Beijing promoted Islamism among the Uyghurs in preparation for the Soviet invasion; in the 90s, China faced massive resistance

Last week Aleksey Volynets wrote about the history of Uyghur separatism until the end of World War II. Today he tells how the Uighurs tried to acquire subjectivity from the middle of the twentieth century to the present day.

Uyghurs in socialist China.

Initially, after the Chinese communists came to power, the situation in Xinjiang developed according to the Soviet patterns of building "national and cultural autonomy." Even the Uyghur alphabet was officially translated from the Arabic letters into the Cyrillic alphabet according to the developments of the scientists of the USSR. But soon Beijing corrected the course, the Chinese began to resettle in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), this policy continues to this day.

The number of ethnic Han people living in the XUAR increased from 4% in 1949 to 40% by the end of the 20th century.

Chinese colonization was mainly carried out by military-administrative methods. The divisions of the Chinese communists that entered Xinjiang were reorganized from the early 1950s into the so-called Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (SPSC), numbering over 200 thousand people - 13 agricultural and 3 labor divisions began to develop virgin lands, build roads and other infrastructure. The soldiers combined work in the fields with combat training. Soon, by directive of the CPC Central Committee, the soldiers of the corps were allowed to marry, regulating the flow of women from the central regions of China. By the 1970s, this "labor army" had increased to 700 thousand people, it built over 20 thousand new Chinese settlements in Xinjiang.

All these decades of the Chinese development of the XUAR did not go without clashes between the Uighurs and the Han people, most of such facts remain almost unknown due to the total closeness of Maoist China. It is known about the riots of 1962 in the Ili-Kazakh Autonomous Region of Xinjiang on the border with Soviet Kazakhstan. In Chinese official history, these events are referred to as "nationalist rebellion." The vanguard of the protest was the workers of the oil fields, among whom were many veterans of the anti-Chinese uprising of the 1940s. During the suppression of the rebellion, over 5 thousand people were shot and imprisoned in camps, from 60 to 100 thousand Uighurs and Kazakhs fled across the border to the USSR. At the same time, the XUAR left and went to the Soviet Union, most of the Russian officers who served in the Chinese army.

Among the few facts of ethnic clashes in Xinjiang that have become known outside of China, there is one - in 1967 in the city of Shihedzi, the second largest in the XUAR, the Uighurs killed over a hundred and wounded over a thousand "red guards" who came here from China to deepen the "cultural revolution" ...

In the 60s and 70s, several armed clashes between Soviet and Chinese troops took place on the border of Xinjiang and the Kazakh SSR. The most famous of them is the battles near Lake Zhalanashkol in August 1969. Since the end of the 60s, the Central Asian Military District of the USSR was preparing to fight in Xinjiang, carefully studying potential opponents and allies in this territory.

In 1980, a closed reference book for Soviet officers of the Central Asian District, quite in the spirit of the "oriental" descriptions of the 19th century, gave the following characteristics to the indigenous population:

“The Uyghurs are one of the most ancient peoples of Central Asia, they have a rich and ancient culture ... Hospitality and courtesy are national features. However, the Uyghurs are very flexible in dealing with people and by no means everyone who enters the Uyghur's house will find a warm welcome for himself.

The Uyghurs are very superstitious. They believe in conspiracies, witchcraft, talismans, in the existence of witches and brownies. Concentrated and serious in everyday life, the Uighurs live up to the sound of music and songs and indulge in fun with enthusiasm. Among Uighurs-men, despite the fact that it is prohibited by Muslim laws, smoking of anasha is widespread ... "

Military settlements

In the course of the protracted Soviet-Chinese political confrontation, the Beijing authorities quite seriously considered the introduction of Soviet troops into Afghanistan as a preparation for the Soviet annexation of Xinjiang. As a result, the number of Chinese troops in the XUAR increased sharply, and by the beginning of the 80s the Xinjiang production and construction corps numbered over 2 million 250 thousand people, making up one sixth of the XUAR population. The corps produced a quarter of all the products of the Autonomous Region, doing everything from mining to growing cotton. The corps included agricultural, engineering and construction and even hydrotechnical divisions.

The building is a huge socio-economic corporation that includes individual cities, rural areas, many industrial industries, and even two of its own universities. At the same time, the corps spread throughout Xinjiang remains almost completely Chinese - among its military personnel over 88% of the Han Chinese and less than 7% of the Uyghurs.

Among the entire population of the region, only 40% are Chinese and 45% of Uyghurs, but in the capital of the XUAR, Urumqi, there are 80% of Chinese, and only 12% of Uyghurs, and even those mostly live on the outskirts of their capital.

The most important nuclear facilities for China are also located on the territory of the Xinjiang - it is here, at the bottom of the dried salt lake Lop Nor near the Turfan desert, where a nuclear weapons test site is located. In 1964, the first Chinese atomic bomb was detonated here. In 1996, China was the last of the world powers to conduct a nuclear test here before joining a moratorium on them.

Modern Xinjiang is an important part of the PRC's economy. More than 3000 deposits of a wide variety of minerals are being developed here - from coal and oil to gold and rare earth metals. Coal reserves in Xinjiang are estimated at two trillion tons, the estimated oil reserves are also impressive - 30 billion tons. Almost all types of polymetallic ores and almost the entire periodic table are found here. According to the forecasts of American economists, in the first half of the 21st century Xinjiang will become one of the most attractive regions in Asia for world multinational companies. Fierce competition for the development of the richest deposits can unfold here. Naturally, Beijing cannot leave such a promising and problematic region unattended.

Islamism from Beijing and the collapse of the USSR

The Chinese authorities, fearing the ethical and cultural closeness of the Uyghurs with the Turkic peoples of the USSR, not only tightly closed the previously transparent border, but also translated the Uyghur alphabet from Cyrillic to Latin (all Central Asian republics of the USSR then used only Cyrillic), and then, in the early 80s , in general, officially returned the Arabic alphabet. This was the third change of the Uyghur language alphabet in XUAR in 30 years.

From the late 1960s to the late 1980s, China's entire policy was based on an open military and political confrontation with the USSR. Deng Xiaoping, even having started capitalist reforms, in relations with our country for a long time remained a champion of the toughest line of opposition. Therefore, especially after the introduction of Soviet troops into Afghanistan, the PRC authorities quite seriously feared that Xinjiang would become the next battlefield. Official Beijing tried not only to protect the Uighurs from any Soviet influence, but also to find allies among them against Soviet expansion.

