A Study on the Uyghur Radicalization and Terrorism--Dong Yu

Dong Yu The University of Pittsburgh April, 2012

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A Study on the Uyghur Radicalization and Terrorism

Dong Yu

ABSTRACT

As a retrospect of Chinese counter terrorism (CT) policy towards the Uyghurs, this paper reveals

the complex nature of ethno-nationalistic violence and the difficulties in determining an appropriate

policy response. The first part of the paper reviews Chinas policy towards Uyghurs and Xinjiang after

1949 and focuses on the increasing violence after the late 1980s. In the second part, the paper

introduces some current theories on the radicalization process of Uyghurs and emerging terrorism in

Xinjiang, as well as statistically tests some major economic factors proposed by these theories. This

paper concludes that none of the explanations can perfectly and statistically prove the reasons for

oscillating violence in Xinjiang. It illustrates the consistent mysteries of Uyghur radicalization process

and argues that new political, social, economic models and methodologies are should be introduced or

invented in future study.

Xinjiang has been an unsolved puzzle in Chinas national policy for the past sixty years. Although

the Peoples Republic of China had established the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in

1955, the remote land has been perturbed by insurgencies, ethnic conflicts and multiple violent

incidents. The Soviet Unions dissolution and the new Central Asian countries independence awoke

ethnic nationalism in Eurasia since the early 1990s, with Xinjiang being one of these cases. Internally,

the violent outbreaks in Xinjiang had reached a historical high in 1995 and again in 1997, severely

disrupting the local social order. Some separatists began to build up their connections with terrorist

groups abroad and conduct transnational terrorism, such as weapons smuggling, assignation, and

bombing. 1 As a response to the rising violent Uyghur separatism, China dramatically changed the

relatively open and conciliatory policy that it used to adopt in the 1980s toward Xinjiang, and turned

to a carrot and stick approach. Internationally, the exiled Uyghurs abroad established many Uyghur

rights advocacy groups and gained international attention and sympathy.

After 2001, the United States and China found they had a common interest in stabilizing the

region and began to cooperate on the War on Terror. Some groups, such as the East Turkestan Islamic

Movement (ETIM) was accused of being responsible for conducting terrorism activities and


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endangering Chinese national security, came under attack by U.S. unmanned drone campaigns in

Afghanistan and the security forces in Pakistan. 23

In the meantime, Chinese officials have been

gradually linking the terms Uyghur Separatism and Uyghur Terrorism, justifying more intensive

control should be imposed in the special condition. This controversial policy not only raises

international concern regarding the condition of Uyghur human rights, but also exacerbated the

domestic Han ChineseUyghur tension, which led to a riot with massive casualties on July 5th, 2009.4

Similar to ethnic-separatism in other parts of the world, todays Xinjiang at an uncertain interim,

which may follow with a total out-break of national separatist movement. On one hand, wide-scale of

Uyghurs protests and movements are deterred by governments harsh security enforcement, yet such

ostentatious harmony and expedient stability cannot conceal the persistent disaffection among the

Uyghurs. On the other hand, although the country of China has a long history of governing ethnic

minorities, yet the current Chinese government has inherited many principles and policies dated back

to a century ago, controlling the Uyghurs under nominal autonomy. In this sense, in order to find out

an appropriate and fundamental solution within its authorization political institution, it is critical for

the Chinese government to understand the complexity of Uyghurs radicalization, especially the

interactions between governments policy and Uyghurs responses during the radicalization process.

This brings up a question of how to study radicalization.

There exist problems within todays Uyghur studies on the radicalization. First, International

scholars mostly emphasize Uyghurs undermined ethnic status and citizen rights; scholarship has

criticized the Chinese governments arbitrary policy response and law enforcement without due

juridical procedure, such as arresting and jailing Uyghur suspects without court hearing. In China,

political and security studies on Xinjiang unanimously attribute Uyghurs radicalization to

transnational terrorism and Islamic Fundamentalism, while ethnology and sociology scholars mainly

focus on urban-rural inequity, income gap and economic status.5 However, there is no effective model

or theory to bridge the four fields of studies and collectively explain the radicalization. Second

because of the lack of credible data in domestic China and the opacity of Chinese policy, many papers

are based on individual interviews, information from Uyghur advocacy groups and government reports

from the U.S. and China. These references involve subjectivities and information controls, thus may

lead scholars to biased conclusions. Finally, among all these studies, most are qualitative studies of

policies, while others are case studies on individual Uyghur or a single event. There are few studies

take a quantitative approach to research the correlation between violent events and different social

factors in Xinjiang in a given period of time.


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HISTORY AND POLICY

Uyghurs in Xinjiang: A Politicalized History

From an ethnographic perspective, the Uyghur ethnic minority is one of the many branches of the

Persian-speaking Turkish people living in the eastern part of Central Asia, sometimes known as East

Turkestan. This region roughly includes modern Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Tarim Basin, part

of Northern Tibet, and Xinjiang.6 This ethnographic classification was proposed by Russian sinologist

Nikita Bichurin distinguishing of between Central Asia, which was under the Russian Empires sphere

in 1829, and Chinese Turkestan.7 Like the Uzbeks, Kazaks and many other nationals in Central Asia,

the Uyghur nation was more of a product of Russias delimitation and demarcation of ethnic groups in

1921 than an existing ethnic group. Uyghur was originally used to describe the Muslim Turk from

China.8 In this sense, the term is an invented identity.9

Despite their artificial ethnic identity, the Uyghur people have been living on the land as a

collection of tribes since the 8th

century. This collective evolved its own unique and prosperous culture,

which integrated the influences of the Turkish and Han Chinese civilizations. After the rule of the

Mongolian Chagatai Khanate and the Zunghar Khanate for six centuries, the Uyghurs gradually

finished their Turkization and Islamization. Beginning with the 1600s, the land on which the Uyghur

people lived had been a peripheral part of the Great Game in Central Asia, a competition that began

between the Russian Empire and the British Empire, along with China in the last two centuries.

Despite Chinas sparse military occupation of the region, most Uyghur affairs were highly autonomous.

The Russian Empire and the later Soviet Union used Xinjiang to exert significant influence on local

politics and the Chinese government. In the 1930s and 1940s, Joseph Stalin even supported local

Uyghurs to establish two East Turkistan republics in Xinjiang.

Chinas Evolving Policy toward Xinjiang: a self-conflicting nation ideology

Ever since the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) occupied Xinjiang in 1949 and the XUAR was

founded in 1955, the remote land has never been easy for the central government to govern. For one

thing, an anti-Han sentiment has been prevalent among the Uyghurs due to decades of harsh rule by

Han Chinese warlords. For another, the Soviet Union continually instigated Uyghur nationalism and

insurgencies in Xinjiang after the Sino-Soviet split. In light of these challenges, the Chinese

government implemented a harsh policy to consolidate its rule in Xinjiang. Under the leadership of

General Wang Zhen, a quasi-military unit known as Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps

(XPCC) was founded in 1954.10

In addition, the local government suppressed local insurgencies and

curbed religious activities as much as it could.

At the same time, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) government and Mao Zedong had adopted


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both the national ideologies of multi-nationalism and national self-determination. These two principles

were seemed to be conflicting with each other, though it was believed as the best way to govern the

new China.11

On the one hand, the Chinese government learned from the national and ethnic group

policy of the Soviet Union, and it launched an ethnic group identification campaign to establish the

state recognition of many ethnic minorities. The government also ensured that quota of local officials

and cadre positions would be held by the local ethnic minorities.12

In Xinjiang, Tatar Burhan Shahidi

was appointed as the first president of the XUAR.13

The government also prescribed a long list of

political, social, economic, and education privileges for ethnic minorities. On the other hand, almost a

million Han Chinese organized by the central government immigrated to Xinjiang to develop local

agriculture and economy.14

It also slightly relaxed the harsh control over Uyghur culture and religion

for a short period of time.15

From the 1950s to late 1970s, although China had experienced several political movements and

dramatic volatile policies, the policy towards Xinjiang and the Uyghurs had remained the same to a

large extent. During the liberal leader Hu Yaobangs era, more political and cultural autonomy had

been endowed to Xinjiang, Economic reforms were launched as well.

