uyghur views the Chinese government varies, however. Some were patriotic to the Party. One Uyghur family told us they only sold good fruits to the Chinese and the bad ones to the Japanese. During our university exchanges, one Uyghur student said she was proud to be a Chinese as China is rising at an unprecedented speed. For making the country more prosperous, she believed One Belt One Road would be the driving force that connects Xinjiang with other neighbouring countries through an intertwined network of transport and free trade.
While for some, they privately vented their discontent to us regarding the increasing Han Chinese population and the government’s policies overall. Although the region’s economy has soared at a double-digit pace, ethnic inequalities have continuously been exacerbating. Since 2006, Uyghur peasants have been encouraged to settle in the southern part of Xinjiang and to make ends meet in labour-intensive factories. As the economic benefits have mainly profited urban Han Chinese located in the North, the Uyghurs failed to equally reap the fruits of prosperity but instead feel marginalized.
Final Thoughts
To live up to the goal of achieving national unity, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been placing great weight on assimilating Xinjiang’s distinctive identities into the single Chinese one, which the Uyghurs considered a threat to their cultural survival. First, Mandarin Chinese becomes the main language of instruction at the expense of the Uyghur language, and so are the street signs in the cities. This implies these ethnic minorities will likely be taught in Mandarin in the classroom, rather than their native language. In private domains, the Uyghurs are compelled to master their Mandarin to demonstrate their loyalty to the Chinese government. (Byler, 2019)
Second, the Uyghurs are also suffering discrimination in job practices too. Massive in-migration of Han Chinese to Xinjiang became Beijing’s impetus to reduce the population density of Uyghurs for decades. This demographic increase of the Han Chinese into the region has aggravated ethnic tensions, however. (European Parliament, 2014) Because of that, Uyghur minorities are found to be overwhelmingly concentrated in the lower sector. They feel that they have been marginalised, with the job competition with the Han Chinese that is marked by widespread discriminatory practices of their ethnicity. (European Parliament, 2014)
Furthermore, expressions of religious identity that the Communist Party fears threaten the regime stability, which in turn, the Party chose to suppress. In the eyes of the Party, any expression of Islam connotes extremism, because of the occasional outbursts of violence and past independence movements that were possibly aided and abetted by the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (a separatist group founded by militant Uyghurs). Stabilizing Xinjiang, hence, has been at the top of China’s agenda as it is one of the regions impressionable to the “domino effect” from the surrounding instability. For China, nothing can transcend the importance of China’s territorial integrity which is affiliated to the survival of the regime.
Therefore, most people in Xinjiang we spoke to said they feared being monitored if they were too openly vocal or critical of the government. Others just turned a blind eye to our questions for the same reason. These lingering fears are conceivable, due to the numerous intimidation and imprisonment of thousands of Uyghurs since 2017 and the possibility of intense surveillance, forced labour and religious restrictions. Paradoxically, the government’s endeavour to combat so-called the threat of separatism had only made Uyghurs feel more isolated and more aware of reasserting their own identity as opposed to the non-Muslim Chinese, thereby only further alarmed the authority.
Though Uyghur’s distinctive culture and their being are in peril, western countries started to heed Xinjiang’s situation and pressurize China to confront its human rights issues. No matter what the future holds for Xinjiang, it would be crucial to let more people from all walks of life continue to keep abreast of what is truly happening there.
(Note: This post is based on some research, as well as my personal notes and observation after a week in Xinjiang 5 years ago)
References:
Byler, D. (2019). The ‘patriotism’ of not speaking Uyghur: Xinjiang column. SupChina. Retrieved March 13, 2022, from https://supchina.com/2019/01/02/the-patriotism-of-not-speaking-uyghur/
Castets, R. (2006). The Uyghurs in Xinjiang – the malaise grows. China Perspectives. Retrieved March 13, 2022, from https://journals.openedition.org/chinaperspectives/648
European Parliament (2014). China: Assimilating or radicalising Uighurs? Retrieved March 13, 2022, from https://www.europarl.europa.eu/EPRS/EPRS-AaG-538966-China-Assimilating-or-radicalising-Uighurs-FINAL.pdf
Variety is the Spice of Life 
This was a fascinating read! Thank you for teaching me so much about Xinjiang
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This is a great info on Xinjianh! Love these pictures
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Very interesting. I found China very intimidating. I think they’ve ramped it up since you went there. Great post!
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