Serious Tiongkok Talks Cock: Uyghurs didn’t choose to be Muslims

[mudhatter]

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/dip...idnt-choose-be-muslims-china-says-white-paper

Uygurs in Xinjiang didn’t choose to be Muslims, China says in white paper

-Islam was forced on ethnic group ‘by religious wars and the ruling class’, Beijing says in latest report defending its actions in far western region
-Uygurs’ ancestors were enslaved by the Turks, document says

Beijing has issued a white paper seemingly designed to defend its actions in Xinjiang where as least 1 million Uygurs are being held in detention centres. Photo: AFP

Uygurs became Muslims not by choice but by force, and Islam is not their only religion, Beijing said in a white paper published on Sunday, as it continued its propaganda campaign to justify its controversial policies in the far western province of Xinjiang.

“The Uygur people adopted Islam not of their own volition … but had it forced upon them by religious wars and the ruling class,” according to the document released by the State Council Information Office.

Islamic beliefs were forced on the Uygurs during the expansion of Arabic states. This is a historical fact, the report said, though that did not undermine the Uygurs’ religious rights now.

The report said also that there are Uygurs who hold to faiths other than Islam, and others who do not practise any religion at all.

The paper also took aim at the Uygurs’s historic links with Turkey.

“Historically, the Uygurs’ ancestors were enslaved by the Turks,” it said, citing a history of conflicts between the two groups dating back to the 8th century.

The white paper was issued amid a campaign by Beijing to justify its policies in the restive region, which is home to more than 10 million Uygurs, most whom are Muslim.
Earlier this month, the ambassadors of 22 countries signed a letter calling on Beijing to halt its mass detention of Uygurs in Xinjiang, the first such joint move on the issue at the UN Human Rights Council.

The signatories included envoys from Britain, France, Germany, Australia, Canada, Japan and Switzerland. The United States, which quit the forum a year ago, did not sign the letter.

China responded by issuing a letter signed by the ambassadors of 37 countries, including several Muslim majority states like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, backing its policies in the region.

Beijing said the show of support was “a powerful response to the groundless accusations made against China by a small number of Western countries”.

UN experts and activists say at least 1 million Uygurs and other Muslims are currently being held in detention centres in Xinjiang. China describes the facilities as training and education centres that aim to stamp out religious extremism and provide people with useful skills. It has never said how many people are being detained in them.

The United States has repeatedly criticised Beijing over its policies in Xinjiang.
On Wednesday, US President Donald Trump met victims of religious persecution from around the world, including Jewher Ilham, a Uygur woman whose father Ilham Tohti was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2014 after being found guilty of promoting separatism.

“That’s tough stuff,” Trump said after hearing Ilham’s account of her father’s ordeal.

China describes the detention camps in Xinjiang as training and education centres. Photo: AFP

In January, US lawmakers nominated the imprisoned economist, writer and former professor at Minzu University in Beijing, for the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize in a bid to pressure China to stop its crackdown on the minority group.
Sunday’s white paper is the latest in a string of similar documents published recently by Beijing as it seeks to defend the legitimacy of its policies in Xinjiang. In a document issued in March, it said that over the past five years it had arrested nearly 13,000 “terrorists” in the region.

Neither the March report nor Sunday’s white paper mentioned Beijing’s other controversial policies in the region, such as the collection of DNA samples and extensive surveillance on local people.

“Xinjiang has borrowed from international experiences, combined them with local realities, and taken resolute measures against terrorism and extremism,” it said.

The measures have been effective, it said, though did not elaborate.

Over the past year, China has increased its efforts to defend the camps, including organising strictly controlled visits by selected diplomats and journalists to see the people who live in them.

State media has also released videos showing seemingly happy and healthy people inside the camps in a bid to counter accounts of harsh conditions and abuse published by the Western media.

 

[mudhatter]

If like that, then Malaysia and Indonkia can do the same to their Tiongkok slanties minorities.

