Central Asians of Xinjiang

Xinjiang is properly known as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and, however much real autonomy from Beijing it may actually have, Xinjiang is ethnically and culturally indeed a world apart from much of the rest of China.

The most dramatic distinction, as the name of the region suggests, is its ethnic makeup. Xinjiang is not majority Han, as China’s majority ethnic group is called, but largely Uyghur, a Central Asian Turkic people far more similar to Uzbeks (or even Turks) than to Han Chinese.

Even out of China’s many many ethnic minorities (55 I believe is the official count), the 8 million or so Uyghurs stand out for being particularly un-Asian. They are not like the southeast Asian peoples of Yunnan, or the recognizably east Asian Manchu or Mongolians of the northeast. The Uyghurs are not even like Tibetans, with whom the Han at least share some ethnic/linguistic ties. No, in Xinjiang, when you look around and see the Muslim Turkic Uyghurs, you wonder whether you’re in China at all, or should be. The Uyghurs look Central Asian, dress Central Asian, eat Central Asian and act Central Asian. And the Uyghurs are not the only Central Asian people in Xinjiang. Around the city of Tashkurgan near the Pakistani border is a population (40,000 or so) of Tajiks, at home in the high Pamirs. Just north, and near the border with Kyrgyzstan is a large Kyrgyz population (160,000 or so) tending to their livestock from their yurts. Further north, around Urumqi, is a large population of Kazakhs (1.25 million or so). There are even some Uzbeks about. Xinjiang is, in many ways, squarely a part of Central Asia, albeit one that is within the borders of the Chinese republic.

As unlikely a part of China as Xinjiang is, at least ethnically/culturally, there doesn’t really seem to me to be a realistic hope of Uyghur independence–China is much too strong and the Uyghurs do not even have the outside sympathizers that Taiwan and Tibet have. Also, despite the dissimilarities between the Han and the Central Asian people of Xinjiang, the historical ties between the Uyghurs and the Chinese are ancient. Living as they do due west of “core” China, right along the ancient Silk Road, the Uyghurs have had contact with China for thousands of years and were not only part of the same Mongol empire (the Uyghurs were central to the administration of Mongol-ruled China) but have been part of China since the 18th century. Even though the Uyghurs are Turkic, practice Islam and write in an Arabic script, this long history together means that, as one Uyghur man put it to us, the Uyghurs are “used to living with them,” them being the Han Chinese. (The man went on to call the Han the “bosses,” giving insight into how some Uyghurs view the nature of the relationship.)

It must be hard to be such a large ethnic group with a long, proud history and not have a sovereign homeland. To a certain extent, the Uyghurs probably feel like second class citizens in their own home, and no doubt face some discrimination in employment, especially in the public sector. But, being somewhat pro-China as we are, we also couldn’t help but think that the Uyghurs are still better off than their Central Asian brethren. However oppressive the Chinese government may be, it would appear from the Central Asian Stans that being part of the Soviet Union (the likely alternative had China not incorporated Xinjiang) was a far worse and more stressful experience, its worst effects still dominating aspects of Central Asian culture (e.g., alcoholism in Kyrgyzstan). Had the Uyghurs been part of the Soviet Union they may now have an independent state, but most of the Stans are hardly thriving, and the Uyghurs clearly benefit some from China’s prosperity. Evidence of China’s investment in the West is very visible, from the good state of roads in the Xinjiang desert to the (sometimes ugly) colossal architecture of Xinjiang downtowns (although of course much of this development is for Han profit, not for enrichment of the life for the Uyghurs). It’s possible that the Uyghurs may have done better than most of their Central Asian peers and matched or exceeded the level of wealth they have achieved as part of China, but it seems to me unlikely.

But at what cost economic progress? Is the Chinese government at the same time destroying Uyghur culture with its homogenization and Han migration policies? In the past I have been inclined to think China’s promotion of its ethnic minorities as mere lip service and an excuse for patronizing song-and-dance performances, but our visit to Xinjiang suggested that Uyghur culture is alive and well. Many parts of Xinjiang feel genuinely Uyghur, with all signs written in both the Chinese and Uyghur languages and many Uyghurs speaking little or no Mandarin. Uyghur pop plays on buses and as cell phone ringtones. To put it crudely, it does not feel as if the Han are pushing their culture down the Uyghurs’ throats, as some may fear. Yes, it’s true that the Chinese government is incentivizing Han colonization of Xinjiang, and in the face of the greater numbers of Han Chinese moving in the Uyghurs will face increasing challenges in maintaining their distinctive culture, but the Chinese are hardly trying to wipe the Uyghurs out–Uyghurs and Kyrgyz in China are even exempted from the one child policy and are allowed to have up to three children.

In some ways, the Central Asians of Xinjiang have held onto their culture better than their brethren in the now-independent Stans. In other parts of Central Asia, local scripts based on Arabic have been replaced with the Latin or Cyrillic alphabet; not so in Xinjiang, where the Uyghurs and the Kyrgyz still use the historical Arabic script. Uyghur musical instrument-making is thriving, largely due to all of the souvenir shops in Kashgar. Parts of old Kashgar are being maintained in their current state of preservation in part to entertain the hordes of domestic tourists, and despite the massive destruction in recent years, Kashgar remains one of the most atmospheric Central Asian cities, the Stans having also had their own demolition years. Kyrgyz yurts in China (of course I’m referring to the real ones, not the concrete “fake” yurts made for Chinese tour groups) seemed far more traditional and “authentic” than those in Kyrgyzstan. The Tajik in China wore traditional dress that we never saw in Tajikistan. Perhaps it’s just the effect of being a minority that makes you hold on to your culture more tightly–but some credit is due to the Chinese for allowing this to happen.

So for the sake of argument let us say that the Uyghurs are, materially and culturally, better off–does that justify Han rule?