An electronic newsletter

Produced by the Eastern Turkistan Information Center

18 November 1998

           18 November 1998, BBC World Service

(2) UYGHUR RESENT HAN "INVADERS"

           11 November, Eastern Turkistan Information Center

           17 October 1998, Eastern Turkistan Information Center

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(1) CHINA EXPELS GERMAN JOURNALIST

18 November 1998, BBC World Service

China has expelled the Beijing Correspondent of the German Der Spiegel magazine from the country for allegedly possessing state secrets.

The German journalist, Juergen Kremb, was said to be in possession of large quantities of secret documents when his office in Beijing was raided on Tuesday. Mr. Kremb said he believed he had never seen the documents he was accused of possessing.

A spokesman for the foreign ministry in Beijing said Juergen Kremb had been ordered to leave China within 48 hours.

Germany "astonished".

In Bonn, the German Foreign Ministry summoned the Chinese ambassador to express its astonishment over the expulsion order.

A spokeswoman said Germany was still studying how to proceed in the case.

Mr. Kremb, who recently relocated to Singapore after eight years in Beijing, had returned to the Chinese capital on Tuesday for what was to be his final reporting trip.

Shortly after he arrived, he said, eight people came to his office with a search warrant issued by China's Ministry of State Security.

"Four-hour ordeal".

Mr. Kremb said he was made to stand against the wall for four hours and filmed while the officials searched his office.

He said they showed him documents, which they said were state secrets, and asked him to sign a confession saying he had violated Chinese law.

Mr. Kremb refused and was ordered not to leave Beijing. On Wednesday, the officials returned and told him he was being expelled.

Close links with dissidents.

Mr. Kremb, who last year published a book about the prominent Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng, has been detained in the past. He described the move as a set-up designed as a show of strength timed shortly before he was to leave the country.

His expulsion follows that of a Japanese journalist last month who was also accused of being in possession of state secrets.

Mr. Kremb said he believed the authorities might be anxious following a resurgence of dissident activity in recent months. But he added that he had in fact been planning to report on a jazz festival and the opening of the new German embassy in Beijing.

(2) UYGHUR RESENT HAN "INVADERS"

17 November 1998, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESS

Repeated official claims of ethnic harmony are failing to mask deep-rooted resentment among the native Muslim population of Xinjiang towards their Han Chinese neighbors.

"The Han are bad, there are too many of them in Xinjiang," said a native Uyghur selling boiled sheep heads at a stall near Kashgar's Great Mosque.

Like most Uyghurs in this Muslim-majority province near the border with Kazakhstan, he does not speak much Putonghua.

A taxi driver in the city - 80 per cent Muslim Uyghur and 4,000km from Beijing - said: "Jiang Zemin is China's President, but not mine."

He scoffed at the idea of having Han Chinese friends. "What for?" he asked, surprised by the idea.

In Kashgar, as in the rest of Xinjiang, the Han and the other official 47 minority groups in the province live in separate districts.

The Han do not go to the same schools as the other groups, and while in theory the other ethnic groups are supposed to be taught Putonghua, the Han make no effort to learn the local dialects. A cadre in the capital Urumchi, where the Han make up more than 80 per cent of the population, said: "What would be the point of learning Uyghur? It is up to the minorities to learn the official language."

Reforms have reached Xinjiang, which has seen an economic boom since 1992. But this has also meant more Chinese arriving which has put further pressure on the fragile ethnic balance.

Already dominant in the economy, the Han are well on the way to becoming the majority in the province.

In 1949, the Han were only 300,000 strong. Now there are 6.6 million according to official figures, 38 per cent of the provincial population of 17 million. The Uyghurs make up 7.2 million.

However, the figures do not include the strong military presence, nor the floating Han population which has appeared in the past few years, drawn by economic opportunity.

The Han vacillate between bragging and fear. "We will be the majority," said one official next to a poster stating: "The unity of the minorities is vital for all the people."