Things changed dramatically in the early 1990s. For one thing, after the Tiananmen Square

Incident, the liberal-democratic faction of the CCP was undermined and the original autonomous

policies were revoked due to the Communist Partys fear of losing power and the collapsing like the

Soviet Union. For another, the independence of five Central Asian states instigated ethno-nationalism

on the continent, such as the insurgencies in Uzbekistan and Chechnya. Xinjiang also suffered from a

great number of violent incidents in the middle 1990s, which forced the Chinese government to

expand its strike hard campaign, a series of cracking down on criminal activities, as a response from

eastern Chinese region to Xinjiang.16

While intensified its control over Uyghur culture and religious

activities, Beijing also reviewed its past policies and began to deal with the Uyghurs disadvantages in

employment and education. For example, the government initiated the double-track language teaching

policy (teaching in both Chinese and Uyghur) in Xinjiangs schools in 2001. However such a policy

has not been supported by multitude as China expected, and it was criticized as a tool of assimilating

ethnic minority by the Uyghurs and international scholars.17

Even worse, the revised policy and ethnic

privileges also angered Han Chinese nationalists and exacerbated the tension between the two ethnic

groups.

THE RADICALIZATION PROCESS AND EMERGENCE OF TERRORISM

In the Strike-Hard campaign against violent incidents and attacks of the 1990s, the Chinese

government seldom used the term terrorism to describe Uyghur suspects and groups. Rather, it more


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often used the phrase extreme national splittism to describe these individuals and organizations.

When China initiated the regional cooperation mechanism with Russia and the five Central Asian

countries in 1996 (which later became the Shanghai Cooperation Organization), it was not totally

immune from Terrorism. It was after September 11th

that China started to take the threat of terrorism to

national security into serious consideration. The government rapidly adopted the use of the term

terrorism and integrated it into a new term: three evil powers.18 It also actively cooperated with

international organizations, the United States, and Pakistan on identifying terrorist group and pursuing

terrorist suspects. In August 2001, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage identified the ETIM as

an international terrorist group.19

In October 2002, China pushed the UN to put the ETIM onto the list

of international terrorist organization.20

In 2003, the founder of the ETIM, Hasan Mahsum, was killed

in a U.S.-Pakistan military action.21

In 2010, Abdul Haq al-Turkistani, another important leader of the

organization, was died in a US drone attack in northwestern Pakistan.22

Beyond military actions,

Beijing has been condemning overseas Uyghur human rights organizations and Uyghur information

websites and claiming they have connection with violent and terrorist activities. Madam Rebiya Qadir

and her World Uyghur Congress are the major targets of these accusations.

Because of lagging domestic legislation on terrorism and the distrust of Chinese policies in

Xinjiang, many scholars and observers debate over whether China is facing a substantial threat of

Uyghur terrorism. Most Chinese and Taiwanese scholars believe that terrorism has emerged

dramatically after the 1990s. Pan Zhiping and Ahmed Rashid attribute the East Turkestan terrorism to

the combined influence of international Islamic fundamentalism and national separatism in Central

Asia.23

Uyghur reporter Gheyret Niyaz asserts that the Hizb ut-Tahrir, an international Sunni

pan-Islamic political organization, is responsible for most violent events.24

J.Todd Reed and Diana

Raschke agree with the theory that the ETIM present a serious terrorism threat to Chinas national

security,25

while James Millward and Dru Gladney believe that the threat is exaggerated.26

Some

scholars, such as Gardner Bovingdon, think most violent incidents are populist response to Chinas

internal colonialism and human rights abuses.27

Despite the argument over the official definition of terrorism, it is clear that Uyghur nationalism

has turned into a rapid and popular radicalization, accompanying an increasing number of Uyghur

related violent incidents since the early 1990s.28

This paper researches Uyghur related violent events

accessible through open resources on the Internet. As the methodology of summarizing violent events,

the paper takes reference from Organized Protests and Violent Events in Xinjiang of Gardner

Bovingdons book: The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land, as well as Michael Clarkes separate

studies.29

The event summary excluded those peaceful protests in Bovingdons records. In addition,

this paper also addresses a variety of types of violent incidents that have more than at least two


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sources covering them or appear on terrorism study database.30

Table A. Violent events and attacks related to Uyghur separatism in Xinjiang (1949 2008)31

Time

Period

Civil

Riot

Assassination

against

celebrities

and leaders

Armed

rebellion;

Insurgency

Bombing

Direct

Assault

Others

Total

19491958 1 / 22 / / / 23

19591968 2 / 1 / / / 3

19691978 1 / 1 / / / 2

19791988 4 / 1 / / / 5

19891998 4 11 1 12 1 16 45

1999 2008 5 1 / 5 5 22 38

Total 17 12 27 17 6 38 117

Figure 1. Violent events and attacks related to Uyghur separatism in Xinjiang (1949 2008)

Table A and Figure 1 show the frequency of violent events for each year in the six decades from

1949 to 2008. It is clear that there has been a significant increase in violent events since the 1990s,

especially in the forms of successful or attempted bombing and assassinations. This development

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

1949 -- 1958 1959 -- 1968 1969 -- 1978 1979 -- 1988 1989 -- 1998 1999 --2008

Total Violent Event

Bombing

Assasination

Direct Assault

Others


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pattern can be defined as a level shift (fundamental change in terrorist activity model) according to

Walter Enders and Todd Sandler.32

Table B. Characteristics of Violent Events and Attacks (1949 2008)

Types

Identified leader

and suspected

conductor

(leadership)

Identified or

suspected

group

(organized)

Presented political

objective and slogan (East

Turkestan Independence or

anti-Chinese ruling related)

Civil Riot 3 (17.6%) 2 (11.9%) 6 (35.3%)

Assassination 6 (50%) / /

Insurgency 17 (63.0%) 4(14.8%) 14 (51.9%)

Bombing 3 (17.6%) 8 (47.1%) /

Direct Assault 4 (66.7%) 1 (16.7%) 1 (16.7%)

Others 25 (65.8%) 14 (36.8) 9 (23.7%)

Total 58 (49.6%) 29 (24.5%) 30 (25.6%)

Table B shows the violent events statistics by different types/methods, conductors, and

purpose/objective.

Using the terrorism definition above to measure these violent events, there are three features

related to identifying terrorist activity.

First, there was an ascendant trend of violent events that involved typical terrorist attack methods

in the 1990s, such as bombing, assassination and direct assault. These types of attack had clear targets

and were specifically aimed at Han Chinese and select Uyghurs who cooperated with the government.

Second, almost half of the violent events had identified leaders and arrested them. In Chinas

legal practice, the police and the court tend to publicly announce the identifications of criminals and

suspects and display them in the public as a deterrent. However, there were a few Uyghur

organizations that were claimed responsibility for conducting these events by the government. In

addition, bombing is the least common type of attack conducted by the organizations that have

recognized. If these events were conducted by terrorist groups, such as those in North Ireland,

Chechnya and Sri Lanka, it seems logical that the groups would raise their profile and stature among

amongst Uyghur nationals by claiming responsibility for such attacks.

Third, there is a surprisingly rare occurrence the group propagandizing a political goal or


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presenting an ideology in the violent events. Insurgency and civil riot are the types of events which

displayed political slogans more frequently. Again, it seems counter-intuitive that nationalist and

terrorist groups did not publicly propagandize their ideology and political goals to attract more

Uyghurs support. A possible explanation is that the strict censorship blocks most political and national

slogans on Chinese media reports.

With further analysis, the paper illustrates that most violent events can barely be categorized as

terrorism if we strictly refer to the existing definition. Most of them are individual or populist violent

activities. Some extremely radical actors have a specific political or extreme national ideology, and

they utilize similar methods of other terrorist attacks employ. These events can be identified as

quasi-terrorist activity, or individual terrorist activity, since there is an absence of one or several of the

following components of terrorist activity: (1) meticulous planning (they were conducted in a

random way) and (2) significant organization presence. There are only a few violent activities

conducted by well-organized terrorist groups such as the ETIM and the East Turkistan Liberation

Organization (ETLO) in the 1990s.

