Thursday, July 09, 2009

The Uighur uprising

China's population consists mainly of Han people, but, there are ca. 8% of minorities in China belonging to various ethnic groups and sects. Although 8% may seem a small proportion, this amounts in China to ca. 100 million people! The largest minority groups are Zhuang, Hui, Uighur (or Uygur pronounced weegur), Mongols and Tibetans. Several of these groups are of Turkic origin and are Muslims, including the Uygur who mainly inhabit the north western province of Xinjiang, where they have an autonomous region of ca. 10 million people.
The reason why the Uygur are in the news is that there has been rioting, the worst riots in China since the Tiananmen Square uprising back in 1989. According to reports ca. 150 people have been killed and 800 wounded, mostly in the capital city of Urumqi. This is only the latest in an ongoing Uygur insurrection against the central Government. The significance of this rioting is not only that this group is challenging the central Communist government in Beijing, but that the Government allowed reports of this violence to be shown on Chinese TV. In a page out of "1984," the TV announcer said that the rioting is against the stability and security of the people and must be stamped out. The authorities are appealing to the Chinese yearning for stability and the fact that most of the victims of the rioting were Han Chinese, who have been deliberately settled in Urumqi. The fact that the Uygurs are Muslims and want their own Muslim State means that there can be no compromise between them and the central Government.
In this clash, there is a difficult choice for the West, including Israel. While we support the rights of individuals and groups for autonomy within China, for example the Tibetans, we also do not want to see China torn apart by internal wars. Also, we are not keen on seeing the emergence of more Muslim-dominated states within the region bordering central Asia.
Some of the existing Muslim states in central Asia, such as Kyrgystan and Kazakhstan, that border the Uygur region of China and have a Uygur minority, are friendly to Israel, as the recent visit to Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan by Pres. Shimon Peres made clear. He was accompanied by ca. 60 officials and businessmen, who made good contacts and deals while there. But, a violent uprising of the Uygur people to form a new Muslim State, that would likely not be as moderate and open as the current states that arose out of the former Soviet Union, is not in the West's interests.

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