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A HISTORY OF INNER ASIA

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274 A history of Inner Asia<br />

the point where the Han (ethnic Chinese) element has come close to that<br />

of the Uighurs, if the Hui (Chinese-speaking Muslims) are also taken<br />

into account.According to the 1990 census, out of the total population<br />

of 15,156,883 inhabitants, 7,191,845 were Uighurs, thus less than onehalf<br />

(47.45 percent) of the total population, the Han 5,695,409, and Hui<br />

682,912, thus 6,378,321 citizens whose mother tongue is Chinese, or<br />

42.09 percent of the total population. One can somewhat improve the<br />

native Turkic population’s representation by combining the Uighurs<br />

with the Kazakhs: if we add the 1,106,271 or 7.30 percent to the<br />

Uighurs, we obtain 8,298,116 Turkic speakers (54.75 percent of the total<br />

population; the percentage will be still slightly higher if we add the<br />

Kyrgyz and Uzbeks of Sinkiang); moreover, the impact of the large ethnolinguistic<br />

Chinese component might be considered somewhat lessened<br />

if the religious criterion were applied and the Hui were added to<br />

the Turkic element: the figure would be over 8,981,028 Muslims, or<br />

59.26 percent of the total population. On the other hand again, the<br />

significance of these figures is modified by the lopsided ratio in centers<br />

of political or economic power: thus the population of Urumchi,<br />

1,217,316 strong, consisted of 934,851 (76.80 percent) Han Chinese,<br />

161,643 (13.28 percent) Uighurs, and 83,001 (6.82 percent) Hui<br />

Chinese; taken together, the Chinese-speaking component in the provincial<br />

capital represented 83.62 percent. Another example is Karamai, a<br />

center of oil production.Its 210,064 inhabitants consisted of 161,097<br />

(76.69 percent) Han Chinese, 30,895 (14.71 percent) Uighurs, and 4,997<br />

(2.38 percent) Hui Chinese. It is true that the ratio changes in most<br />

agglomerations of Nan Lu, the now obsolete name for the more traditional<br />

southern part of Sinkiang.In Kashgar, the figures show 76.53<br />

percent Uighurs, 21.98 percent Han, and only 0.46 percent Hui; in<br />

Khotan, 83.32 percent Uighurs, 16.13 percent Han, and 0.40 percent<br />

Hui; in Turfan, 71.82 percent Uighurs as against 20.25 percent Han.<br />

Even in Nan Lu, however, Aksu, a city that has occasionally been the residence<br />

of Chinese governors, still boasts a Han majority: 51.51 percent,<br />

as compared with 47.02 percent for the Uighurs; while the strategically<br />

located Hami has a Han majority of 66.11 percent as against 25.94<br />

percent Uighurs.These statistics suggest that even if we admit that a<br />

certain proportion of these Chinese are temporary residents, Chinese<br />

presence in Sinkiang is anchored in a solid demographic base, with the<br />

conclusion that Eastern Turkestan is likely to remain Chinese Turkestan,<br />

unlike Western Turkestan which is no longer Russian.

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