With A Grain Of Salt: A Friend In Need?

[uyghur]

Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta


London, May 28


China, the inscrutable middle kingdom, the ancient heaven on earth, the country with one of the highest growth rates and the biggest population, the country with a single party communist (sort of) governance structure and the country with the largest number of neighbours, is indeed an interesting one. But what is more interesting is how it creates problems for its friends. The first problem has to do with the Uighur issue and the second with the Tibetans. In this column we take a look at the first one and in next week's column, we will take a look at the Tibetan problem.


China has good relationships with the Muslim world, not to mention others, but it’s the relationship with the Muslims which is germane to this argument. None of these relationships are as close as those with Iran and Pakistan, although China (because of the Taiwanese recognition issue and its presence on the UNSC) has very good relationships with the other OIC nations as well.


It is a little noted fact, that China usually sides with the OIC countries in almost any kind of UNSC or UNGA resolutions, but that is neither here nor there. But the closest relationship is with Pakistan. Pakistan and China, as both sides frequently proclaimed to the world are “time-tested”, and share an "all weather friendship". This is, of course, compared to USA, which is called as a "fair weather friend", with due reason, mind you. As far as Pakistan is concerned, USA only loves Pakistan when it needs to, but when it doesn’t, it is dropped as quickly as one would when handed a red hot shovel. USA loved Pakistan when fighting communism in the 50's, then during the Afghanistan imbroglio in the 70's and 80's, and now again during the war against terror. Other than explicit foreign policy driven interests, USA doesn’t give two hoots about Pakistan. Hence a "fair weather friend".


China on the other hand, is an all weather friend. Or as General Musharraf described the relationship as being "deeper than the oceans, higher than the mountains". China has stuck with Pakistan through thick and thin. It has very deep links with Pakistan in the military, business and political side. It is not surprising that besides Saudi Arabia, China is one of the first destinations of any leader (a generalissimo or prime minister). China helped Pakistan in the international arena as well as in the United Nations. China has also helped in the nuclear weapons program, the nuclear energy program, several huge national infrastructure projects (including the development of the strategic Gwadar port), the Navy, the Air Force, the Karakorum Highway, and so on and so forth. One does wonder what China gets out of all this benevolent munificence towards Pakistan, other than getting Pakistan to keep India busy and away from China. Be that as it may, Pakistan doesn’t really have anything to offer China, with the potential exception of a through road to the Middle East and Arabian sea, but the logistics are crippling and challenging. One viewpoint is that since a huge amount of China's exports and imports pass through the straits of Malacca (which are infested with pirates and a natural choke point), the Tibet, Karakorum highway, down to Karachi, and the Gwadar route offer an alternative route to the Indian Ocean. Anyway, that's peanuts compared with all what China has given to Pakistan. So one would expect that the last thing Pakistan would do is to muck around with China and upset it. Well, “official” Pakistan doesn’t, but then, there is a big gulf between “official” Pakistan and what “unofficial” Pakistan does. But before we go into what Pakistan has done or not done, let us take a look at the problem.


The problem is with the Uighurs. Uighurs are one of the 5 main ethnic groups of China, besides the Han, Manchu, Tibetan, and Mongolian groups. They live in western China, an area which is bounded by mountains, snow steppes, deserts and similar forbidding conditions. It is as far away from an ocean as one potentially could be. They have had an impact on world history for the past 2000 years and I am afraid that for most of these 2000 years, they have had conflicts with the dominant Han Chinese.


Genghis Khan and Timur the Lame were heavily involved in this region and with the Uighur people. While nomadic in nature for most of their earlier history, the Uighurs came under the Buddhist sway till about the 1400's. After this, Islam came to town and the Uighurs became Muslims. In the mid 18th century, Xinjiang and the Uighurs came under Manchu control, but it has been a fact of Uighur life that they have always rebelled against the Chinese, usually not with much success. During this time, the Chinese had a bit of a spat with the Russian empire and after some peace treaties, the land we know as Xinjiang came into being.


In the early part of the 20th century, Xinjiang was a hotbed of separatist activity, with competing parties being variously backed by the Japanese, British, internal warlords, and also the Chinese communist party. In 1945, the first serious threat to Chinese sovereignty was due to the announcement of the Eastern Turkistan Republic, claiming sovereignty over Xinjiang with a firm Islamic flavour. In 1949, most of the leaders of the republic died mysteriously. Funnily enough, the Chinese communist government then took over Xinjiang. By the 1950's, anybody who was part of the ETR was pushed aside, imprisoned, killed or prosecuted. After some desultory negotiations, the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region was formed in 1955. In terms of being a buffer state against Russian expansion and to keep the rebellious Uighurs under control, the central Chinese government promulgated a policy of settling ethnic Han Chinese in Xinjiang, with the result that a province, which formerly was 3/4th Uighur ended up less than 1/2 Uighur now. Then Chairman Mao's Great Leap Forward created the greatest cultural and social dislocation in Uighur life since Genghis Khan rampaged through the countryside. In the 1960's, China used Xinjiang province's Lop Nor area for its nuclear testing grounds. China has also cracked down heavily on the Uighur religious practices and mosques have been destroyed and public worship frowned upon. Religion is an anathema anyway to the communists, and to top it all, Islam was seen as a focal point besides separatism for the Uighurs even though until then it was more of a moderate Islam, greatly influenced by Buddhism.


