In all of China, there are onlythree public statues left ofChairman Mao. Of the three, theone in Xinjiang is perhaps themost incongruous. It is inKashgar, the farthest city in Chinafrom Beijing, and in a place nevervisited by the Chairman. Witharm upraised, gazing across thePeople’s Square toward thesouthern end of the city (andIndia/Pakistan), Chairman Mao’sstatue signals that though it isone of the most remote citiesfrom Beijing, since 1949 it hasbeen firmly under Chinesecontrol. Bordering People’sSquare and well within theChairman’s gaze is the huge newBank of China building — thenewest monument to Chineserule. Yet, it has not always beenso.

Xinjiang remains one of thepivotal crossroads of China andCentral Asia, and has only beenintermittently under Chineseinfluence and control duringrelatively recent times in its 3000-year history. The history of theregion is marked by manyinfluences due to its central placebetween several civilizations. Ata natural intersection ofpathways leading from theancient capitals of Rome, Persia,Mongolia, and China, its strategiclocation at the eastern end of theancient Silk Road, it continuestoday as a meeting place of manycultures. Sir Aurel Stein, the 20th

century’s greatest Central Asianexplorer, characterized the regionas a “special meeting ground ofChinese civilization, introducedby trade and political pene-tration, and of Indian culture,propagated by Buddhism.” Islam

contributed Arab, Persian, andlater Turkic civilizations to theregion. The new “Trans-Eurasia”railroad between Europe andChina that passes throughUrumqi, completed in 1991, linksChina as never before withEurope; in addition, there is anincreasing number of air and roadroutes to Kyrgyzstan, Kazakh-stan, Tajikistan, Mongolia,Afghanistan, and Pakistan.Bordered by some of the highestmountains in the world, in thenorth, east, south and south-west by the great Altai,Tianshan, Pamir, and Kunlunmountain ranges, and hemmed infrom the west by the Gobi andTaklamakan Deserts, the secondlargest in the world, Xinjiang is aplace with a long and com-plicated history, locatedsomewhere between mountainand steppe, oasis and desert,East and West. The faces,languages, clothing, anddwellings of the “EasternTurkestanis” who inhabit thetowns and the new “goldenhordes” of travelers who passthrough are the most enduringlegacy of this multicultural anddiverse history.

Today, over sixty percent ofXinjiang’s eighteen mill ioncitizens are Muslims, living acrossan area one-sixth the size of allof China. Under the ChineseCommunists, Muslims weredivided among ten officialnationalities, with the Hui thelargest population throughoutChina, and the Uyghur thelargest population in the XinjiangUyghur Autonomous Region,established in 1956. According tothe reasonably accurate 2000

national census of China, thetotal Muslim population is 20.3million, including: Hui (9,816,805);Uyghur (8,399,393); Kazakh(1,250,458); Dongxiang(513,805); Kyrgyz (160,823);Salar (104,503); Tajik (41,028);Uzbek (14,502); Bonan (16,505);Tatar (4,890). This representsabout a forty percent populationincrease over 1990 censusfigures. The Hui speak mainlySino-Tibetan languages; Turkic-language speakers include theUyghur, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uzbek,Salar and Tatar; combined Turkic-Mongolian speakers include theDongxiang and Bonan, con-centrated in Gansu’s moun-tainous Hexi corridor; and theTajik speak a variety of Indo-Persian dialects. It is importantto note, however, that theChinese census registeredpeople by nationality, notreligious affiliation, so the actualnumber of Muslims is sti l lunknown, and all populationfigures are clearly influenced bypolitics in their use andinterpretation.

