dogu-turkistan-sempozyumu

FREEEAST TURKISTAN SYMPOSIUMCentral Asian states over Chinese expansionism, as was the April 1996 Shanghaicommuniqué that solidified the existing Sino-Central Asian borders. This wasperhaps the clearest example of Chinese government efforts to finally solidify andfully map its domestic territories.Practically speaking, China is not threatened by internal dismemberment.China’s separatists, such as they are, are small in number, poorly equipped,loosely linked, and vastly out-gunned by the People’s Liberation Army and thePeople’s Police. Local support for separatist activities, particularly in Xinjiang, isambivalent and ambiguous at best, given the economic disparity between theseregions and their foreign neighbours, which are generally much poorer, and insome cases, such as Tajikistan, riven by civil war. Memories in the region arestrong of mass starvation and widespread destruction during the Sino-Japaneseand civil war in the first half of this century, not to mention the chaotic horrorsof the Cultural Revolution. International support for Tibetan causes has donelittle to shake Beijing’s grip on the region. Many local activists are calling not forcomplete separatism or real independence, but more often express concerns overenvironmental degradation, anti-nuclear testing, religious freedom, over-taxation,and imposed limits on child-bearing. Many ethnic leaders are simply calling for“real” autonomy according to Chinese law for the five Autonomous Regions thatare each led by First Party Secretaries, who are all Han Chinese controlled byBeijing. Extending the “Strike Hard” campaign to Xinjiang, Wang Lequan, theParty Secretary for Xinjiang, has declared “there will be no compromise betweenus and the separatists”. Documented separatist and violent incidents in Xinjianghave dropped off dramatically since the late 1990s. Philip Pan reported in a July14, 2002 Washington Post interview that local Xinjiang security officials wereonly able to cite three relatively small occurrences. 30Beijing’s official publication of the separatist issue may have more to dowith domestic politics than any real internal or external threat. Recent moves,such as those evidenced in the 2008 Olympics, suggest efforts to promoteChinese nationalism as a “unifying ideology” that will prove more attractive thanCommunism and more manageable than capitalism. By highlighting separatistthreats and external intervention, China can divert attention away from its owndomestic instabilities of natural disasters (especially the 2008 Sichuan earthquake),472