(3) PROTEST TO GORE ON TIBET, TAIWAN

        17 November 1998, VIVIEN PIK-KWAN CHAN in Kuala Lumpur

America should not meddle in the issues of Tibet and Taiwan, Jiang Zemin told US Vice-President Al Gore during talks yesterday.

Their two-hour meeting, at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum summit, covered a range of issues including Beijing's double protest last week over President Bill Clinton and Mr Gore's meetings with the Dalai Lama in Washington and Energy Secretary Bill Richardson's trip to Taiwan.

Human rights, China's bid to join to World Trade Organisation and regional security issues, such as North Korea and nuclear non-proliferation, were also discussed, said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao.

"Gore said the US had maintained a consistent policy on Taiwan and Tibet," said Mr Zhu.

The American policy had not changed on these issues, he said.

Mr Zhu described the meeting between President Jiang and Mr Gore as "fruitful and positive".

Mr Gore invited Premier Zhu Rongji to visit the United States next spring and to co-host the second US-Sino Environmental Forum.

A senior American official said Mr Jiang was concerned that Mr Clinton and Mr Gore met the Dalai Lama during the Tibetan spiritual leader's trip to the US and over Mr Richardson's Taiwan visit.

The official said: "It was a calm, measured statement by Mr Jiang - no hard rhetoric.

"Mr Jiang said Beijing does not think the Dalai Lama is ready for serious discussion with Beijing."

Discussions on the sides' fundamental principles towards Tibetan and Taiwan followed, said the official.

Mr Jiang was quoted by Xinhua as telling Mr Gore: "The Dalai Lama must truly give up his claim for the independence of Tibet, stop the activities designed to split the motherland and declare publicly that Tibet is a part of China, Taiwan is a province of China and the Government of the People's Republic of China is the sole legitimate one of the country.

"They are still propagandising their cause and deceiving public opinion in the world by making use of discussion on contacts with the central Government."

Mr Jiang hoped bilateral talks on China's accession to the world trade body could be speeded up and concluded by early next year.

But Mr Gore said this was possible only if China tabled a commercially viable package.

(4) DALAI LAMA OPTS FOR "LOW PROFILE"

       11 November, Eastern Turkistan Information Center

(6) INSURRECTION

       21 October 1998, by Miles Clemans, the Australia/Israel Review

While the Tibetan struggle for independence captured the world‘s imagination, China as on its hands another separatist tussle hich it considers weightier. The contest for the strategically important western province of Xinjiang continues largely unnoticed outside of China, except in the Islamic world. Bordering some of the world‘s most newsworthy countries - Russia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, as well as the equally volatile Central Asian republics of Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Kirgizstan, Xinjiang’s very centrality begs attention.

The Separatist violence which has dogged the province in recent years is on the rise. Yet, while the fate of the Tibetans, frequently chronicled in literature and recent Hollywood offerings, has pricked die consciences of those critical of China, the adjoining province of Xinjiang lacks a charismatic figurehead like the Dalai Lama to plead its case.

The province, which occupies one-sixth of China‘s area, has thirteen officially recognized nationalities. Of these, the Sunni Muslim Uyghurs (pronounced Weegurs) are the protagonists in the separatist movement. Comprising more than 7 million of Xinjiang’s 17.5 million population, the Uyghurs are its largest ethnic group, and more aligned to the Turkic countries west of the province than to the Beijing administration.

For decades the borders of Xinjiang - once the center of the Silk road - were tightly sealed. But in recent years, the borders have opened up to trade, contraband, and more importantly, information. The quest for independence was reawakened by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. The Soviet defeat and subsequent implosion of the Soviet Union had a radicalizing effect on young Uyghurs, many of whom had fought in Afghanistan alongside the Islamic Mujahadeen. As the Islamic revival swept across Central Asia, its reverberations also surged through Xinjiang.

The migration and settlement of huge numbers of Han Chinese after the region came under Communist control profoundly affected the population distribution of Xinjiang. In 1949, Han Chinese only accounted for 2 to 3 percent of the population, growing to 38 percent today. Resentment runs deep towards the 6 million 1-lan Chinese. It has been forecast that by the end of the next decade, 1-lan Chinese will comprise die majority of Xinjiang‘s ethnic mix.

