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''China's Xinjiang
Region: An Area of Strategic Interest''
16 September, 2004
From the collapse of the Soviet Union until
September 11, 2001, China was able to successfully use
its security concerns within the Xinjiang Uighur
Autonomous Region to build alliances with the newly
formed states of Central Asia. Russia's domestic
concerns and the U.S.'s focus on fostering democratic
principles in the new states allowed China to form
multilateral organizations favorable to its concerns
and establish economic ties with its western
neighboring states. These conditions were of great
importance to Beijing's strategies for containing
separatist movements within Xinjiang, but following
the attacks of September 11, 2001, the U.S. reengaged
Central Asia and overpowered the multilateral
agreements that China had established.
China's attempts to adapt to the new environment were
initially met with mixed results. Beijing tried to
link the Xinjiang separatists to the U.S.'s "war on
terrorism," but even after a Uighur militant group was
placed on the official U.S. list of terrorist
organizations, Washington was generally cool to
China's claims. Recently, China has been moving to
reestablish the economic and cooperative security ties
that it previously established with Russia, Tajikistan,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan in order to
contain the Uighur militants, reinforce Beijing's
claim over the Xinjiang region and to prevent a
strategic "encircling" by the United States. Russia's
situation in Chechnya has prevented Moscow from
countering Beijing's efforts, and in the current
environment it is likely that Moscow will welcome
China's attempt to regain regional power from the U.S.
Should China be successful in this strategy, it will
have profound effects not only on the status of the
Xinjiang region, but also on the geopolitical
environment of Central Asia.
History of the Xinjiang Region
Between the 1700s and mid-1800s, China conquered most
of the homeland of the Uighurs -- a Turkic-speaking
people who converted to Islam in the 1300s. China
maintained weak control over the region now known as
Xinjiang until the Chinese civil war, during which the
Republic of East Turkestan was briefly established. In
1949, Chinese Communist troops established control
over the region, and Han Chinese were resettled
throughout Xinjiang to dilute the Uighur population
and secure the region's cooperation with Beijing.
Since 1949, the Han population in Xinjiang has
increased from 7 percent to over 40 percent.
Uighur groups who were opposed to China's control were
fragmented and lacked a charismatic leader to gain
appeal for their cause in Western countries, while the
Han Chinese largely settled in the northeastern area
of Xinjiang, away from the heartland of the Uighur
population. The situation was largely unchanged, if
not stable, until the 1990s.
In late 1990, 22 people were killed in a small
uprising in Baren, a town near Kashgar, led by Abdul
Kasim, a leader of the Free Turkestan Movement.
Beijing claimed that the weapons were supplied by
Afghan mujahideen, and its reaction was swift and
harsh.
After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the Central
Asian republics formed independent states; the Uighur
separatists within Xinjiang drew inspiration from
their neighbors' independence. Militant Uighur groups
exploited the weak, central governments of the newly
formed states and Xinjiang's porous border with
Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan to
establish training camps outside of China's reach.
China's Move Toward Regional Dominance
By 1996, Russia was prosecuting its second war with
Chechnya, Tajikistan was still suffering from its
civil war and the Uzbek government of Islam Karimov
was dealing with Islamic fundamentalists looking to
establish an Islamic government in Uzbekistan. China
feared that this instability would spread to Xinjiang,
and Beijing launched a series of new crackdowns and a
controversial "Strike Hard" campaign to reestablish
order; 1,700 suspected "terrorists" were arrested.
In April 1996, China looked to engage its western
neighbors by creating the "Shanghai Five" -- involving
China, Russia, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan
-- to serve as a bulwark against Islamic
fundamentalist subversion. Soon the signatory states
began cooperating to end the "three evil forces" --
terrorism, separatism and extremism.
China's new aggression was answered with a backlash
from the Uighur separatists -- in May 1996, a high
ranking official to the Xinjiang Peoples Political
Consultative Conference was assassinated and there
were a number of bombings on China's railroad lines
linked to Uighur groups. When Afghanistan fell to the
Taliban in September 1996, some Uighur groups fought
on the side of the Taliban. China charged the Taliban
and al-Qaeda with funding, arming and training Uighurs
within Afghanistan. This was followed by more attacks
within Xinjiang against Chinese interests. By late
1998, China feared that violence in Xinjiang was
spiraling out of control, and Beijing moved to
increase its regional influence in Central Asia.
China's move towards greater regional authority was
met with little resistance from the U.S. and with
tacit cooperation from Russia. In the summer of 2000,
Secretary of State Madeline Albright visited Central
Asia, and offered a mere $16 million in assistance to
the Central Asian states for help in the establishment
of democracy and pluralistic societies. Tajikistan,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan viewed this as a
sign of disinterest because their priorities were
focused on funding for security issues. China's
anxiety over the Xinjiang region was more in line with
the interests of the Central Asian states, and Beijing
was able to use this convergence of concerns to
increase its regional profile.
In June 2001, Uzbekistan was admitted to the "Shanghai
Five," which then evolved into a permanent group
called the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (S.C.O.).
The coalition worked to prevent Kazakh and Uighur
separatists from using Asian states as a safety zone
to plot separatist activities, and it established an
anti-terrorist center in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan where the
member states could better coordinate their efforts.
