Table Of ContentETHNIC IDENTITY AND NATIONAL
CONFLICT IN CHINA
ETHNIC IDENTITY AND
NATIONAL CONFLICT
IN CHINA
Rohan Gunaratna, Arabinda Acharya,
and Wang Pengxin
ETHNIC IDENTITY AND NATIONAL CONFLICT IN CHINA
Copyright © Rohan Gunaratna, Arabinda Acharya,
and Wang Pengxin, 2010.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2010 978-0-230-10305-4
All rights reserved.
First published in 2010 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®
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this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
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ISBN 978-1-349-28761-1 ISBN 978-0-230-10787-8 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230107878
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gunaratna, Rohan, 1961–
Ethnic identity and national conflict in China / Rohan Gunaratna,
Arabinda Acharya, and Wang Pengxin.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Terrorism—China. 2. Domestic terrorism—China. I. Acharya,
Arabinda. II. Pengxin, Wang. III. Title.
HV6433.C55G86 2009
363.3250951—dc22 2009043571
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: June 2010
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments vii
Abbreviations ix
Introduction 1
1 Explaining Minority Conflict in China:
A Theoretical Perspective 9
2 Islam and Muslim Minorities in China 19
3 Uighur Separatism: East Turkistan Groups 47
4 Hui Muslims: The Milieu of Radicalization and
Extremism 89
5 Threats to China from Al Qaeda 109
6 China’s Perception of the Threat and Response 135
Conclusion: Need for Moderation and a Humane Approach 171
Notes 179
Bibliography 231
Index 241
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We are grateful to Ambassador Barry Desker, Dean, S. Rajaratnam
School of International Studies at the Nanyang Technological
University for his steadfast support. We thank Ayla Iqbal from Pakistan
and Senol Yilmaz from Switzerland for their valuable research assistance.
We are indebted to Syed Adnan Ali Shah Bukhari, a specialist on Pakistan’s
tribal areas, Ustaz Mohamed Redzuan Bin Salleh, an Arabist, Rebecca
Givner-Forbes, an Arabist, and Mahfuh Bin Haji Halimi, a specialist on
Islamic ideology, who reviewed the manuscript and provided important
feedback. We also thank specialists from government organizations and
research institutes in China for having supported us during our visits to
different parts of China, including Xinjiang.
We express our appreciation to Associate Professor Andrew Tan,
Convenor, International Studies, University of New South Wales, Robyn
Curtis, the Editorial Assistant, Palgrave Macmillan, and the anonymous
reviewer. Our colleagues Elizabeth Ong and Kelvinder Singh deserve
special mention for their administrative assistance. We also express our
appreciation to Mohammed Amir Rana, Director, Pakistan Institute for
Peace Studies, Islamabad, and several others who assisted us in our re-
search and wish to remain anonymous.
ABBREVIATIONS
AML Anti-Money Laundering
AQIM Al Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb
ATB Anti-Terror Bureau
CCP Chinese Communist Party
ETIC East Turkistan Information Center
ETIM East Turkistan Islamic Movement
ETIP Eastern Turkistan Islamic Party
ETLO East Turkistan Liberation Organization
ETNC Eastern Turkistan National Congress
ETR East Turkistan Republic
EWPS Early Warning and Prevention System
FATA Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan
IJU Islamic Jihad Union
IMU Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan
ISI Islamic State of Iraq
MND Ministry of National Defense
MPS Ministry of Public Security
MSS Ministry of State Security
NATCG National Anti-Terrorism Coordination Group
NPC National People’s Congress
NWFP North Western Frontier Province
PAPF People’s Armed Police Force
PBC People’s Bank of China
PLA People’s Liberation Army
PRC People’s Republic of China
SCO Shanghai Cooperation Organization
SWCU Snow Wolf Commando Unit
TIP Turkistan Islamic Party
TJ Tablighi Jamaat
TTP Tareek-e-Taliban Pakistan
x ABBREVIATIONS
UNPO Unrepresented Nations and People’s Organizations
WUC World Uighur Congress
WUYC World Uighur Youth Congress
XPCMC Xinjiang Production Construction Military Corps
XUAR Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region
INTRODUCTION
So what we have seen and what we have heard in the recent incidents in Turkistan is
not the fault of passing events no matter how big and enormous. Rather, it is a spon-
taneous uprising and a response to the long decades of dark injustice, organized cleans-
ing, strong deprivation, humiliating servitude and disgraceful shame, to the point that
patience ran out and the matter exceed the limit. Also, this was not the first uprising
carried out by the wounded Muslim people, which fights and defends to preserve their
identity, to maintain their personality, to protect the honors and to cease the atheist
hand of transgression from doing mischief with their creed.