After the Soviet Union fell and the Turkic republics of Central Asia were formed, the simmering insurgency moved up a gear, with the Uighurs returning from Islamic countries where they had gone for studies and support, bringing back the Wahhabi flavoured Islam they were subjected to. Car bombs were introduced, assassinations of ethnic Han Chinese and generalised rioting against the harsh Chinese rule were practiced, which all had the sad result of the government cracking down hard. And when the Chinese crack down hard, it means hard. Torture, summary execution, long tough imprisonment, internal exile, deaths, you name it, were widely used. The 9/11 incident changed the world (read USA's) reaction to Chinese repression. While before the Uighurs could at least get a hearing in the world capitals, after the 9/11 attacks, they were reduced into the "Islamic Terrorists" category and China was given a "get out of jail free" card.


Now we come to the ‘dear’ friend Pakistan. Before 9/11 and the latest Afghan War, Pakistan was heavily involved in various rebellions and spats going around in the world ranging from Chechnya, Bosnia, Afghanistan, the 'Stans from the Fergana Valley, Xinjiang, Kashmir, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines and the like. It was like the country had been one of the exporters of Islam driven fervour terror. I know “Islamic Terrorism”, is a very stupid term, but there are pretty good reasons to say what came out of Pakistan (or rather what the foaming mullahs defined it as) was definitely Islamic and it definitely was terrorism. There were and still are, militant training camps, reported big involvement of the shadowy intelligence agencies, etc. etc. That is your "unofficial" Pakistan. The aftermath of the Russian Afghan War gave rise to this virulent, “take-out-the-infidels-with-a-sword” kind of philosophy and because the state liked the idea of having cheap terrorist labour for Kashmir, it allowed these camps and the philosophy behind them to grow. These people were quite fungible, Uighurs will fight in the Kashmiri rebellion, or Sudanese will go fight in Bosnia or Jordanians will go to Chechnya. After all, it was all part and parcel of the great enterprise of the mullahs.


Unfortunately, once one has given the green light for people to think of Pakistan as a nice little place for “Islamic terrorism”, everybody who is interested will make a beeline to Pakistan, and that is just what they did. Just search in google about the number of nationalities and territories that were represented by the terrorists captured in Pakistan and you will get an idea. You will find Chechens, Yemenites, Kuwaitis, Jordanians, Palestinians, Sudanese, Thai, Philippinoes, Bosnians, Afghans, Kashmiris, Indonesians, etc. etc. It was indeed a great melting pot. And here is where Pakistan had problems. All these groups were fighting the infidels all around the world, and Uighurs were no different from say Chechens or Kashmiris, as far as these militants were concerned. Another fascinating inconsistency that the Pakistani generals were caught under! The Chinese are too polite to complain loudly in public (except to the Taiwanese), but since the late 1990s some reports revealed that the Chinese protested bitterly to Pakistan. Some experienced China watchers have reported how Pakistan was hauled over the coals with several senior Pakistani officials called in for a grilling in Beijing about how Pakistan is apparently letting these Uighurs run around loose in Pakistan.


As usual, Pakistan showed its spine and fine martial spirit, just like it showed to the USA, and caved in. The police and intelligence agencies moved in, Uighurs in Pakistan were targeted, killed, deported, imprisoned or what have you. Many were directly sent back to China (guess what happened to them) like Ismail Kadir for example. Others were reported to have been handed over to the Americans who then sent them over to that tropical Caribbean paradise of Guantanamo Bay. Every time I read that some Uighur has been given that treatment by Pakistan, I wince for many reasons, not least for the wigging that the Chinese would have given their "friends".


It is an interesting state of affairs. For all the pious and self righteous mouthing about the desire for Kashmiri self determination, that Pakistan raises in the various international forums, there is nary a peep about the Uighurs. For that matter, the various left groups are also suspiciously silent about the cultural genocide and repression that China is undertaking in Xinjiang. If one was a bit cynical and evil, one would chuckle about the way these self-righteous people have been hoisted by their own petards. Self determination and fighting for freedom principles are great, but Xinjiang becomes an inconvenient issue. The cause of Palestine is heard all over the world, but Xinjiang is so inconvenient that the mere mention of it causes embarrassment and shuffling of the feet. After all Alfred Adler said : “It is easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them.”


All this to be taken with a grain of salt!


(Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta, currently working on a doctorate at Kings College in International Relations and Terrorism, also holds a Doctorate in Finance and Artificial Intelligence from Manchester Business School. He works in the City of London in various capacities in the Banking Sector. He also lectures at several British Universities.)