MCLC: Wang Lixiong on Kunming

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: pjmooney <pjmooney at me.com>
Subject: Wang Lixiong on Kunming
***********************************************************

Source: China Change (3/3/14):
http://chinachange.org/2014/03/03/excerpts-from-my-west-china-your-east-tur
kestan-my-view-on-the-kunming-incident/

Excerpts from “My West China, Your East Turkestan” — My View on the
Kunming Incident
By Wang Lixiong

(On the evening of March 1, 2014, several knife-wielding men and at least
one woman killed 33 and injured more than 140 in the train station in the
southwestern city of Kunming. The Chinese authorities blame Uighur
separatists for the terrorist attack. — Editor)

People asked how I look at the Kunming incident. I don’t feel I have much
more to say. The issue lies not in the incident itself but beyond it, and
it has been long in the making. I have said everything in my book My West
China; Your East Turkestan (《我的西域; 你的东土》) published in 2007.  I
offer the 
following excerpts from the book to serve as my answer:

What is “Xinjiang?” Its most straightforward meaning is “new territory.”
But for the Uighurs, how could the land possibly be their “new territory”
when it has been their home and their ancestors’ home for generations. It
is only a new territory for the occupiers.

The Uighurs don’t like to hear the name “Xinjiang” because it is itself a
proclamation of an empire’s expansion, the bragging of the colonists, and
a testimony of the indigenous people’s humiliation and misfortune.

Even for China, the name “New Territory” is awkward. Everywhere and on
every occasion, China claims that Xinjiang has belonged to China ever
since ancient times, but why is it called the “new territory?” The
government-employed scholars racked their brain, insisting that “new
territory” is the “new” in the phrase “the new return of old territories”
by Zuo Zongtang’s (左宗棠, best known as General Tsao who led the campaign
to 
reclaim Xinjiang in 1875-1876).  This is far-fetched, because in that
case, shouldn’t it be called the “old territory”?

I will never forget a scene once described by a foreign journalist in
which, every evening, a seven-year-old Uighur boy unhoisted the Chinese
flag, which the Chinese authorities required them to fly during the day,
and trampled it underfoot. What hatred would make a child do that? Indeed,
from children, one can measure most accurately the level of ethnic
tension. If even children are taking part in it, then it is a united and
unanimous hostility.

That’s why, in Palestinian scenes of violence, we always see children in
the midst. I use the term “Palestinization” to describe the full
mobilization of a people and the full extent of its hatred. To me,
Xinjiang is Palestinizing. It has not boiled to the surface as much, but
it has been fermenting in the heart of the indigenous peoples.

The indigenous peoples regarded Sheng Shicai (盛世才) , the Han (Chinese)
war 
lord who ruled Xinjiang during the 1930s and 1940s, as an executioner, and
they call Wang Lequan (王乐泉), the CCP secretary who carried out
heavy-handed policies in Xinjiang, Wang Shicai. But when, in Urumqi, the
Han taxi driver saw I was holding a copy of Sheng Shicai, the Lord of the
Outer Frontiers, a book I had just bought from a bookstore, he immediately
enthused about Sheng. “The policies at his time were truly good,” he
exalted.

CCP’s policies in Xinjiang today have been escalating the ethnic tension.
Continuing on that path, it will not take long to reach the point of no
return where all opportunities for healthy interaction will be lost, and a
vicious cycle pushes the two sides farther and farther apart. Once
reaching that point of no return, Xinjiang will likely become the next
Middle East or Chechnya.

Once, I asked a Uighur youth whether he wanted to make a pilgrimage to
Mecca. He said he wanted badly, but he cannot go now because the Koran
teaches him that, when your homeland is still under occupation, you cannot
make pilgrimages to Mecca. He stopped short there, but the idea was clear.
To fulfill his wish, he will fight to drive the Hans out of his homeland.

