Riots in China are not uncommon. For decades, corrupt government officials have abused their power in seizing rural land for the ostensible reason of industrialization and economic progress. Farmers and their families, frustrated by the lack of accountability in the land acquisition process, have consistently banded together and rioted. Much of this go unreported.
But the recent riots in Xinjiang are another matter. Xinjiang was a predominantly Uighur and Muslim province. It still is, but that position is being eroded by the Communist Party’s deliberate policy of transplanting Han Chinese to the region. Like Israel, China seeks to change facts-on-the-ground, by proactively interfering with the demographic so that Uighurs lose all semblance of political power through a loss in its majority status.
To its credit, the Chinese government has established various economic and educational benefits for local Uighurs, but this comes at a price. Education, for example, is oriented toward promoting the Chinese language at the expense of local languages. Widening the Han Chinese base in Northwestern China and building state schools are part of a multifaceted strategy to supplant and eventually replace Uighur culture, language and religion with that of the Han Chinese. This is done in the name of assimilation.
The enormous province of Xinjiang was not always Muslim. Islam came to the region in the tenth century. Although people often make the mistake of lumping Xinjiang’s Muslims together with Hui Muslims, both are not the same. The Uighurs of Xinjiang belong to a Turkic ethnolinguistic group who have lived in Northwest China for thousands of years. They share the land with a host of other ethnicities like Kazaks, Uzbeks and Tartars. By the sixteenth century, the region became almost entirely Muslim.
The history of Hui Muslims, on the other hand, is completely different. The Hui Muslims are descendants of Arabs and Persians- most of them traders and merchants- who settled in many parts of China from very early on. Hui Muslims were subjected to a long and complicated acculturation process that managed to transform them into a new kind of Muslim more comfortably integrated into mainstream Chinese society.
The successful assimilation of Hui Muslims into Chinese society argues against the popular notion that what the Communist Party is doing today in Xinjiang is reactionary and irrational. There is a tendency, for example, to paint the conflict between the Chinese government and the rebels in Xinjiang as being part of the war on terror. I would argue instead that the policies of assimilation that the Chinese government is undertaking is a deliberate and systematic process that has little to do with fighting terrorists but everything to do with maintaining Chinese supremacy. Specific policies that are carried out today in Xinjiang, aimed at changing demographic, cultural and linguistic facts-on-the-ground, find their roots in the imperial past, more specifically, the turbulent period of the Mongol conquest of China.
The Mongols conquered the whole of China in 1271. Under their aegis, Muslims were generally given preferential treatment. Muslims were put into positions of great power and prestige because the Mongols distrusted the majority Han Chinese. In the social hierarchy, Muslims were placed before Han Chinese, and this unfair policy would shape the Han Chinese perception of the Muslim community.
Thus, after Zhu Yuanzhang’s spectacular success in overthrowing the repressive Yuan dynasty of the Mongols, the preferential treatment of Muslims came to an abrupt end. The distinctive ethnic costumes that Muslims wore were banned. In order to avoid arrest, Muslims complied by dressing like ordinary Chinese. In rural areas, Hui Muslims put on traditional black or grey gowns. When going to the mosque, Muslim males would wear haomao (hats) instead of Islamic-styled turbans.
Worse was to come, however. The Chinese have had thousands of years to hone statecraft. They realized from very early on that demographics was a very important card to play in building a civilization. Zhu Yuanzhang hence wasted no time in asserting Chinese superiority in every aspect of life. The Ming government imposed a complete ban on all foreign languages like Arabic and flooded Muslim-dominated regions with schools that promoted the Chinese language. By the end of the Ming dynasty, most Hui had replaced their native language with that of Chinese. The result was that only a handful of Hui, like Imams or religious teachers, understood Arabic.
In 1372, Emperor Hongwu further curtailed the rights of the Muslim minority by forbidding Muslims from marrying fellow Muslims. But they were free to marry Han Chinese. This was to curb the fast growth of non-Chinese minorities. There are very little reports on how the Muslim community had reacted to the harsh marriage law. There is little doubt, though, that the Mongols’ discriminatory practices against the Han Chinese made the latter extremely intolerant of minorities, especially Muslims.
The Mongol conquest of China might have lasted for only a short period in Chinese history, but its repercussions are still felt today in China. Perhaps in the eyes of the Chinese government, the Uighurs are the new Hui.
If you would like to make a comment, please fill out the form below.
Recent Comments