Reliable information on the extent of violence in Xinjiang is scarce as the official Chinese press downplays reports of terrorist outbreaks. What is known is that in April of 1990, as many as 60 Uighurs were killed by local authorities near Kashgar in western Xinjiang while protesting at the banning of the construction of a mosque. Authorities responded to Uyghur nationalism by cracking down on unregistered places of worship, screening imams for their political views and outlawing ,,illegal" religious activities.

In 1996, Chinese security forces clashed with Uighurs armed with light weapons acquired from Afghan and Central Asian supporters in the town of Aksu. Several People‘s Liberation Army (PLA) battalions were dispatched. Following the crackdown came die riots of February 1997 in the northern City of Yining. Uyghurs went on the rampage, torching cars, looting Chinese stalls, burning flags and shouting pro-independence slogans. The unrest left approximately 90 Uyghurs and Chinese dead.

Three weeks later, following the death .of Deng Xiaoping, three bus bombs exploded in Xinjiang’s capital Urumchi. The explosions killed at least 9 people and injured 74. Shortly afterwards a bomb blast ripped through a congested area of Beijing, indicating that die struggle for Xinjiang independence was moving into the heart of China.

Apprehensive of Tibetan and Xinjiang separatists infiltrating die capital, die Beijing municipality recently issued a circular to hotels. In it, diey demanded that all guests of Kazakh, Turkish and Indian extraction be monitored and information passed on to auditorities.

Yet support for the Uyghur cause comes not only from bordering countries such as Kazakhstan or Kirgizstan, but also from distant Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iran. Mediods of support range from the publication of pro-Uyghur periodicals to holding rallies and hard-core financial support of exiled Uyghur community groups.

Dru Gladney, who has spent considerable time in Xinjiang and is dean of die Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu, told the Review, ,,It is clear in Washington DC the Uyghur group gets its funding from Saudi Arabia, other (Uyghur) groups acknowledge funding from groups in Turkey or groups in Iran." After the Yining uprising last year, Saudi Arabia urged Western human rights organizations to pay more attention to Chinese violations of religious freedom in Xinjiang. In Istanbul, Uyghurs burned Chinese flags outside Beijing‘s consulate.

Over die past year separatist violence has been sporadic, but it gained momentum in August 1998 when die far-western bazaar town of Kashi was placed under curfew when eight Chinese policemen were murdered. Xinjiang’s Communist Party secretary, Wang Lequan, then admitted at a press conference in Hong Kong that terrorist or ,,splittist" activity was flourishing in Xinjiang. The announcement came as something of a catharsis.

Wang said that die separatist movement operated 19 terrorist training bases in Xinjiang, supported by groups including the Taleban in Afghanistan. .which the. Chinese. Government claims smuggles arms into Xinjiang. European intelligence sources have even revealed that the notorious Osama bin Laden played a key role in dispatching fighters to Xinjiang as part of ajihad against China.

Unlike the Tibetans, the Uyghurs do not have a government-in-exile, yet they are able to draw support from militant groups in Central Asia, most of them based in Almaty, Kazaklistan. The Committee for Eastern Turkestan publishes its own newspaper and distributes it to Uyghur communities in Central Asia, Turkey and Germany. Other groups include The Uyghurstan Society for Freedom with a membership of 7,000, the Uyghur Association, and the Organization for Liberation of Uyghurstan. The Revolutionary Front of Eastern Turkistan has admitted to sabotage, including blowing up railway tracks in Xinjiang. In some countries, Uyghur émigré groups cooperate with Tibetan exiles.

So important to China is die security of Xinjiang that President Jiang Zernin visited the province after attending the first anniversary of the hand-over of Hong Kong in July 1998. He made a number of speeches about the need to maintain stability in Xinjiang by continuing to clamp down on separatists and illegal religious activities, and continuing along die path of economic development.