However, I am more shocked by Han intellectuals, including some elites at
the top. On any normal day, they appear to be open-minded, reasonable, and
supportive of reform, but as soon as we touches the topic of Xinjiang, the
word “kill” streams out of their mouths with such facility. If genocide
can keep Xinjiang under China’s sovereignty, I think it is possible that
they will be able to stay composed and quiet if millions of Uighurs are
killed.

If the oppression is political oppression, once the political system
changes, the oppression will be lifted, and I suppose all ethnicities
should still be able to live and work together to build a new society. But
if the minorities believe that the oppression comes from the Han people,
then political change will not solve the problem fundamentally. The only
option will be independence.

This is a factor working against China’s political transition, because,
instead of helping keep the minorities in China, political change will
weaken the Chinese control, and the indigenous peoples will seek
independence.

As an observer of the CCP’s power operation, I often see in my mind’s eye
a scene you would see in Chinese acrobatics: one chair stacks on another,
another and another, with the performer turning upside down one moment and
swiveling around the next on top of them. Today, the CCP’s acrobatic
skills have also reached such virtuoso levels, stacking chairs to an
incredible height. However, the balance will not last forever, and the
chairs cannot be stacked to an indefinite height. There will be a moment
when all chairs will tumble down. The taller the chairs have been stacked,
the harder they will collapse.

Over the CCP’s rule of more than half a century, the humanistic tradition
has been cut off, education of humanities has been marginalized and has
become insignificant. Even the new generation of bureaucrats, who are
considered to have received a good education, are mere technocrats who
have knowledge but no soul and who worship power and look down on the poor
and the weak. They rely on nothing else but the power system and the art
of power struggle; they are good at nothing but using such administrative
power as a means of suppression. They churn out phrases like “step up,”
“strike hard,” “punish severely” every time they talk. It seems to work
for the moment, but it is drinking poison to quench the thirst.

In the absence of the humanistic spirit, the power group has no capacity
to face deeper areas of culture, history, faith, and philosophy. Their
solutions tend to be wretched and simplistic, calming down disruptive
incidents like a fire engine darting out to distinguish a fire. But the
ethnic problem is precisely a humanistic issue and the correct way of
solving it is only attainable through a humanistic approach. Looking
ahead, it is hard to expect the CCP to make any breakthroughs, because the
revival of humanistic values cannot be done in a snap.

Throughout its history, Xinjiang was twice “East Turkestan” (once in 1933
and another time in 1944).  But China in the last century also saw various
separatist rules, including the Communist Party’s “Soviet Republic,”
resulting in China’s continuous division. In fact, the escalation of the
Xinjiang problem almost coincided with Beijing’s “anti-separatism
struggle” in Xinjiang. Therefore, we have reason to believe that, the
Xinjiang issue to a large extent is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[In 2000, the CCP issued Document No. 7 with regard to the Xinjiang issue.
This is how it described what is at issue: “The principal danger to
Xinjiang’s stability is the separatist force and illegal religious
activities.” The syntax resembles Mao Zedong’s edict about Xinjiang [in
1962 when China and USSR turned from “brothers” to enemies]: “the
principal danger in Xinjiang comes from the Soviet Union’s modern
revisionism.” The difference is the focus has turned from international
relations to ethnic relations. And this document has since become the
CCP’s guidelines and policy foundation for carrying out hardline
approaches in Xinjiang.

The crackdown has been strengthened, but terrorist activities have picked
up. Why?  Is there a cause-and-effect correlation between the two?  It is
possible that some terrorist groups and activities are the creations of
the CCP’s “prophecies.” The CCP’s own creator Mao Zedong said long ago
that “there is no such thing as hate without a reason,” but Beijing has
not pause to consider the most important question:  What are the reasons
and causes of ethnic hatred in Xinjiang?

When Document No. 7 insists that “the principal danger to Xinjiang’s
stability is the separatist force and illegal religious activities,” it
separates the Hans and the indigenous peoples living in Xinjiang into two
groups, pitting them against each other, because both the “separatist
force” and the “illegal religious activities” are aiming at the indigenous
peoples.