The Islamists, of whom there have long been many among the Uighurs, seemed to be possible allies for Beijing. Therefore, since the beginning of the 80s, religious policy has been softened in the XUAR. Earlier, especially during the years of the Maoist "cultural revolution," any religion, including the dominant Islam in the XUAR, was viewed as a hostile and subject to eradication. If in 1982 there were less than 3,000 active mosques and houses of worship in Xinjiang, by the end of the decade their number had more than quadrupled.

Xinjiang Islamists have become a link for the Chinese special services with the Afghan opposition, which is fighting against the USSR. We know very little about this, but in reality China supplied weapons to the Mujahideen much more actively and generously than the United States and Saudi Arabia.

Throughout the 1980s, official Beijing turned a blind eye to the fact that many Uyghurs who joined the CPC, including high-ranking officials of the XUAR, in violation of the charter of the Communist Party, regularly visited mosques. In 1987, the CPC Central Committee authorized the opening of the Xinjiang Islamic Academy in the region. As a result, by the early 1990s, an Islamic renaissance had taken place among the Uighurs of Xinjiang.

In the early 90s, the number of operating mosques in the XUAR doubled again. This religious revival coincided with the collapse of the USSR and the upsurge of Islamism and Turkic nationalism in the post-Soviet Central Asian republics. It is important to remember that a rather large Uyghur diaspora has long lived in these newly-born states - over a quarter of a million in Kazakhstan alone.

The appearance on the world map of the new states of Central Asia, close to the Uyghurs in culture and language, served for the indigenous population of the XUAR not only as an infectious example of nationalism. The collapse of the USSR opened up a huge Central Asian market for the Chinese economy. By the beginning of the 90s, Deng Xiaoping's reforms had just given their first fruits, and the PRC business, which had just begun to develop rapidly, rushed to establish the flow of goods made in China to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. It was the Uyghurs who, due to their linguistic and cultural affinity, became the main intermediaries in trade. In just a few years, a wealthy stratum of the national Uyghur bourgeoisie appeared in Xinjiang, which grew up on the mediation between the Chinese industry and the markets of post-Soviet Central Asia.

An explosive mixture of Islamic revival, the triumph of close nationalisms and the emergence of considerable, by local standards, Uyghur capital gave a result unexpected for official Beijing. By the mid-1990s, the Uighurs expressed their dissatisfaction with the Chinese quite massively and clearly.

"Dashing 90s" with Chinese characteristics

The beginning of the modern stage of Uighur separatism, acting under Islamist slogans, was the events in the Kashgar region on April 5, 1990, where, as the official Chinese press wrote, an "armed counter-revolutionary uprising" broke out. For the first time since the events of 1989 in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, the Chinese authorities were forced to resort to airlifting of troops to suppress the unrest. The operation also involved two "agrarian divisions" of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps.

The riot was triggered by the ouster of a popular mullah, as well as by the actions of police officers overseeing birth control - for traditional Islamic families, even the official permission of three children (and not just one child, like the Chinese) was a strong irritant.

In subsequent years, there were repeated clashes with the police, attacks on police stations, explosions of trains and buses. In 1995, authorities announced the discovery of a large arms depot. In the spring of 1996, the Xinjiang Daily, the Xinjiang Daily, the central Xinjiang newspaper wrote that since February there have been five serious social explosions in Xinjiang; as a result of the actions of the authorities, 2,773 people have been arrested for involvement in terrorist activities; 000 units of ammunition. According to information from the Uyghur oppositionists themselves, the real number of those arrested exceeded 10 thousand people, more than a thousand were killed in clashes with the police and troops.

One of the most notorious clashes during this period lasted from 2 to 8 February 1996. The reason was the arrest by the police of a group of Uyghur youth in an illegal prayer house. The mass protests against these arrests resulted in 120 Uighurs killed by the police and over 2,500 arrested.

On February 12, 1996, the local press reported about the train explosion. The government immediately announced that the attack had been carried out by the United Revolutionary Front, an exiled Uyghur organization then based in Kazakhstan. In May, a Uyghur terrorist attempted to assassinate the imam of the main mosque in Kashgar, who was collaborating with the Chinese authorities. The terrorist was shot by the police, and further investigation found out that from the age of five he was sent by his parents to study in an underground madrasah, where the Uyghur children were taught the basics of Islamism and Pan-Turkism.

Until the end of 1996, terrorists shot and killed a number of high-ranking Uyghur officials accused of collaborating with China. Official data is classified, but it is believed that in 1996 about 500 police and security personnel died in the XUAR.

In early 1997, the Chinese authorities sentenced to death and shot several dozen Uighurs who had been arrested a year earlier on separatist charges. The information about these executions caused unrest and pogroms of Chinese immigrants in several cities of Xinjiang, the most violent in the city of Yining near the border with Kazakhstan. China was even forced to officially inform the Kazakh authorities about large-scale troop movements in the region. 30 thousand Chinese soldiers entered the city with the support of tanks and armored vehicles. According to Uyghur activists, between one and three people were arrested in 90% of local families.

Reds versus greens

In response to the violence, the CPC Central Committee announced close ties between separatism and "illegal religious activity" and launched a campaign to reduce Islamic influence in the XUAR.

The Communist Party admitted that control over many of the lower party cells in the villages of Xinjiang had been lost. It turned out that Islamists had infiltrated the party: 25% of the members of the Communist Party in Xinjiang professed Islam, and in the villages their number reached 40%.

To begin with, the authorities tightened the legislation regulating religious activity. Xinjiang was home to a third of all active mosques in China; over the past few years, the authorities have reduced their number by 20%. Special attention was paid to control over religious education - in 1997 alone, 105 illegal madrasahs were closed in the XUAR.

In parallel, a complete reorganization of the CPC grassroots party cells in Xinjiang was carried out. The Party leadership issued a special provision for the Xinjiang Party Committee prohibiting the participation of CCP members in religious activities, as well as the distribution of books and other materials of a religious nature. If such facts are discovered, such CCP members should automatically be considered as accomplices of the terrorists.

The Chinese authorities have very severely limited the contacts of their Muslims with foreign co-religionists - they have reduced the number of those who are allowed to go on the Hajj to Mecca, now only elderly people can go there from China. At the same time, the party authorities of the XUAR officially propose to replace the pilgrimage with a free excursion to Beijing for a person who has received permission for the Hajj to Mecca.

The PRC authorities additionally transferred several army divisions to the XUAR and significantly increased the number of security agencies in the region, to the point that in some areas during the aggravation of the situation the number of security forces exceeded the local Uyghur population.

Over the years, Chinese intelligence services have arrested, killed, or forced the most active separatist and Islamist leaders to flee abroad. According to the Uyghur oppositionists operating outside of China, the PRC special services have created a whole network of the Uyghur underground under their control, provoking splits among separatists and unprofitable actions for them.

