Kucera's primary objective seems to be proving how evil (Han) Chinese people are. While there's a certain amount of truth to his observations, he's also unfair.

The existence of ethnic tension and resentment between the Hans and the Uighurs is a fact. The political suppression in Xinjiang is also hard to deny. The attitude of many (though certainly not all) Hans toward the minorities is indeed somewhat patronizing. And China does need to do a lot more to integrate the Uighurs and other ethnic minorities into the economy.

However, many of the problems that he points out are problems for poor and disenfranchised people everywhere in China. Large parts of the rural population have seen few benefits from China's economic boom, and needless to say, political dissent is suppressed everywhere. And the attitude of a lot of urban residents toward rural Han migrants is also one of indifference, at best.

At the same time, it's also not simply the case that the Hans are excluding the non-Hans; the exclusion is also partially self-imposed. For example, there are affirmative action programs in place for Uighurs and other minorities in higher education. The governorship of Xinjiang and many government offices are also constitutionally required to be filled by Uighurs. And oddly enough, most of the cops I saw in Kashgar seemed to be Uighur. (This contradicts Kucera's assertion. Besides, you can't always distinguish between Hans and Central Asians based purely on physical appearance, because there's more overlap than people who don't live in China tend to believe).

A large part of the social distance between Hans and Uighurs is due to their not sharing a common language. On the other hand, Han Chinese who were born in Xinjiang (as opposed to the more recent migrants) tend to interact socially a great deal more with their Uyghur neighbors -- because the understand the local culture better. Uighurs who "sell out" and bother to learn Mandarin also tend to be much more well-off. Of course, nobody should be forced to integrate if they don't want to. But it's a tradeoff that people have to make. Just imagine if some Latinos in the formerly Mexican regions of the American Southwest (a region that we arguably have a weaker historical claim on than China has on Xinjiang) couldn't get certain jobs because they refused to learn English -- who would we blame, then? As another indicator of our often hypocritical attitude toward the Chinese was our negative media response to recent plans to make the Han and Uyghur-language schools more integrated. Would you expect similar protestations if we had separate Spanish and English-languages schools in the United States and then tried to desegregate them? The Chinese can't ever do anything right, in our eyes. The reality is a lot more complex.

I agree with a lot of the sentiment, but there is a distinction between Latinos (or atleast most of them) and Uyghur; the Latinos are immigrants, while the Uyghur are involuntary minorities, conquered centuries ago by the Machu dynasty. Essentially, their land is being exploited while they only recieve a limited benefit from this exploitation. Or so I gather, I really don't know anything about western China beyond what i read in 'China goes west'.

jasamcarl, it's so easy to neglect one's own history, isn't it? We acquired the American Southwest, among other lands, through conquest also, what with Manifest Destiny and all that. Not only that, it happened much more recently than when the Qing Dynasty conquered Xinjiang. I'm surprised you mentioned "China goes west" without realizing that the title is meant to invoke America's own westward push. So no, the distinction is certainly not what you proposed.

In fact, Americans are not more culturally sensitive in policy or in reality. The difference is that our political system gives the masses (including our own downtrodden minorities) a perception that they are participants and hence stakeholders, even when they really aren't. It's a great invention really, this democratic safety valve.

It is a good article except a few mistakes. The most obvious being the people who live around Kanas Lake are not Tuvas, they are Kazakhs, same people as in Kazakstan. There are no Tuvas in Xinjiang. As an Uyghur from the region, I would like to share my perspective on the topic in the following reply to a different post on this forum.

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Danny, I am an Uyghur, and was born in Urumchi as well. My parents and grandparents were also born and liven in Urumchi. It is funny you said that Uyghurs would be offended to be catagorized as a separate people from the Chinese. How would you know that? Since when have "your Uyghur classmates" been allowed to speak their minds? By the way, growing up in Urumchi, how many Uyghurs do you know and how many Uyghur friends do you have? As I remember, Urumchi is one of the most ethnically segregated cities on the planet. Have you seen any Uyghurs at any Chinese weddings, funeral or other ceremonies and vice-versa? For your information, all the Uyghurs I know, quite a few, you can count on, regard Uyghurs and Chinese as separate concepts. I would not blame you if you did not know. A lot of things you do not know about us just like the rest of the Chinase people living in our land. It would be safe bet that you know much more about the Americans than the Uyghurs. For the Chinese, we simply do not exist, if we say we do, we would end up in jail. But, as long as we keep singing and dancing and smilling as if everything were ok, the we would be left alone. If give away the slightest sign that we also actually have families to feed, minds to think, emotions to feel, and ability to judge what is fair and not, that would spell doom for us. You do not know what people do and say to survive. To have a remote sense of what it would feel like, you may imagine this:you are apparently a well-educated person, imagine if you could not get employment appropriate for your skills because you are not white, imagine if the hiring people tell you that they would hire only the whites because they are themselves are white. And we talking about a discrimination in a foreign country for you, but I am talking about discrimination in my homeland by people who migrated to the land from other places.

