Modern History, Part 1

Because of its location, East Turkestan has been the subject of invasion and/or occupation by China and/or Russia for centuries, though until the last century and a quarter, none of the occupations had lasted for very long. The first invasion was in 104 B.C. and lasted less than two decades. For the next 850 years or so, China invaded the East Turkestan region several more times, but only managed to sustain control for less than a total of 160 years. This last rule ended in 751 A.D. and Uyghurstan enjoyed over a thousand years of progress and self-autonomy, save for a voluntary span of two centuries when it was part of the Mongol empire; even during these two hundred years, East Turkestan retained its sovereignty.

It was not until 1876 that the Manchu empire invaded and forcibly, brutally, annexed East Turkestan, killing around a million Uyghurs in the process. When East Turkestan was officially introduced into the empire, its name was changed to Xinjiang, which means “new territory’ in Chinese. East Turkestan was under nearly constant Manchu rule until 1949; however, during this period of nearly 75 years, East Turkestan inhabitants staged constant revolts and even successfully managed to regain their independence twice: once in 1933, for three years, when the Eastern Turkestan Islamic Republic was formed, and then again in 1944, for five years, when the second Eastern Turkestan Republic was formed.

When the People's Republic of China was formally founded in 1949 by Mao, East Turkestan—now, of course, known in China as Xinjiang—was promised self-autonomy while still being part of the Republic—hence Xinjiang’s present formal name of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Of course, such a promise was never honored, for reasons that would soon become as clear as a star-encrusted East Turkestan night sky: the mid-1950s discovery of oil under Karamay, a city in the northern part of the province.

Any notions that the Chinese authority may have entertained at that time of allowing East Turkestan to be free were scattered like desert sand in a windstorm.

East Turkestan is quite an inhospitable place to live for the most part, much different from the majority of the vastly agrarian remainder of China. Han Chinese historically hadn’t lived in East Turkestan because the topography and climate were too hostile. Uyghurs were and are accustomed to living in this climactically and topographically hostile region, but it’s not a place to which a farmer from Sichuan, a businessman from chic Shanghai, a vendor from steamy Guangzhou, a pencil-pusher from Beijing, or a fisherman from Qingdao wanted to migrate.

Uyghurstan sees more extreme winter and summer temperatures than any other place in China, as high as 115 degrees Fahrenheit (45 Celsius) in summer and as low as minus 22 Fahrenheit (–30 Celsius) in winter are common. The south of East Turkestan is home to the Taklamakan desert, the world’s second largest, (and maybe more difficult to traverse than is the Sahara because of its constant shifting sands; countless stories abound about cities and towns having disappeared in Taklamakan’s sadistic embraces over the centuries). East Turkestan also sits on the western fringes of the Gobi desert, known as the Junggar Basin, in the north, and three vast mountain ranges border East Turkestan to the north (the Altay), west (the Tian Shan and the Karakoram), and south (the Himalayas).

At the time of oil discovery, the population of East Turkestan was 90 percent Uyghur. After the discovery, though, the Chinese government started forcefully mass-populating East Turkestan with Han Chinese. The majority of Han live today in Urumqi, the provincial capital, but there are Han majorities inhabiting most of the area north of Urumqi. South of Urumqi, however, still sees Uyghurs as the majority, though even in the once-thriving major Silk Road stop of Kashgar the Han population is catching up with that of the Uyghurs.

Indeed, though the Han might still be in the minority in Kashgar, it is with burgeoning Chinese flavor that one now sees the surface of this once lovely city: the largest Mao statue in all of China, broad streets in the flavor of many large eastern China cities, Chinese names for these streets, and large buildings erected where there used to be Uyghur markets.

To be continued...