Since 1999, the intensity of the anti-Chinese actions of the Uighurs began to decrease, especially in their extreme forms. At the end of 2005, the Chinese authorities stated with satisfaction that not a single terrorist attack had taken place in the XUAR this year.

The economic struggle against separatism

The impressive growth of the Chinese economy, at all its costs, has had a beneficial effect on Xinjiang. By the beginning of the 21st century, XUAR was no longer considered an underdeveloped and poor region. In a list of 31 provinces and autonomous entities in China, the homeland of the Uyghurs ranks twelfth in terms of GDP per capita. Beijing actively contributes to the growth of the XUAR's prosperity - the free economic zone and trade with the CIS countries have turned Urumqi and other cities in the region into thriving centers of industry and commerce.

The growth of the economy and, accordingly, the international influence of China ensured the political isolation of the Uyghur separatists. In the 1990s, various political organizations of the Uyghurs operated freely and practically openly in the Asian republics of the former USSR. Diasporas and the weakness of local statehood gave Uyghur separatists a secure and convenient base near the PRC's borders. The Xinjiang underground has succeeded in carrying out a series of assassinations of Chinese diplomats and expropriations of Chinese businessmen. For example, in 2000, several Chinese officials and the leader of the Uyghur community who had collaborated with the Chinese authorities were killed in the Kyrgyz capital. In the same year, in the center of Almaty, Uighurs from Xinjiang, armed with machine guns, successfully robbed banks and staged a battle with the police and military of Kazakhstan. In 2002, in Bishkek, members of the underground "Organization for the Liberation of East Turkestan" shot and killed the PRC consul.

But by the beginning of the 21st century, the situation had changed dramatically - the authorities of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan not only strengthened their police apparatus, but are increasingly following in the channel of Beijing. In addition, their interests and the goals of the PRC in the fight against the Islamist underground completely coincide. As a result, over the past decade, in all these republics, there have been many trials of varying degrees of secrecy against Uyghur organizations and activists. As a result, Xinjiang oppositionists in post-Soviet Central Asia also found themselves deeply underground.

Mutual impasse

Despite the successes, the objectively existing ethnic tension between the Han and Uighurs has not been reduced. The demographic pressure of the Chinese and the alienation of the two peoples are constantly provoking ethnic explosions in Xinjiang.

The most famous mass clash outside China was the 2009 Urumqi riots. The reason was a clash that took place very far from Xinjiang - in the south of China, in the rich and industrialized province of Guangdong. In the city of Shaoguan, the factory of Early Light International, the world's largest manufacturer of children's toys, has introduced a quota for workers from Xinjiang. The event was held as part of a large program of the Chinese authorities, according to which, since 2008, 200 thousand young Uyghurs have been recruited to work in the developed coastal provinces of China. Thus, about 800 young Uighurs appeared at the factory among 20 thousand Chinese.

The conflict was not long in coming. Due to the limited official information, several versions appeared later, differing depending on the ethnic sympathies of the source - either the Uighurs committed a gang rape in a factory dormitory, or there were only harassment of Chinese female workers. Or, according to the Uighurs themselves, there was no violence on their part at all - just two Chinese women from the hostel were frightened by the brutal dances and loud songs of young Uyghurs.

All this resulted in a massive brawl, it took the intervention of 400 police officers to end the conflict. The fighting parties tried to finish off the opponents even in ambulances. According to official figures, two Uighurs were killed and over a hundred were injured.

Information, photos and video footage of the mass brawl, supplemented by various rumors, instantly spread on the Internet and social networks in China. A few days later, demonstrations of indignant Uighurs began in Xinjiang. On July 5, 2009, in the capital of the XUAR, Urumqi, the first clashes between the Uyghurs and the police and local Chinese took place. A noticeable part of the fighting on both sides were students of the Kashgar Pedagogical Institute. According to the Chinese authorities, in the course of fights and pogroms, 197 people died in two days (less than fifty Uighurs, the rest of the Han Chinese) and about two thousand were injured.

The communists have turned the life of an entire people into an absolute hell.

The day at the camp began before dawn. First, Omir Bekali had to sing the Chinese anthem. At 7.30 am, the Chinese flag was raised, after which it and about 1,000 other inmates were assembled in classrooms, where they learned such red songs as “Without the Communist Party, there is nothing new,” by heart. Before meals, everyone was ordered to shout in chorus: “Thank you, party! Thank you, homeland! Thank you President Xi! ”Writes Lene Winter in Berlingske.

If he tried to disobey, he was sent to an isolation ward or forced to stand facing a wall for hours. Omir Bekali, a 42-year-old Muslim from Kazakhstan, told his story in detail to the AR news agency, which became almost the only media in the world that managed to get the person who named his name to share his impressions of his stay in the political re-education camp. last year appeared in Xinjiang in China.

The Northwest Province, according to observers and human rights groups, has developed over the past year into one of the most consistently implemented police states, an open prison where almost no one can hide from the authorities' well-disguised high-tech surveillance network. If you make even the slightest wrong step, your next stop may be a prison or re-education camp, where inmates, according to eyewitness accounts, are indoctrinated to be loyal to the Chinese Communist Party.

The Berlingske correspondent herself spoke with eyewitnesses who confirm everything, but do not dare to speak openly, give their name, or anonymously, because they are afraid of reprisals from the Chinese regime.

“We want to say that Xinjiang is today the most oppressed region in the world, surpassed only by North Korea,” said Maya Wang, senior fellow at Human Rights Watch in Hong Kong.

Wild West of China

The northwestern province of Xinjiang in China is home to about 10 million Uyghurs.

The Uyghurs are a national, mostly Muslim minority that speaks the Turkic language. Uyghurs make up approximately 46% of Xinjiang's 21 million inhabitants, while Han Chinese make up 40%. Han Chinese are the predominant ethnic group in China.

The province is strategically important to the Chinese regime because it is China's largest oil and gas supplier and an important hub in President Xi Jinping's prestigious Silk Road project, which envisions new trade routes and infrastructure to connect China with the rest of the world.
This is where the authorities began to use the most advanced modern surveillance systems, especially to keep an eye on the Turkic-speaking Muslim minority, the Uighurs, whom the Chinese regime regards as breeding ground for separatism and Islamic terrorism.

Surveillance methods are diverse and interrelated. Human Rights Watch exposed the way authorities collect biometric data, such as DNA samples, iris scans, fingerprints, and residents' voice samples. The goal is to make it easier to recognize people when they walk past one of the security cameras installed everywhere, especially in the cities of the province.

If you look up to the sky, you will see pigeons soaring there. But these are not birds at all. Recently, the Chinese leadership, according to the South China Morning Post, has released brand-new pigeon robots into the sky in Xinjiang, whose task is to spy on people on earth. Drones reproduce 90% of the movements of real pigeons.