Despite the fact that organization is a more economic and effective form of conducting terrorist

activity, it is unclear why Uyghur extreme nationalists and individuals conduct terrorist activities in

random and spontaneous ways. There is not a specific study regarding this phenomenon of Uyghurs so

far. As far as the author is aware, a potential explanation can be the anthropologic study on Uyghurs

national characteristics. Since Uyghurs national identity was formed in a relatively late period, they

have not totally erased their differences and diversities between different Uyghur groups and regions.

As Loura Newby describes, the discrete group conscience and factionism and civil disunion are still

the main nature of the Uyghur society. Such localism characters are also found ethnic groups in many

Central Asia countries, such as Pashtuns in Afghanistan and Punjabis Pakistan.33

The comparison of the standards as to what defines terrorism and the summary of terrorist events

reveals that most of these violent events cannot be identified as terrorist attacks. However, the reality

is much more complicated. The number of quasi-terrorist activities has substantially increased since

the early 2000s and has been trending toward well-planned individual terrorist activity and organized

activity, which have been influenced by transnational terrorist groups in Central Asia and in

Afghanistan. According to the case studies of several events in the 1990s and 2000s, there were some

attacks that were well-organized and had a solid national and Islamic political goal behind them,

reflecting the emergence of organized violence in Xinjiang. For example, on July 10 of 2008, the local

police launched an investigation of an apartment in the Chenguang Garden in Urumqi. Fifteen

Uyghurs resisted and attacked police officers with blades and daggers, shouting sacrifice for Allah.


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After the fight, five Uyghurs were killed and the rest were arrested. The police found hundreds of

brochures with contents propagandizing Jihad against Han infidels and establish a Uyghur Caliph.

The arrested suspects later admitted they were from a so-called Jihad Training Section ()

and had been taking Islamic jihad lectures for months.34

U.S. investigations of the six Uyghur

terrorist suspects in Guantanamo Base who were captured in Afghanistan also shows that a few

Uyghurs received military training in Central Asia and returned to China in order to carry out attack.35

Other occasional appearances of Uyghur Jihadist groups videos on Uyghur and Islam Jihadist

websites accompanied increasingly frequent riots and attacks in Xinjiang around 2008. This reflects an

exacerbating situation in Xinjiang.

Despite these developments, it is worth reflecting on and evaluating Chinas current CT and

ethnic national policies toward Uyghur related violent incidents.

Reflecting on the Terrorism Definition in China

Many criticisms surrounding Chinas current response to violence in Xinjiang pertain to Chinas

terrorism definition of being too broad and law enforcement of being too harsh. People accuse China

of human rights abuses.36

However, as readers take a broader perspective and compare Chinas

definition of terrorism with other countries definitions which suffer from rampant terrorist activities,

they may think differently:

China Ministry of Public Safety 2003 Definition of Terrorist group: (1) [it] endangers

national security, social stability and peoples lives and properties by violent means,

regardless of whether its head-quarter is located within China or not; (2) [it possesses] a

certain degree of leadership, organization structure and division; any group that meets both of

the two clauses above and meets any one of the standards below is a terrorist group: a. the

group organizes, plans, instigates, implements or participates in terrorist activities; it can also

be in the process of organizing, planning, instigating, implementing or participating in

terrorism activities; b. it finances or supports terrorist activity; c. it establishes base, or

organize the recruitment and training of terrorists; d. it has connections with other

international terrorist groups (such as financing, training, information exchanging with other

terrorist groups, or collectively participating in other terrorist activity).

The Russian Federal Law on Countering Terrorism (2006): terrorism is an ideology of

violence and a practice affecting the way decisions are made by national and local authorities

or international organizations, related to intimidation of the population and (or) to other illegal

violent acts. 37


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The Emergency Regulation of Sri Lanka (2006): any unlawful conduct, which inter alia,

involves the use of violence, threatens or endangers national security, intimidates a

civilian population or group there of, disrupts or threatens public order, causing

destruction or damage to property if such conduct is aimed at, inter alia, threatening or

endangering the sovereignty or territorial integrity of Sri Lanka or any other political or

governmental change.38

Spain: [a] planned activity that, proceeded to individually or under the cover of an

organization, repeatedly or on an isolated occasion, and by carrying out acts aimed at creating

a state of serious insecurity, social fear or public peace disturbance, has the objective of

subverting, fully or partially, the social and institutional order.39

As cited above, many countries, which share the same ethnocentric splittism and terrorism

problems as China does, have special legislation on terrorism. Their definitions of terrorism are almost

the same as the Chinese version in the sense of the organizational characters, political goals and the

effort of terrifying the public. Yet they all are general and vague. In fact, scholars and international

observers admit that the vagueness of the terrorism definition is a common problem. On the one hand,

such vagueness leaves space for the state to use its sovereign rights to determine what kind of events

should be seen as terrorist activity. On the other hand, such vagueness also poses a problem. The

potentially too broad definition of terrorism and the similar term terror crimes and endangering

national security in China has extended the arm of state authority to dealing with political dissent and

other ethnic rights advocacy, especially at the local level. But again, this is common occurrence in

legislation and policy making around the world, even in the United States. The difference is that the

negative effect of such vague legal application of terrorism is amplified in Chinas undemocratic

political system with the opaque legal procedures. The abuse of self-determination by the police and

the court does not only severely harm the social liberties and the rights of the people, but also

instigates discontent and anger among Uyghurs and has the potential to worsen the situation. Moreover,

even there is an increasingly intensive relationship between the Han Chinese and the Uyghurs, Beijing

has still enacted numerous preferable policies and privileges toward the Uyghur peoples.

As a conclusion of the study on violent events, this part of the paper discusses only a few violent

events that can be categorized as typical terrorist activity, while the qusai-terrorist activity and the

trend of organized terrorism increasing since 2000, imposing terrorist threat to Chinas security. In

addition, it argues that current criticisms on Chinas Xinjiang policy attribute too much to the broad


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definition of terrorism in China and oversimplify the complexity of the reality on the ground.

ANALYSIS OF THE RADICALIZATION PROCESS: AN EMPIRICAL APPROACH

Theories of Radicalization of Terrorism and the case of Uyghurs

In general studies on the radicalization process, scholars have purposed a set of typology of

radicalization and different phases of radicalization to describe different cases in specific contexts. In

Jamie Bartlett and Carl Millers study, they outlined three sets terrorists, radicals and Young

Muslimsto describe different levels and phases of radicalization.40 Other scholars created a

pyramid model and 11 mechanisms of different levels of radicalization.41

Some political economists

try to use economic models and game theories to describe the interactions between government and

radicals and try to determine under what cost-benefit calculation for achieving a specific political

purpose would radicals turn into terrorists.42

In the study of Uyghurs radicalization, scholars tend to examine the historical roots of Uyghur

nationalism. This research approach is a chronological one: they analyze the interaction between

Uyghurs ethnic identity crystallization and the response to external factors. For example, Dru

Gladney and some Turkish and European scholars believe that there exists an internal colonialism in

Xinjiang imposed by Han Chinese since the early 20th

century and that this has been reinforced over

time. This colonialism undermined Uyghur self-identity as an independent nation in the aspects of

language, culture and religion. Ironically yet reasonably, Chinas harsh policy collided with the

emerging Uyghur nationalism and strengthened the Uyghurs self-identity, especially among the

Uyghur youth in remote areas43

Many Western scholars see the restrictions on the Uyghurs freedom

of religion and cultures after 1949 as the major factor for the continuing insurgencies and violent

incidents.44

Some Scholars, such as Wang Yuan-kang, points out that there are similarities between

Uyghur radicals in China and other insurgency groups in the rest of the world have caused such

nationalism, while others cite that the Uyghurs underrepresentation in the political process and their

nominal political autonomy are the main causes of the Uyghurs discontent and opposition.45 Other

explanations include cultural discrimination and oppression;46

immigration of Han Chinese to the

region and the competition for jobs;47

governments tough response against violent events; 48

environmental contamination;49

and the international Islamic fundamentalism movement emerged in

the late 1970s.50

Most of the existing studies focus on a single aspect of the Uyghurs radicalization and fail to

provide a coherent theory consistent with the key factors they used, such as Chinas dramatically

changing policies, the relatively static population composition in Xinjiang after the 1980s, and the


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static political status of the Uyghurs since 1950s. Besides, because of the difficulty of getting data

outside of China, only a few studies take a quantitative method to verify their theories. Zang Xiaowei

recently conducts statistical research based on a sociology surveys among 900 Uyghurs in Xinjiang,

revealing that education plays a key role in determining Uyghurs self-identification of social class.51

In China, there are also few empirical studies on Uyghur nationalism and separatism. Some local

political economic scholars have done relative empirical research on economic inequity and social

stability and security. Han Jiabin and Yu Hongjuns study on Xinjiangs income gap between urban

and suburban residents.52

However, there is not a comprehensive study and statistical that

specifically focuses on the evolution of the Uyghurs economic situation since 1949.