Immediately after diat, President Jiang flew to a five nation summit of Central Asian states based in Kazakhstan. His mission was to extract promises from those Central Asian countries bordering Xinjiang that they would not assist the Xinjiang separatists. During his trip three more bombs exploded in Xinjiang. But he did succeed in reinforcing existing treaties with most of the new Central Asian states.

China is unlikely ever to cede Xinjiang, for both strategic and economic reasons. lt carries the main land routes (road and rail) to Central Asia, and hence to Europe. Sitting atop enormous reserves of oil and natural gas, it holds about one-quarter of the country‘s entire reserves. Since China became an oil-importing country in 1993, reliance on Xinjiang’s 2.12 billion tones of oil and 280 billion cubic meters of natural gas has deepened.

The region is a treasure chest of minerals such as coal, manganese, iron, lithium and rock crystal and boasts of being China‘s top cotton producer. Last year, 25 percent of the country‘s national cotton crop was grown there. In 4997, Xinjiang amassed a GDP of 105 billion yuan (US$12.6 billion) with 9.5% growth. In a bid by China to shore up the economy of its western region, an enormous amount of economic development has gone into Xinjiang over. The last fiyt years. Beijin pumped 170-8 billion yuan into roads, railways, power stations, airports and other infrastructure in the five-year period ending in 1997 – an amount equal to total investment from 1949-91.

The Uyghur separatists have so far made no attempt to hinder the infrastructure program. As Dru Gladney points out, none of the violence has interrupted any of the industry or infrastructure - oil refineries, pipelines or trains. It has been more targeted towards police stations, government offices and towards some Muslim religious leaders believed to be collaborators.

Xinjiang has a rich history. It was at one time under the rule of Kublai Khan, grandson of die legendary Ghengis Khan. Marco Polo passed through in the 13^th century, during the time of the so-called prosperous Pax Mongolica. Xinjiang only became a province in the late Qing Dynasty when it was conquered by the Manchus in 1759. It was then that the Uyghur territory was given the name Xinjiang, which means ,new frontier‘ in Mandarin.

The Uyghurs’ desire for independence was satisfied for a short while when they took advantage of China‘s war with Japan to declare the new Muslim Republic of East Turkistan in 1944. In 1950, PLA troops marched into Xinjiang and crushed the Uyghurs‘ short-lived independence. Xinjiang was reincorporated as an autonomous region in October, 1955. The short-lived republic of East Turkistan remains an inspiration for the Uyghurs.

Following China‘s spectacular rise to become a key determinant of Asia‘s future, it is in a stronger position than ever to halt the separatist momentum, which has received support from countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey. China understands full well the economic and strategic imperatives of maintaining stability in Xinjiang. The twelve army divisions, maintained in the province to face Russia and India, provide a significant security for the task.

(7) A CLASH BETWEEN TWO YOUNG PEOPLE WITH POLICES IN HOTAN

       17 October 1998, Eastern Turkistan Information Center

The inhabitants of Kashgar Region 25 year old Ablimit and Abdusalam were followed by two polices after their arrival in Hotan City. When they were coming into the restorant two polices asked them to give up. But these two young men seized the gun from those polices and killed them.

Two other polices who were passing by opened the fire in return. As a consequence of what the both sides were hardly injured.

Now all of the participants of this clash are in Reanimation at a Hotan hospital.

Prepared by:

Abdulrakhim Aitbayev (rakhim@lochbrandy.mines.edu)

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The World Uyghur Network News electronic newsletter is produced by the Eastern Turkistan Information Center (ETIC) in cooperation with the Taklamakan Uighur Human Rights Association (USA), and is devoted to the current political, cultural and economic developments in Eastern Turkistan and to the Uyghur people related issues.

The World Uyghur Network News brings information on situation in Eastern Turkistan from the Uyghur and other sources to the attention of the international community.

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EASTERN TURKISTAN INFORMATION CENTER
Director: Abduljelil Karkash
Lindwurmstr 99, 80337 Munich, Germany