Uyghurs under the microscope

The information is collected under national identification numbers, which all residents of China must have. But it doesn't stop there. Under the same identification number, the authorities also collect digital traces of citizens: their telephone habits, their electricity consumption, data on purchases and communications on the network.

Algorithms process information about an individual person using a large computer program called Joint Operation Platform IJOP, and in the event that a person's behavior deviates from the norm - for example, he forgets to pay his phone bill, contacts someone, living abroad or simply communicating with suspicious persons, the police receive appropriate recommendations.

“It's like a surveillance network that no one can escape. Uighurs - just under the microscope. Xinjiang has long been one of the most controlled places in the world, but now no one can escape surveillance, ”says Maya Wang of Human Rights Watch, who has documented how surveillance data is collected.

The authorities are combining novelties with good old methods of surveillance.

In early 2018, regular home visits to Muslim families in Xinjiang began. Civil servants - officials and teachers - visit the homes of local Muslims in the villages every two months. They stay in a particular house for at least five days and collect information about the religion and political views of the families. They also have to teach families to speak Chinese and sing the Chinese national anthem. Nothing suggests that such visits can be waived, says Human Rights Watch.

Historian Rian Thum has been studying Uyghurs in Xinjiang for 20 years. He compares the development of the situation in Xinjiang to the apartheid regime in South Africa, because, according to him, only the Muslim minorities of the province are targeted for intensive surveillance. Human rights groups confirm that surveillance is much less active in areas where mostly Han Chinese live.

“Xinjiang is a race-based police state. There is a level of surveillance that rivals that of North Korea, but it is carried out on the basis of race, as it once did in South Africa, ”says Ryan Tam, a professor at Loyola University in New Orleans in the United States.

Riots in 2009

In order to understand what is happening in Xinjiang, you have to go back to 2009. Then serious unrest broke out between the Uighurs and the Han Chinese, who today make up less than half of the population.

The Uyghurs have long felt that their language, culture and religion were being oppressed by the Han Chinese, many of whom have moved to the province in recent years. The Han Chinese, in turn, believed that they were bringing development and economic progress to the poor outskirts of China.

That summer, the tide overflowed after several Uyghurs were killed elsewhere in China. In the dusty streets of Urumqi, fighting broke out, 197 people were killed, almost 2,000 were injured.

When I arrived in the province a few days later to cover the unrest, the population in the city was seething as if the lid of a pressure cooker was about to fly off. Both the Uighurs and the Han Chinese took me alternately into narrow alleys, where they whispered malicious words addressed to each other in my ear, who could not find a way to foreign journalists in that already tightly controlled province, where conversations with journalists were and is a sign of suspicious behavior ...

The unrest forced the Chinese regime to tighten security measures already harsh in Xinjiang, and after radical Muslim Uighurs carried out several terrorist attacks in other parts of China that claimed human lives, a campaign was launched in 2014 called the People's War on Terror "To eradicate extremism.

New party boss arrives from Tibet

The campaign took on a different dimension when a new party boss took over in August 2016. Chen Quanguo came from another unrestrained Chinese province, Tibet, where he effectively tightened control. Now it's Xinjiang's turn. The security budget was significantly increased, and new political re-education camps began to emerge throughout Xinjiang.

Adrian Zenz studies Chinese ethnic politics in Tibet and Xinjiang at the European School of Culture and Theology in Korntal, Germany: “In March 2017, Chen Kwangwo launched the most violent campaign against Muslims at the time with arrest hundreds of thousands of Muslims and sending them to re-education camps, ”says Adrian Cenz.

He gathered evidence of the existence of the re-education camps and their size by analyzing and comparing job vacancies, budget reports, and tenders for local government camps in Xinjiang. According to him, in the camps, the existence of which the Chinese regime, according to the AR news agency, officially denies, now there are from several hundred thousand to more than a million prisoners.

“The situation is much worse than it has been for a long time, perhaps since the post-Cultural Revolution in China (1966-1976, note by Berlingske). People just disappear, and no one explains it in any way. All the Uyghurs you have spoken to have a family member or acquaintance in the re-education camp. In Xinjiang, they have never been as afraid as they are now, ”says Adrian Tsentz.

He was detained at his parents' home

One cold morning on March 23, Omir Bekali, according to AP, left his home in Kazakhstan in Xinjiang for work. On the way, he had to visit his parents, one of whom is an ethnic Uighur, the other is an ethnic Kazakh.

Omir Bekali himself was born in China in 1976, but moved to Kazakhstan in 2006.

When he arrived at one of the many checkpoints in the province, he showed his old Chinese identity card. The next day he was detained at his parents' house. At first, he spent seven months in an ordinary prison, and then he was transferred to a re-education camp.

Here he was kept locked up in a room with other prisoners; security cameras were installed in both the room and the toilet. Several times a day, he had to give up his Islamic faith, engage in self-criticism, and thank the Chinese Communist Party.

“We are against extremism, we are against separatism, we will fight terrorism,” he and others had to repeat over and over again.

Gotta love the communist party

Historian Ryan Tam explains that the reeducation camps are designed to change the mindset of Uyghurs and make them love the Communist Party. The goal is also to remove young Muslim men from the street, especially as they could pose a potential threat to stability in Xinjiang.

“It's a very effective system that makes people extremely obedient and has a terrifying effect because all Uyghurs know someone who disappeared in these re-education camps,” says Ryan Tam.
After spending only 20 days in a reeducation camp,

Omir was ready to commit suicide

But he was unexpectedly released after a total of eight months in prison. On December 4 last year, he was able to leave China and return home to Kazakhstan.

At first, he didn't want AP reporters to tell his story publicly. Like many others, he feared that his parents and sister, who remained in Xinjiang, would be arrested. But in the spring of this year, first his sister, then his father and, finally, his mother, too, were sent to re-education camps. And then Omir Bekali changed his mind.

“I have nothing to lose,” he told AP.

The Uyghurs believe that, according to legends, on the site of the Taklamakan Desert (“the desert of death”, “the homeland of the Tokhars”, “you will enter and never return”), located in the center of the Uyghur region, in ancient times there was a civilization of its own, and that the ancestors of the Uyghurs came from from those places.

Historically, East Turkestan forms one ethnocultural region with Central Asia. The Turkic-speaking peoples are close in culture and history to the peoples of the Central Asian republics. Traditions, customs, national dress, traditional music and musical instruments, culinary delights and many other things connect the Uighurs with Uzbeks especially closely. The Uighurs even have the opinion that Uzbeks, Uighurs, Turks and Tatars are “one field of berries”, and the Kirghiz and Kazakhs are “neighboring”. However, I will not deal with reflections on the topic “what is Uzbek and what is Uyghur”, I will only share facts from the long-suffering life of the Uyghurs and the events taking place in modern Uyghur society. Everything described below is based on our own observations and the study of real events.

