- After beating terrorism and Islamism, Beijing wants conditions in Xinjiang to return to normal. Archived Message
Posted by johnlilburne
on September 13, 2023, 10:29 am
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News from the Xinjiang region in China rarely reaches the world. For fear of terror and secession, Beijing keeps the Uyghur population under control through repression. However, a trip to China's far west suggests that things are taking a turn for the better. Sensational reports of strict internment camps, forced labor and cultural oppression of the Uyghurs continue to shape the image of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China to this day. The fact that this region suffered from massive Islamist terror between 2010 and 2016, which almost led to the central government losing control, has been less discussed. Beijing was forced to react with measures that were undoubtedly too harsh in order to put a stop to the terror and to get the situation back under control. At stake was the internal security of all of China. It should not be overlooked that the Uyghur population itself suffered from the terror. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the renaissance of Islamism in neighboring Central Asian states spread to Xinjiang, so that twelve separatist Islamist movements became active there in the mid-1990s. The Chinese authorities reacted to bombings and armed attacks with repressive measures. However, these were not very effective. Iron Disciplinary Regime Poverty and unemployment, restrictions on religious activities and uncontrolled immigration of Han Chinese increased dissatisfaction among the Uyghur population. At the same time, it became clear that Uighur fighters were joining Islamist movements abroad. In 2016, extremist Uyghurs said in an IS video that they planned to “drown Han Chinese in a sea of blood.” Accordingly, they began recruiting young Uighurs as fighters in southern Xinjiang from Afghanistan and Pakistan. There are now clear signs of a return to “normality”. Terrorism and intimidation forced Beijing to declare a "state of emergency," deploy military units to Xinjiang, and impose a harsh disciplinary regime. This resulted in state arbitrariness. Four German China scholars (including the two authors) and an international law expert investigated on their own initiative in May 2023 the question of whether the situation in Xinjiang remained the same after the new leadership was appointed by Beijing at the end of 2021 or whether the situation had changed situation has now changed. According to the local Chinese authorities, the “fight against terrorism and Islamism” in Xinjiang from 2017 to 2020 represented a transitional phase. The new party secretary Ma Xingrui, who has been in office since December 2021, is pursuing the goal of returning to “normality” as quickly as possible . The focus is currently on the institutionalization of law and the return to legal procedures and their expansion. On the part of the Uyghur population, the modernization measures initiated by the central government in terms of education, medical care and work are clearly sympathetic. It is said that the various camps that arose during the heyday of the fight against terror have now largely been dissolved. This is also indicated in a recently published paper by the critical Xinjiang expert Adrian Zenz, who has presented most of the documentation on developments in Xinjiang in recent years . There are now clear signs of a return to “normality”. In the regions visited by the group, police road checkpoints are clearly no longer in use. With the introduction of fifteen years of free education (kindergarten, school and vocational training) for young Uyghurs, the state has initiated a new development push. In addition, there is state-subsidized health care, initially in the southern part of Xinjiang. gateway to the west In the same direction, regionally divided and adapted development aid and resource provision by Chinese provinces from the more prosperous east of the country goes. This can be seen in the modern vocational training centers in every Xinjiang district. In addition to free education, students receive 200 yuan a month to support their parents. State-sponsored establishment of modern branch companies in the agricultural and industrial sectors, which have to employ almost exclusively Uyghurs at national minimum wage standards, are intended to help solve the employment problem. The tour group was unable to detect any general discrimination against the Uyghur language and culture, although in Xinjiang, as in all areas of ethnic minorities with their own language and script, standard Chinese is the main language of instruction in schools from secondary school onwards. At compulsory school age, your own language is offered as a subject. Just as Xinjiang has been the continental “gateway to the West” for China for thousands of years, it will also remain one of the most important corridors for encounters and exchange for Central Asia and, by extension, Europe in the future. If the human rights situation continues to demonstrably normalize, the EU should start dialogue and reconsider the sanctions imposed on China over Xinjiang. Thomas Heberer is senior professor of Chinese politics and society at the University of Duisburg-Essen. Helwig Schmidt-Glintzer is professor of Chinese studies and director of the China Center Tübingen. Article in original German here: https://www.nzz.ch/meinung/xinjiang-china-kampf-gegen-terrorismus-und-separatismus-ld.1753509 |
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