Justin M. Jacobs - Xinjiang and the Modern Chinese State

XINJIANG AND THE MODERN CHINESE STATE

STUDIES ON ETHNIC GROUPS IN CHINA

Stevan Harrell, Editor

XINJIANG AND THE MODERN CHINESE STATE

Justin M. Jacobs

University of Washington Press

Seattle and London

Xinjiang and the Modern Chinese State was supported by a grant from the Donald R. Ellegood International Publications Endowment.

2016 by the University of Washington Press

Printed and bound in the United States of America

Design: Dustin Kilgore

Composed in Meta Serif and Meta Sans typefaces

Meta Serif designed by Erik Spiekermann and Christian Schwartz

Meta Sans designed by Erik Spiekermann

201918171654321

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UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON PRESS

www.washington.edu/uwpress

Names: Jacobs, Justin M., author.

Title: Xinjiang and the modern Chinese state / Justin M. Jacobs.

Description: Seattle : University of Washington Press, 2016. | Series: Studies on ethnic groups in China | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015044270 | ISBN 9780295995656 (hardcover : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu (China)Politics and government. | Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu (China)Ethnic relations. | GeopoliticsChinaXinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu. | BorderlandsChinaXinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu. | ImperialismHistory.

Classification: LCC DS793.S62 J33 2016 | DDC 951/.604dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015044270

The paper used in this publication is acid-free and meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.481984.

In memory of Ernie Esser, the kindest, smartest, and most interesting friend I ever had. A mended boomerang and empty bottle of mead will always remind me of the good times, from Ninth Grade Island to the Channel Islands.

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

Stevan Harrell

Xinjiang, or East Turkestan, as its independence activists call it, has been getting increasing attention in world political and journalistic circles. Once completely overshadowed by Tibet and Taiwan as margins of the Chinese political sphere, Xinjiang has attracted interest because of widely publicized riots in 2009, increased PRC government surveillance and repression of native populations, the incarceration of Xinjiang Uighurs in the U.S. military prison at Guantnamo Bay, and most recently, the arrest and conviction of Uighur economics professor Ilham Tohti for subversion and the repatriation of Uighur refugees by the Thai government. No longer is Xinjiang the conflict zone nobody but locals and specialists have ever heard of.

There are two pervasive ways of talking about todays Xinjiang. According to the discourse promoted by the world press and most governments, Uighurs are a Turkic-speaking, Central Asian Muslim people who resent heavy-handed Chinese rule and large-scale Han in-migration (some call it occupation), and have expressed opposition in forms ranging from private publications to exile websites to occasional riots and acts of terror, spurring further government repression in a vicious cycle. According to the official discourse of the PRC government and media, however, things are different. In this view, Uighurs are one of the fifty-six minzu, or national minorities, who make up the Chinese nation, they are progressing toward affluent modernity under Communist Party leadership, and only a tiny minority, probably manipulated by foreign powers seeking to weaken China, ever express opposition or cause any trouble.

What is missing from these discourses, and what Justin Jacobss Xinjiang and the Modern Chinese State delivers in abundance, is the historical context of imperial governance. He stresses the important point that all three regimes that have ruled mainland East Asia in the last two centuriesthe imperial Qing, the Republic of China, and now the Peoples Republic of Chinahave been empires, multiethnic or multinational countries whose central rulers have had to deal with the problem of governing the linguistically, culturally, religiously, and politically different peoples that inhabit their border regions. All three of these imperial regimes have recognized that ruling the ethnic peripheries presents different problems from ruling the Han core, and all three have employed a variety of strategies for what Jacobs refers to as the strategic manipulation of the politics of difference in governing their peripheries, particularly Xinjiang. Using the strategies that Jacobs calls ethno-elitist and ethnopopulist, these regimes have attempted to win over the population of Xinjiang either through their traditional leaders or through appeal to the populace at large. They have done this while countering the appeals not just of local nationalism and independence sentiment, but also the ever-present threat of Russian territorial ambitionsTsarist, Soviet, and post-Soviet. But under no strategy of governance has the region been at peace for long.

Todays rulers of Xinjiang are thus not facing a new problem. And like their imperial and Republican predecessors, they have not been very successful in solving it. There is local opposition from Uighurs and other local peoples, as there always has been. There are shifting policies and pressures from the central regime, as there always have been. There are external geopolitical interests, as there always have been. Through Jacobss analyses of the successes and failures of Xinjiangs recent historical rulers, we come to appreciate not just the complexity but also the depth of its troubles. Perhaps we can better understand just why todays PRC leaders are at such a loss, and why they have not fulfilled their announced mission of helping Xinjiang advance harmoniously into the Chinese version of modernity. As long as Xinjiang is part of a state centered on China, problems of governance and conflict will come, literally, with the territory. But China will not grant any appreciable degree of autonomy, because there are geopolitical interests involved. We can only hope that lessons to be learned from Jacobss stories of previous failures and occasional successes will somehow be useful in future attempts to solve the Xinjiang question.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book is the result of so many years of research and writing that I can hardly stand to look at it anymore. It has taken me from Seattle to San Diego, Taipei to Beijing, Urumchi to Kashgar, Istanbul to Nanjing, and London to Washington, DC. I long wished for a suitable analogy to convey this experience to friends and family, but I never found one. Then I came across the following entry in the diary of Wu Zhongxin, governor of Xinjiang during the mid-1940s. On March 1, 1946, Wu recalled the belated realization of his long desired dream: passage on a plane out of Xinjiang. The plane experienced horrendous turbulence, and many passengers vomited in the cabin as it passed through thick cloud cover and ferocious winds, the aged and battered aircraft lurching and weaving through mountain peaks, on several occasions nearly colliding with rocky outcroppings. Huddled uncomfortably in a drafty cabin without seats, Wu listened anxiously as the pilot cursed and sweated, wondering why they had taken off in the first place. Though the weather was not conducive to flying today, the pilot later told him, there were so many well-wishers at the airport, all giving us a grand and enthusiastic farewell, that it would have been a severe letdown to all if we had not taken off. When they eventually landed, they were many hours behind schedule.