dogu-turkistan-sempozyumu

The Role of the International Community in East Turkestan / Prof Dru C. Gladneyeconomic crises (such as the drag imposed by the Asian economic downturn onChina’s currency), rising inflation, increased income disparity, displaced “floatingpopulations”, Hong Kong reunification, and the many other internal and externalproblems that face Jiang Zemin’s government. Perhaps nationalism will be the only“unifying ideology” left to a Chinese nation that has begun to distance itself fromCommunism, as it has from Confucianism, Buddhism and Daoism in the past.This is perhaps why religiously-based nationalisms, like Islamic fundamentalismand Tibetan Buddhism, are targeted by Beijing, while the rise of shamanism andpopular religion goes unchecked. At the same time, a firm lid on Muslim activismin China sends a message to foreign Muslim militant organizations to stay out ofChina’s internal affairs, and the Taliban to stay well within their Afghan borders.Although it is hard to gauge the extent of support for Uighur separatism amongthe broader population, it is clear that cultural survival is a critical concern formany, and a significant attempt to preserve Uighur culture is taking place, assistedto some extent by international tourism and the state’s attempts to demonstrateits goodwill toward its restive Muslim population.International organizations and dynamicsThe People’s Republic of China, as one of five permanent voting membersof the UN security council, and as a significant exporter of military hardware tothe Middle East, has become a recognized player in Middle Eastern affairs. Witha decline in trade occurring with most Western nations after the Tiananmenmassacre in the early 1990s, the importance of China’s Middle Eastern tradingpartners (all of them Muslim, since China did not have relations with Israel until1993), rose considerably. This may account for the fact that China establisheddiplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia in August 1990, with the first directSino-Saudi exchanges taking place since 1949 (Saudi Arabia cancelled its longstandingdiplomatic relationship with Taiwan and withdrew its ambassador,despite a lucrative trade history). In the face of a long-term friendship withIraq, China went along with most of the UN resolutions in the war againstIraq. Although it abstained from Resolution 678 on supporting the ground-war,making it unlikely that Chinese workers will be welcomed back into Kuwait,China enjoys a fairly solid reputation in the Middle East as an untarnished sourceof low-grade weaponry and cheap reliable labour. Frequent press accounts have473