NEW FRONTIERS

In ancient times, the well-developed Uyghur civilization exerted a tremendous influence not only on Central Asia, but also on China. However, in the 18th century, the Uighurs lost their independence under the pressure of the Manchu Chinese. The occupied territories began to be called Xinjiang, which means "New Frontiers" from Chinese. Since then, as the Uyghurs claim, rebellions have flared up against the invaders every now and then.

In 1949, the resettlement of the Chinese to East Turkestan began, as a result of which relations between the indigenous population and the Chinese settlers deteriorated. Today, tense relations between Uyghurs and Chinese are expressed not only in the form of insurgencies by Uyghur separatists in Xinjiang, but also in clashes and rejection of each other in everyday life. The Chinese, for example, are reluctant to eat in Uyghur restaurants, rarely travel to the original Uyghur cities such as Kashgar, Turpan, Ili, Khotan. Uighurs, in turn, do not travel to other provinces due to the fact that it will be difficult for them to find a restaurant or cafe where food is prepared strictly according to Muslim laws, they avoid Chinese catering establishments, where food is mainly made from pork. The Uighurs call the Chinese "kofir" (unfaithful), avoid using the services of Chinese taxi drivers, preferring to pay money to "their own", do not give way to the representatives of this people. "Hand-to-hand fighting", especially between Chinese and Uyghur youth, can be observed even in such an economically and culturally developed city as Urumqi. One need not even mention weddings between representatives of these two nations - this is a taboo: it is considered categorically unacceptable for a Chinese to have a Uyghur bride or groom. And vice versa. Although there are precedents for the creation of marriages between Uighurs and foreigners.

THE BIGGEST PROVINCE OF CHINA

The Uyghur Autonomous Okrug or East Turkestan, adjacent to the Central Asian republics, Mongolia and Russia, is the largest province in China. According to official statistics, a little more than 16 million people live in the region, a good half of which are Chinese (hantszy), the other part is a Muslim population, namely 42 percent of Uighurs, the remaining 8 percent are ethnic Kazakhs, Dungans, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, Tajiks. , Russians and representatives of other peoples. The Uyghurs believe that there are actually many more, but the Chinese government is hiding the real data. In fact, Chinese birth control (one family - one child) does not affect ethnic groups, but the birth rate among the indigenous population has sharply decreased and leads to the complete assimilation of the Uyghurs, which is in line with the demographic policy of the Chinese authorities. This situation is considered by international organizations as genocide of the people who have lived in this territory for many centuries.

While the region is rich in natural resources, flora and fauna abound in diversity, the Uyghurs live in poverty. Most of the resources are sent to the eastern regions of China to equip the country with military equipment, and not to fight poverty and unemployment. Many key positions in power and government posts are held by the Chinese. Muslims working in government structures were unofficially warned about dismissal in case of visiting a mosque. The number of Uyghur students studying outside Xinjiang (for example, at Peking or Tianjin universities) is extremely small, which makes the Uyghurs feel outcast. In a conversation with a Uyghur student from Tianjin University, it became clear that ethnic minorities at the university are regularly oppressed, despite the fact that their representatives are among the best students. As a result, this girl was forced to quit her studies and return to her native Xinjiang.

NEW GENERATION CHOSES CHINESE

For political reasons, many Uyghurs send their children to Chinese schools, where they are taught only Chinese literacy. Thus, the new generation of Uyghurs is not able to read the Arabic script, and they communicate much more competently in Chinese than in their native Uyghur. In addition, the change in writing in the seventies of the last century played a role. At that time, the Uighurs used the Latin alphabet (until now, old magazines and books written in the Latin alphabet can be found in the underground passages in Urumqi), then they switched to the Arabic script. Some experts are inclined to believe that this was done to prevent the reunification of the Turkic peoples of Soviet Turkestan with the inhabitants of the East. Others argue that a council of Uyghur scholars was convened at that time, which decided to adopt the Arabic script used by the Uyghurs since the adoption of Islam in the tenth century.

Last but not least, and therefore, the level of education of the Uyghur population leaves much to be desired. So, according to my observations, many middle-aged people, in addition to everyday life, trade and survival in the harsh conditions of poverty, have no idea about many things happening both in the country itself and abroad. The dislike for the Chinese, the Chinese language and all Chinese is understandable, but this cannot justify illiteracy and ignorance with elementary knowledge in the field of geography, biology, physics, and so on. And this despite the fact that several centuries ago the Uyghur empire was considered the most developed and powerful in the Asian region.

Riots with a religious shade

In the 90s of the last century, separatist groups were active in Xinjiang, there were rare cases of terrorism, and spontaneous riots broke out. The dates when a bus exploded in Kashgar in 1990 and in Urumqi in 1992 turned out to be memorable for the population of the Uyghur Autonomous Region. When authorities banned Muslims from visiting mosques, riots and protests took place in the suburbs of Kashgar. The 1995 uprising in Khotan also took on a religious connotation, when the authorities decided to replace the imam.

But the most serious were the disturbances in the town of Inin, bordering Kazakhstan, in 1997. Demonstrations by Muslims demanding that the authorities return their religious rights ended in an open uprising, which was brutally suppressed by the Chinese army. Few today dare to remember those times. Meanwhile, the recent information about the defeat in Xinjiang of the terrorist training center of the Uyghur "East Turkestan", qualified in 2002 by the UN as a terrorist organization, is perceived by the public as nothing more than a cover for the next extermination of the local population.

The Chinese mistakenly classify Uyghur separatism as an Islamic religion. Under the guise of the fight against terrorism and radical Islamist groups, the authorities oppress the entire people. And the Uighurs have practically no opportunity to propagate their ideas. So, for example, due to limited sources of information, few people knew about the nomination at the end of 2006 of a successful business woman, politician and fighter for the rights and freedom of the Uyghur nation, Rabia Kadyr, for the Nobel Peace Prize. And even those who knew were silent about it.

The Chinese authorities, on the other hand, are quite good at promoting "ideology to the masses," building a less religious society in the Uyghur Autonomous Okrug. Freedom of religion is persecuted, all sorts of measures are taken to restrict "religiosity", the concept of "secular society" is cultivated among the Muslim population. In order to limit the attendance of schoolchildren at Friday prayers, during the holidays, boys are strictly ordered to come to school. During the holidays, working Uyghurs are given alcohol as gifts - Chinese vodka with a specific smell - "baijiu", which is translated from Chinese as "white liquor" or "white spirit".