Because


Chinks never chose to be born Chinks, it was forced upon them. Just like Communism was forced upon Chinks by the Commie bastards.

Time to widen the eyes of Chinks, by force



Dictatorships like Saudis and failed states like Pakis meanwhile endorse this Tiongkok oppression of Uyghurs.

What a shameless sellout are these bunch of useless Pakis.

 

[knowwhatyouwantinlife]

These flip and flop...if tomorrow Saudi takes over the country and offers no income tax free education retirement pension etc I am sure the chinese will convert at a hoot...nothing wrong with yielding to the party that gives you the most benefit but when its time to call yourself a whore you should

 

[Leongsam]

China is doing an excellent job to ensure that Islamic terrorism is not allowed to take root in the country. I wish more countries had the guts to take the same firm stand against the violent spread of Islam.

 

[mudhatter]

China is doing an excellent job to ensure that Islamic terrorism is not allowed to take root in the country. I wish more countries had the guts to take the same firm stand against the violent spread of Islam.

Odd to see you side with Chinks.


It's true that all Kafir are the same, then.

The fault lies with Muslims in not massacring Kuffar in Muslim territories like Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei and even Stinkieland is a Melayu territory.

Same goes for much of the Middle East and parts of Europe, Asia and Africa. Non Muslims in Muslim majority countries should be wiped out.

Muslim political leaderships are utter failures. Too soft on the Kuffar.

 

[Leongsam]

Odd to see you side with Chinks.


It's true that all Kafir are the same, then.

The fault lies with Muslims in not massacring Kuffar in Muslim territories like Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei and even Stinkieland is a Melayu territory.

Same goes for much of the Middle East and parts of Europe, Asia and Africa. Non Muslims in Muslim majority countries should be wiped out.

Muslim political leaderships are utter failures. Too soft on the Kuffar.

I'm not anti chink. In fact I harbor no prejudice against any creed. When they do a good job I have no problems praising them for their actions. However it is very hard to praise the chinks because they hardly ever do the right thing.

 

[mudhatter]

I'm not anti chink. In fact I harbor no prejudice against any creed. When they do a good job I have no problems praising them for their actions. However it is very hard to praise the chinks because they hardly ever do the right thing.

Doubt the Burmese are any better..


Or they wouldn't be begging for food all around their country.

 

[syed putra]

Who would have known communist china defending the rights of citizens to freedom of faith. I fully agree with china on this as current organised religion of islam is not what it was meant to be.

 

[syed putra]

If like that, then Malaysia and Indonkia can do the same to their Tiongkok slanties minorities.

Because


Chinks never chose to be born Chinks, it was forced upon them. Just like Communism was forced upon Chinks by the Commie bastards.

Time to widen the eyes of Chinks, by force



Dictatorships like Saudis and failed states like Pakis meanwhile endorse this Tiongkok oppression of Uyghurs.

What a shameless sellout are these bunch of useless Pakis.

Being born chinnese is different from being born and brainwashed into religion. A chinnese can still decide what faith to choose,

 

[syed putra]

Odd to see you side with Chinks.


It's true that all Kafir are the same, then.

The fault lies with Muslims in not massacring Kuffar in Muslim territories like Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei and even Stinkieland is a Melayu territory.

Same goes for much of the Middle East and parts of Europe, Asia and Africa. Non Muslims in Muslim majority countries should be wiped out.

Muslim political leaderships are utter failures. Too soft on the Kuffar.

Killing is prohibited for the believers.

 

[Hypocrite-The]

With all the bs crap being sprouted by mudslimes...I am glad ah tiong land is doing the better thing..

