{"id":859,"date":"2018-06-19T20:27:17","date_gmt":"2018-06-19T20:27:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/?p=859"},"modified":"2018-06-19T20:27:17","modified_gmt":"2018-06-19T20:27:17","slug":"china-is-using-terrorist-threats-to-culturally-cleanse-its-west","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/?p=859","title":{"rendered":"China is using terrorist threats to culturally cleanse its west"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

East Asia Forum<\/a><\/p>\n

Author: Michael Clarke, ANU<\/p>\n

China\u2019s concerns with terrorism are almost entirely focused on the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Xinjiang\u2019s geopolitical position at the eastern edge of the Islamic and Turkic-speaking world and the ethno-cultural distinctiveness of its largely Turkic-Muslim\u00a0ethnic groups<\/a>\u00a0have constituted a challenge to the centralising imperatives of successive Chinese governments.<\/p>\n

Domestically, this has resulted in the extreme securitisation of the Uyghur identity that has culminated over the past two years in the\u00a0internment<\/a>\u00a0of up to 1 million Uyghurs in extra-judicial \u2018transformation through re-education\u2019 centres.<\/p>\n

Internationally<\/a>, Beijing has consistently appropriated the lexicon of the post-9\/11 \u2018war on terror\u2019 to label Uyghur opposition as \u2018religious extremism\u2019, linking it to the influence of regional and transnational jihadist organisations such as al-Qaeda in order to generate diplomatic capital for the ongoing repression of Uyghur autonomist aspirations.<\/p>\n

Since\u00a0Xinjiang\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0incorporation into the People\u2019s Republic of China in 1949, Beijing has faced periodic episodes of unrest from the region\u2019s Uyghur (and other Turkic-Muslim) population.\u00a0Its approach<\/a>\u00a0to combatting such opposition was to a large degree based on two strategies: an aggressive strategy of integration defined by tight political, social and cultural control and encouragement of Han Chinese settlement, and state-led economic development backed by repression of overt manifestations of opposition.<\/p>\n

This has stimulated periodic and sometimes violent opposition from the Uyghur population who have bridled against demographic dilution, political marginalisation and continued state interference in the practice of religion.<\/p>\n

China has embedded its concerns with separatism in its diplomatic relations in Central Asia, with Beijing becoming the driving force behind the creation of the \u2018Shanghai Five\u2019 (S-5) multilateral grouping in 1996 (China, Russia, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan) and that group\u2019s transformation in June 2001 into the\u00a0Shanghai Cooperation Organization<\/a>\u00a0(SCO).<\/p>\n

The S-5 summit of 1998, for instance, resulted in a\u00a0communique<\/a>\u00a0asserting that member states would \u2018not allow their territories to be used for activities undermining the national sovereignty, security and social order of any of the five countries\u2019. Developments in Central Asia \u2014 including the consolidation of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the intensification of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan insurgency \u2014 assisted China in its ability to persuade its partners by 2000 to\u00a0take a stronger stance<\/a>\u00a0on what it increasingly termed the \u2018three evils\u2019 of \u2018separatism, extremism and terrorism\u2019.<\/p>\n

But it was the events of 9\/11 that permitted Beijing to make this reframing of the Uyghur threat a feature of its global diplomatic posture. China\u00a0seized<\/a>\u00a0on the capture by US forces of twenty-two Uyghurs in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan as proof of \u2018East Turkestan terrorist forces\u2019 connections to the likes of al-Qaeda.<\/p>\n

Subsequent terrorist attacks by Uyghurs, such as the October 2013 SUV attack in Tiananmen Square and the April 2014 Kunming railway station mass stabbing attack, reinforced China\u2019s narrative that it faced a genuine terrorist threat stemming from Xinjiang. More recently, the presence of the Uyghur and al-Qaeda-aligned \u2018Turkestan Islamic Party\u2019 (TIP) militant group\u00a0in Syria<\/a>\u00a0has enabled Beijing to argue that Uyghur militancy has become more inter-connected with global \u2018jihadist\u2019 forces.<\/p>\n

