Chinese government urged to deal harshly with Xinjiang separatism - paper

2 September 2006
BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific

Text of report by Yang Ching-lin headlined: "Eliminate root causes in combating terrorism: smash East Turkestan theories"; published by Hong Kong newspaper Ta Kung Pao website on 1 September

From 24 to 26 August, China and Kazakhstan held a joint antiterrorist exercise codenamed "Tianshan No 1 (2006)" and, on 28 August, the Xinjiang Public Security Department announced a region-wide checking of explosives in Xinjiang beginning that day, thus giving no opportunity for the "three forces" [forces of separatism, terrorism and extremism] to take advantage of the situation.

These moves by China to crack down on terrorists will make it more and more difficult for the "three forces" to conduct separatist and terrorist activities in Xinjiang.

However, it is also necessary to pay attention to the fact that in the past decades, although China has always cracked down on the East Turkestan separatist forces in a high-handed manner, East Turkestan is still like a soul that refuses to go away and continues to cause trouble. The reason for this is because in the process of fighting against the East Turkestan separatist forces, China has mainly taken "stopgap" measures with launching attacks on them as the dominant factor without taking measures to "eliminate the root causes" to remove this cancer.

The late modern Xinjiang history has proved that the root cause to the rampant "three forces" is the ideological system of "East Turkestan" national separatism. So long as this banner of a set of fabricated separatist ideology remains standing, the activities of the separatist forces will continue.

"East Turkestan" is a concept with political connotation created by the Western powers in pursuing the colonialist policy in Central Asia in the 19th century and they called the Hezhong (Samarkand) area of Central Asia swallowed up by Czarist Russia "West Turkestan" and the Tarim Basin in Xinjiang, China, "East Turkestan".

This is not a standard name but, in the early 20th century, the ideological trends of "Pan-Islamism" and "Pan-Turkism" infiltrated into Xinjiang. On the basis of what is said about opposing the colonial rule and striving for national independence in the ideological trends of "Pan-Islamism" and "Pan-Turkism", Xinjiang's separatist forces have regarded the Chinese Central Government and the Xinjiang local authorities as the colonial rule in Xinjiang and professed that Xinjiang should oppose China's colonial rule, strive for national unification and build an "East Turkestan Islamic" country.

Instigated by this ideological trend, the separatist forces set up the "East Turkestan Islamic Republic" in Kashi in 1933 that lasted only three months, and again set up the separatist political regime of the "East Turkestan Republic" in Ili in 1944 that lasted for one year and eight months.

In 1940, Mehmet Emin Bughra, one of the ringleaders of the separatist political regime "East Turkestan Islamic Republic", published abroad the book the "History of East Turkestan." This fabricated book says "East Turkestan" (Xinjiang) has been an independent country since ancient time and denies the historical fact that since the Han dynasty, Xinjiang has been under the jurisdiction of the emperor dynasties of China in the Central Plain. It has fabricated the story that the Second Turkish Khanate, an alliance of Turkic groups, which was established in 552 and fell in 744, was a nation that already existed 11,000 years ago (5,000 years earlier than Egypt).

This book has methodized, theorized and systemized the East Turkestan separatist ideology. It has become the "ideological and spiritual support" of the separatist forces and has been secretly spread in Xinjiang. In 1987, an enlarged edition of the book appeared in Ankara in Turkey, which has made the East Turkestan separatist ideological system even more "perfect".

Taking a panoramic view of the separatist activities conducted by the separatists in Xinjiang in the past decades, we shall find that they are guided without exception by the "East Turkestan" separatist theories.

This kind of heresy of separatism is like an undercurrent flowing among some people in Xinjiang and its poisonous influence is far-reaching. As a matter of fact, it has been passed on from generation to generation among some people. If all-out efforts are not made to smash it, the "East Turkestan" forces will continue to rise one after another despite suppression. It is not right to say that the Chinese government has turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to the "East Turkestan" theories, but its efforts to root it out are obviously insufficient. For example, theses that clarify matters and get to the bottom of things about the "East Turkestan" theories are rare; and in open propaganda, the "East Turkestan" theories are seldom refuted strongly on just grounds and usually only a general statement or denunciation is made. The government spokesman has frequently used the term "as is known to all", but as a matter of fact, most people are not clear about the history and origin of "East Turkestan".

Therefore, China should regard smashing the separatist ideological and theoretical system of "East Turkestan" as the most important task in cracking down on the conspiracy of the "three forces" of separating Xinjiang; and should inform countries with which it has established diplomatic relations about the criticism of this separatist ideological system and put it into the history textbooks in China. In this way, such separatist ideology will find no support among the people at home and abroad, and the conspiracy of the separatist forces will completely fall through.