China’s Muslims Brace for Attacks
First, it was the Uighurs. Now, other Muslim minorities are being threatened—and the worst may be yet to come.
By James Palmer
| January 5, 2019, 8:00 AM
A Chinese Hui Muslim girl wears a fancy headdress as she is held by her mother after Eid al-Fitr prayers marking the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan at the historic Niujie Mosque on June 16, 2018 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
A Chinese Hui Muslim girl wears a fancy headdress as she is held by her mother after Eid al-Fitr prayers marking the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan at the historic Niujie Mosque on June 16, 2018 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
At a recent event at the Asia Society in New York discussing the million or more people, mostly Uighur Muslims, being held in internment camps in China’s western region of Xinjiang by the Chinese authorities, a young man of Chinese descent approached me with a disturbing question. “I’m a Hui person,” he said, referring to China’s largest Muslim minority group. “And among the community in China, they are very afraid that they will be next, after the Uighur. There are already ‘anti-halal’ groups attacking us and breaking the windows of our restaurants. What do you think will happen?”

The news for the Hui, and other Chinese Muslims, isn’t good. In mid-December, several provinces removed their halal food standards, a move heralded by government officials as fighting a fictional pan-halal trend under which Muslim influence was supposedly spreading into secular life. That’s a severe contrast with previous government policies, which actively encouraged the development of the halal trade for export. This week, meanwhile, three prominent mosques were shut, sparking protests. Many mosques across the country have already been closed, or forced to remodel to a supposedly more Chinese style, and the Communist Party presence there has been strengthened, with pictures of Xi Jinping placed in prominent locations and the walls covered in Marxist slogans.

There are more than 20 million Muslims in China, and 10 of the country’s 55 officially recognized minorities are traditionally Muslim, with the largest by far being the Hui and the Uighur. Islam’s history in China is more than a millennium old, and there have been previous clashes—as with other faiths—between imperial authorities and believers, most notably the Dungan rebellions of the 19th century. Muslim minority cuisine is common, cheap, and popular throughout the country; these restaurants usually feature Arabic writing and images of famous mosques on the walls. As Islamophobia has grown in the last four years, however, restaurants are increasingly removing any public display of their faith.

Islam isn’t the only religion being targeted. Beijing demands state control and oversight of all faiths. This supervision used to be run through the State Administration of Religious Affairs (SARA), but that department was dissolved last March, with responsibility for religion taken over directly by the United Front Work Department (UFWD), which handles the Communist Party’s control of civil society domestically. The dissolution of SARA also meant the end of many working relationships between the department and religious groups. Most of the former staff have left, and while Wang Zuoan—the long-standing head of SARA known for a relatively light hand—is now one of 10 vice ministers at the UFWD, he has almost no staff, no power, and no role.

“SARA had become a very important buffer between the legitimate practices, needs, and works of the faiths and the demands of the party. Now it’s been turned into an instrument of overt and explicit control. They were once there to make religion work well. Now they are there to make religion work for the party,” commented one Westerner with long experience working with religious NGOs in China, who asked for anonymity. Local officials, meanwhile, under pressure in an increasingly paranoid internal party environment, have been forced to abandon policies of local tolerance in favor of heavy-handed enforcement.

On the ground, that has translated into a much colder environment for believers. Christians across the country have faced a wave of repression, with arrests of prominent ministers, the closure of churches, a ban on Bible sales online, and the removal of crosses. Tibetan Buddhism, always closely monitored, is being more tightly watched than ever. Even so-called Chinese religions, such as Taoism and non-Tibetan Buddhism, are having a tough time, being denied permission for new buildings or classes and going through layers of added bureaucracy.

But the turn against Islam is by far the most prominent—and potentially the nastiest—example of China’s clampdown on religion. In large part, it flows from the adoption of a totalitarian regime in Xinjiang, where any Islamic practice is now read by the security state as a sign of potential extremism. Other Muslim communities were previously able to endure the storm in part because their Uighur members were forced back to Xinjiang; even advocates of Saudi-style Salafism were able to operate in Ningxia and elsewhere.

