After Osama, China Fears the Next Target

[GuestFellow]

BEIJING, May 6, 2011 (IPS) - The United States' most vilified terrorist foe has been dead only a week but China is already haunted by the phantom of the next big U.S. enemy. Almost simultaneously with the spread of the news of Osama Bin Laden's death in a covert U.S. operation in Pakistan, Chinese analysts had begun the guessing game of where Washington will focus its attention next.

Share your views.

 

[Woodrow]

Before anyone jumps to any conclusions about China especially any desire to see them as friends of Islam read these paragraphs from that same article.

The U.S. presence in Afghanistan has always been a controversial one for Chinese politicians. China joined the global war on terror because bin Laden's political agenda of setting up an Arab caliphate and sponsoring terrorism presented a direct threat to its restive Muslim north-western region of Xinjiang. But Beijing has been suspicious of the U.S. intentions, worrying that Washington is pursuing a broader agenda for long-term presence in the region, which China regards as its backyard.

Beijing officially hailed the killing of the terrorist leader by the U.S. as "a milestone and a positive development for the international anti-terrorism efforts."

"Terrorism is the common enemy of the international community. China has also been a victim of terrorism," foreign ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu was quoted by the official Xinhua news agency as saying after bin Laden's death.

She was referring to Xinjiang, where Muslim separatists have been waging a bloody insurgency against Chinese rule. Beijing had linked the global war against terror with its struggle to quell separatist sentiments in the Muslim region, insisting insurgents are aided from outside.

Chinese public reaction to the news of bin Laden's death has mixed reluctant admiration at the success of the secret mission played out reportedly on screens in front of U.S. President Barack Obama with outright fear over what comes next.

SOURCE

Keep in mind China is now the world's second largest consumer of petroleum and as it's industrialization grows so will it'spetroleum needs. China needs to import virtually all of it's oil. It has very few routes to go to obtain it. Going eastward it is faily well blocked by Japan and the Pacific ocean Going South id it is blocked by the Himalaya Mountains. Going west it is blocked by Russia and Europe. Going North it is blocked by the Arctic.

The most logical routes to obtain oil seem to be South East Asia and South West Asia. South west Asia seems to be the most logical as a pipe line through Afghanistan and Pakistan could connect them with the Arab oil production Nations of the Mideast.

This seems to be the incentive for china to want the USA out of the region, not because they have sympathy for Muslims. I think Chinas real concern is how the USA will hinder them from entering into the Mideast.

 

[aadil77]

I didn't know there was a chinese muslim resistance going on there

 

[GuestFellow]

China is just as silly as America sometimes.

Uighur separatists in Muslim-majority Xinjiang province have waged a low-level insurgency against the Beijing government for many years.

The Beijing government frequently claims it faces "international terrorism" in Xinjiang, and that the Taleban is active there, but human rights groups say these claims are exaggerated.

Source

 

[Ramadhan]

I didn't know there was a chinese muslim resistance going on there

The natives of xinjiang are the uyghurs who are muslims, but the demographic of the province has been steadily diluted by the migration of the chinese han to the province, which creates tension with the uyghurs. There was big protest with a lot of casualty last year when the chinese government stamped out the protests heavy handedly, killing many people.

Muslim women lead protests in China

Riots by China's Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang, 150 dead

Death toll in China ethnic unrest rises to 184

China is nowhere near the brutality of Russia towards the muslims in chechnya, but they certainly hold very tight control of the province, and they are alot smarter in putting the lid on the muslims population by restricting cultural and religious identities of the uyghurs.

 

[Woodrow]

I didn't know there was a chinese muslim resistance going on there

It has been ongoing for almost 200 years. The Chinese Hui (Muslims) in Shanxi provence were nearly totaly exterminated by 1911. An estimated 91% of all the Muslims in Shanxi were murdered. From eye witness reports the bodies were dumped in the Yellow River and there were so many bodies they dammed the river and caused flooding. The death count was in the Millions at least 4 million known dead, others place it at 13-17 million.

In spite of wikis track record of errors this seems to agree with what I was taught in school and heard from family history of my ancestors on the Chinese side of the family tree. (Although I am primarily Tatar--Lietuva Lipkas-- of the Mongolian Horde) Keep in mind 1911 was only 29 years before I was born and the Massacre of the Hui was still a fresh memory during my childhood years.

Tensions between Uyghur and Hui Muslims arise because Qing and Republican Chinese authorities used Hui troops and officials to dominate the Uyghurs and crush Uyghur revolts.[99]

Many Uyghurs face religious persecution and discrimination at the hands of the government authorities. Uyghurs who choose to practice their faith can only use a state-approved version of the Koran;[100] men who work in the state sector cannot wear beards and women cannot wear headscarves.[101] The Chinese state controls the management of all mosques, which many Uyghurs claim stifles religious traditions that have formed a crucial part of the Uyghur identity for centuries.[102] Children under the age of 18 are not allowed to attend religious services at mosques.[103]

Hui population of xinjiang increased by 520 percent from 1940–1982, average annual growth of 4.4 percent, the Uyghur population grew at 1.7 percent. This increase in Hui population led to tensions between the Hui Muslim and Uyghur Muslim populations. Some old Uyghurs in Kashgar remember that the Hui army at the Battle of Kashgar (1934) massacred 2,000 to 8,000 Uyghurs, which causes tension as more Hui moved into Kashgar from other parts of China.[104]

However, the suppression of the Uyghurs has more to do with the fact that they are separatist, rather than Muslim. The government of China was willing to compromisie with Hui (Chinese Muslim) activists when they staged public marches in Beijing and Lanzhou in 1989 to protest the publication of a book they deemed insulting to Islam, police protected the marchers and the government even agreed to the protestor's demands: the offensive book was banned and its authors were arrested. The Chinese government assisted them because Hui do not have a separatist movement, unlike the Uyghurs.[105]

SOURCE

The Loss of Life

In Chinese:The fluctuation of the Hui population in Qing dynasty.

Translation begins:

Throughout the 270 years of Qing dynasty history, the development of Hui people in Shaanxi province had been through a huge up and down process. At the beginning of Qing, the Hui population totaled about 845,000; it increased to 1,700,000 within 200 years. (Another source is from the Qing Government's population records and Zuo Zhongtang's written records which showed there were 13 million people including 4 million Muslims in Shanxi province prior to the revolt) But because of the Hui Rebellion in Gansu and Shaanxi during Tongzhi's reign, the total loss to the Shaanxi Hui people was as high as 1,550,000, the Hui population was reduced to 150,000 at the end of the war, over 91% of the Hui people vanished.

During the war, the loss to the Han Chinese population was much higher (the translation in the original Chinese textbook did not indicate a total number, however, Zuo Zhongtang estimated that 4 millions Muslims in Shanxi Province were wiped out - this is also hinted in Zuo ZhongTang's written record that he felt deeply sad and sorry that ethnic genocide occurred in Shanxi and that Muslim population suffered annihilation), but relatively speaking, because the percentage of Hui's population loss was so high(91%), the whole population was nearly wiped out, they were put near the edge of extinction[citation needed]. Before the war, many provinces had Hui people living quarters; none could be seen at the end of the war...Shaanxi province's ethnic composition was changed drastically (by the war)....in China's fourth National Census in the 1990s, there were only 132,000 Hui Chinese in Shaanxi province. End of translation. Original Chinese text is on the talk page.[36]

SOURCE

Out of the original Millions of Hui in Shaxi provence at being almost fully exterminated the population is now back to 132,000, but from the recent reports it does seem history is going to repeat itself in Shanxi