When confronting the situation in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region (XAR), are there lessons Beijing can draw from similar events?
China’s neighboring power, Russia, for one, has experience with Muslim separatists. Chechnya, a federal subject in southwest Russia, has fought two wars against the big Bear in search of independence. The first (1994–96) ended with a cease-fire and upwards of 100,000 dead. The second war, begun in 1999, continues to simmer.
The two contests have many parallels: For one, superpower geopolitics is involved on both ends, as Russia and China seek to maintain and assert control over their immediate spheres of influence. Both Chechens and Uighurs seek independence, are dominant ethnic minorities in their homeland, subscribe to the Islamic faith, and speak their own languages. Despite sporadic fighting, Russia continues to pour money into Chechnya, and in Xinjiang, China is investing tens of billions of Yuan as violence bubbles to the surface.
Oil is a major factor in both regions too: critical infrastructure runs through Chechnya, while Xinjiang, naturally oil-rich, feeds a 4,200 km pipeline to Shanghai. In Chechnya, Russia has successfully installed a pro-Moscow regime, while in XAR Beijing has a friend in appointed Party Secretary Wang Lequan. Lastly, Chechnya and Xinjiang border states less-friendly to their respective capitals. Below Chechnya lies the pro-American (now humbled) Georgia, while just south of Xinjiang Tibet seethes with resentment toward Beijing.
So, is Xinjiang China’s Chechnya? I put the question to S. Frederick Starr, an expert on Russia, the former Soviet Union and Central Asia at Johns Hopkins University, and editor of Xinjiang: China’s Muslim Borderland. “Both Russia and China are empires that fell apart and then were reconstituted by force of arms in the period 1920–49. Both are insecure in their feeling of control, and this insecurity informs their refusal to grant self-government to these two regions.”
According to Starr, however, there are significant differences worth highlighting. Chechens’ resistance has been more militant than anything to occur in Xinjiang so far. Moreover, “China is not parading itself as a champion of separatism abroad while suppressing it at home, as Russia is doing with Georgia and Chechnya.” Lastly, Starr notes, “Xinjiang is officially (i.e., in name, at least) an ethnically defined autonomous region, which Chechnya is not. This probably creates great expectations in Xinjiang which are unrealized.”
Beyond comparisons to the Russian-Chechen affair and musings on how China deals with separatist movements, Xinjiang, when viewed through a geopolitical lens, presents a fascinating case study. Is Xinjiang the next Tibet?, asked Nicholas Kristof in one blog post for The New York Times.
In the eyes of Washington, don’t bet on it. The United States is unlikely to extend an olive branch to Washington-based Uighur spokesman Rebiya Kadeer, the same way it has to the exiled Tibetan leader, the fourteenth Dalai Lama. Indeed, there is hardly any international support for Xinjiang independence—and Beijing would like to keep it that way.
What do separatist movements and the ETIM mean for the immediate region? Xinjiang borders Afghanistan and Pakistan for one, states where Islamic fundamentalist terrorists are known to be in hiding. U.S. and Chinese officials claim there are ties between ETIM and Al Qaeda (at one time, Guantanamo was home to 22 Uighur militants), while some experts question the extent of this connection.
Nonetheless, since September 11, 2001, Beijing has tried to brand the government’s campaign against separatists in Xinjiang as an allied cause in the U.S.-led war on terrorism. While ETIM has no place on it now, the outfit once occupied a spot on the U.S. Department of State’s list of foreign terrorist organizations.
Six other states (India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Russia, Tajikistan) and Tibet also border Xinjiang. In all likelihood, major players in the region will turn a blind eye to heavy Chinese government and military crackdowns in XAR. This is a unique case in which Beijing, Moscow, New Delhi (which also is dealing with separatist-inspired terrorism) and Washington see eye-to-eye: from their perspectives, violent, separatist, Muslim groups like ETIM and its supporters are, for security purposes, best crushed with swift, decisive tactics (rather than pussyfooting with negotiations) lest they inspire other anti-authoritarian groups in the region.
Indeed, in preparation for a recent meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) held in Tajikistan, Chinese President Hu Jintao sought “deepened cooperation among SCO member nations in arresting members of the ‘three evil forces.’” (China Brief, 9/03/08). China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan comprise the nations of the SCO, whose functions include joint counterterrorism exercises under the auspices of the Regional Antiterrorist Structure (RATS) and the 2006 Shanghai Convention on Combating Terrorism, Separatism, and Extremism.
In order to foster its ascent in the international arena, maintaining a cohesive political state is an imperative for Beijing. Toleration for dissident perspectives and opinions is minimal, to be polite, as virtually all anti-status quo behavior is abruptly quelled. The chances of China granting independence to Xinjiang are near zero for a number of reasons: for one, doing so would set a precedent for other secessionist undertakings in Tibet, or even Taiwan. More obvious, however, is that China’s east needs Xinjiang’s natural resources to keep the cities and factories humming.
Minority tensions may not be China’s most immediate or urgent problem, but it remains a very serious thorn in the side of the authoritarian government, and the wound will continue to fester for the foreseeable future. How China handles tensions with agitating minority populations will have implications for their international stature in what many see to be an unfolding “Asian Century.”
Still, so long as Beijing continues to infuse XAR with ethnic Hans, suppresses religious freedom or political autonomy, and sends XAR’s oil and gas—and the profits that go with it—back to the east coast, Xinjiang will remain a wild card.
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Shaun Randol, a former intern at the World Policy Institute, is an independent research consultant, and a research assistant at the India-China Institute at the New School.