But the turn against Islam is by far the most prominent—and potentially the nastiest—example of China’s clampdown on religion.
Today, though, the intensity of the anti-Islamic campaign in Xinjiang has resulted in other provinces adopting the same ideas, lest their leaders be accused of being soft on terrorism or of having ideological sympathy for Islam. That’s particularly the case for party officials who are from Islamic families; numerous Uighur officials have been arrested for being “two-faced”—presenting themselves as loyal party members while being secretly sympathetic to religion. “They used to ask the Hui officials to help handle Hui affairs sensitively,” a Han Chinese state employee who works in Islamic areas told Foreign Policy. “But now if you’re Hui, you have to be doubly hard on your own people.”

The state campaign has been backed by a growing popular Islamophobia, which has erupted in the last four years. Anti-Uighur racism has always existed, but it previously focused largely on ethnicity, not belief. The new hate largely began with the terrorist attack at a train station in the southern city of Kunming in 2014, when eight Uighur attackers killed 31 travelers. A newly aggressive Han chauvinism became the norm online—aided, perhaps, by it being one of the few remaining forms of tolerated public political speech. Many Chinese friends and colleagues, even relatively liberal ones, bristled at any mention of Islam, seeing Westerners as anti-Chinese and biased in favor of Islam. While other online speech has been harshly shut down, the censors have barely touched abuse of Muslims, even calls for violence.

Chinese Islamophobes have created a mythical halalification movement, which functions in their imagination something like sharia does in the minds of rural American lawmakers fearful that the mullahs might start marching down Main Street. Food has often been a clashing point; young Uighurs often avoid eating in nonhalal restaurants not for religious reasons but as a gesture of cultural defiance, and the forced consumption of pork has now become routine in Xinjiang. In the minds of Chinese Islamaphobes, however, Muslims are the ones imposing themselves on good, ordinary Chinese. The mere offering of halal services is taken as a sign of imminent threat; when one delivery app included it as an option, Muslims faced a wave of online hate.

Several fears are bundled together here. Chinese are very worried about food safety, and the description of halal food as qingzhen—which just means “Islamic” but literally translates as “pure and clean”—created a belief that halal consumers were somehow privileged or claiming that the Han were dirty. That’s linked to a deep-seated belief among Han Chinese that ethnic minorities are enjoying special treatment, based on government policies that gave them bonus points on university entrance exams or allowed more lenient family planning. (As with affirmative action in the United States, those policies were real, but the daily discrimination faced by visibly non-Han Chinese citizens, in contrast, was largely invisible to Han.) Fake news about Muslim atrocities generated by racists in the West, meanwhile, has spread via social media into Chinese society.

Read More

People hold placards and flags during a demonstration of France's exiled Uyghur community on July 4, 2010 in Paris.

 

[syed putra]

With all the bs crap being sprouted by mudslimes...I am glad ah tiong land is doing the better thing..

China’s Muslims Brace for Attacks
First, it was the Uighurs. Now, other Muslim minorities are being threatened—and the worst may be yet to come.
By James Palmer
| January 5, 2019, 8:00 AM
A Chinese Hui Muslim girl wears a fancy headdress as she is held by her mother after Eid al-Fitr prayers marking the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan at the historic Niujie Mosque on June 16, 2018 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
A Chinese Hui Muslim girl wears a fancy headdress as she is held by her mother after Eid al-Fitr prayers marking the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan at the historic Niujie Mosque on June 16, 2018 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
At a recent event at the Asia Society in New York discussing the million or more people, mostly Uighur Muslims, being held in internment camps in China’s western region of Xinjiang by the Chinese authorities, a young man of Chinese descent approached me with a disturbing question. “I’m a Hui person,” he said, referring to China’s largest Muslim minority group. “And among the community in China, they are very afraid that they will be next, after the Uighur. There are already ‘anti-halal’ groups attacking us and breaking the windows of our restaurants. What do you think will happen?”

The news for the Hui, and other Chinese Muslims, isn’t good. In mid-December, several provinces removed their halal food standards, a move heralded by government officials as fighting a fictional pan-halal trend under which Muslim influence was supposedly spreading into secular life. That’s a severe contrast with previous government policies, which actively encouraged the development of the halal trade for export. This week, meanwhile, three prominent mosques were shut, sparking protests. Many mosques across the country have already been closed, or forced to remodel to a supposedly more Chinese style, and the Communist Party presence there has been strengthened, with pictures of Xi Jinping placed in prominent locations and the walls covered in Marxist slogans.