Statistical Analysis

This paper attempts to conduct a statistical analysis on the correlation between the violent

incidents from 1989 to 2008 which this paper has summarized above, along with the factors that

existing theories claim are the cause of Uyghur radicalization.53

In order to conduct correlation analysis, a multiple regression model is established:

Y = a + b x1 + c x2 + d x3 + e x4 + f x5 + . + n xn *

Note-Limit of the Statistical Test: the number of dependent variables (Y) is less than the requirement of the

sample size of a typical time-series statistics (N > =30).

The dependent variable (Y) is defined as the amount of radical activities and terrorist attacks in

each year from 1989 to 2008.

The independent variables (X) are defined below:

X1: The average income gap between Han Chinese and Uyghurs.

The income gap between nationalities is a direct reflection of the equality of social wealth

redistribution and an indirect indication of employment opportunity fairness. In China, the government

usually uses basic macroeconomic data, such as GDP per capital, annual disposable income per person,

annual disposable income per family, Gini Coefficient, and Engel curve, in order to monitor and

evaluate national income level and income gap and design economic policy. The National Bureau of

Statistics and local statistics bureaus generally compare income difference statistics based on

administration regions, geographic regions,54

sectors,55

urban and rural,56

and occupations. The basic

units of income statistics are the individual and the household units. As a consequence, there are no


13

specific income measurements based on the unit of nationality, and there are only a few empirical

studies on the income gap between ethnic groups.57

The over-simplified and non-specific economic

data directly affects the Chinese governments non-precise evaluation of the Uyghurs economic

status.

In order to facilitate this study, this paper calculates an indirect and inferred data as an alternative

in a limited time and data access:

First, the paper dichotomizes two groups of regions: one is the Uyghur regions (with a Uyghur

majority population, over 70% of the total population), and the other is the Han Chinese regions (with

a Chinese majority population, over 70% of the total population). The Uyghur group administrative

regions include prefecture, city and county.

As the next step, the paper calculates the average annual income per capita from 1989 to 2008 of

each group. Finally, it gets the ratio of the average annual income per capita of the two groups from

1989 to 2008.58

A larger income gap indicates a more severe economic inequality between the two groups. The

paper expects a larger income gap to have a positive relation with violent incidents.

Table C. SPSS Result of Y = a + b x1

Descriptive Statistics

Mean Std. Deviation N

Violent

Incidents

4.2632 4.59277 19

Income 1.2563 .15561 19

Coefficients

Model Unstandardized

Coefficients

Standardized

Coefficients

t Sig.

95.0% Confidence Interval

for B

B Std. Error Beta Lower Bound

Upper

Bound

1 (Constant) -3.774 8.843 -.427 .675 -22.432 14.883

Income 6.398 6.988 .217 .915 .373 -8.346 21.142

a. Dependent Variable: Violent Incidents

Table C above shows the result of statistical analysis. SPSS has a regression model of Y = - 3.774 +

6.398 X1, with a standard error of 6.988 and standard coefficient of 0.2117. Since the p-value of


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Income (0.373) is larger than the 0.05 threshold, this model does not significantly reflect the positive

correlation between Income and Violent Events.

X2: Ratio of the percentage of Uyghur people working in the lowest income group within the

whole Uyghur population, and the percentage of Uyghur people working in the highest income

group within the whole Uyghur population.

According to the opportunity-cost theory, it is assumed that people with jobs and fairly good

salaries are less likely to conduct riot, insurgency or terrorism activity, since they do not have a strong

incentive to pursue political or economic benefits through these highly risky activities. However, an

empirical study on Afghanistan, Iraq and the Philippines rejects this traditional positive correlation

between unemployment and insurgency, saying there is no significant correlation between

unemployment and attacks that kill civilians.59

These findings reveal that the study on the correlation

between the equality of economic opportunity and terrorism operates in more complicated ways, and

new theoretical approaches should be developed.

In Xinjiangs case, similar to the income gap, there are not any credible quantitative studies and

comprehensive statistics on employment imbalance between Han Chinese and the Uyghur people, nor

are there any qualitative studies or surveys on subjective employer preference and discrimination of

the two groups.

After reviewing all existing data, this paper sets this ratio as the independent variable. The

variable not only indirectly indicates the employment inequality between the two ethnic groups, but

also helps us to observe the income gap between Han Chinese and the Uyghurs from another angle.

Since the population data in this paper can only be acquired from the Uyghur population censuses

of three national population censuses performed by the Peoples Republic of China (1990, 2000 and

2010), only the designed methodology is presented.60

Firstly, this paper reviews the data of the average income from 16 job sectors: (1) Farming,

Forestry, Animal Husbandry and Fishery; (2) Mining and Quarrying; (3) Manufacturing; (4)

Production and Supply of Electricity, Gas and Water; (5) Construction; (6) Geological Prospecting and

Water Conservancy; (7) Transport, Storage, Post and Telecommunication Services; (8) Wholesale and

Retail Trade & Catering Services; (9) Finance and Insurance; (10) Real Estate Trade; (11) Social

Services; (12) Health Care, Sports and Social Welfare; (13) Education, Culture and Arts, Radio, Film

and Television; (15) Government Agencies, Party Agencies and Social Organizations; (16) Others

(excluded).

Secondly, two job categories are defined: preferable jobs with highest incomes and the


15

disadvantage jobs with lowest incomes. The prior category of jobs mainly includes jobs in the sectors

in which government monopoly exists and state-owned corporations play great roles, such as

electricity, gas and telecommunication. It also contains jobs in the emerging financial market, such as

insurance and real estate trade. According to this definition, this paper selects the top five sectors with

highest average wage and labels them as the Preferable Job Groups. Based on data from 2000, the top

five sectors (in descending order of salary) were (14) Scientific Research and Polytechnic Services, (9)

Finance and Insurance; (4) Production and Supply of Electricity, Gas and Water; (10) Real Estate

Trade; (7) Transport, Storage, Post and Telecommunication Services.

The latter category is a group of jobs in traditional household agriculture, sunset industry and

small private businesses (such as retails). Similarly, the paper selects the two sectors with lowest

average wage and labels them as the Disadvantage Job Groups. In 2000, the bottom 2 sectors were (1)

Farming, Forestry, Animal Husbandry and Fishery; and (8) Wholesale and Retail Trade & Catering

Services.61

Thirdly, we look for the Uyghurs data on the Ethnic Population by Gender and Sector, as well as

the total number of Uyghur employees.62

In 2000, the total amount of Uyghurs employed was

4,507,840. Of this number, only 2.05% Uyghurs employees are in the Preferable Job Group, and more

than 84.5% of them are in Disadvantage Job Group.63

This ratio between the Disadvantage Job Group and the Preferable Job Group is 40.27. This

means among forty-two Uyghurs, only one works in a preferable job sector.

In this paper, it is expected that this ratio has a positive correlation with violent events.

The reason that only a few Uyghur people have occupations within the Preferable Job Group is

employment inequity. Again, it should be noticed that the Production and Supply of Electricity, Gas

and Water sector and Transport, Storage, Post and Telecommunication Services sector are state

monopolies and jobs in these two sectors have a higher salary than others. In inner China, getting jobs

in these state-own enterprises is highly competitive among Han Chinese and requires high levels of

education. Moreover, the quota and distribution of these positions usually involve corruptions and

patronage networks, leaving the Uyghurs do not typically benefit. In addition, the Scientific Research

and Polytechnic Services, Finance and Insurance and Real Estate Trade sectors are relatively

underdeveloped in Xinjiang, so there are fewer opportunities for local Uyghurs in these sectors.

