The Wang Lixiong prophecy: ‘Palestinization’ in Xinjiang and the consequences of Chinese state securitization of religion

ABSTRACT

In Your Western Regions, My Turkestan (2007), Chinese dissident Wang Lixiong warned of the ‘Palestinization’ of the Xinjiang question, defined as reaching ‘a critical point in time’ where Uyghurs and Han Chinese enter an interminable ‘ethnic war’. Following the knife attack on Han civilians in Kunming (2014), seen by many as an act of Uyghur terror, Wang reminded us that he had foreseen this trajectory seven years earlier. This article outlines Wang’s six interpretations of ‘Palestinization’ in the Xinjiang context, then shows how tightened regulations on religion and intrusive religious policing was the main catalyst for local retaliatory violence in 2012–2015. I contend that state securitization of religion was counterproductive, heightening societal insecurity and promoting inter-ethnic conflict between Uyghur and Han communities. In Chen Quanguo’s era of ‘de-extremification’, the state’s purported attempt to ‘purify’ Islamic practice continues to be experienced on the ground as violation of pure, halal space.

KEYWORDS:

• Xinjiang
• Uyghur
• Palestinization
• inter-ethnic conflict
• securitization of religion
• violation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Wang (the sole Han detainee accused of ‘damaging state security’) notes that mutual honesty and trust are so limited that prison is the only place where a Han might win a Uyghur’s trust (Wang and Yang 2007).

2 For a book-length comparison, see Schuster (2017).

3 Interviews were conducted in Uyghur, Chinese, or both, reflecting ‘societal bilingualism’ in Ürümchi. One respondent code-switched between Chinese, Uyghur and English. Owing to increased surveillance, respondents advised against conducting interviews in south Xinjiang, where I might have encountered Uyghur-speaking monolinguals.

4 Translations are the author’s own.

5 For Kanat (2016), state incitement of Han nationalism against the internal Uyghur threat after 2001 created a ‘fear factor’, damaging Uyghur–state and Uyghur–Han relations. He highlights a ‘total elimination of inter-group trust’ in recent years, with groups previously willing to ‘set symbolic lines’ now confronting each other (see also Palmer 2013 and Clarke 2015 on the ‘hardening of boundaries’).

6 The 2009 Ürümchi riots began as a peaceful protest on 5 July calling for an investigation into the Shaoguan factory incident in Guangdong Province, in which two Uyghurs were killed by Han co-workers. This later escalated into anti-Han violence. The People’s Armed Police and military were deployed, and on 7 July Han vigilantes launched a revenge assault on Uyghurs. According to state statistics, 197 people died, mostly Han; eye-witnesses and Uyghur exile groups put the Uyghur death toll higher (Millward 2009; Smith Finley 2011).

7 In July 2017, local authorities announced the Integrated Residency programme, offering financial subsidies to Uyghur families who buy a home in Han residential districts of Ürümchi (Sulaiman and Niyaz 2017).

8 For ethnographic data and a summary of secondary literature on Han in-migration and resultant socio-economic inequality, see Smith Finley (2013, Chapter 1). Kanat (2016, 196, 206) links the recent surge in anti-Han violence to state ‘population engineering’, which increased Uyghur unemployment in Xinjiang, marginalizing the youth.

9 See Millward (2009, 348) on the relative calm in Xinjiang between 1997 and 2008.

10 Kanat (2016) critiques the Chinese state’s pre-emptive implementation of ‘micro-control policies’, which securitize the Uyghur question without opening a dialogue. He suggests this reflects ‘division anxiety’. See also Topgyal (2011) on the China–Tibet ‘insecurity dilemma’.

11 She mentioned GPRS (General Packet Radio Service), a packet-oriented mobile data service which allows live online tracking via a personal/vehicle GPS tracking device. From July 2017, Xinjiang authorities required Ürümchi citizens to install a ‘surveillance app’ on their phones, which would ‘automatically detect terrorist and illegal religious videos, images, e-books and electronic documents’ (Ng 2017).

12 Castets (2015b) dates local attempts to ‘Palestinize’ Xinjiang back further to the 1990s, when a few ‘Islamo-nationalists’ turned to terrorist attacks following the failed 1990 Baren insurrection.

13 Ilham Tokhti (2014) concurred, writing, ‘The more the authorities suppress religion, the more the Uighur people embrace religion.’

14 The official was considered a ‘collaborator’, who had failed to be the voice of the Uyghur people. Personal communication with local Party official, May 1996; see Beckley (1997) and Bellér-Hann (2002, 78).

15 Sing tao jih pao (The Sing Tao Daily), Hong Kong, 5 March 1997, in Summary of World Broadcasts (Asia Pacific), 6 March 1997, FE/2860 G/3.

16 This resourceful approach recalls the secret lunchtime mosque visits of high school students I recorded in the 2000s (Smith Finley 2013, 243).

17 On this concept, see Bellér-Hann (1998).

18 Image posted on Twitter, 16 May 2018. See Smith Finley (2013, 105–107) on halal rituals of washing in Uyghur society.