There are more than 20 million Muslims in China, and 10 of the country’s 55 officially recognized minorities are traditionally Muslim, with the largest by far being the Hui and the Uighur. Islam’s history in China is more than a millennium old, and there have been previous clashes—as with other faiths—between imperial authorities and believers, most notably the Dungan rebellions of the 19th century. Muslim minority cuisine is common, cheap, and popular throughout the country; these restaurants usually feature Arabic writing and images of famous mosques on the walls. As Islamophobia has grown in the last four years, however, restaurants are increasingly removing any public display of their faith.

Islam isn’t the only religion being targeted. Beijing demands state control and oversight of all faiths. This supervision used to be run through the State Administration of Religious Affairs (SARA), but that department was dissolved last March, with responsibility for religion taken over directly by the United Front Work Department (UFWD), which handles the Communist Party’s control of civil society domestically. The dissolution of SARA also meant the end of many working relationships between the department and religious groups. Most of the former staff have left, and while Wang Zuoan—the long-standing head of SARA known for a relatively light hand—is now one of 10 vice ministers at the UFWD, he has almost no staff, no power, and no role.

“SARA had become a very important buffer between the legitimate practices, needs, and works of the faiths and the demands of the party. Now it’s been turned into an instrument of overt and explicit control. They were once there to make religion work well. Now they are there to make religion work for the party,” commented one Westerner with long experience working with religious NGOs in China, who asked for anonymity. Local officials, meanwhile, under pressure in an increasingly paranoid internal party environment, have been forced to abandon policies of local tolerance in favor of heavy-handed enforcement.

On the ground, that has translated into a much colder environment for believers. Christians across the country have faced a wave of repression, with arrests of prominent ministers, the closure of churches, a ban on Bible sales online, and the removal of crosses. Tibetan Buddhism, always closely monitored, is being more tightly watched than ever. Even so-called Chinese religions, such as Taoism and non-Tibetan Buddhism, are having a tough time, being denied permission for new buildings or classes and going through layers of added bureaucracy.

But the turn against Islam is by far the most prominent—and potentially the nastiest—example of China’s clampdown on religion. In large part, it flows from the adoption of a totalitarian regime in Xinjiang, where any Islamic practice is now read by the security state as a sign of potential extremism. Other Muslim communities were previously able to endure the storm in part because their Uighur members were forced back to Xinjiang; even advocates of Saudi-style Salafism were able to operate in Ningxia and elsewhere.

But the turn against Islam is by far the most prominent—and potentially the nastiest—example of China’s clampdown on religion.
Today, though, the intensity of the anti-Islamic campaign in Xinjiang has resulted in other provinces adopting the same ideas, lest their leaders be accused of being soft on terrorism or of having ideological sympathy for Islam. That’s particularly the case for party officials who are from Islamic families; numerous Uighur officials have been arrested for being “two-faced”—presenting themselves as loyal party members while being secretly sympathetic to religion. “They used to ask the Hui officials to help handle Hui affairs sensitively,” a Han Chinese state employee who works in Islamic areas told Foreign Policy. “But now if you’re Hui, you have to be doubly hard on your own people.”

The state campaign has been backed by a growing popular Islamophobia, which has erupted in the last four years. Anti-Uighur racism has always existed, but it previously focused largely on ethnicity, not belief. The new hate largely began with the terrorist attack at a train station in the southern city of Kunming in 2014, when eight Uighur attackers killed 31 travelers. A newly aggressive Han chauvinism became the norm online—aided, perhaps, by it being one of the few remaining forms of tolerated public political speech. Many Chinese friends and colleagues, even relatively liberal ones, bristled at any mention of Islam, seeing Westerners as anti-Chinese and biased in favor of Islam. While other online speech has been harshly shut down, the censors have barely touched abuse of Muslims, even calls for violence.