X3: GDP per Capita

GDP per Capita is a common economic factor that widely used to measure regional economic

development and local standard of living. Since the late 1980s, China has been making national and

economic policies by mainly based on this data, and even became overreliance on GDP and using it as


16

the most important determinant. As a consequence, when Xinjiang experienced rampant violence in

the mid-1990s, Beijing proposed the Western Development Strategy. This strategy took measures to

improve the living standard in Xinjiang, seeing it as a way to pacify the anti-Han sentiments and

Uyghur separatists. Such a feed your people and peace will come rationale has already been

disproved by many case studies in other countries. This paper uses the data of Xinjiang to test the

Chinese governments assumption.

From this logic, we statistically assume that GDP per capita has a negative correlation with

Violent Incidents. 64

Table D. SPSS Result of Y = a + c x3



Violent Incidents 4.2737 4.58268 19

GDP per Capita 7855.4211 5036.05208 19

Coefficients


Coefficients

Standardized

Coefficients

t Sig.

95.0% Confidence

Interval for B

B Std. Error Beta

Lower

Bound

Upper

Bound

1 (Constant) 4.328 2.043 2.118 .049 .016 8.639

GDP per Capita -6.858E-6 .000 -.008 -.031 .976 .000 .000


Table D above shows the result of the statistical analysis. Since the p-value of GDP (0.976) is

much larger than the 0.05 threshold, this model does not reflect a positive correlation between GDP

per Capita and Violent Events. Thus there is not a correlation between GDP per Capita and Violent

Events.

X4: External Influence: Terrorist Activities in Central Asia

Many researchers, especially those in China, believe that national extremism in Central Asia after

the Soviet Unions collapse, as well as the emerging international Islamic Fundamentalism since the

1990s, have greatly spurred the Uyghurs to conduct terrorism.65

Terrorism studies generally admit that there have been several significant incidents, such as the


17

1968 hijacking of an El Al flight by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and Iran

Hostage Crisis of 1979, have impacted international terrorism.66

As mentioned in the first part of this paper, the violent events related to the Uyghurs experienced

a level shift after the 1990s, indicating a potential link between violence in Xinjiang and national

extremism and terrorism in Central Asia. This paper attempts to test the assumption that the terrorism

incidents in Central Asia have a positive correlation with the violence in Xinjiang. 67

Table E. SPSS Result of Y = a + d x4



Violent Incidents 4.2211 4.62788 19

CA Terrorism 11.4737 13.35568 19

Coefficients


Coefficients

Standardized

Coefficients

t Sig.

95.0% Confidence

Interval for B

B Std. Error Beta

Lower

Bound

Upper

Bound

1 (Constant) 2.902 1.375 2.111 .050 .002 5.803

CA Terrorism .115 .079 .332 1.450 .165 -.052 .282


Table E above shows the result of statistical analysis. SPSS has a regression model of Y = 2.902

+ 0.115 X4, with a standard error of 0.079 and a standard coefficient of 0.332. Since the p-value of CA

Terrorism (Central Asian terrorism, 0.165) is larger than the 0.05 threshold, CA terrorism does not

statistically related to Violent Events in China.

However, it is worthwhile to elaborate on this statistical test and its deviation from our

assumption.

First, the two variables, X4 and Violent Events in China, have different contents, since they are

from two different data bases. GTD (Global Terrorism Database by the University of Maryland), the

major source which X4 refers to, only records terrorist activities, regardless that there are many other

ethnic violent events every year in Central Asia and China. Many descriptions of these events in GTD

are so incomplete and unclear that it is impossible to conduct a case-by-case identification that

whether these terrorist activities in GTD are as the same as terrorist incidents under this papers


18

definition.

Second, regardless of the imperfect statistic model tests caused by the data-collections limits,

terrorist activities in Central Asia seems likely to have a correlation with the Violent Incidents

compared to the independent variables X1 and X2 in the former two assumed models. Figure 2 below

shows the patterns of the two variables. Although their amplitudes (the varying frequency of incidents)

differed, there is a coincidence in the timings of oscillations in violent events, especially in the period

from 1994 to 2006. Such a phenomenon may reflect a situation where Uyghur radical nationalists and

terrorists followed the pattern of terrorist activity in Central Asia. The high similarity of attack

methods and the reported linkage between East Turkestan groups and Central Asian extreme groups

both support this reasoning. 68

Figure 2. Violent events and attacks related to Uyghur and Terrorist Attacks in Central Asia (1989 to

2008)

X5: cases of Chinas law enforcement and suppression in Xinjiang the numbers of cases of

detention, imprisonment and the death sentence of the Uyghurs

International human rights observers and Uyghur human rights organizations have repeatedly

condemned the Chinese public security department and local legal offices for abusing their authority

and sentencing the Uyghurs without due process.69

Historically, heavy-handed laws and suppression

might temporarily reduce insurgency and opposition, but in the long term it leads to an explosive

rebound, as the cases of British India in the 19th

century, the French in Albania in the 1950s, the

Palestinians uprisings against Israels rule and Russias costly governance in Chechnya. Victims of

these laws and suppressions can lead to personal or family revenge, which is an important cause of

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

19

89

19

90

19

91

19

92

19

93

19

94

19

95

19

96

19

97

19

98

19

99

20

00

20

01

20

02

20

03

20

04

20

05

20

06

20

07

20

08

Central Asia

China


19

radicalization.70

In this sense, the harshness extent of law enforcement and suppression can help us to

understand the interaction between the states policy and peoples response: will they become less

radical or more radical?

The numbers of cases of detention, imprisonment and death sentences of Uyghurs are reflections

of this factor. Although there is no open data for available analysis, this paper assumes that these

numbers would have a positive relation with the violent incidents.

X6: Religious freedom and cultural conservation

The Chinese governments restrictions of Uyghur religious publications and activities, as well as

its language and cultural impacts, are both widely criticized by international observers. Some scholars

that the paper has mentioned above see these restrictions as disrespect to the Uyghur people and as the

fundamental ideological cause of anti-Han Chinese sentiment.

However, some empirical studies on the relationship between terrorism, social liberty and

democracy show that terrorists are more likely to operate in a liberal democracy than a totalitarian

regime, since the abundant liberties in the former political system give terrorism the space to survive

and enable terrorist groups to spread their ideology. Furthermore, from a cost-benefit calculation

perspective, terrorists can launch attacks with much fewer risks and at less cost in a liberal

democracy.71

Studies on the development of Chinas religious policy toward Xinjiang also refute the

assumption of a positive relationship between suppression of religious and culture and insurgencies.

For example, although China adopted a more lenient and relaxed religious policy in the 1980s and

allowed the number of mosques and Islamic publications to increase in Xinjiang, the violence

perpetuated by Uyghurs still escalated gradually in the same period of time.72

Once again, this

disconnection between of theory and facts reflects a more profound interaction between religion,

culture and state restriction.

There is another difficulty to empirically measure religious freedom and cultural integrity. Many

scholars merely use the numbers of mosques, religious activities and publications for analysis,

ignoring the qualitative content of these religious activities and publications. Although China has

restored cultural relics and allowed religious activities, most of these are highly selective and strictly

controlled by the state. Moreover, China began to allow Uyghur cultural events and relics for the Han

Chinese tourists to enjoyment. This policy brings revenue for local Uyghurs, while the tourism

industry somehow challenges some Uyghur traditions and customs.73

Other Alternative Theories

Social Cohesion: Economic Institutions, Political Equality and Social Status


20

In addition to the theories addressed explored above which mainly focus on a single historical,

political, economic, ethnic, or social factor for the radicalization of an ethnic group, Zhao Tong

purposes a theory of social cohesion. This theory captures the linkage between economic institutions

and political and social equality, by applying Ivan Turoks five dimensions into explanation.74 In this

theory, social cohesion in Xinjiang is based on the basic economic system of a different era. From the