Yet there is little available evidence of TIP\u2019s involvement in high-profile attacks such as that in Kunming. Its ability to conduct such attacks\u00a0appears constrained<\/a>\u00a0not only due to the geographic distance between Syria and China, but also due to Beijing\u2019s ever-tighter control of entry to, and exit from, Xinjiang itself and the group\u2019s own Syria-centric objectives.<\/p>\n

Terrorist attacks and the presence of Uyghur militants abroad has been leveraged by Beijing in both its diplomacy and domestic governance of Xinjiang.<\/p>\n

Diplomatically, China has continued to develop its counter-terrorism activities with its SCO partners in Central Asia. This has included regular \u2018anti-terror\u2019 exercises by SCO militaries, intelligence sharing and closer police and law enforcement cooperation, for example via\u00a0agreements<\/a>\u00a0for \u2018guaranteed extradition\u2019 of individuals on shared \u2018blacklists\u2019 in violation of international law. In this manner China, as prominent Chinese security scholar\u00a0Zhao Huasheng notes<\/a>, \u2018expands the fight against \u201cEast Turkistan\u201d from China to the SCO itself\u2019.<\/p>\n

China has more recently attempted to replicate some of these practices beyond Central Asia, an objective assisted by former vice minister of public security Meng Hongwei\u2019s November 2016\u00a0election<\/a>\u00a0as President of Interpol. China has issued Interpol \u2018red notices\u2019 against exiled Uyghurs. Prominent Uyghur exile leader Dolkun Isa was\u00a0detained<\/a>\u00a0by police in the United States, Switzerland, South Korea and Turkey during speaking engagements in 2017 on the basis of such alerts. As a\u00a0number<\/a>\u00a0of\u00a0NGO reports<\/a>\u00a0have detailed, this practice has amounted to a form of extra-judicial harassment of Uyghurs living abroad.<\/p>\n

Domestically, Beijing has used the threat of terrorism to justify the development of a\u00a0well-documented<\/a>\u00a0high-tech<\/a>\u00a0\u2018security state\u2019 in Xinjiang, in parallel with an intensification of a \u2018people\u2019s war\u2019 against \u2018terrorism\u2019 featuring the heightened presence of security forces and intense controls on Uyghur religious and cultural practice.<\/p>\n

Increasingly, the state appears to be framing Uyghur identity itself as an almost biological threat to the health of Chinese society, with\u00a0government officials<\/a>\u00a0variously describing Uyghur \u2018terrorism\u2019 as a \u2018tumour\u2019 to be\u00a0eradicated<\/a>\u00a0and Islamic observance as akin to drug addiction.<\/p>\n

This is borne out by details of what occurs in Xinjiang\u2019s \u2018transformation through re-education<\/a>\u2019 centres where detainees undergo enforced indoctrination, including singing of patriotic \u2018red songs\u2019, \u2018study sessions\u2019 on Xi Jinping Thought, Chinese language, Chinese law and the dangers of Islam, and \u2018self-criticism\u2019 sessions.<\/p>\n

Given this, it is difficult to argue against David Brophy\u2019s\u00a0assessment<\/a>\u00a0that Beijing has embarked on a form of cultural cleansing in Xinjiang \u2018to end ethnic conflict by eradicating all space to make claims in the name of a Uyghur nation\u2019.<\/p>\n

Michael Clarke is Associate Professor at the National Security College, The Australian National University.<\/em><\/p>\n

Source: http:\/\/www.eastasiaforum.org\/2018\/06\/18\/china-is-using-terrorist-threats-to-culturally-cleanse-its-west\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

East Asia Forum Author: Michael Clarke, ANU China\u2019s concerns with terrorism are almost entirely focused on the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Xinjiang\u2019s geopolitical position at the eastern edge of the Islamic and Turkic-speaking world and the ethno-cultural distinctiveness of its largely Turkic-Muslim\u00a0ethnic groups\u00a0have constituted a challenge to the centralising imperatives of successive Chinese governments. Domestically, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chinas-uyghur-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=859"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":866,"href":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859\/revisions\/866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}