The largest Muslim group inXinjiang are the Uyghur,numbering nearly nine million,claiming a 1300-year history ofdescent from the early Uyghurkingdom in Karabalghasan,located in what is now Mongolia,whose kingdom was conqueredby Kyrgyz tribesmen in 840 CE.The Uyghur fled southwest anddispersed in the oases townssurrounding the Taklamakandesert where they hadmaintained trading relationsalong the ancient Silk Road,establishing Turfan as theirnewfound capital and Kashgar asone of its most important tradingcenters. Their far-flung kingdomflourished until the coming of theMongols in the twelfth century.Prior to the arrival of the Mongols,Islam first arrived in Kashgar bythe tenth century CE, and the citybecame such a center of Islamiclearning that one of the greatestMuslim scholars and lexi-cographers of the eleventh

Xinjiang: China’s Pre- andPost-Modern Crossroad

Dru GladneyUniversity of Hawaii, Manoa

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century, Mahmud al-Kashgari,was buried just outside of the cityin Upar Village (Fig. 1). Al-Kashgari compiled the firstcomplete Turkish dictionary, whichhas been translated into 26languages (Fig. 2). Here, theearly Muslims encounteredstrong Chinese, Persian, Turkic,and Indian influences, much ofwhich can still be seen in the artand architecture of the region.

Islam displaced a multi-religious and multi-culturaltradition that combined elementsof Buddhist, Manichaean,Zoroastrian, and even earlyNestorian Christian practices (by650 CE, there was a Nestorianarchbishopric in Kashgar),reflecting the importance of theregion as a meeting place ofmany cultures and kingdoms.

Early Persian records refer to thesouthern Tarim region as thehome of Kushan tribes, whocontrolled trade with other SilkRoad oases as early as 2000years ago. The regularity of thecaravan trade between theoases of Merv, Balkh, Bukhara,Samarkand, Kashgar, Turpan,and Khotan with the distantEuropean and Asian capitalsplaced this region in a central roleas economic broker and culturalmediator. Hinayana Buddhismflourished in the southern Tarim

basin from the second to thetenth centuries CE, when theChinese monk, Xuanzang(Hsuan-tsang), reported in 644CE that the oasis city of Kashgarproduced a “luxuriance of fruitand flowers.” Xuanzang was

impressednot onlywith thewidespreadpractice ofBuddhism,but also thevibrancy ofthe bazaarand multi-e t h n i ccharacter ofthe people,some with“blue eyes”and “yellowh a i r , ”perhaps ofSogdian orE a s t

Iranian origin. That diversity isevident to today, where the dailymarket attracts thousands, andthe famous Sunday bazaar (Fig.3, next page) boasts over tenthousand, including Han Chinese,Uyghur, Russian, Tajik, Kyrgyz,Uzbek, and Kazakh patrons, aswell as the ubiquitous foreigntourists.

As a trading region, southernXinjiang grew under the HanChinese General Ban Qiao whocampaigned in the region for 31

years in the first century, andremained under nominal Chinesecontrol until the early T’angdynasty, but succumbed toTibetan rule between 670 and694. From the tenth to thetwelfth centuries, the Kara-khanid Khanate, an alliance ofKarlukh Turkic tribes that hadaccepted Islam, established theircapital in Kashgar, and ruled thesurrounding trading centers fromBukhara to Khotan. The SunniMuslim, Satoq Bughra, who diedaround 955 CE, is credited withintroducing Islam to Xinjiang. ATurk from the clan of theKarakhanids, he was convertedto Islam by Nasr b. Mansur of theSamanid family who had beenruling eastern Iran and much ofCentral Asia and Transoxiana,and was supposedly sent to theKashgar region on a trademission, where he eventuallybecame khan. He and his devoutsuccessors extended Islamicinfluence throughout thesouthern oases, where Buddhismhad once boasted 160 monas-teries in Khotan alone. On theeastern end of the Tarim basin inplaces like Hami and perhapsparts of Turfan, Uyghurs con-tinued to practice Buddhism untilthe sixteenth century. Today, the162 Sunni mosques in Kashgaralone evidence the enduringpresence of Islam, thoughBuddhist influence can be foundin the extraordinarily multi-variedartwork, music, and dance

Fig. 1. Mahmud al-Kashgari’s mausoleum at Upar.Cop

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Fig. 2. Kashgar near the center of al-Kashgari’s world. Detailof circular world map accompanying his Dictionary (repro-duction on display in Ulughbeg Mausoleum, Samarkand).