—Abu Yahya al-Libi, Head, Religious Committee,
Al Qaeda, October 2009.1
Ideological extremism, political violence, and terrorism are among the
major national security challenges that the People’s Republic of China
is confronted with. As the events in Tibet and Xinjiang have demon-
strated, Beijing’s failure to manage its ethnic and religious minorities is
likely to make it vulnerable to a campaign of political unrest breaking out
into violence and terrorism. This book deals with the threat to China,
particularly from Islamist extremism and terrorism. Attempts by scholars
to explain ethnic and religious conflicts around the world have often in-
volved the study of root causes. They range from poverty and unemploy-
ment, discrimination, and governance issues. Contemporary discourses
implicate religion as a causal factor involving arguments such as “clash
of civilizations” or, as with Islam, its inherent “incompatibility with
modernity.”2 While not discounting the potency of the radical interpre-
tation of Islamic religious discourse in fuelling the contemporary wave
of terrorism, this book makes an attempt to explain terrorism in China
primarily as an ethno-nationalist or politico-religious conflict rooted in
issues involving minority identity. The book examines the prevailing
scholarship on minority issues and armed conflicts and argues that the
root cause of the conflict in China, especially in Xinjiang province, is not
only about religious extremism, but also about the systematic violation
2 ETHNIC IDENTITY AND NATIONAL CONFLICT
of basic rights and insensitivity toward minority identities by the state.
Beijing also appears to have lumped all the threats to its domestic security
in one basket and addressing the same with overreaction, hypersensi-
tivity, and harsh measures. Thus, three factors contribute to the terrorist
threat to China: (a) the perceived threat to minority identity of Muslims
in China in general and in the Uighurs in particular; (b) Beijing’s sup-
pressive policy toward these groups; and (c) the exploitation of grievances
of Muslims in China by the wider politicized segments of the global
Muslim community to internationalize a domestic conflict.
The attacks and attempts in the lead up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics
demonstrate that China faces a real threat of extremism and terrorism.
This is reinforced by the ethnic riots between the Muslim Uighur and
Han Chinese in Xinjiang in July 2009. The terrorist threat to China now
involves both domestic as well as transnational actors.3 The epicenter of
the threat lies in the Xinjiang province where the Uighurs wage a relent-
less fight against the Chinese state for independence. The spearhead of
this threat is what is being collectively referred to as the “East Turkistan
Islamic Forces.”4 The East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a group
associated with Al Qaeda, is the vanguard of this fight. A number of other
groups, notably the East Turkistan Liberation Organization (ETLO), and
the World Uighur Congress (WUC), share the same ideology and agenda,
though the means to achieve those objectives differ. Even though much
of the East Turkistan forces involve domestic elements, the threat from
these groups is increasingly externally driven. The entire infrastructure
of ETIM, including its command and control structure, training facili-
ties, and key leaders and operatives, is based overseas, notably in tribal
areas of Pakistan.
There is also evidence that the conflict involving Muslims in China
is getting exacerbated under the influence of a global movement being
spearheaded by Al Qaeda and its associates and affiliates. As Al Qaeda
and its leader Osama bin Laden have demonstrated, it is possible to bring
together people from all over and unite them in a common front based
on perceived injustice and discrimination and using religion. The ETIM
also has close relations with Pakistani religious parties and a number of
groups like the Taliban including the Pakistani Taliban. For a long time
ETIM leadership along with some of its cadres have been working with
Al Qaeda and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and now the
Islamic Jihad Union (IJU). This makes ETIM effectively the part of the
“brotherhood of global jihad.”5 Al Qaeda leaders, especially Osama bin
Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, have mentioned China and more specif-
ically about the Uighurs in various statements. Away from the glare of
Description:While, not discounting the potency of the radical Islamic religious discourse in fuelling the contemporary wave of terrorism, this book makes an attempt to explain terrorism in China as an ethno-nationalist conflict rooted in issues involving minority identity. However, a largely domestic conflict i