Before you compare our language situation to the spanish people in US, you have bear in mind that Uyghurs are living in their own land for thousands of years using their own unique language and written alphabet, and they did not invite your parents or the other Chinese to their land. The spanish people in US at the other hand are immigrants. Immigrants naturally have to speak the language of the land just as you and me do. But in our land, the immigrants are imposing their language on us. I do not think the spanish immigrants imposing spanish on the American people. By the way, how may Uyghur words do you know other than the usual "hosh" and "yakshimusiz"?

You said Uyghurs are given preferencial treatment in employment. You should be ashamed of yourself to say such a lie. It is true that the law signed when we had an army capable of fighting then the weak red army in 50's that the governor and some top government positions have to be Uyghur. Therefore, the governor is always an Uyghur, so are some other top government positions, but we also know that they do not have real authority and everything is determined by the party secretary who is always a chinese. Uyghur employees in government inistitutions are tylically less than 5% in Urumchi and about 10% in local governments. I used to work for a provencial government department with 800 employees among which only 32 were Uyghurs. All the Uyghurs except a driver had college degree while 70-80% of the Chinese employees were at best high school gratuates.

You talked about the Universities. Most Uyghurs can go to only the 5 or so Universities in Xinjiang, while your people can go any University in China. Even so, there are more Chinese students in those 5 Universities than the Uyghurs even though the population of Uyghurs in Xinjiang are higher than the Chinese. I am sure you are capable of doing the math, afterall you are a Chinese, from the inteligent and not-lazy stock.

People go to college to have a better job and better life. That is what motivate them to study. If you know that your chance of putting what you learned to good use and get a good job after graduate is slim because you are not white, I am sure you would be asking yourself if it is worth it try that hard.

The 20th Century brought many people from the relatively backward societies to the modernity. This included the Chinese who went through a remarkable journey of losing the funny looking pony tails, and mostly uneducated dirty looking backward peasants and becoming a modern nation claiming its place in the 21th Century. Some people in Asia, Africa and other part of the world were living in jungles without clothes at the beginning of the 20th Century, but today they are more modern than the Uyghurs, Tibetans and other minorities in China who had long history of civilizations and written languages. The minorities are the only ones left out of the progress because they fell victim for the Chinese national pride hurt by the foreigners, the others. Since the Chinese could not touch the others, they took it on the other outsiders they can tough and abuse, the minorities in China. It is sort of like a psychopath behavior of a father who lacks self-esteem and try to boost it by abusing his own children.

Before you try to accuse us that we are not capable of doing things, try to stay the hell out of our land and see how we manage it ourselves. Look it the Kazakhs in Xinjiang and Kazakhstan. They are like people from different plannet. The Kazakhs in Kazakhstan are running a modern and prosperous country while their kins in China are little different than who they were 100 years ago, poor, uneducated nomads who still largely live on the moutains. The Kazakhs in either side of the border were same 100 years ago, today they are different thanks to the inteligent, enlightened, educated and hard-working Chinese.

In short, what China is doing in Xinjiang, which by the way is called East Turkistan in my own language and it is a crime to call it that name today, is the worst form of colonialism. Only in China colonialism still exists today thanks to enlightened and superior race of Chinese. Just to verify my credentials as an Uyghur from East Turkistan, I would like to add a few words in Chinese:

Hanzuren shi zui meiyo xiuyangda minzu.

See, the "brotherly feelings" are mutual, we are a not that different afterall. We just live at the dirrent side of the fence. You have the most populous country on earth on yourside, but I do not have anybody. Good for you!!!

Memet,

Thanks for the comment. But there are both Tuvans and Kazakhs around Kanas Lake. The retired policeman I talked to, for example, is a Kazakh, while the Tuvan cultural guide is, of course, a Tuvan.

Josh

Hm, Tuva is not one of the officially recognized 13 nationalities in Xinjiang. They could have moved to the area recently though. I have never been to Khanas Lake, I always assumed Kazaks inhabit area since the Altai region is inhabited mainly by Kazaks. I could be wrong. Anyway, great piece!!

An interesting post by Mehmet. One thing though, I wouldn't be so sure about Kazakhstan's alleged modernity or read too much into the differences between urbanites of Kazakhstan vs. the Kazakhs of Xinjiang who choose to lead nomadic lives. Kazakhstan has those nomads, too -- it's a huge continent-sized country in its own right. It's also corrupt and essentially undemocratic, but in their favor, their majority ethnic group does run the country and control the newfound oil wealth.

Wikipedia said there are 2400 Tuvas in China, mostly in Xinjiang. But, they were registered as Mongolians.

so much hair splitting with all of these minority groups who want autonomy like they've broken off from the former Yugoslavia or something. Could it be that the PRC actually has something there with imposition of overall sovereignty rather than allowing one ethnic group per country? Just how many separate Indian tribes would there be as separate "countries" now if the U.S. A. my country was not similarly hegenomic?

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Watch this video clip for the truth about China's atrocities...

Since the PRC?CCP made sure that link got ruined, here's another one:

British intelligence confirms Dalai Lama and many Lhasa residents who say CCP started the Lhasa riots:

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