At first glance, the rights of Muslims in Xinjiang are not infringed upon by the authorities. Everywhere, even in small towns, you can see the open doors of mosques, people who come to evening prayer. But they say that all mosques are under strict control, and imams are appointed only by the authorities. One Uyghur family advised us not to make charitable contributions - "zakat" - to the mosque itself, since the money is being stolen by the servants of the "house of God", but to transfer it directly to poor families.

There is also an Orthodox church in Urumqi, founded by Russian settlers who moved to East Turkestan in the thirties of the last century. Chinese attending this church are not persecuted unless they are members of the Chinese Communist Party. However, missionaries from America cannot openly preach and convert “unbelievers” to Christianity. For the authorities are confident that under the pretext of studying Chinese and Uyghur cultures and languages, American preachers are clandestinely fulfilling their mission, which is contrary to the laws of the Communist Party.

BETWEEN LIFE STANDARDS GROWING

Despite all the facts of oppression of the Uyghurs, infringement of their religious rights, interference in the internal affairs of the Uyghur region, which acquired the status of "autonomous" in 1955, newspapers, magazines, TV and radio broadcasts are published here in the Uyghur language, and at universities, schools and units of the Chinese army, stationed in the Uyghur Autonomous Okrug, special canteens, cafes and restaurants for Muslims have been opened.

In addition, the Chinese authorities are making more and more efforts to improve the standard of living in the Uyghur region, develop industry, export, attract foreign capital, for which in 1994 Urumqi was named a special economic zone. In the outback, they began to drive more and more by cars than by antique means of transportation. Business and trade, especially with the countries of Central Asia and Russia, are developing. Many cities receive government subsidies. Thus, the fact that the standard of living of the population in Xinjiang has improved significantly over the past decade cannot be ignored.

Nevertheless, the efforts made by the Chinese authorities to pacify and improve the situation in this region are not welcomed by all devout Muslims, for whom living according to the laws of their ancestors and Friday prayer is more important than accumulating wealth that they cannot take with them to the next world.

AND THE WALLS HAVE EARS

In general, it is rather difficult to obtain any information, since the Chinese authorities have taken all the necessary measures to stop the leak. People say that even the walls in China have ears, and foreigners who have arrived in search of any information about the Uighurs and their situation are strictly warned: "They say, keep your mouth shut in your own interests and for our safety." In private conversations, people can criticize the communists, the system, but it is almost impossible to openly support or fight for the independence of the Uyghur people even in the circle of one family - under the threat of arrest. As we were told, among the Uighurs there are also "postmen" who, for the sake of little encouragement and "state security," bring the conversations of neighbors and friends to the right authorities. All Internet sites from the category, which include the BBC, Wikipedia, Human Rights Watch, as well as all sites dedicated to Uyghurs, are blocked by local providers.

I quote Seven:

Are you being stamped or something ?! You issue the same text, only change the names. Why do you think you know more Kazakhs and tell them their story ?! Googled before writing nonsense. For example: Ancient cities of Kazakhstan. History of Kazakhstan. The Great Silk Road passed through our territory and the city of Otrar already had a sewage system in those centuries. These displaced persons, both displaced and not, built houses for themselves. Now these gray typical Khrushchevs with dampness are overlapped by normal buildings. Astana is one of the most beautiful capitals in the world and by UNESCO's decision bears the title of "Cities of the World". Turkestan - Hajj is counted as a Hajj to Mecca. Well, the listed nationalities did not have a hand in these cities, otherwise the coils dragged on for decades.
Kazakh Khanate 1465, if Kazakstan confuses you. Before - Ak Orda, even before - Altyn Orda, even earlier Desht-i-Kypchak ...... and In 1918. the khanate is divided into khanates.
Kazaktar (Cossack singular) in Russian sources were mentioned under their own name until 1734. From 1715 to 1734 in parallel, there were two terms - Cossack and Kirghiz-Kaisak, or simply Kirghiz. Since 1734 the second term, which is fundamentally wrong, is already being mistakenly used. He was the first to write about the fact that it is not necessary to confuse the Kyrgyz with the Kazakhs in 1750. academician G.F. Miller. In 1771. traveler H. Bardanes, who called his work "Kyrgyz or Kazakh chorography" where he paid special attention to the fact that the so-called "Kyrgyz" themselves never call themselves "Kyrgyz-Kaisaks", but they say "Men Cossack" - "I am a Cossack" ... The classic work "Description of Kyrgyz-Cossack or Kyrgyz-Kaysak hordes and steppes" by A.I. Levshina- "Kirghiz-Kaisak are given an alien name, which neither they themselves, nor their neighbors, excluding Russians, call ... Kyrgyz is the name of a completely different people ... The name of the Cossack belongs to the Kirghiz-Kaisak hordes from the beginning of their existence, they themselves are different do not call .. "
All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Council of People's Commissars dated 05/25/1925 "On the renaming of the Kirghiz ASSR into the Kazak ASSR and the renaming of the Kara-Kirghiz AO into the Kirghiz AO". Although in 1925. clear distinctions appeared, but in some sources Kazakhs are again referred to as Kyrgyz.
For especially "gifted"! Kazaktar (Cossack) is a union of tribes and clans, the origin of which dates back to the time interval from BC, the first centuries AD. and a little later, at the time of the unification they spoke the same language. Before the migration, the term Uzbek-Cossack was used. The annexation of the tribes continued. The Bashkirs, Nogais, Karakalpaks, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Crimean Tatars have the same name tribes.
P.S. Information for thought. In the Turkic monument of the 8th century, found on the Yenisei, there is the phrase “kazgak coal”. In the IX - X centuries. three Karluk tribes living on the lands of Semirechye and South Kazakhstan had a common name - "Hasaki". In the Arab documents dating back to the X-XI centuries, it is said about the city of Kasag in the northeast of the Black Sea, about the country of the Kasagh. The emperor of Byzantium, Constantine Porphyrogenitus, who ruled in the 10th century, reported that in the north-west of the Caucasus there is a "country of the Kasakhs", indicated on the map as "Kasakhia". German scientist Klaproth designated this ethnonym as "Kazakhia". The Sherkes clan is part of the Kazakh ethnos. One of the earliest mentions of the word Kazakh in Muslim written sources is found in the Turkic-Arabic dictionary. The dictionary is known from a manuscript of 1245 and published in Leiden in 1894. Here the word Kazakh means “homeless”, “homeless”, “wanderer”, “exile”, “free”. This was the name for groups of people who separated from their clan, tribe and began to live according to their own laws.