1950s to the late 1970s, agricultural collectives and the communal property rights were the basic

social units in China. These basic economic institutions fit the communal property ownership and

agriculture economy in Xinjiang at the time, sustaining strong social and political ties between

individuals and the collective economic units (the peoples communes). People were strongly tied to

the communes in their economic and political life. This, in turn, contributed to high degree of social

equality and reduced violent incidents in Xinjiang. After the 1980s economic liberalization, the

commune system was gradually replaced by a market economic system and private ownership. The

commune system collapsed and its function as a center that tied peoples economic and political lives

declined. This led to increasing political and economic inequality between the Uyghurs and Han

Chinese, who were more adapted to a mobile and market-directed society. As a result, the Uyghur

people tended to be psychologically isolated and resort to Islamic Puritanism, causing the increasing

violence since late 1980s.75

This theory seems to coordinate political and economic factors and the influence of their

interaction on the Uyghur radicalization. Unfortunately, due to the depth and scope of Zhaos social

cohesion theory, it is very difficult to test in an empirical way based on existing data. Besides, Zhao

also neglects several factors that may influence the number of Uyghur uprisings and insurgencies. For

example, in his observation of Xinjiang from the 1950s to 1970s, Zhao claims that there were fewer

Uyghur uprisings and insurgencies compared to the 1980s. This observation contradicts many existing

studies, and Zhao fails to give credible references or provide data. He also fails to consider the fact

that because of the underdevelopment communication networks and media industry, as well as the

social disorders in the 1950s to 1970s, many violent events were not reported or precisely recorded.

For this reason, the number of uprisings and insurgencies that he refers to may be underestimated.

Rational Actor Model and Game Theory

Many scholars of terrorism, such as Bruce Hoffman, Walter Enders and Todd Sandler, conduct

research based on the assumption that terrorists are rational. In fact, as this paper mentions, many

details of violent incidents conducted by the Uyghurs do not perfectly support the assumption. For

example, when a riot broke out, many Uyghur people (especially those who live in urban areas) did

not participate in the riot. A plausible explanation is that the many of these people benefit from


21

adopting Han Chinese education and culture. They are similar to Han Chinese in many aspects, but

also remain their Uyghur genes and many traditional customs. Such an In-Betweenness identity

among many Uyghurs made them reluctant to go against the Chinese government. If true, this

psychology based on personal interest and benefit consideration would further impede the formation

of terrorist groups.76

Furthermore, as cost-benefit calculation is a common model in current political and economic

research, it is necessary to utilize game theory and game models to study the behavior and

radicalization of Uyghurs. In the policy review part of this paper, as well as other academic studies, it

is believed that Uyghurs are rationally responding to the governments changing policy and Han

Chinese peoples attitude toward them. On some occasions, such as the more liberal political

atmosphere of the 1980s, both sides had a relatively clear understanding of each others needs and

interests. The Chinese government under Hu Yaobang replaced the original harsh restrictions on the

Uyghurs with more political, cultural and religious freedom. As a response, the violence related to

Uyghur nationalism declined. In this case, such coordination can be described by a Stag

Hunt/Assurance Game and non-Zero-Sum situation. Both sides coordinated and had informational

exchanges, which allowed them to reach an equilibrium with a more preferable result. Conversely,

when China adopted harsh policies and more severe law enforcement after the 2008 riot, the Xinjiang

local government attributed all the responsibilities to overseas terrorism, East Turkestan Splittism and

Mrs. Rebiya. The government did not either seriously review its own policies or consider Uyghurs

voices. As a result, Uyghurs responded with more violent riots and attacks in the next two years.77

In

this case, a chicken game may be adopted as a framework analysis.

CONCLUSION

This paper on violent events in Xinjiang and the radicalization of Uyghurs illustrates the

predicament of China. On the one hand, since extreme radical ethnonationalism and terrorism have a

blurred boundary, it is very easy for China to label the former as terrorism, harming ordinary

Uyghurs basic political and religious liberties and instigating more radical Uyghur sentiments toward

the Chinese government. On the other hand, a loose policy and a more liberal society (similar to the

environment of the 1980s) may leave space for extremism and terrorism to develop in the current

Xinjiang.

In the first part of the paper, the violent events summary and analysis, as well as the discussion of

the legal definition of the term of Terrorism, not only reveals the uniqueness and complexity of the

counter-terrorism situation, which is intertwined with a long-term ethnonationalism issue. It also leads

to questions of the comparison of how western countries and political systems deal with cross-ethnic


22

issue. Apparently, the situation is very different. In a Western European state, since the state usually

has only an ethnic majority living in a specific and small geographic space. In the past several

centuries--even a millennium, the openness of geography condition and the transnational trade have

helped different ethnic groups highly integrated in to a society. The distinctions of culture and race

between nations become blurred.78

The situation in Asia, in countries such as China, India and

Afghanistan, is a totally different case, where localism, communalism and factionism have been

ingrained in the culture from the very beginning and are still prevalent. Moreover, China is the one of

the a few countries that still maintains the Soviet system of ethnic minority regional autonomy in a

republican government system. Within such a highly centralized and unified regime, diverse and

specific regional and ethnic policies that are complementary to the local situation and satisfactory to

the ethnic minoritys political needs are very difficult to achieve. In this sense, China must keep

searching for the right balance between national autonomy and state control, preventing itself from

resorting to territorial partition or another extremeinternal colonialism.

Making and implementing policy is an approach for a regime to achieve its specific purpose,

which is highly politicalized. More specifically, policy making reflects the political representation of

individual citizens and different social groups. It is a popular idea that modern democratic system and

its representative politics can optimally reflect and balance interests and needs of different groups.

However, whether a democratic system can perfectly deal with cross-ethnic relationship is a mystery.

For example, a proportional versus a representational democracyshould the individual citizen or

ethnic group be the basic unit of representative politics? Reality has showed that over-emphasizing

national rights usually intensifies cross-ethnic conflicts, and may prompt to an ethnic split in the

country, such as Indias Partition and the former Yugoslavia Republic Civil War.

In the second part of the paper, the statistical attempt to test existing theories of the radicalization

of Uyghurs reveals that even radicalization is not a one-way process that is solely influenced by a

single specific factor or a group of factors. Rather, it is a reciprocal interaction between the Chinese

governmental policy and Uyghurs responses. The paper further points out there are not any theory can

comprehensively and empirically explain the radicalization process. As a result, further comprehensive

studies, as well as new research approaches such as interdisciplinary methodologies of anthropology,

ethno-history, ethno-geopolitics and political economics are very important for both political scholars

and policy makers to take into account in order to better understand this process.


23

Appendix 1 Methodology of Calculation of the Income Gap Ratio between Han Chinese and

Uyghurs

Han Chinese Region (Han Chinese population/Total local population): unit: RMB Yuan per capita per

year79

(1) Urumqi(1507720/2018443): 2326,80 2539,81 3046,82 3313,83 4189,84 5546,85 6758,86 7625,87

7975,88

8668,89

9594,90

10850,91

13199,92

15099,93

16746,94

19052,95

23836, 96

29483,97

3359998

(2) Karamay (197542/262157)99: 2878, 3057, 3968, 4428, 5991, 7549, 9150, 10262, 13721, 14097,

15024, 16160, 16939, 17820, 19082, 19893, 24985, 29706, 33113

(3) Changji (1187458/1599436)100: 1981, 2139, 2198, 2375, 2600, 3616, 4925, 5269, 5957, 6253,

6435, 7633, 8227, 9426, 11357, 15874, 11880, 19085, 24419

(4) The percentage of Han Chinese population of three regions compare to total Han Chinese in

Xinjiang2892720/8121588 = 35. 62%101

(5) Average annual income of the Han Chinese Region2395, 2578, 3071, 3372, 4260, 5570, 6944,

7717, 9218, 9673, 10351, 11578, 12762, 14115, 15728, 18264, 20233, 26091, 30384

Uyghur Region (Uyghurs population/Total local population): unit: RMB Yuan per capita per year

1 Turpan414904/5896092093, 2363, 2734, 3036, 3591, 4775, 6725, 8203, 8906, 9865, 11162,

12779, 11617, 15419, 16350, 17849, 25200, 29415, 31719

2 Aksu (168475/2310163) 1774, 2057, 2380, 2663, 2808, 3636, 4570, 5386, 5799, 6128, 6686,

8050, 9423, 10237, 12906, 13940, 15980, 18207, 20964

3 Kashgar(3387253/3762689); 2107, 2331, 2443, 2710, 2922, 4010, 5038, 5389, 5762,6102,

6578, 7747, 9787, 11201, 12262, 13565, 16079, 19897, 21685

4 Hotan (1790968/1857563)2271, 2452, 2776, 2771, 2967, 4304, 5096, 5403, 5785, 6358, 6801,

7915, 10348, 12519, 13264, 14843, 17602, 20936, 23483

5 The percentage of Uyghur population of four regions compare to total Uyghurs in Xinjiang

5761600/9413796 = 61.20%

6 Average annual income of the Uyghur Region2061, 2301, 2583, 2795, 3072, 4181, 5357,

6220, 6563, 7113, 7819, 9123, 10294, 12344, 13696, 15049, 18715, 22114, 24463

Income Gap Ratio between the two groups: 1.16, 1.12, 1.19, 1.20, 1.38, 1.17, 1.30, 1.17, 1.40, 1.36,

1.32, 1.26, 1.24, 1.14, 1.15, 1.21, 1.08, 1.78, 1.24

Note: 2005 data is missing.