Naturally, Beijing has been relying on the Hans living in Xinjiang to
carry out its administration, and the indigenous peoples on the other hand
have become groups on whom watchful eyes must be kept. Consequently, all
the “prophecies” are being self-fulfilled: The Hans are vigilant toward
the indigenous peoples, and the indigenous peoples eventually will be
driven to the opposite side. A small number of terrorists are not a big
problem; the biggest danger is when the indigenous peoples in Xinjiang as
a whole turn against Beijing.

With the idea of stabilizing Xinjiang through economic development, the
basic mistake is that the essence of the ethnic issue is not economic but
political. To begin with, it is upside down to solve a political problem
with economical solutions, and how do you expect to solve the ethnic
problem when high-strung political suppression continues to ratchet up?

Beijing likes to flaunt how much money it has given Xinjiang, but the
indigenous peoples are asking: How much oil have you siphoned away from
Xinjiang? The Number One project in China’s “Grand Development of the
West” is “the transportation of natural gas from the west to the east.”
The Xinjiang residents have legitimate reasons to question whether the
development of the west is in fact a plunder of the west. As long as the
hostility exists and different ethnic groups distrust each other, all
economic activities can be labeled as colonialism.

Hans are 40% of the Xinjiang population but they have controlled most of
the power and the economic and intellectual resources in Xinjiang. They
are positioned to grab more benefit than the indigenous peoples in any
given new wealth distribution or new opportunities. Xinjiang’s economy
depends on the interior of China. The use of Mandarin alone puts the
indigenous peoples at a disadvantage. Today, if you are looking for a job
in Xinjiang but don’t speak Mandarin, you will be dismissed right away.
High-level positions are mostly held by the Hans.

Unemployment in Xinjiang is severe. Young people often can’t find a job.
Han residents can go to the interior to work, but the indigenous people
can only stay home. When I travelled in Xinjiang, I saw ethnic youth
loitering together chatting or carousing. Scenes like that always troubled
me because, what would the future hold if so many young people are idling,
having no place to make better use of their energy, while hatred keeps
growing?

A Uighur friend told me, “Look, 99% of diners in these little restaurants
are Uighurs and 99% of them are paying from their own pockets. But 99% of
the customers in big restaurants are Hans, and 99% of them are paying
bills with public money!” The discontent of ethnic minorities first and
foremost came from such visual and straightforward contrasts. Indeed, in
expensive venues in Xinjiang, there were hardly any ethnic people. There,
it felt just like China’s interior with Hans all around speaking Chinese.
As with any changing circumstances, there is a tipping point. Before
reaching that point, there might be room for improvement. But once past
the tipping point, the situation will be similar to the kind of ethnic war
between the Palestinians and the Israelis that has no solution and no end
in sight. I cannot estimate how far we are from that tipping point, but
following the path the current regime is walking on, we are fast
approaching it.

The CCP seems to believe that, with the grip on power, they can do
anything they want without having to care about the feelings of the
indigenous peoples. A typical example is that they sprinkled Wang Zhen (王震
)’s ashes in the Heavenly Mountains. (Wang Zhen was one of the eight
“lords” of the CCP and the first party secretary in Xinjiang.) For the
indigenous peoples, all water comes from the sacred Heavenly Mountains (天山
). The Muslims have particular concepts of being clean, not just tangibly
but also intangibly. Ashes are not clean; on top of that, Wang Zhen was a
heretic and a murderer, and to spread his ashes was to foul all of the
water for Muslims.

Having ruled Xinjiang for decades, the Chinese government’s impertinence
was such that, to satisfy Wang Zhen’s wish, the will of more than 10
million Muslims living in Xinjiang must be cast aside and the event must
be broadcast loudly. Indeed, Xinjiang Muslims couldn’t do anything about
it and still had to drink water. But you can imagine every time a Xinjiang
Muslim drinks water, how he or she would be irritated by the idea of
uncleanness, and how they would think that, if Xinjiang is independent,
such a thing would never have happened.

