Representation and the misidentification of economic and ethnoreligious conflict in Republican Xinjiang

ABSTRACT

The era spanning the late Qing and early Republic of China (1877–1933) is regarded as a period of extensive change in East Turkestan (Xinjiang), Chinese Central Asia, particularly with regard to the emergence of modern Uyghur national identity, and therefore of ethnonational conflict. However, the tendency to focus on ethnic identity obscures other dimensions of conflict, among them the tensions that emerge during periods of rapid economic change. This article shows how violence in the oasis of Kucha in 1918 stemmed from conflict between two competing groups of landowners. However, systems of information-gathering within the provincial government and the representation of the events to the outside world promoted the idea that this violence stemmed instead from ethnic or religious difference and international conspiracy. Those power-holders advanced representations of the society they governed that were useful to their politics and, in turn, to modern Chinese politics as well.

KEYWORDS:

• Xinjiang
• history
• economy
• representation
• Islam

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. On this ‘provincial period,’ see Millward, Eurasian Crossroads, 124–34.

2. Brophy, Uyghur Nation, 1–6; and Thum, Sacred Routes, 13–15.

3. See Bellér-Hann, “Feudal Villains or Just Rulers?”; Bovingdon, “The History of the History of Xinjiang”; and Rippa, “Re-Writing Mythology in Xinjiang.”

4. Li Sheng’s extensive work on Xinjiang-Russian trade mostly focuses on this period, which he rightly characterizes as one of flourishing cross-border commerce, see Li, Xinjiang dui Su (E) maoyi shi, 135; see also Millward, Eurasian Crossroads, 154–57.

5. Most of Northern Xinjiang arguably underwent a very different process of development in this period that was focused on the extraction of mineral wealth, see, Kinzley, Natural Resources.

6. Bai and Koibuchi, Xinjiang xiandai zhengzhi, 71–72. This commonly cited source for Xinjiang history appears to be the origin of other scholars’ mentions of the Kucha incident.

7. Yang, Buguozhai wendu, see especially the compilers’ preface, 19–20.

8. Thum, Sacred Routes, 13; and Welsford, Four Types of Loyalty, 14–17.

9. Millward, “Towards a Xinjiang Environmental History,” 287–88.

10. For the purposes of this article, ‘Kucha’ includes all areas that were irrigated by the Kucha and Muzart Rivers.

11. Schluessel, “Water, Justice, and Local Government,” 603–04.

12. Dawut, Uyghur mazarliri, 186; and Sayrāmī, Tārīkh-i Ḥamīdī, 83–84.

13. On pious endowments in East Turkestan, see chapters in Sugawara and Dawut, eds., Mazar. On Ḥanafī jurisprudence on waqf, see Johansen The Islamic Law, 108–10, 199n37.

14. Sayrāmī, Tārīkh-i Ḥamīdī, 148–49.

15. Obul and Isa, “Yi jian guanyu Minguo qi nian,” 38.

16. Kim, Holy War in China, 39–41.

17. Obul and Isa, “Yi jian guanyu Minguo qi nian,” 39–40.

18. Millward, “Eastern Central Asia (Xinjiang),” 274n21.

19. IOR L/PS/10/825, diary for June 1918; and Obul and Isa, “Yi jian guanyu Minguo qi nian,” 40–41.

20. Figures from Ma, Huang and Su, Xinjiang xiangtuzhi gao, 319–20, 328; Millward, Beyond the Pass, 33; Pelliot, Carnets de la route, 110–11; Stein, Innermost Asia, 790; and Wiens, “Cultivation Development,” 70.

21. Schluessel, Land of Strangers, 68–70.

22. Kinzley, Natural Resources, 46–50; Millward, Eurasian Crossroads, 149–52.

23. Stein, Serindia, 1,230. Southern Xinjiang’s relatively cool climate at this time may have led these observers to overestimate the long-term water supply, see Millward, “Towards a Xinjiang Environmental History,” 289, 296.