24

Notes and Reference

1 Pan Zhiping, Wang Mingye and Shi Lan, East Turkestan: History and Current Situation (),

Minzu Press, 2006 2 Dong Yu, The Dragons Hovering Shadow: Chinas Involvement in Afghanistan, Pittsburgh Policy Journal, Spring

2012 Volume 4 3 Ibid

4 http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/07/11/turkey.china.uyghurs/

5 Xiaowei Zang (2007), Minority Ethnicity, Social Status and Uyghur Community Involvement in Urban Xinjiang, Asian

Ethnicity, Volume 8, Number 1, February 2007 6 Ildiko, Beller-Hann, M. Cristina Cesaro, Joanne Smith Finley and others, Situating the Uyghurs between China and

Central Asia, Ashgate, 2007, p32p40, 7 Ibid

8 Ibid

9 Joseph Felcher

10 The XPCC is in fact a traditional form of Chinese military systemTuntian system. Such a system emerged in

Han Dynasty (220 BCE to 220 CE) and was designed to consolidate military control of remote or newly occupied

land, as well as sustain local agriculture and economic development. Soldiers served as peasants and farmers in peace

time and can be dispatched for military action in war time. 11

There is an evolution process of CCPs and Mao Zedongs idea of national policy. In 1930s, the CCP against the National Governments Han Chinese prior policy and totally adopted the idea of self-determination rights. The CCP utilized such and advocacy to unite ethnic minorities during the Sino-Japan war. In the middle of 1940s, as the CCP

began to consider state territorial integrity after the civil war, and gradually transfer to a national autonomous policy.

See Meng Fandong, On the Basic Feature of Mao Zedongs Harmony Nationality Thoughts, Heilongjiang National Journal, 2011 Issue 3 12

It is worth mentioning here that the double-track Chinese government structure in Xinjiangs context. There are a party chairman and a governor/president of each province or administrative district. The latter one is nominally the

head of government and mainly responsible for detailed governmental affairs and policy implementation. But the

local party leader has the final policy and decision making authority over the governor. 13

Gardner Bovingdon, The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land, Columbia Press, 2010, p50 14

Such an immigration policy is viewed as an assimilation endeavor by many Uyghurs and scholars. Others see it as

a part of exploiting Xinjiangs nature resource. See Dru Gladney, Freedom Fighters or Terrorists? Exploring the Case of the Uyghur People, 2009 15

Gardner Bovingdon, The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land, Columbia Press, 2010, p50 16

Jagannath P. Panda, The Urumqi Crisis: Effect of Chinas Ethno-national Politics, Strategic Analysis, Volume 34, Issue 1, 2010 17

Uyghurs Support Language Protest, Radio Free Asia, 2010-10-27, see http://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/language-10272010181614.html?searchterm=None 18

Violent terrorism power, national splittism power, and regional extremism power. The first use of the term was in Xinjiang Dailys headline of December 10, 2001. See http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2001-12-10/416568.html 19

Conclusion of China-visit press conference in Beijing by Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage, US

Department of State, 26 August 2002 20

Dru Gladney, Freedom Fighters or Terrorists? Exploring the Case of the Uyghur People, 2009 21

Chinese militant shot dead, BBC News, 2003-12-23, see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3343241.stm 22

Bill Roggio, Al Qaeda-linked Chinese terrorist leader reported killed in US strike in Pakistan, The Long War Journal, 2010-3-1, see http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2010/03/al_qaedalinked_chine.php 23

Pan Zhiping, Wang Mingye and Shi Lan, East Turkestan: History and Current Situation (), Minzu Press, 2006, p147-p148; also see Ahmed Rashid, Jihad: the Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia, Yale University Press, 2002 24

Gheyret Niyazs comment, see Zaobao.com: http://www.zaobao.com/special/feature/pages/feature090727a.shtml 25

J.Todd Reed and Diana Raschke, The ETIM: Chinas Islamic Militants and the Global Terrorist Threat, Praeger, 2010 26

James Millward, Introduction: Does the 2009 Urumchi violence mark a turning point? A Special Issue : The Uyghurs in China Questioning the Past and Understanding the Present, Central Asia Survey, Volume 28, Issue 4, 2009; also see Dru Gladney, Chinas National Insecurity: Old Challenges at the Dawn of the New Millennium, 2000 Pacific Symposium: Asian Perspectives on The Challenges of China 27

Gardner Bovingdon, The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land, Columbia Press, 2010; also see Dru Gladney,


25

Internal Colonialism and the Uyghur Nationality: Chinese Nationalism and its Subaltern Subjects, Les Ouigours au

vingtieme sicle, 1998 28

In facilitating discussion, this paper adopts a Terrorism definition summarized by Bruce Hoffman, that Terrorism

(or a terrorism activity) should meet all five necessary compositions:

a) Ineluctably political in aims and motives; b) violent or, equally important, threatens violence; c) designed to have far-reaching psychological repercussions beyond victims; d) conducted either by an organization or by individuals or a small collection of individuals influenced by the

ideological aims;

e) perpetrated by a subnational group or non-state entity. See Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism, Columbia University Press, 1998, p40 29

Gardner Bovingdon, The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land, Columbia Press, 2010, p174p190; Michael Clarke, Chinas War on Terror in Xinjiang: Human Security and the Causes of Violent Uyghur Separatism, Regional Outlook Paper of the Griffith Asia Institute, Regional Outlook Paper, No. 11, 2007 30

One is Chinese official media, such as Xinhua Net, Foreign Ministry of China, the Peoples Daily, China.com, and Global Times; as well as other credible media citations; the other is international media, such as CNN, BBC, Radio

Free Asia, etc.; as well as Terrorism Studies database, such as the Global Terrorism Database of the University of

Maryland. 31

(1) Bombing includes both single bombing and series of bombings, which categorized by the Chinese police department

(2) Other excluded acupuncture attack, unverified event, unidentified categories (common murder or specific targeting local authority or civilian; police arrest/attack with fire contact and casualty).

(3)Other includes murders with suspected Uyghur separatists, weapon smugglings, arsons, battles and gunfights during Chinese Polices arresting, religious fractions clashes, small scale (less than 50 people) riots (4) Direct assault is violent event that (a) does not use bombing or assassination as an attack method; (b) using

conventional weapon, such as firearm, blade, dagger, grenade or other explosive devices, etc.

