Page 116 - Conflict, Terrorism, and the Media In Asia

Uyghur separatism and nationalism in Xinjiang 105
issues were found to be inadequate to deal with the changing geopolitical
environment of east and Central Asia. Political Islam became more powerful in
Afghanistan and Tajikistan and was perceived as a threat to the new governments
of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan: consequently, all of the regional powers discerned
a common interest in combating this new force.
The first meeting of what was to become a major regional grouping took place
in Shanghai in 1996 when the foreign ministers of China, Russia, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan met to discuss common concerns. An agenda was con-
structed around border security, combating insurgent Islamic forces and the
smuggling of Islamic literature, weapons and narcotics. The grouping which met
regularly came to be known as the Shanghai Five, but was renamed the Shanghai
Co-operation Organisation in June 2001 when Uzbekistan was admitted. The
name change being sufficiently flexible to allow for the admission of other
members, although Pakistan, the only other state being seriously considered for
membership, was not permitted to join as there were serious doubts about the
Islamabad government’s relationship with political Islamist groups.

Repression and western development
Beijing’s strategy in dealing with the problem of ethnic separatism in Xinjiang
since the early 1990s has been twofold. On the one hand, there has been the sever-
est repression of any unofficial religious activity and any political activity that
could be classified as separatist. On the other, there has been a recognition that
poverty and underdevelopment lie at the root of the region’s social problems, and
programmes to alleviate poverty have been initiated from time to time. In the new
realism that followed the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, it was publicly acknowl-
edged in the media that under previous strategies of economic development, the
west of China, including Xinjiang, had been neglected. This could conveniently
be blamed on the ‘Gang of Four’ after their arrest in 1976 and trial in 1980–1981.
Beijing’s initial response to the deepening conflict was to launch the Strike
Hard campaign in 1996. Nationally, this campaign was said to be targeted at
crime in general but in ethnic minority areas, the priority being clearly to suppress
any manifestation of separatism. Mass arrests, short and long-term administrative
detention, the seizure of unauthorised Islamic printed or recorded materials and a
clampdown on unregistered and therefore illegal mosques and madrassas were all
employed in order to root out separatism. Political re-education campaigns have
also been used to persuade Islamic clerics that they should be more active in sup-
porting the CCP’s policy on religion, and to give support to registered mosques
and Imams and isolate unregistered radical groups. Although this had the desired
effect of curbing overt manifestations of separatist or Islamist protest, it did not
kill off the sentiment which gave rise to them. Paramilitary separatist units
continued to attack police and military bases.
Ever since Deng Xiaoping announced the policy of ‘reform and opening’ in
1978 and encouraged foreign investment to assist in the modernisation of China’s
economy, development has been uneven. The Special Economic Zones in which