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produced by the Uyghur people(Fig. 4). Sufism also gained manyfollowers among the SunniMuslims, with mostly CentralAsian Yasawi and laterNaqshbandi tarikats findingfollowers. Inter-ethnic andreligious rivalries increased untilthe region came under theMongol rule through Chagatai,the son of Genghis Khan, untilTamerlane’s army was able toreclaim Kashgar for a brief periodin the mid-fourteenth century.The Persian historian Ala-ad-DinAta-Malik Juvaini in his visit to theregion during the mid-thirteenthcentury reported that Mongolianrule was a “divine mercy,” actuallyfelt by local Eastern Turkestani’sto reduce intra-religious fac-tionalism in the region.

Throughout the period ofMongol rule the region prosperedas an important overland tradecenter in the midst of the peaceinsured by the Pax Mongolica. Itwas after this period that Islamcontinued to flourish, especiallyin the southern region, with theestablishment in Kashgar of thegreat Idgah Masjid (the FestivalMosque), in 1444, where Muslimsstill gather in the main square forQurban and Ramadan holidays.On these days, Uyghurs dancethe “sama” in the square, recitethe great Uyghur Mukharumepics, and celebrate the unity ofIslam in the region. The rise ofthe Sufi inspired Khojas (from thePersian Khwaja, “master”), andtheir internecine struggles forpower that raged between

Kashgar and Yarkand from thesixteenth to the nineteenthcenturies, saw political andreligious competition for influenceover the strategic southernregion, and their conflicts onlyended with Qing rule underEmperor Qianlong in 1754.Today, many of the tombs of theKhojas can still be visited in theApak Khoja tomb complex in thenorth end of Kashgar, builtoriginally in 1640 (Fig. 5).

Unlike the Chinese Mingdynasty (1368-1644) beforethem, the Manchu Qing (1644-1911) were more interested intrade with Central and Inner Asia,and the Emperor Qian Longextended Chinese rule through

powerful military and economicintegration of the region.Chinese rule was disrupted,however, by the rise of theKashgar ruler, Yakub Beg, whofrom 1866-1877 established aUyghur Muslim kingdom in theregion. Yakub Beg tookadvantage of shifting powerstruggles in the region during theperiod of the so-called GreatGame, when Russian, British, andChinese empires competed forcontrol over the strategic

Fig. 3. The Kashgar Sunday bazaar.

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Fig. 4. Village mosque on road to Kashgar from the Torugart Pass.

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Fig. 5. Interior of Apak Khojamausoleum, Kashgar.

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overland routes that ran throughXinjiang, coming to an end in1884 when Chinese rule wasestablished and the term“Xinjiang” became widely usedfor the first time to refer to theentire region as a “new dominion”of Qing imperial control. Until thistime, the region was generallyrefered to as “Eastern Turkes-tan” or “Chinese Turkestan,” andeven “High Tatary” in OwenLattimore’s words. With theoverthrow of the Qing dynasty in1910, the region was once againa site of intense competition forcontrol, particularly between theexpanding Soviet penetration ofCentral Asia and the attempts ofthe Chinese Nationalist Kuomin-tang to retain the old Qingboundaries of China, thatincluded Tibet and Xinjiang.

