Let's get this right
Xinjiang, the huge northwestern province of China, has long been an outlier. The old proverb "shan gao, huangdi yuan," meaning the mountains are high and the emperor is far away is often offered as an explanation of why things far from the capital are not the same as they are in the distant countryside.The Communist rulers of China reemphasized their efforts to include Xinjiang as part of China and Chinese culture (and politics).
China’s new campaign to instil [sic] official historical narrative in Xinjiang
China’s far western Xinjiang is set to roll out an ideological campaign to instil [sic] the official Communist Party narrative of the region’s history in its officials, religious leaders and the masses.
Xinjiang
Yu Zhengsheng, the party’s fourth-ranking official who is in charge of religion and ethnic minorities, presided at a high-level meeting in Beijing [last] week to address “several historical issues” regarding the restive region, official news agency Xinhua reported.
The two-day meeting… made clear the party’s stance on these issues to address the “long-standing and deep-seated” ideological problems in Xinjiang, according to Xinhua.
“[We should] eliminate the influence of incorrect ideas about Xinjiang’s history, culture, ethnicities, religions and other aspects,” the report quoted Yu as saying. He went on to stress the party’s efforts to win public trust and fight separatism…
Xinjiang, home to some 10 million mostly Muslim Uygurs, has been subject to beefed up security measures and a crackdown on religious activities after ethnic violence that has killed hundreds of people in recent years. But the government seems to have opened up a new front in the fight against what it calls “the rise in extremism and separatism” – an ideological campaign around history.
The Xinhua report did not specify exactly what “historical issues” were discussed at the symposium, but it did list what “stances” had been clarified: that Xinjiang has been an inalienable part of Chinese territory since the ancient dynasties; that various ethnic groups in the region are members of the Chinese nation; that the culture of Xinjiang’s ethnic groups is deeply rooted in, and an indivisible part of, Chinese civilisation; and that Xinjiang is a region where a number of religions exist side by side.
The rhetoric is consistent with the party’s official line that was first summarised in a white paper released in 2003…
The official rhetoric also emphasises the multi-ethnic and multi-religious coexistence of the region’s history, and its historical role as a melting pot and Eurasian meeting point.
Such narratives put forward by the party are “a direct rebuttal to those Uygurs who say Xinjiang has always been the heartland of the Uygurs ... and has always been Islamic”, Michael Clarke [an expert on Xinjiang at the National Security College, Australian National University] said…
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Labels: China, cleavages, geography, history, politics
posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM
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