The mosques are not allowed to run schools to teach the Koran. But how can
you prohibit a religion from preaching its beliefs? When the students
cannot study Koran in Xinjiang, they will have to go to Pakistan,
Afghanistan … in the end some of them will be turned into Talibans and get
Jihad indoctrination and terrorist training. Finally they will return to
Xinjiang to engage in terrorism and fight for the freedom of spreading the
Islam.

When people petition, protest, even provoke disturbances, it means they
still harbor hopes for solutions. When they cease to say or do anything,
it is not stability; it is despair. Deng Xiaping was right when he said,
“the most terrifying thing is when the people are stone quiet.”
Unfortunately none of his successors really understood him. Today the
rulers are rather complacent about the general silence. Any expression of
resistance by the Uighurs will be met with head-on blows.

Eliminating conflicts “at the germinating stage” isn’t a good way to deal
with conflicts, because the nature of the conflict doesn’t manifest itself
in that early stage, while many positive factors can also be eliminated.
That’s not really eliminating the friction, but suppresses it or rubs it
in deeper. It will pile up and there will be a day when it will be
triggered unexpectedly: out of silence thunders crashes down.

If the percentage of Hans in Xinjiang are small, they would retreat to the
interior as soon as there are signs of unrest. Conversely, if the Han
immigrants outnumber the indigenous peoples with even more advantages than
numbers, then the indigenous peoples would shun rashness. But now is a
time when conflict is mostly likely because the Hans and the indigenous
peoples are closely equally numbered.

Han is the second largest ethnic group in Xinjiang. A considerable portion
of them have long put down roots in Xinjiang, and some have lived in
Xinjiang for generations already. They don’t have anything in the
interior, and they will defend Xinjiang as they would their homeland. This
means that, when Hans in Xinjiang are faced with ethnic conflict, they are
unlikely to exercise restraint. Instead, they would use the weapons, the
fortunes, the technology and the leadership positions they have at their
command to fight the indigenous peoples, with the help of the great China
behind them.

When the Uighurs begin a Jihad against the Chinese rule, will other
Muslims join their cause, such as the Caucasians, the Afghans, and rich
Arabs? The separatists know very well that they can’t confront China by
themselves, so they have always put their cause in the larger picture of
the world. I have heard them talking about Xinjiang’s geopolitics, the
world of Islam, and the international community, and I was surprised by
their wide visions.

When the time comes, Xinjiang will simultaneously have organized unrest
and random disruptions, prepared armed actions and improvised terror
attacks. Overseas Uighurs will get involved, and international Muslims
will also intervene. In a convergence like that, the conflict will
inevitably escalate. It will not be easy for the Hans to put Xinjiang
under control, but on the other hand, once hatred is being mobilized, it
will see no end, and the killing will be imaginably frantic and ruthless.

In Xinjiang, an Uzbek professor told me that China is bound to slip into
chaos in the future, and the day China democratizes will be the day when
Xinjiang will be in a blood bath. Every time he thinks about it, he said,
he is scared, and he must send his children abroad, away from Xinjiang.

 
Wang Lixiong (王力雄) is a Beijing-based Chinese writer best known for his
political prophecy fiction, Yellow Peril, and for his writings on Tibet
and China’s western region of Xinjiang. Wang is regarded as one of the
most outspoken dissidents, democracy advocates in China. Between 1980 and
2007 when this book was finished, he made nine trips to Xinjiang and his
travels brought him to every part of the region. While traveling in
Xinjiang in 1999, he was briefly detained by the Chinese secret police for
suspicion of collecting classified information. But his prison time in
unexpected ways helped the writing of this book. Wikipedia (in English)
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Lixiong> has a list of Mr. Wang
Lixiong’s works.

Read the complete book My West China; Your East Turkestan here (in
Chinese).
(Translation by China Change)