As Kuomintang Chinese rule inXinjiang eroded during the 1930sand 1940s, several Uyghur-ledrebellions broke out. Two “EastTurkestan Republics” sought toestablish separate Muslim states,both influenced strongly by thethreat of the neighboring USSR.Intensive maneuvering enabledthe first to survive from 1931 to1934 and the second from 1944to 1949. It is tempting to dismissthese abortive states or YakubBeg’s brief rule in the previouscentury as mere adventures. Butit is clear that Mao Zedong tookthem seriously, detecting in themthe presence of powerfulcentripetal forces that couldseriously undermine Communistrule. Civil war, inter-ethnicconflicts between Hui ChineseMuslims, Uyghur and HanChinese, despotic nationalist ruleunder Sheng Shicai, and fear ofRussian expansion, led Xinjiangcitizens weary of war and civilstrife to welcome the “peacefull iberation” of the region byPeople’s Liberation Army soldiersin 1949. By 1957, Urumqi was akey city in the newly formedXinjiang Uyghur AutonomousRegion, and the PRC governmentsought to further integrate theregion into People’s China

through national education,telecommunications, and politicaldevelopment. It is for thisreason that Mao Zedong, afterhis troops “liberated” Xinjiang,agreed upon the legal desig-nation of special governance ofthe region, under the title“Xinjiang Autonomous Region.”This makes Xinjiang one of fiveAutonomous Regions in China,including Tibet, Ningxia, InnerMongolia, and Guangxi (insouthern China). It is alsosignificant that Mao’s ownbrother died during efforts towrest Xinjiang from Nationalistrule. So for many reasonsXinjiang has always posed anenormous challenge to Chineserule, whether Communist,Nationalist, or Imperial, providinga legacy fraught with danger, butpromising enormous wealth.

China’s integrationist andeducational policies since 1949have enormously expanded theranks of the Turkic urbanintelligentsia in Xinjiang. Turkic,mainly Uyghur and Kazakh,intellectuals advanced in manyfields but also encounteredimpediments as well. Whetheror not they considered them-selves Uyghur prior to theirencounters with the Han Chineseestablishment in Xinjiang, manycame to think of themselves asUyghur afterwards. By such aprocess that directly recalls whattook place earlier in the Sovietrepublics of Central Asia, theethnic and national policies of aCommunist state fostered thedevelopment, if not the creation,of new ethnic national con-sciousnesses (Fig. 6). InXinjiang, as well as otherminority areas of China, officialminority nationalities receivespecial benefits, such asexemption from the one-childbirth program (minorities aregenerally allowed two or threechildren, and in very poor areas,even more), special scholarshipsto secondary and highereducational institutions, taxrelief, and bi-lingual education

schools that teach in the localminority languages up throughuniversity. In addition, minoritygovernment officials are activelyrecruited in order to promote asense of participation ingovernance. Nevertheless, theChinese Communist Party, whichhas many fewer minorities and isgenerally the final authority inareas of governance, continuesto exercise the greatest powerin the region.

In addition, one cannotminimize the role of improvedcommunications and transpor-tation in the creation of a region-wide consciousness amongXinjiang’s Turkic peoples. Theability to travel easily by truck,

Copyright © Daniel C. Waugh 1995

Fig. 6. Official promotion of “Uyghur”heritage at the Kashgar tomb ofYusup Khass Hajib, the 11th century“father” of Turkic Islamic literature.

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bus, or railroad enables peopleof modest means to formcontacts with Turkic speakershundreds of miles from home.Radio and television broadcastsin the Uyghur language andimproved telephone connectionsalso facilitate interaction overdistances. Taken together, thesevery different developmentshave fueled an unprecedentedgrowth of national consciousnessamong the Uyghur Turks ofXinjiang, which in turn gives riseto a nationalist force that isdifferent in kind and strengthfrom any that had existed in thepast.

The social base of this newconsciousness does notcorrespond precisely to theborders of Xinjiang. The northernKazakhs remain somewhatdisengaged, perhaps because oftheir own rivalries with theUyghur and the rise of anindependent Kazakhstan, andmost of the other large ethnicgroups, such as the Hui, Kyrgyz,and Xinjiang Han, see their bestchances in cooperating withChinese rule rather thanobjecting to it. Traditional dividesbetween traditionally agrarianand urban Muslim populations(Uyghur and Hui), and theformerly nomadic Muslimpopulations (Kazakh and Kyrgyz),continue to this day. Not unlikeWestern American rivalriesbetween ranchers and farmers,the agrarian Uyghur and Hui areconcentrated in the oases andtowns, whereas the Kazakh andKyrgyz are based in the higher-elevation mountainous regions ofthe Pamir, Tianshan, and Altairanges. Although the majority ofthe Kazakh and Kyrygz no longerderive their primary incomes fromherding, there are still nearlythirty percent of their populationswho are registered as“pastoralists” (mu min), andmaintain a fairly nomadic lifestyle,moving their entire families withtheir mixed herds (sheep, cattle,camels, horses, and even yaks)from the summer pastures in the