24. Pelliot, Carnets de la route, 111, 105, 134; and Stein, Innermost Asia, 808.

25. Zhou, Quntuan yu quanceng, 312–413.

26. Wiener, “Planter-Merchant Conflict”; and Zhang, Xinjiang fengbao qishi nian, 1,972–73.

27. Forbes, Warlords and Muslims, 28–32.

28. Lattimore, Pivot of Asia, 59.

29. Yang, Buguozhai wendu, 2,944–51.

30. Millward, “Towards a Xinjiang Environmental History,” 283, 289; and Stein, Innermost Asia, 818–19.

31. Xinjiang shuili hui di er qi baogao shu, juan 9, 40b–41b, 81a–82b; Yang, Buguozhai wendu, 1,100–02, 1,109–11; and Stein, Innermost Asia, 818–19.

32. Wiener, “Planter-Merchant Conflict,” 80–86.

33. Mähämmät, “Kucha nahiyisining azadliqtin burunqi milly ma’aripining ähwali,” 199; Mäkhmut, “Kuchada karizning bärpa wä bärbat bolushi”; Muhämmäd and Niyaz, “Kucha nahiyisining ma’arip täräqqiyati toghrisida äslimä,” 79; Tahiri, “Khälqpärwär Abduqadir Haji Tungling”; Niyaz, “Kuchadiki su apiti”; Yang, Buguozhai wendu, 1,084–86; and Yang, Buguozhai wendu xubian, juan 13, 3a–5a.

34. Yang, Buguozhai wendu, 212–16, 1,109–11; and Schluessel, Land of Strangers, 98–107.

35 See note 27 above.

36. Mannerheim, Across Asia, 195.

37. Obul and Isa, “Yi jian guanyu Minguo qi nian,” 39; and Zhang, Xinjiang fengbao, 1,832–33.

38. Obul and Isa, “Yi jian guanyu Minguo qi nian,” 38–39; and Thierry, “Le monnayage.”

39 See note 17 above.

40. Yang, Buguozhai wendu, 422; and Chen, Minguo Xinjiang shi, 96.

41. IOR, L/PS/10/976, report dated 14 October 1921.

42. Obul and Isa, “Yi jian guanyu Minguo qi nian,” 16.

43. Yang, Buguozhai wendu, 414–17; and IOR L/P&S/10/825, report dated 20 June 1918.

44. Yang, Buguozhai wendu, 417–18, 418–19.

45. IOR, L/PS/10/825, report dated 20 June 1918.

46. Yang, Buguozhai wendu, 406–07, 414–17; and IOR, L/PS/10/825, report dated 20 June 1918.

47. IOR, L/PS/10/825, report dated 20 June 1918.

48. IOR, L/PS/10/825, report dated 31 October 1918.

49. Yang, Buguozhai wendu, 412–14.

50 See above 17.40.

51. Kim, Holy War in China, 59.

52. IOR, L/PS/10/825, entry for 6 June 1918.

53. IOR, L/PS/10/825, report dated 20 June 1918.

54. IOR, L/PS/10/825, report dated 20 June 1918; and Yang, Buguozhai, 403–05.

55. Yang, Buguozhai wendu, 407–08, 408–09, 417–18, 418–19, 419–20, 420–21.

56. Newby, “Bondage.”

57. Yang, Buguozhai wendu, 421–22; and Buguozhai wendu xubian, juan 11, 33b–35a, 57b–59a.

58. Yang, Buguozhai wendu xubian, juan 11, 29b–30b, 48a–48b, 60b–62a.

59. On the council and its documentation, see Schluessel, “Water, Justice, and Local Government.”

Additional information

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Eric Schluessel

Eric Schluessel is an assistant professor of modern Chinese history at the George Washington University and the author of Land of Strangers: The Civilizing Project in Qing Central Asia (Columbia University Press, 2020) and An Introduction to Chaghatay (Maize Books, 2018). He holds a PhD in History and East Asian Languages from Harvard University.