From the outside, China may seem like a united and indivisible communist state, as if descended from the pages of red agitation. In fact, it is a very complex and diverse country. One of its most remarkable and unusual regions is the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR) with a significant Muslim population. The correspondent visited the largest province of China and saw how Russians, radical Islamists and atheists manage to get along there.

“This is a Chinese restaurant! It is haram for a Muslim to dine here! Let's better find some decent place, ”my guide Aziz says politely but firmly. The teahouse turned out to be a "decent place". There were no chairs in the establishment, and we sat on pillows near the dastarkhan, in the shade of spreading plane trees. Nearby - a small pond covered with mud, from which there was coolness. Aziz did not deceive - it was really very comfortable here.

He poured fragrant green tea into bowls and in broken, but brisk English continued to develop his favorite theme. “Look what grace is around! We will never agree that Chinese infidels would remake all this in their own way! " - deftly wielding Chinese sticks in fragrant pilaf, a new acquaintance taught me.

I looked around. Immediately behind a ditch with murmuring water, there was a lush oriental bazaar. Sellers and buyers in robes and skullcaps were unhurried eastern bargaining. No, this is not Central Asia. I've been to China.

Divided region

About two centuries ago, the single ethnocultural region of Turkestan was divided - its eastern part went to China, the western part to Russia. However, the same Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and Tajiks live on both sides of the border. The most numerous indigenous people of Xinjiang are the Uighurs, who are very close in language and customs to the Uzbeks.

In ancient times, East Turkestan was a powerful state that had a huge impact not only on Central Asia, but also on China. In 1759, Chinese troops captured the region and named it Xinjiang ("New Frontier").

Since then, the Uighurs have revolted more than four hundred times. Terrorist acts are repeated today. Some Uyghurs are fighting on the side in Syria. This year, they distributed a video on the Internet, threatening to return to their homeland and "shed rivers of blood."

Girl with a rocker

"Spoon", "fork", "newspaper", "car", "steering wheel" - these Russian words are used today in everyday life by both the Xinjiang Uyghurs and other local indigenous peoples. And this is no coincidence: Russian influence in this region has a rather long and rich history.

In 1871, Russian troops occupied the city of Gulja and the surrounding areas in Xinjiang. The territory was returned to China only ten years later, and together with the Russians, about 45 thousand Uyghurs left Kuldja, who settled in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

In 1944, not without Moscow's help, the Uyghurs took control of the western part of Xinjiang and proclaimed the East Turkestan Republic with its capital in the city of Gulja. At that time, there were many Soviet soldiers who served as advisers to the Uyghur army. However, after coming to power, the Kremlin decided not to irritate its ideological ally and promised to act as a mediator in reconciling the parties.

The entire Uyghur government was invited to Almaty, from where it was supposed to fly to Beijing for talks. But the plane crashed, and with it the young republic collapsed. The Uighurs are convinced that the plane crash was staged by Soviet security officers. “The Russians always use us as a bargaining chip,” one of the Uyghur businessmen complained to me.

There were not only Russian soldiers in East Turkestan. In the 19th century, thousands of families of Russian Old Believers fled to the north of the present autonomy, the Chinese Altai, fleeing the persecution of the tsarist authorities. It was these bearded men who taught the Chinese Kazakhs and Tuvans to build wooden houses and use a bathhouse. And although there are no Russians left here, their former presence is still felt today.

Outwardly, the villages of the Chinese Altai (one of the XUAR districts) are very similar to typical settlements in southern Siberia. Sometimes it even seems that the "Russian spirit" in northern Xinjiang has been preserved more strongly than in Russia itself. So, for example, in Siberian villages I did not have to meet girls with a yoke, but in the Chinese Altai this simple equipment is still in honor.

Russians also emigrated to central Xinjiang. The first settlers arrived here at the end of the 19th century, during the Russian occupation of Gulja. A new wave of resettlement occurred in the 1920s. These were mainly White Guards who fled from Central Asia. Then - starving people from Russia and Ukraine. Before the start of the Cultural Revolution, more than a hundred thousand Russians lived in Xinjiang. However, after the quarrel between Mao and Nikita Khrushchev, the "purebred" Russians were persistently offered to emigrate, which most of them did.

Almost like in the USSR

Today, half of the region's population is Han Chinese, the same number of representatives of the Turkic-speaking peoples of the Muslim faith (42 percent of the Uighurs, 6 percent of the Kazakhs, one percent each of the Kyrgyz and Tajiks).

It is interesting that Beijing is almost completely copying the Soviet national policy. So, in Xinjiang there are Uyghur, Kazakh, Kyrgyz and Tajik national autonomous regions. Each of them is headed by a representative of the titular nation, and the deputy is a Chinese-Han.

The autonomous regions have television channels and newspapers in local languages. For all nationalities, schools have been created with teaching in their native language, and the institutes have quotas for applicants "from the nationalities".

Even the Chinese Russians, of which there are about 11 thousand, are not forgotten, mostly half-breeds. The most numerous Russian community survived in the same Kuldzha, where dozens of "pure-blooded" Slavs live. There is even a small Russian quarter in the city - several houses, separated from the rest by a massive fence of an Orthodox cemetery.

Russian spirit

It seems as if he found himself in pre-revolutionary Russia. Somewhere in Europe, Russian emigrants assimilated, but here they were mothballed.

It’s not only the old-fashioned turns of speech (for example, they say “go from bread to kvass”), but also a heightened sense of dignity - the empire that sent their ancestors here is long gone, but this feeling has remained. The accordion is a favorite musical instrument, to which in the evenings folk songs, unknown to modern Russian people, are performed. Home-made kvass and warm bread baked in their own oven are certainly served for lunch.

There is also a Russian school in Ghulja (the Chinese call it Yining), although most of the students are Han Chinese and Uighurs. The authorities give Russians a day off at Easter and Christmas. The local administration even restored the Orthodox church.

True, Beijing will not tolerate local Russians to communicate with. In 2003, priest Vianor Ivanov from the Kazakh city of Zharkent, bordering Xinjiang, got into an unpleasant story. Father, without the knowledge of the Chinese authorities, went to Kuldja to baptize Russian children. As a result, not only did he not baptize anyone, but he himself ended up under house arrest in his hotel room.

“I was interrogated in terrible Russian for a whole week! Then he was released, but only on the promise not to perform any religious rituals in China without the permission of the authorities, ”he told me.

Uyghur apartheid

But this long-standing incident is rather an exception. In general, local Russians have an almost idyllic relationship with the Chinese. Alas, the same cannot be said for the Uighurs. In fact, there is an unspoken apartheid at work here: the Uighurs not only never dine in Chinese restaurants (there are non-halal food), but also avoid shopping in the stores of immigrants from the metropolis. National conflict can provoke even the innocent question "what time is it?" Local Chinese often live according to the Beijing time (officially approved in the autonomy), and the Uighurs - according to the local time, which coincides with the Alma-Ata.