Chinese Islamophobes have created a mythical halalification movement, which functions in their imagination something like sharia does in the minds of rural American lawmakers fearful that the mullahs might start marching down Main Street. Food has often been a clashing point; young Uighurs often avoid eating in nonhalal restaurants not for religious reasons but as a gesture of cultural defiance, and the forced consumption of pork has now become routine in Xinjiang. In the minds of Chinese Islamaphobes, however, Muslims are the ones imposing themselves on good, ordinary Chinese. The mere offering of halal services is taken as a sign of imminent threat; when one delivery app included it as an option, Muslims faced a wave of online hate.

Several fears are bundled together here. Chinese are very worried about food safety, and the description of halal food as qingzhen—which just means “Islamic” but literally translates as “pure and clean”—created a belief that halal consumers were somehow privileged or claiming that the Han were dirty. That’s linked to a deep-seated belief among Han Chinese that ethnic minorities are enjoying special treatment, based on government policies that gave them bonus points on university entrance exams or allowed more lenient family planning. (As with affirmative action in the United States, those policies were real, but the daily discrimination faced by visibly non-Han Chinese citizens, in contrast, was largely invisible to Han.) Fake news about Muslim atrocities generated by racists in the West, meanwhile, has spread via social media into Chinese society.

Read More

People hold placards and flags during a demonstration of France's exiled Uyghur community on July 4, 2010 in Paris.

But the chinese communist are trying to turn uighyr muslims into pork eating, cheating and conniving chinese. Why can't they subcon the conversion training to the ang mohs. I sm sure tge uighyrs will volunteer to attend these classes..last thing anybody on the planet wants is to be a chinaman.

 

[Hypocrite-The]

But the chinese communist are trying to turn uighyr muslims into pork eating, cheating and conniving chinese. Why can't they subcon the conversion training to the ang mohs. I sm sure tge uighyrs will volunteer to attend these classes..last thing anybody on the planet wants is to be a chinaman.

ang mors also eat pork so wat talking u

 

[Leongsam]

I fully support any country's effort to exterminate ALL religions.

Anyone who believes this sort of mumbo jumbo in the 21st century obviously has a mental condition in the first place and the last thing the state should do is to facilitate the spread of absolute nonsense.

 

[whoami]

Being born chinnese is different from being born and brainwashed into religion. A chinnese can still decide what faith to choose,

Hallo. Now the cheena prc is forcing and brainwashing the Uighurs to abandon their culture, language, religion. Force them to take pork, speak, dress and behave like Han. I force u to eat beef, boleh?

 

[ChristJohnny]

Religious people = Low IQ = Poor

… this is a fact.

 

[whoami]

Religious people = Low IQ = Poor

… this is a fact.

View attachment 61586

How about the Jews? Are they not religious?

 

[aerobwala]

Nonsense, how to keep one million people under captivity.

 

[Hypocrite-The]

Hallo. Now the cheena prc is forcing and brainwashing the Uighurs to abandon their culture, language, religion. Force them to take pork, speak, dress and behave like Han. I force u to eat beef, boleh?

Perhaps these Uighurs should learn from the Hui...but considering the world mudslimes have already abandon the Uyghurs,....perhaps these Uyghurs should take note of their own situation
A Tale of Two Chinese Muslim Minorities
There is a chasm between the conditions experienced by the Hui and Uyghur peoples in China.

