China’s Guided Tours of Xinjiang Under Scrutiny

China recently took delegates from the Islamic nations on a guided tour of Xinjiang as part of its perception management on the issue of Uyghurs. But Turkiye talked tough about Chinese genocide of the hapless Uyghur Muslims 

Ayjaz Wani

On January 8, 2023, a delegation of 30 Islamic scholars from 14 countries, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Syria, Egypt, Bahrain, Tunisia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, visited Northwest China’s restive Xinjiang province.

The delegation, headed by the chairman of the World Muslim Communities Council (TWMCC), was taken on a guided tour of Museum of Combatting Terrorism and Extremism in Xinjiang. It also held meetings with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials in the region.

The chairman of TWMCC praised the historical relationship between China and Islam based on cooperation and alliance and “hailed the efforts of the Chinese authorities in combating terrorism in Xinjiang”. He also praised the “interest and determination of the Chinese leadership to serve all people in the region”.

The guided tour of the TWMCC comes at a time when Beijing disallowed the Turkish ambassador to visit Xinjiang, and Ankara’s renewed support to Uyghurs has discomforted the relationship between China and Turkey.

Chinese policy towards Uyghur Muslims

At the time of the 1949 Revolution, Xinjiang was under the independent rule of the East Turkestan Republic, with a contested history and centrifugal tendencies. After getting control over the vast Muslim-dominated region of Xinjiang, the CCP, through its cadres, attacked the customs, ideas, and habits of Xinjiang natives and considered Uyghurs as “foreign invaders and aliens”.

During the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976, CCP shut down mosques, banned religious associations, abolished religious education and debarred people from circumcisions and interfaith marriages. As a result, only 1,400 mosques remained functional out of 29,545 limited to far-flung areas.

China supplemented its targeted attack on the region’s cultural ethos and religious fabric with its strategy of creating demographic imbalance. CCP migrated millions of Hans to Xinjiang to ensure the subjugation of the Uyghur Muslims and secure the province from external influences.

This internal colonialism led to the economic exploitation of the resource-rich province and systematic demographic change in the region. For example, the population of Hans increased from 5% to 40% between 1949 to 1980. During the same period, the population of Muslim minorities fell from 80% to 45%. The economic reforms of 1978 led to the increased estrangement of the Uyghur Muslims and other Muslim minorities.

This increased estrangement triggered sporadic agitations against the CCP rule, which increased its economic, social, and psychological influence under the pretext of curbing regional separatism, extremism, and terrorism after 1990.

Beijing took to gross human rights violations of the Muslim minorities to counter, what it claimed, as “thousands of terror attacks between 1990 and 2016”. China also used the war on terror in the aftermath of the September 2001 attacks to suppress the Muslims of Xinjiang.

The heightened economic exploitation, demographic changes and suppression of Islamic culture within Xinjiang led to the widespread ethnic riots in 2009. Sinicisation gained traction with Beijing’s support, and thousands of Uyghurs were jailed.

Given the geostrategic location of Xinjiang and China’s global ambitions to become the world’s dominant economic power by 2049, Chinese President Xi Jinping unveiled the much-hyped Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013. The BRI was designed to dump China’s capital and excess production to expand its “developmental strategy” abroad and as a foreign policy tool.

However, three of six mega BRI projects run through restive Xinjiang, including the controversial and sensitive China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Under Xi’s guidance, CCP started its second Strike Hard Campaign in Xinjiang in 2014 to secure the “project of the century”. Xi stressed building a “Great Wall of Iron” to protect China’s national interests in the region.

The CCP incarcerated more than one-and-a-half million Muslims from different ethnic groups in concentration camps for offences like wearing a veil, growing a long beard and violating family planning norms. Uyghur women were torched, systematically raped and subjected to forced contraceptive device implantation.

Muslims of the region were banned from performing Namaz (prayers) in 2017 and fined for violating the ban. Those in the concentration camps were exploited for forc