During this time, China's relationship with Washington
was becoming strained as the two states drifted
towards becoming "strategic competitors."
Tensions were building over the new administration of
George W. Bush's plans for a national missile defense
system, U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, the EP-3 spy plane
collision, Chinese missile exports to Pakistan and
frequent complaints about China's record on religious
freedoms. Washington, and the Western powers, viewed
China's claims that Uighur groups were tied to
international terrorist organizations as propaganda
and an excuse to persecute political dissidents.
The United States Unilaterally Engages Central Asia
After September 11, 2001, Washington's priorities
quickly changed in Central Asia, as fighting Islamic
terrorist networks tied to al-Qaeda became a top
priority. The U.S. established bilateral agreements
with the member states of the S.C.O., which greatly
undermined the organization's relevance and China's
ties to the countries. The newly created S.C.O.
anti-terrorist center in Bishkek was not used by the
U.S. and the bilateral agreements did not encourage
cooperation among the S.C.O. members. Beijing began to
worry that its "strategic competitor" was pursuing a
long-term strategy to contain or encircle China's
activities on its western border.
In this new environment, China tried to link its
efforts to suppress the Uighur separatists to
Washington's "war on terrorism" as a means of engaging
the Bush administration with the hopes of maintaining
its prominent role in Central Asia. On October 12,
2001, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said, "We
hope that our fight against the East Turkestan [Xinjiang]
forces will become part of the international effort
against terrorism." Washington dismissed the ties
between Uighur separatists and al-Qaeda in an effort
to isolate China's interests from those of the other
S.C.O. members. In October 2001, President Bush said
that China should not attempt to use the "war on
terrorism" as an "excuse to persecute minorities."
However, since the U.S. reengagement of the region,
Beijing and Washington have established closer ties,
largely for economic reasons, and the Bush
administration gradually allowed its interests to
shift towards those of China in return for cooperation
on intelligence and anti-terror initiatives. Some
analysts believe that Beijing is cooperating to gain
concessions on Taiwan, Tibet and the Xinjiang region.
One example that the U.S. was willing to go along with
Beijing's concerns was the August 26, 2002
announcement that the East Turkestan Islamic Movement
would be added to the U.S. list of terrorist groups.
As Washington Pulls Back, Will Beijing Move In?
This new relationship with China has increased the
importance for Washington to distinguish between
violent militant groups and peaceful independence
movements. It is in Washington's interests to root out
those groups that have a history of cooperation with
terrorist organizations outside of China's borders,
but it is also important that peaceful independence
movements are given tacit backing from Washington.
This maintains pressure on China for concessions on
human rights issues important to Washington, as well
as weakening China's control of its periphery regions
-- a strategic importance should a conflict occur
between the two states in the long term.
Beijing has received Washington's cooperation in
dismantling groups such as the United Revolutionary
Front of Eastern Turkestan, which took up arms against
China in 1997; the Wolves of Lop Nor, which has
claimed responsibility for train bombings and
assassinations in China and received training in
Kazakhstan; and the Uighur Liberation Organization,
where the group's dispersion throughout Central Asia
has allowed it to assassinate Uighurs viewed to be
cooperating with the government of China. However,
other groups, such as the East Turkestan National
Congress and the Regional Uighur Organization, have
received tacit and financial support from Washington.
The Uighur American Association was the recipient of a
grant from the U.S.-government-funded National
Endowment for Democracy -- a first for a Uighur exile
group.
Conclusion
Since 2003, China has been actively working to
reestablish the importance of the S.C.O. and has
expanded economic ties with the Central Asian states,
while the U.S. has shifted resources out of Central
Asia and into Iraq. In October 2003, China and
Pakistan held joint naval exercises off the coast of
Shanghai, China's first naval exercise with any
foreign country. Kazakhstan and China began
negotiating trade agreements to supply natural gas to
China via a pipeline through Xinjiang. China has also
increased its funding for the anti-terrorist center in
Bishkek as an effort to decrease the importance of
bilateral agreements with the United States in shaping
the member states' foreign policies. This August,
China and Pakistan held joint military exercises
code-named Youyi-2004. The operations focused on
counter-terrorism and were held in the southern
section of Xinjiang near Kashgar, the region with the
highest population of Uighurs in Xinjiang.
While China moves to assert its power in Central Asia
by growing closer to its neighboring states, the U.S.
has largely focused its relationship with China on
issues in the Taiwan Straits and the Korean peninsula.
Russia's concerns in Chechnya will drive its approach
to the region, but, with limited recourses and
domestic concerns taking a priority in Putin's
response, Moscow is likely to be content with the
existing structure of the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization, and allow China to consolidate its
influence in the region. This environment provides
China with an opportunity that it will not let pass to
rout the U.S.'s encirclement on its western border.
Washington will be reassessing the deployment of its
diplomatic and military resources in Central Asia
after the elections in Afghanistan; the size of the
withdrawal of resources will signal how serious
Washington is in controlling events in Central Asia
and how concerned it is with the situation in Xinjiang.
Report Drafted By:
Adam Wolfe
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