By Brent Crane
August 22, 2014







There are two major Muslim ethnic groups in China: the Hui and the Uyghurs. While these two ethnic communities may share the same god, their respective positions within Chinese society remain radically different.
The Uyghurs, who speak a Turkic language written with an Arabic script, are as distinct in appearance from the Han Chinese as Native Americans are from their Caucasian counterparts. Their population of around 8 million mostly resides in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, a vast province situated along the borders of several Central Asian countries in China’s northwestern frontier.
The Hui, estimated at around 11 million, can be found throughout China. Most, however, are concentrated within the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. They are unique in China as they represent the only one of the 56 officially designated nationality groups in China “for which religion…is the sole unifying criterion of identity.” In skin and blood, the Hui are little different from their Han brethren. For the vast majority of the Hui, Mandarin is a mother tongue, and besides refraining from pork and alcohol, they have much the same dietary preferences as the Han.
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The most striking difference between the two groups though is their respective positions in relation to the Chinese government. Unlike the Hui, the Uyghurs face an alarming amount of state discrimination. “Under the guise of counterterrorism and ‘anti-separatism’ efforts, the government maintains a pervasive system of ethnic discrimination against Uighurs…and sharply curbs religious and cultural expression,” notes a 2013 Human Rights Watch report on China. It cites an “omnipresence of the secret police,” a “history of disappearances” and an “overtly politicized judiciary” as common components of the “atmosphere of fear among the Uighur population.” The Hui are not mentioned in the full-country report. The cause behind the gap in government treatment is twofold.
One reason is culture. Like the majority Han Chinese, the Uyghurs also have a strong attachment to their cultural practices and are deeply prideful of their culture’s long history. They have little desire to assimilate into Han society. Their reluctance to do so is met with reactions ranging from chauvinism to claims of ingratitude by the Han elite. Reciprocally, the Han inclination to patronize and discount the Uyghurs – referred to as “the barbarians” in dynastic times – as culturally inferior breeds resentment and frustration among Uyghurs.
The Hui on the other hand are the ideal religious minority for the Chinese government. They have largely assimilated into Han society, having adapted their Islamic practices to fit into the Confucian-influenced macroculture. Their mosques, a harmonious blend of traditional Chinese dynastic architecture with Islamic motifs, are the perfect manifestation of the Hui’s fluid assimilation.
Another aspect of the cultural dimension that affects the Uyghurs’ societal positioning is race. Racial discrimination pervades the Uyghur-Han relationship in China. Many of the Han feel uneasy towards the Uyghurs, believing them to be thieves and hotheads and in more recent years, religious fanatics. Part of this is because the Han are poor at distinguishing the differences between the Turkic minority groups. As a consequence, when crimes are committed by Tajiks, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks or Tatars, Han will likely describe the wrongdoers to authorities as Uyghurs; suddenly nearly every non-Han crime taking place in China is committed by Uyghurs.
The effects of this stereotyping is evident in Urumqi, where Han and Uyghur numbers are nearly equal. Xinjiang’s provincial capital is a city divided. While the Han Chinese reside in the wealthier north, most of the Uyghurs stay in the less developed south. “The Han don’t come down here,” an American expat living in Urumqi tells me as we stroll through a Uyghur neighborhood. “They are too afraid.”
The Hui, however, mingle freely within both communities. Their command of Mandarin lends them legitimacy with the Han, while their Islamic faith makes them okay with the Uyghurs (though this isn’t to say that there haven’t been clashes). In contrast, many Uyghurs struggle with Mandarin, which only adds to the Han perception that they are an uncivilized, benighted people.
Language plays a role in the income divide between the two groups as well. To be fair, the government is directing much effort towards addressing this problem with bilingual schooling and affirmative action programs (though both policies have had mixed results). Affirmative action programs notwithstanding, a mastery of Mandarin is essential for employment within the government or a state-owned enterprise (SOE), two of the best paying sectors in Xinjiang’s extraction-heavy economy. But while conducting research on income disparity in Xinjiang, University of California PhD candidate Anthony Howell found “a noticeable increase in Hui who were employed by SOEs” in comparison to his Uyghur control group. Furthermore, almost all of the Hui involved in his study were “conversationally fluent in Mandarin,” while only 73.8 percent of Uyghur respondents could be said to possess the same competency.