“China's birth control law insults our faith. A Muslim should not live under the rule of the infidels. And if he agrees to this, then he is not an orthodox, but a munafik (hypocrite), ”an elderly Uyghur, who did not dare to give his name, persuaded me.

The Chinese authorities are well aware that the religiosity of the Uyghurs hinders their integration, and they are acting quite tough. “Children under 18 and government officials are prohibited from visiting mosques,” reads signs on almost all mosques in Xinjiang. The life of Muslims is completely controlled by state religious committees, which approve the candidacies of Islamic clerics.

“Every Friday, all the imams go to a meeting of the religious committee, where the text of the Friday sermon is developed together with the officials. We are also obliged to inform the authorities in detail about all planned Muslim rites, ”explains one of the imams in Kashgar.

Moreover, the pressure on believers is increasing from year to year. Until 2017, many married Uighurs, for example, wore burqas. But since April 1, the authorities of the autonomy have banned such an outfit by a special decree. The explanation is very similar to the arguments of our communists during the campaign against the burqa in Central Asia in the twenties of the last century. The authorities of the autonomy emphasized: the veil indulges the possessive instincts of the husband, and by removing it, the woman gains freedom.

However, it is unclear how exactly the “extremists” will be punished, given that it will be very difficult to “release” Uyghur women: in many regions of the XUAR (for example, in Kashgar and its environs) almost half of married women walk in this way. Judging by the fact that there are no reports of reprisals, it can be assumed that this decree is not being implemented too zealously.

It is not easy for religious women, but also for civil servants and students. They can be fired, expelled only for the fact that they go to the mosque and observe Muslim rites.

“Once the dean’s office found out that I and some other Uighur students were fasting in Ramadan and going to the mosque,” ​​one of the local students named Salim told me. - And in the afternoon, in the holy month of Ramadan, we were invited to the dean's office: a table was laid there, and there was alcohol. It was explained to us that the teachers want to get to know Uyghur students better. You cannot eat during the day in Ramadan, and even more so it is unacceptable for a Muslim to drink alcohol. But we had to sin. If we refused to eat and drink, our religiosity would become known, and we would be expelled. "

Uyghur officials also have their own tactics. They atone for their sins before the Almighty after retirement: instead of the prescribed five times a day, they perform namaz ten or even fifteen times, making up for lost time.

Islam with a Buddhist touch

The Chinese authorities seek to control not only classical Sunni Islam, but also the most exotic offshoots of this religion.

“A good person chooses a beautiful place and sits contemplating nature. After death, the soul of a righteous person goes to Space, and a sinner moves into an animal, ”explains Mullah Shakar Mamader from the city of Tashkurgan in the Chinese Pamirs.

The reasoning of a Muslim theologian may seem seditious from the point of view of classical Islam. The fact is that my interlocutor belongs to the Ismaili sect. Ismaili teachings are a bizarre mixture of Islam with Hinduism and Plato's philosophy. The Ismailis believe in both transmigration and cosmic intelligence. In their opinion, time in the universe is divided into cycles, and the worlds are consistently created by the absolute God.

“We pay more attention to the essence of the teaching, and not to the ceremonies. The Ismailis believe that it is enough to pray only twice a day, and not five, as Muslims should. We are also accused of not observing the Ramadan fast. Well, everyone has the right to freedom of judgment, but in fact we are the true faithful Muslims, ”Mamader convinces me.

Outwardly, the villages of the Chinese and Tajik Pamirs are practically indistinguishable. As in the Tajik Pamirs, the house of the Chinese Ismailis is distinguished by a clearly expressed layout, legalized by religion. There are no windows in the walls; light enters through a narrow slot in the roof. The ceiling of the house is necessarily supported by five columns (a sacred number among the Ismailis).

Pamiris on both sides of the border are renowned for their hospitality. The traveler will certainly be invited into the house and treated to strong tea with milk. True, if the Tajik highlanders eat mainly lamb, then the Chinese prefer yak.

The leader of the Ismailis, the "deputy of God on earth" Aga Khan IV lives in Europe and is considered one of the richest people on the planet. This graduate dreams of uniting his fellow believers into a "single spiritual imamate." He seems to succeed in the Tajik Pamirs. He not only opened a university here, but in the truest sense of the word feeds his fellow believers. His humanitarian aid is the backbone of the local economy.

But the attempts of the "viceroy of God" to include the Chinese Pamir in the imamate also failed. The Chinese authorities politely but firmly stated that they did not need humanitarian assistance. Beijing does not need foreign gurus.

Carrot and stick

In China, they like to talk about the advantages of Chinese perestroika in comparison with the Soviet one: in Russia, carried away by the development of democracy, they completely forgot about the economy, as a result - chaos and the collapse of the Union. In Beijing, they chose a different path: the economy was reformed under the strict control of the Communist Party, and all attacks by the separatists were resolutely suppressed. Moreover, they are openly trying to buy supporters of independence. The borderlands are now the main line of assistance from the Center.

If in Soviet times Central Asia was a much more developed region than East Turkestan, today the situation has changed dramatically: the Central Asian republics are increasingly reminiscent of the Third World countries, and Muslim China is the developed states of the West.

The successes are truly amazing. So, back in the early 1990s, the cities of the autonomy were built up with dull five-story buildings, and they had to move around in a cab - it was almost impossible to get a taxi. 10 years later, I found myself in a different world: shops shining with advertising, high-rise buildings, a continuous stream of cars on new roads. In terms of the number of technical "problems" in the life of ordinary citizens, Xinjiang today is not inferior even to the United States.

The autonomy has not forgotten about tourism. Thanks to excellent roads, travelers can easily reach the most remote corners of the XUAR, where excellent hotels and restaurants have been built for them. In Xinjiang, the tastes of foreign travelers were taken into account to the smallest detail - for example, in the Muslim region, you can easily find cold beer. XUAR is now one of the most popular tourist destinations: it is visited by dozens of times more foreigners than Central Asia. Foreigners leave money here, and this cannot but rejoice even the most stubborn Uyghur separatists.

This carrot-and-stick policy is bearing fruit: the number of supporters of independence is steadily declining. No, the Uyghurs still dislike the Chinese, but the opportunity for successful business, coupled with the fear of being arrested for separatism, overpowers the abstract ideals of freedom.

“Of course, any Uighur dreams of the independence of their homeland. However, we have to admit that this is just an unattainable dream. It’s better to make money than to go to jail, ”the former underground activist and now the owner of a thriving travel company Ibrahim says with the air of Khoja Nasreddin.