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On 21 January
2002, the Xinghua Chinese News Agency issued a press
release with the text of interview of Wang Lequen,
Secretary of Party Committee of the so-called Xinjiang
Autonomous Province, given to correspondents of the
French “European times” newspaper and of another famous
magazine.
The Chinese authorities have permanently lied to the
world community about East Turkistan. The false
propaganda has been aimed at distorting public opinion
about the true situation in East Turkistan. Lies have
always been spread to disguise the brutal Chinese
oppression in this region.
This time the Chinese authorities intentionally lied
once again. Their representative Wang Lequen actually
exceeded in his interview the ‘normal” range of the
regular Chinese deception standards.
Anyone familiar with the real situation in East
Turkistan would easily identify that Wang Lequen’s lying
to French correspondents about the present economic,
political and social situation in East Turkistan is
nothing but intentional distortion of the real facts.
The Chinese government agent simply tried to cheat
foreigners about what is really happening in this part
of the world.
Let us consider just one example.
When answering the question “ what concrete benefits the
policy of ‘reaching the West’ will bring to the Xinjiang
population?» Wang Lequen stated: “ local citizens
welcome the policy of ‘reaching the West and they will
gain from it greatly. One illustration: there was no
railroad in the western part of Xinjiang before. Now the
railroad is built, so local citizens will be able to
deliver their goods by train to the inner regions of
China. They can trade commodities now and prosper.”
Wang Lequen then “ended the discussion”. Obviously he
failed to give any other argument of how “reaching the
West” policy would benefit Uighurs. His reasoning is
ridiculous and he well knows it; but he could not give
any better example. The Chinese government official is
well aware that construction of the railroad will not
have any practical positive impact on East Turkistan
economic situation.
In reality the proclaimed policy of “reaching the West”
does not have a purpose of improving economic or social
well-being of East Turkistan citizens. This policy
solely serves political and economic objectives of the
Chinese Communist government.
These objectives fall in the following categories:
1) It is widely known that East Turkistan territory has
rich oil and natural gas reserves. The Chinese regime
had long planned to explore these resources but it
lacked economic strength for carrying out large-scale
projects. Besides, the Chinese invaders were reluctant
to develop this region since big projects would only
emphasize the overall crumbling economic situation and
“would pose a real threat to stability in the region.”
Since the liberalization of the Chinese economy and its
opening to the world 20 years ago, the government made
estimations of the national economy’s need for energy
sources. The government was seriously concerned with the
depletion of China’s own oilfields. Over a short period
of time China has become a strong economic, military and
political power that plans to steadily take the leading
position in the world from the USA. In order to realize
its global ambitions China drastically needs vast energy
and raw material sources. Naturally, China with its own
poor source base considers East Turkistan as a major
supplier of oil, natural gas, gold, ferrous, non-ferrous
and precious metals. The large-scale exploration of oil
and natural gas in East Turkistan makes China richer
while the true owner of natural treasure – local
population is only being robbed of its potential wealth.
The East Turkistan people do not benefit a penny from
the exploration of natural resources in their land. For
instance, the Chinese explored oil and natural gas long
time ago in Karamay, Maytagh, Poskam and other oilfields.
Some oilfields were turned into major oil exploration
and processing centers. However, virtually all explored
oil and natural gas were transported to the inner China.
The poverty stricken local citizens did not benefit a
single penny. All workers in this industry were brought
in from China. The unemployed local inhabitants did not
get much needed jobs. The prices of gasoline and other
fuel is higher in East Turkistan than in inner China.
Village farmers who comprise 90% of East Turkistan
population still use firewood for heating. City
inhabitants pay high prices for natural gas. Recently
the “Tarim-Shanghai Oil Pipe” project was launched
within the frame of the ‘reaching the West» concept.
There is no doubt that the local East Turkistan people
will not benefit at all from this construction project.
2) The policy of “reaching the West” has ultimate goals
of bringing even more ethnic Chinese migrants to East
Turkistan, building up new migrant bases, minimising the
number of indigenous Uighur population, and finally
completely assimilating them. When the Communist Chinese
government occupied East Turkistan in 1949, over 90% of
its population were Uighurs and the rest were ethnic
Chinese and other groups. Nowadays, the Uighurs amount
only to 47% of the total population. The total number of
the Chinese migrants number increased over last 50 years
from initial 400 thousand settlers to present 7,5
million migrants. The ratio of the Chinese population in
East Turkistan is now equal to the ration of Uighur
population.
Moreover, presently the Chinese authorities plan to
bring even more Chinese migrants to this region under
the cover of the ‘reaching the West” policy.
The Chinese scientists drew up recently “The Great
Tibetan tunnel” project which basically includes
building dams across the Yaluzhangbu river in Tibet at
the 400 m wide current flow point, and reversing the
water flow through the tunnel to the Tarim river basin.
This project aims at irrigating arid areas thus creating
favorable conditions for migrating here about 300
million ethnic Chinese settlers.
3) East Turkistan borders with the Central Asian states
which are situated in a strategically important part of
the world. These newly independent states are rich in
natural gas, oil, and other valuable resources; however
they are quite weak in political, economic and military
aspects.
The Chinese government has far-reaching plans of first
building up economic power, strengthening its military
forces in East Turkistan under the disguise of
implementing ‘reaching the West” concept, and then
steadily penetrating into Central Asia, gaining ultimate
dominance, control and influence over this region, and
perhaps even occupying the Central Asian states.
Wang Lequen mentioned “the benefits to local inhabitants”
from carrying out the policy of “reaching the West» and
particularly from building the railroad as though this
railroad was built with the primary objective of
creating prosperity to the local people and giving them
an opportunity to sell their goods in inner China. Quite
contrarily, in reality this railroad was built so
promptly in order to establish an international
transport link on the Kashqar - Osh-Andijan line.
The successful operation of this transport link will
allow the Chinese to export their cheap and low quality
products to Uzbekistan, Kyrgyz and other Central Asian
countries. The Chinese will then acquire even more power
to influence and control these states politically and
economically. One of the obvious gains for the Chinese
would be getting an opportunity of importing the Central
Asian natural resources into China and also transiting
resources to the Chinese seaports.
Moreover, building the railroad in Western Turkistan
makes it easy and economically feasible to transport in
big volumes the cotton, fruits and vegetables, and other
agricultural products from East Turkistan into inner
China at a low cost. In return East Turkistan will
receive more Chinese settlers who arrive constantly by
train in big numbers.
Wang Lequen told the journalists that the railroad was
built as “the road of happiness”. If two French
correspondents who interviewed Wang Lequen took an
opportunity to travel by train from Urumchi to Kashgar
or the other way around, they would notice that 90% of
passengers were Chinese migrants from inner China who
come to settle in a densely populated Tarim valley.
In that case the journalists would definitely find out a
clear answer as for whose ‘happiness” the railroad is
really built and to whose “benefits” it really serves.
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