higher elevation to the winterpastures along the lower-elevation steppe zones. Thisnomadic pastoralist lifestyle wasseverely curtailed during themore radical Maoist periods ofthe 1960s and 1970s, but underthe Deng Xiaoping reform era,began to return in a vibrantfashion. Under the marketeconomy, pastoral products haveincreased in demand to theextent in many areas, herd sizeshave increased beyond thenatural carrying capacity of thegrasslands. The governmenthas attempted to resolve thisconflict through sedentarizationpolicies that have had mixedresults. In addition, traditionalcompetition for scarce resources(farmland versus grazing land)has led to ethnic conflict betweenpastoralists (Kazakh and Kyrgyz)and farmers (mainly Uyghur, Han,and Hui).

Beijing has based itsapproach to regional governanceon principles of standardization,centralization and assimilation.Given this, it was probablyinevitable that this some Uyghurswho had hoped for greaterautonomy would clash withpolicies of the Peoples’ Republicof China in many areas. ManyUyghurs, especially youngerurban males, have reacted toBeijing’s “top down” style of rulewith covert and overt shows ofresistance. Some supportecological causes, greaterreligious freedoms, nativelanguage training, programs toprevent and treat AIDS, or evenanti-alcohol campaigns, and yetothers actively engage in illegalactivities, such as drug-smuggling and acts of violence.As a result, perhaps of China’smore “open door” policy of DengXiaoping and his successors, thelevel of civil unrest increaseddramatically during the 1990s.Chinese government sourcesenumerate almost daily incidentsof violence, and AmnestyInternational released a series of

reports condemning China’sharsh treatment of thoseaccused of separatism. Par-ticularly bloody confrontationsoccurred at the town of Baren in1990 and in Yining in 1997. Thegovernment was quick to blamethese outbreaks on separatists(called “splittists”), Muslimradicals, or terrorists, anddesigned its indelicately named“Strike Hard! MaximumPressure!” campaign explicitly tocounter them. The “Strike Hard”campaign officially ended in 2004,and there have not been anyviolent clashes in the region sincethe late 1990s. Nevertheless, thegovernment has continued torestrict public gatherings and anyactivities, religious or otherwise,that might be regarded assupporting separatism.

In a rather post-modern twistalong the ancient Silk Road,China’s so-called “war onterrorism” has been increasinglywaged against a group of non-state actors, primarily livingoutside of China for at least twoto three generations, largelyorganized through the Internet(in what I have termed cyber-separatism), for whom radicalIslam has only recently begin togrow in appeal. Interestingly,this diasporic ethnoreligiousidentity has helped land 22 ofthem in the interrogation/detention cells at GuantánamoBay, Cuba, caught up in the netof those accused of fighting forthe Taliban and al-Qaida inAfghanistan. Not unlike Tibet, aplace that has also seenreligiously-motivated terrorismagainst the Chinese state, theirrationale for violence can only beunderstood as ethnoreligious,combining land with liberationfrom a nation-state system thathas wrested their religioushomeland away from them, whichthey refer to as EasternTurkestan or even Uyghuristan,but which the Chinese state hasreferred to as “Xinjiang” (or “NewTerritory”) only since 1884. Wemust recall that the region has

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always been caught betweengreat power politics. In an effortto prevent the further expansionof the Russian tsarist empireacross Central Asia, the Chineseemperor sent troops to finallyincorporate the region into Chinaproper, delineating a border withRussia near Ili (today’s Yining orGhulja in Uyghur), in what thelate Joseph Fletcher once calledChina’s “First Treaty Port.”Today, most travelers to theregion report almost no evidenceof civil unrest and attest to thefact that it is one of the safestplaces to travel in all of CentralAsia, perhaps due to the strongpresence of Chinese police in theregion.

