2021-12-23 16:20:01
The Roots of Cultural Genocide in Xinjiang
The notion that a genocide is underway in the twenty-first century seems outlandish, especially in a country that produces the majority of consumer products in American homes. But whatever the merits of the term, the evidence of the atrocities that China has committed against Uyghurs is undeniable.
The CCP took over in 1949 and sought to exert greater control over the region. Mimicking a Soviet-style system of ethnofederalism, Beijing renamed the territory the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
In the Soviet Union, the ruling Communist Party recognized the excesses of tsarist colonialism and gave formerly colonized peoples the opportunity to be at the forefront of Soviet culture and governance within national Soviet republics. These republics were even granted the right—however symbolic—to secede from the Soviet Union. But China never took the same steps in its imperially obtained territories in Inner Mongolia, Tibet, and Xinjiang.
Unlike their Soviet counterparts, China’s ethnic “autonomous regions” were hardly autonomous: they did not have the theoretical right to secede, and very few indigenous party members attained positions of meaningful power in government. Furthermore, by 1959, the CCP espoused the view that Xinjiang was a historical part of China—a position it emphatically maintains to this day, denying the colonial character of the region’s entry into China.
The period of reform under Deng Xiaoping that gained steam following the death of Mao in 1976 held a good deal of promise for the Uyghurs. Beijing tentatively adopted a strategy of partial decolonization in Xinjiang. Deng’s close associate Hu Yaobang, the general secretary of the CCP from 1982 to 1987, spearheaded liberalizing reforms in the region as he did elsewhere in China. He called for many of the Han migrants in Xinjiang to return to their hometowns and advocated for unprecedented cultural, religious, and political reform. The government allowed previously shuttered mosques to reopen and new mosques to be built. Uyghur-language publishing and artistic expression exploded.
But Hu’s hope for a more autonomous Uyghur region and for a more democratic China was never realized.
The 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States and Washington’s subsequent declaration of a global “war on terror” presented Beijing with an opportunity to reframe its suppression of the Uyghurs. China claimed that its actions were merely a response to a grave terrorist threat.
One public government document reviewed by Agence France-Presse in 2018 made the CCP’s strategy abundantly clear. The overarching goal of these policies toward Uyghurs, it said, was to “break their lineage, break their roots, break their connections, and break their origins.”
This strategy does not seek to counter a real or perceived terrorist threat. Beijing’s true aim is cultural genocide. It hopes to scrub this territory of its Uyghur character, to crush the ethnic solidarity of the Uyghur people, and to turn their homeland into a Chinese commercial hub, another spoke in the wheel of the Belt and Road Initiative. China wants Xinjiang to resemble just another Han-dominated province of the country. In realizing this goal, it views the Uyghurs and their cultural identity at best as superfluous and at worst as obstacles that must be removed.
Even if the CCP were to have an unlikely change of heart, it will be difficult to repair the damage to the Uyghur people and restore trust between them and the state. High-ranking officials, including Xi, would need to accept responsibility for the atrocities committed, especially over the past four years. And there remains a much larger reckoning for China: the task of coming to terms with the ethnic diversity it inherited from the Qing dynasty.
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