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China's crackdown won't end the Uighur crisis

A country is often judged by the way it treats its minorities. By that yardstick, China, the rising star of the world economy, can be considered a signal failure. Beijing’s crackdown in the remote and backward Xinjiang province has served as a stark reminder of this shortcoming. The world should be worried also because this overt protest in the face of longstanding discrimination between Uighur Muslims and the dominant Han Chinese could feed into the general discontent that fires Islamic extremism. No one should be surprised if it eventually contributes to the vortex of terrorism that has made itself felt from New York, Barcelona and London, through to Bali and Mumbai. The fact that this province, located on the edge of the perpetually restive central Asian republics, accounts for 20 per cent of China’s oil reserves only serves to complicate the issues.

 

The Uighur crisis has burst on to world consciousness because of the scale of the carnage — 156 dead and more than 800 injured. But as in the case of neighbouring Tibet, resentment has been festering for half a century. The province was yoked to Mao’s China after Josef Stalin lost interest in what was formerly a Soviet-backed East Turkestan Republic. As with Tibet, the Chinese government has followed a policy of ethnic resettlement, sending thousands of Han Chinese to the region and giving them the lion’s share of the jobs and other perks. Though unrest has simmered and underground protest movements have been known to exist, this opposition has rarely erupted as now, partly because of the peaceful and flexible version of Sunni Islam that the Uighurs practise.

It was Deng Xiao Ping’s “Open and Reform” policy — ironic, considering what followed in Tiananmen Square in 1989 — that gave the province greater autonomy and religious tolerance. This changed abruptly after 1991, partly owing to Beijing’s insecurity with the disintegration of the Soviet empire — though that event should have held a cautionary tale about the consequences of ethnic discrimination. After 9/11, things grew considerably worse for the Uighurs. With few opportunities for advancement, Uighur youth started joining the only profitable enterprise open to them — Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda. It was a circumstance that tragically caused the entire minority group to be labelled terrorists. Meanwhile, the Han Chinese were increasingly given land and ownership incentives and now account for 40 per cent of the province’s 2.3 million people. Monday’s incident followed a crackdown on a peaceful protest following an altercation between an Uighur factory worker and his Han Chinese boss.

Not burdened by the moderation that is imposed by democracy and a concern for human rights, Beijing has reacted by locking down the region, declaring curfew, effecting widespread arrests and cutting off mobile phone and internet access. That may tamp down the unrest, but the problem is unlikely to go away. That this crisis has occurred on the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre and a year after the crackdown in Tibet, should come as a warning to Beijing. The prosperity created by its feted economic miracle will inevitably stimulate demands for greater freedom of expression and for more by way of democratic rights. Unless these are addressed, China will face more law and order problems, which could eventually deter foreign investors.