The seventh-century Buddhistmonk Xuanzang’s comment stillrings true today: the oasis cities,including Hami, Turpan, Aksu,Kashgar, and Hotan, continue tobe green centers for fruit,vegetable, rice, wheat, bean, andcotton production. Vast energyand mineral resources havecontributed to the region’simportance to China’s modern-ization goals. As an importantpart of China’s “Great WesternDevelopment” campaign,launched in 2001, the mainchallenge will be to maintain acultural and religious continuitywith the vibrant institutions andtraditions that have madeXinjiang a diverse and welcomingstopping place for the wearytraveler on the new Silk Road.The goals of the Great WesternDevelopment campaign havebeen to help the poorer Westernregions “catch-up” with the moredeveloped eastern and coastalregions, which received greatercentral government supportduring Deng Xiaoping’s “get richquick” campaigns. Under formerPresident Jiang Zemin, thewestern regions, particularlyXinjiang, Qinghai, Gansu, Tibet,Inner Mongolia, Sichuan, andYunnan were targeted forgreater infrastructural andcommunications investment, tothe extent that vast road, rail,

and telecommunications projectshave been initiated. PresidentHu Jintao has continued with thisprogram, but the huge gaps inincome and social welfarebetween the west andsoutheast remain. Despite its“Freedom of Religion” policy whichis enshrined in China’s con-stitution and cultural pre-servation programs that havesought to preserve minorityculture, language, and materialhistory through giving specialprivileges to minorities (includingexemption from the one-childbirth-planning policy, educationalopportunities, and tax relief), thereal threat to local Muslim culturemay come more from modern-ization than from Chineseassimilation or migration (Fig. 7).

Yet, increasing Han Chinesemigration to the region reflects a2000-year history of cross-cultural trade and movement, andgreater opportunities in theregion have attracted a growingnumber of poorer Han Chinesefrom the inland regions, as wellas skil led laborers andtechnicians that often displacethe local population from gainfulemployment. Conversely, better-skilled Uyghur from urban areaswith university educations areoften attracted to the urbancenters of China where they

Fig. 7. Islam and modernityin the Kashgar bazaar.

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have more opportunities than intheir homeland, or increasinglyseek opportunities abroad wherethey feel they have a betterchance at advancement than inUrumqi. This brain drain oftendivests the region from cultivatingits own native elite. At the sametime, developing cross-bordertrade with the new Central Asianstates and growing internationaltourism has once again openedthe region to an array ofmultinational influences. One canonly hope that Uyghur and otherlocal cultures will continue toflourish and develop in this newperiod of globalization.

About the Author

Dru Gladney is Professor of AsianStudies and Anthropology at theUniversity of Hawaii at Manoa.Among his many publications onethnic and cultural nationalismare Muslim Chinese: EthnicNationalism in the People’sRepublic (Harvard UniversityPress, 1991) and DislocatingChina: Muslims, Minorities, andOther Subaltern Subjects(University of Chicago Press,2004). He is currently finishing abook-length study entitledNomadology: Borderline Identitiesand Peripheral Perspectives. Hemay be contacted atdru@hawaii.edu.

References

Samuel Beal, trans. BuddhistRecords of the Western World(London: Trubner, 1884).

Owen Lattimore. High Tartary.Boston: Little, Brown, 1930.

Mahmud al-Kashgari. DivanüLugat-it-Türk. Tr. Robert Dankoffand James Kelly. 3 vols.Cambridge, Mass.: 1982-1985.

Aurel Stein. On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks. Chicago andLondon: University of ChicagoPress, 1974.

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