Uighurs left alone

No news are coming out of China's Xinjiang province these days. It seems that the Chinese authorities have brought the violent protests of the native Muslim Uyghur population which had started on July 5 in the city of Urumqi under control. The Uighurs call the territory East Turkestan. According to official reports, 197 people died during the riots and 1680 were wounded. Uighurs outside of China are claiming that the death toll was much higher.

The Uighurs had protested against economic discrimination and the gradual undermining of their native culture through Beijing's policies. China claimed that the protests, which were the most extensive and violent since the student protests on Tiannamen square in 1989, were organized by Uighurs living abroad.

Looking at the events from today's perspective, one of the big surprises is how little solidarity Muslim countries showed and how downright hostile the position of Central Asian countries was. Less surprising is the hateful reaction of Russia and the noble indifference of the West. Poor Uighurs...

Downright hostility from Pakistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyztan...

The Afghan foreign ministry said "Afghanistan is committed to non-interference in the internal affairs of the People's Republic of China and supports the Chinese government's efforts in war against terrorists and separatists". A spokesman for the Pakistani Foreign ministry stressed that Beijing's interests were Islamabad's interests.

To understand these statements, it should be borne in mind that Afghanistan and Pakistan are, as China's neighbors and trading partners, dependent from its good-will; at the same time the governments of both countries don't have full control over their territories, making it possible for various armed groups to operate from there, also against China. Thus Afghan and Pakistani leaders have to resort to declarations of loyalty in order to calm China's anger.

Khazakhstan - whose Prime Minister Karim Massimov is of Uighur origin himself - is closest to Urumqi and feared that an escalation of the conflict would expose it to a refugee problem. And the governments of both Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have no interest to support armed Muslim groups which one day could threaten their own regimes as well. Thus at the height of the unrest, Kazakhstan agreed that China would suspend visas for Kazakhs wishing to visit Xinjiang, in a apparent move to block support for the Uighurs from abroad. Kyrgyztan tightened border controls to China to prevent an influx of refugees - not exactly a gesture of solidarity!

Chinese paramilitary policemen stand guard on a street in the Uighur district of Urumqi city, in China's Xinjiang region, on July 14, 2009.
Photo: Peter Paks/AFP/Getty Images

...hatred from Russia...

The strongest statement in support of the Chinese authorities came from the Russian Foreign Ministry, saying that Xinjiang was an "inalienable part of the People's Republic of China" and expressing its hope that the "situation" there would "be swiftly normalized".

The threat of Muslim separatism is bringing the one-time rivals Russia and China very close together indeed. On July 23, the two countries started their first-ever join military exercises, involving 10.000 troops, around China's Shandong Peninsula.

Sergey N. Goncharov, the chargé d'affaires of the Russian embassy in Beijing, told Xinhua news agency: "the war game...is aimed to help...get ready for a joint fight against international terrorists, national separatists and religious extremists". Wow! Any more questions?

...indifference from Arab countries...

Returning to Muslim countries, no statement is on record from Saudi Arabia, or Egypt, or any other Arab country. Iran's foreign minister Motaki, on the other hand, voiced his concern over "the rights of Chinese Muslims" vis-?-vis the Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, Ihsanoglu, and announced to do likewise vis-?-vis his Chinese counterpart.

The strongest support for the Uighurs came from the Turks, who regard themselves as being ethnically close to the Uighurs. After pressure from street protests in Ankara and Istanbul, Turkish industry minister Ergün called on July 9 for a boycott of Chinese goods and Prime Minister Erdogan termed the events in Urumqi an "atrocity". He did not follow up on these remarks, though. Maybe he got some second thoughts about the treatment of Kurds by the Turks, or about the fate of Armenians at Turkish hands during and after WWI...

...and other priorities for the West

Western countries made the usual noises about the need to avoid the use of force etc. but did so in such a routine way that it was clear that the topic was not very important to them.

After all, Western countries have demonstrated that Uighurs are not exactly close their hearts when no single country was prepared to accept any of the seven Uighurs whom the US wanted to release from Guantanamo after they had been held there for five years without charge - and apparently unjustly. Pressure by China on individual countries not to accept the men may also have played a role. Eventually, four men were accepted by the Bahamas, in exchange for US financial assistance.

To put it more exactly, Western countries regard other issues, which cannot be managed without China's cooperation, as much more important than Uighur aspirations for independence. Such issues are: preventing North Korea from going completely nuts, preventing Iran from going nuclear, preventing a meltdown of Pakistan which would deliver ca 100 nuclear weapons into the hands of radical Islamists, to name a few.

China's might is big. And the empire does not appreciate dissent, not internally and not internationally. We should get accustomed to it. Or should we?

Michael Friedländer
July 23, 2009