Cultural Cleansing with Chinese Characteristics?

In the remote northwestern autonomous region of Xinjiang, China authorities are certainly being exhaustive in their attempts to stem a spike in the long-running activity of Islamic militants. Recent attempts have involved the use of drones employed to locate, capture and kill suspected Islamic militants in the region, as well as restrictions being placed on the practice of Islam and the wearing of beards and veils in public. Recently, 15 Xinjiang officials were reprimanded in Urumqi for violations that include adhering to religious faith and 27 locations used for “underground” preaching were closed — with 44 illegal imams being detained. And for more than a month, the ankles of an outspoken minority Uighur scholar, Ilham Tohti, have been shackled while he awaits trial on charges of separatism.

Yet just when you think authorities have emptied their bag of tricks, there comes yet another creative response. According to an article published last week in the Chinese state-run Global Times, local authorities in the southern county of Cherchen, known as Qiemo in Chinese, are offering cash rewards and other benefits for marriages between those belonging to ethnic minority groups and members of the Han majority. The policy, announced on the county’s official website, will apply to mixed marriage couples, who under the policy are eligible to receive approximately 10,000 renminbi a year ($1,600) annually for five years, and improved access to health care, housing, education and employment benefits. The county director, Yasen Nasi’er, explained the policy is “an important step in the harmonious integration and development of all ethnicities.” The experiment is intended to “promote ethnic unity”, and is also being attempted by local Chinese authorities in the Tibet Autonomous Region, who have offered similar rewards for mixed marriages.

In all likelihood, the latest policy rolled out in the Xinjiang region by local authorities appears to be targeted at the growth of the Turkic-speaking Muslim Uighur population, members of which have been blamed for recent violence throughout the region and in other areas of China. Beijing argues the attacks by Uighurs are being led by foreign influencers who seek to establish an independent state in Xinjiang called “East Turkestan,” or another “Uyghuristan” (932-1450) modeled after neighboring Central Asian nations. Two “Eastern Turkestan Republics” survived between 1931–34 and 1944–49, and Chairman Mao Zedong, in part to win over Turkic speakers in the territory, promised “self-determination” and the right to secede from the Communist state, before withdrawing the offer and eventually conceding the title “Xinjiang Autonomous Region” in 1955.

Notably, the Uighurs, although constituting the majority of the population, were not ceded any autonomous localities as were the less troublesome Kazak, Kyrgyz, Hui, Mongols, Tajiks and Xibo. Uighurs represent the largest ethnic minority within Xinjiang with more than 45 percent of Xinjiang’s 22 million people. The well-behaved Hui are also Muslims, yet are considered “watermelons” — green (the color of Islam) on the outside, but red (Communist) on the inside. Huis and Uighurs seldom mix for a number of reasons, especially given the Hui (Tungan) role in the brutal downfall of the 1934 Turkish-Islamic Republic of East Turkistan.

The latest efforts to acculturate the Uighur population come on the heels of a recent article in the Party political theory journal Qiushi which suggested Xinjiang may seek to adopt limits on the ability of ethnic groups to bear children. According to Xinjiang’s Communist Party chief, Zhang Chunxian, Southern Xinjiang will “implement family planning policy equally on all ethnic groups, to lower and stabilize an appropriate birth rate.”

President Xi Jinping has also encouraged more Han people to come to Xinjiang, further diluting a proud Uighur population which represented 85 percent of Xinjiang’s population in 1949 to less than 50 percent today. Han are often viewed by Uighurs in Xinjiang as “illegal economic migrants” — much like the migrants from nearby provinces are viewed in today’s Shanghai. Xi has also stated his desire for Xinjiang’s Muslim Uighur people move to relocate to other parts of China, perhaps in an attempt to dissipate or integrate Uighur identity. The problem is that whenever Chinese authorities try to manipulate the Uighur population, their attempts smack of what Gardner Bovingdon, author of The History of the History of Xinjiang might call “ethnological pruning and grafting.”

Minority Uighurs have long complained of economic, social and cultural policies that favor the Han, and will likely view the intermarriage incentives as the latest of many attempts to destroy their traditional culture and religious values, and acculturate them with the majority Han. Once again, local authorities are either showing their ignorance or desperation, as unlike Hans and Huis, Uighurs practice endogamy and rarely marry Han – there exists a fundamental cultural taboo against intermarriage between Uighur and Han. Jiang Zhaoyong, a Beijing-based expert on ethnic affairs, said “Most Uygurs only accept marriage within their ethnic and religious group. Those who marry Han usually choose to move out of Xinjiang to avoid tension.”

While there is nothing innately wrong with encouraging communication and cultural integration among the Han and Uighur populations, traditionally the two groups have had little to do with other, especially in the rural areas. And if the intention of government authorities in providing a monetary incentive to intermarry is to help defuse tension between Han and Uighur, their efforts are misguided — just imagine what the reaction would be to a similar policy introduced in anywhere in the U.S.

This latest clumsy attempt by local authorities to acculturate the Uighurs will not be accepted as valid in other counties or the rest of Xinjiang. Rather, news of the policy is likely have a paradoxical effect — creating a new despised class of “watermelons,” drawing Uighurs further into their own national identity, and potentially strengthening the appeal of Islam to a marginalized and alienated population.