“[The Hui] are better than us,” says a young Uyghur man in Urumqi who wishes to be called Askgar. He does not wish to share his name due to a fear of state retaliation. “Sometimes I feel like there is no future for us, like we are refugees. We’re not welcome anywhere. [The media] made us famous for some bad things,” he laments. “Now people are afraid of us.”
Race impacts how the state-run media depicts Uyghurs. Since the start of the Global War on Terror, authorities have been quick to label instances of violence or crime committed by Uyghurs as acts of terrorism. Liang Zheng, a researcher of Chinese media at Xinjiang University in Urumqi, analyzed several state newspapers as part of his doctoral dissertation, hoping to shine a light on the media’s portrayal of Uyghurs. In his research he found that “Uyghurs [were] represented in China’s state media in a partial and biased way,” and that depictions of Uyghurs as terrorists and a threat to China greatly increased following 9/11. As a result of the media’s excessive use of the T-word, the impression that all Uyghurs are religious radicals has gained traction in the public sphere. When legitimate acts of Islamic terrorism do occur (and they may be on the rise) it only legitimizes that stereotype among the public. The Hui don’t experience these types of problems associated with bad press. But for the vast majority of peaceful, moderate Uyghurs, this public labeling has become a major burden.
The second and most important reason for the government treatment gap is territoriality. The Uyghurs, who as recently as the 20th century experienced two separate periods of independence, generally believe Xinjiang is occupied unjustly by the Chinese. Many believe that the province – which Uyghur nationalists make a point of calling East Turkistan and not its Mandarin name – should be a sovereign nation ruled by ethnic Uyghurs, similar to the Stan states of Central Asia.
The Hui meanwhile almost never challenge the territorial authority of the Party. They have historically shown little interest in politics. Nor have they had much experience in governance. Rather, they have existed within different Chinese polities throughout the centuries mostly as a minority group within a larger Han society. They care that they are able to practice their religion freely and not much else. Though they have experienced significant discrimination and hardship throughout the centuries under the ruling classes – and have fought back under the leadership of various figures – this experience hasn’t bred a serious desire for statehood. Thus the Chinese party-state today, perpetually obsessed with matters of territoriality and ethnic unity, harbors little ill will towards the Hui, who have challenged neither issue. This confidence holds true even when the Hui delve into religious fanaticism.
In 2006, a religious leader of a Sufi sect in Ningxia established what the South China Morning Post described as a “virtual religious state,” with one and a half million followers and a network of mosques and madrasas. He spoke openly of his time seeing Osama Bin Laden speak and his meetings with several radical clerics while studying in Pakistan. But because he expressed unwavering loyalty to the Communist Party, he went unbothered by the authorities. Given the strict regulations enforced upon even the most moderate Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, such an example suggests that the difference in government treatment of the two Muslim groups rests not within religion but within the political realm.
Much analysis of Beijing’s repression in Xinjiang attributes the state’s oppressive policies to something akin to Islamophobia or an animosity towards the sacred in general. Seeing the great lengths that the government goes to in its attempts to dilute the religiosity of Xinjiang, this wouldn’t be an illogical deduction. Besides, the Communist Party is an outwardly atheist regime. But a look into the degree of religious and political freedom experienced by Xinjiang’s Hui Muslims in comparison to their Uyghur neighbors illuminates a different explanation. What Beijing is motivated by in its oppression of Uyghurs is not a distaste for Islam as such, but it is an absolute neurosis towards the threat – serious or not – of territory loss, and with no small degree of xenophobia thrown in there as well.
Brent Crane is a Beijing-based writer. Follow him on Twitter @bcamcrane.

 

[mudhatter]

Being born chinnese is different from being born and brainwashed into religion. A chinnese can still decide what faith to choose,

No two cases are the same.

A chink can not choose his eyes. They are slanted. I am suggesting operations to straighten and widen them. You know slit, slant eyed chinks?

This can help them see better.

Vision for chinks today is not what it was originally intended to be. Their epicanthic fold and being brainwashed into communism really hurts their ability to view things properly.