(5) the number of other violent events and attacks may be greatly underestimated, since there is no enough open

source for identify and verify every event; the total attacks of 1999 to 2008 may be lower than exact number; 32

Walter Enders and Todd Sandler, The Political Economy of Terrorism, Cambridge University Press, 2006, p77 33

Dru Gladney, Freedom Fighters or Terrorists? Exploring the Case of the Uyghur People, 2009 34

See BBC Chinese.com. http://news.bbc.co.uk/chinese/trad/hi/newsid_7490000/newsid_7496700/7496798.stm 35

Yusef Abbas, Summarized transcripts of detainee Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT), US Department of Defense, p24 36

Michael Clarke, Widening the net: Chinas anti-terror laws and human rights in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, The International Journal of Human Rights, Volume 14, Issue 4, 2010 37

Transnational Terrorism, Security & the Rule of Law Defining Terrorism, October 1, 2008, p113 assess:

http://www.transnationalterrorism.eu/tekst/publications/WP3%20Del%204.pdf 38

International Commission of Jurists, Sri Lanka: Briefing Paper, Emergency Laws and International Standards, March 2009, assess: http://www.icj.org/IMG/SriLanka-BriefingPaper-Mar09-FINAL.pdf 39

Transnational Terrorism, Security & the Rule of Law Defining Terrorism, October 1, 2008, p115 40

James Bartlett and Carl Miller, The Edge of Violence: Towards Telling the Difference Between Violent and

Non-Violent Radicalization, Terrorism and Political Violence, 2011-12-06 41

Clark McCauley and Sophia Moskalenko, Mechanism of Political Radicalization: Pathways Toward Terrorism, Terrorism and Political Violence, 2008-7-3 42

Walter Enders and Todd Sandler, The Political Economy of Terrorism, Cambridge University Press, 2006 43

Dru Gladney, Responses to Chinese Rule: Patterns of Occupation and Opposition, in Xinjiang: Chinas Muslim Borderland, edited by S. Frederick Starr, Armonk, N,Y, 2004 44

Joanne Smith Finley, Chinese Oppression in Xinjiang, Middle Eastern Conflicts and Global Islamic Solidarities among the Uyghurs, Journal of Contemporary China, 2007 issue 53 45

Wang Yuan-Kang, Toward a Sythesis of the Theories of Peripheral Nationalism: A Comparative Study of Chinas Xinjiang and Guangdong, Asian Ethnicity, 2001, Issue 2 46

For example, see Nancy Eranosian, Chinese National Unity Vs. Uyghur Separatism: Can Information and

Communication Technologies Integrated with a Customized Economic Development Plan Help Avoid a Cultural Collision? Tufts University, 2005, p17; also see Ildiko, Beller-Hann, M. Cristina Cesaro, Joanne Smith Finley and

others, Situating the Uyghurs between China and Central Asia, Ashgate, 2007 47

Ildiko, Beller-Hann, M. Cristina Cesaro, Joanne Smith Finley and others, Situating the Uyghurs between China and Central Asia, Ashgate, 2007 48

Brent Hierman, The Pacification of Xinjiang: Uyghur Protest and the Chinese State, 1988 2002, Problems of


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Post-Communism 54, 2007 Issue 3 49

Ildiko, Beller-Hann, M. Cristina Cesaro, Joanne Smith Finley and others, Situating the Uyghurs between China

and Central Asia, Ashgate, 2007 50

Jessica Koch, Economic Development and Ethnic Separatism in Western China: A New Model of Peripheral Nationalism, Working Paper, Perth: Asia Research Centre, 2006, p11 51

Xiaowei Zang (2007), Minority Ethnicity, Social Status and Uyghur Community Involvement in Urban Xinjiang, Asian Ethnicity, Volume 8, Number 1, February 2007 52

Han Jiabin, DIao Chunyou and Yu Hongjun, A Study on The Income Gap between Xinjiang Urban and Suburban

Residents since the Reform and Open, Technology and Economy, 2009, issue 1 53

It should be noticed that although this paper tries to conduct a total empirical research, the incomprehensive and

inconsistent official data and the limited access to useful data set great obstacles to test all factors and theories by

statistics. 54

Chinas regional economic development focus and plan is different, designed by state policy. 55

Agriculture, Industry and manufacturing, Service 56

Chinese political and economic institution: family register, since 1949; based on planned economy , communal

land ownership and planned employment systems 57

Han Jiabin and Yu Hongjun, A Study on the Income Gap between Ethnic Minorities and its Causes: a case study on Uyghur, Northwest Population, 2009 Issue 3 58

Detailed data and calculation see Appendix 2. 59

Eli Berman, Michael Callen, Joseph Felter and Jacob Shapiro, Do Working Men Rebel? Insurgency and Unemployment in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Philippines 60

Because of its monolithic population, China has only conducted six national population censuses. 61

China Statistical Yearbook-2001 by National Bureau of Statistics, China Statistics Press, 2001, p140-p141 62

Chapter 2, Figure 2-1 Ethnic Population by Gender and Sector; also see the Tabulation on the 2000 Population

census of the Peoples Republic of China (by Population Census Office under the State Council & National Bureau of Statistics of China; China Statistics Press, 2002): p815p824 63

Top 5: (4)19,300; (7)57,010; (9)11,620; (10) 1,850; (14)2,820; Bottom 2: (1)3,626,090; (8) 185,750 64

Data from Xu Yanqiu, A Study on Xinjiang Urbanization and Economic Development, Commercial Times

(Shangye Shidai), 2008 Issue 3 65

See Pan Zhiping, Wang Mingye and Shi Lan, East Turkestan: History and Current Situation (), Minzu Press, 2006; also see Ahmed Rashid, Jihad: the rise of militant Islam in Central Asia, New Haven, 2002 66

Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism, Columbia University Press, 1998 67

Global Terrorism Database by University of Maryland,

http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/search/Results.aspx?page=2&casualties_type=&casualties_max=&region=7&count=1

00&expanded=no&charttype=line&chart=overtime&ob=GTDID&od=desc#results-table 68

Such comparative is conducted through the comparison between the violent events in this paper and the terrorist

attacks types and details in the GTD. 69

Dru Gladney, Freedom Fighters or Terrorists? Exploring the Case of the Uyghur People, 2009; also see Gardner Bovingdon, The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land, Columbia Press, 2010 70

Mia Bloom, Bombshells Women and Terror, 2011 71

Walter Enders and Todd Sandler, The Political Economy of Terrorism, Cambridge University Press, 2006, p29 72

Herbert Yee, Ethnic Relations in Xinjiang: A Survey of Uyghur-Han Relations in Urumqi, Journal of

Contemporary China, 2003, issues 12, 73


and Central Asia, Ashgate, 2007, p70 74

The five dimensions are: material condition, passive social relationships, active social relationships, external of

social inclusion, and the level of fairness regarding access to opportunities. See Zhao Tong, Social Cohesion and

Islamic Radicalization: Implications from the Uyghur Insurgency, Journal of Strategic Security, 2010 Volumes 3 75

Ibid 76


and Central Asia, Ashgate, 2007, p8p9 77

Fortunately, Beijing recently began to reflect on its own policies flaws. It replaced the tough-minded first

Secretary of the XUAR CCP Wang Lequan, who had been in the seat for the past 15 years and adopting very harsh

policies. 78

Ibid 79

The population data is based on 2007 population census 80

1989Table 12-9 average money wages of fully employed staff and workers, Xinjiang Statistic Yearbook 1990, by


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Census Office of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China Statistics Press, 1990, p587 81

1990: Table 12-9 average money wages of fully employed staff and workers, Xinjiang Statistic Yearbook 1991, by

Census Office of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China Statistics Press, 1991, p529 82

1991: Table 12-11, Xinjiang Statistic Yearbook 1992, by Census Office of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China Statistics Press, 1992) p563 83




Census Office of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China Statistics Press, 1995) p93 86







1998: Table 3-44 average wages of fully employed staff and workers, Xinjiang Statistic Yearbook 1999, by Census

Office of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China Statistics Press, 1999) p118 90

1999: Table 3-39 average money wages of fully employed staff and workers by Prefecture, autonomous prefecture,

city and county, Xinjiang Statistic Yearbook 2000, by Census Office of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region,

China Statistics Press, 2000) p140 91

























Karamay is a very special case in our all seven sample regions. It is an oil production city. Most workers are Han

Chinese and working in State-Own Oil Corporation, with highest average income in Xinjiang. 100

Although its major population is Han Chinese, but it is a Hui Autonomous Prefecture. 101

The rest of Han Chines settle in Ili Kazak Autonomous Prefecture (1,888,258), Tacheng Administrative Office

(568,521), and Bayanggol Mongol Autonomous Prefecture (687,597), where neither Han Chinese nor Uyghur people

meet the 70% majority threshold. The Shihezi City (with 607,367 Han Chinese in a total population of 642,440) is

excluded in this statistics.

A Study on the Uyghur Radicalization and Terrorism--Dong Yu

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