Introduction

One of the lesser known groups of people in China is the Uighurs of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. These people are also referred to as the Uigurs, Uygurs, Weiwuers, Sarts, Taranchis, or Kashgarliks. The land that they occupy in northern China is also known as Eastern Turkestan, Ughuristan, Uyghuria, Chinese Turkistan, Xinjiang, or Singkiang (Aitbayev, 1997). However, the majority of Uighurs refer to it as Eastern Turkestan.
Within China, the majority of the people belong to the Han ethnic group. The Uighurs is one of the minority groups (see Appendix A) within China which China is quickly trying to obliterate from existence by the infiltration of the Chinese majority group, the Han, into their society. Many of the methods of obliteration are outlined in the following pages. China seeks to weaken the group in order to maintain the wealthy region of northern China known as Xinjiang and prevent losing the region by internal dissention within the minority groups of the region, the Muslim Uighurs being a primary one.

Physical Environment

Xinjiang is located in northern China and surrounded by Mongolia, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, India, Tibet, Chinhai, and Gansu. On the northern Mongolian border, Xinjiang is bordered by the Altai mountain range. On the southern Tibetan border, it is bounded by the Kunlun range. Xinjiang is divided in half by the Tianshan Range (Major, 1989). South of the Altai Mountains and north of Tienshan is the Jungarian basin (Aitbayev, 1997). North of the Tianshan Range is Dyungaria. The terrain here comprises everything from grasslands to deserts, replete with oases. South of the Tianshan Range are the Taklamakan Desert and the Tarim Basin with is largely an unpopulated wasteland (Major, 1989). Xinjiang contains 140 mu of cultivatable land. It also has twelve hundred million mu of grassland.
Xinjiang boasts a countryside with vast resources. Xinjiang has much water resources with 320 rivers, 100 lakes, and over ten thousand glaciers. There are also 25 thousand million cubic meters of underground water available to the region. There are several types of minerals available including "coal, petroleum, iron, manganese, chromium, lead, beryllium, lithium, white mica, asbestos, [and] rock crystal" (Resources, 1997, p. 1). Xinjiang has anywhere from 20 thousand to 40 thousand million tons of petroleum available (Resources, 1997).

Religious Beliefs

Within China today, there are about 35 million Muslims of which 15 million are the Persian or Turkic-speaking non-Han Sunni Muslims of the Xinjiang region of northern China (Major, 1989). About five million of these are Uighurs (Boravia, 1980).
The Muslims of the region generally pray five times a day. The two major Islamic festivals celebrated are Lesser Bairam (the Festival of Fastbreaking) and Cobran (the Sacrifice Festival). During the month prior to Lesser Bairam, the Muslims fast until sunset. They resume normal life when Lesser Bairam arrives. Seventy days later is Cobran, a 3-day vacation in which people don their national costumes, have Muslim services, eat mutton, sing songs, pray, and dance (afn, 1997).
Since the onset of Communism in China, religious activity has been extremely repressed. In fact, "[a]ll religious activity is under the control of the State Council of the P[eople's] R[epublic of C[hina] or else declared illegal" (Aitbayev, 1997, p. 7). Since 1991, around fifteen hundred Xinjiang mosques have been closed because the Chinese have said that they were built without permission (Aitbayev, 1997). Freedom of religion is allowed as long as worshipers stay out of the political arena (Chen, 1994). Growing restrictions on religious freedom have surfaced recently. 30 Muslim nationalists accused of "openly agitating against government officials" were executed on January 30, 1997. This is a part of what the Chinese government refers to as their "anti-crime campaign" against separatists. At the same time, a crackdown on "illegal" religious activities has surfaced. Chinese officials have closed local mosques and Koranic schools. They have also confiscated a large number of "reactionary" or "illegal" religious literature. These occurances have sparked a period of unrest in the region (China, 1997, pp. 1-2).

Social Structure, Organization,
Economy, and Division of Labor

During the mid-1700s and mid-1800s, China and the Soviet Union conquered a large region north of China which included the peoples of Central Asia-Kazakh, Uzbk, Tajik, Turkmen, Kyrgyz, and Uighurs. (Quadir, 1997). The Xinjian Uighur Autonomous Region was created by China on October 1, 1955 (Oyunbilig, 1997). When the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, all of these people regained their freedom except for the Uighurs located in China. Since that time, millions of Han Chinese have been transferred to the region. In order to prevent an uprising for independence among the original people of the region, the Chinese have infiltrated the region with Han settlers and taken measures to obliterate the language, religion, and traditions of the Uighurs. The Uighurs are repressed as much as possible and kept at minimum subsistence levels.
Xinjiang is an area rich in natural resources. This is the main reason that China seeks to hold on to it with such tight reins. The Hans of the region, however, have taken most of these resources for their own gain. Xinjiang contains one-third of China's total oil reserve (Aitbayev, 1997). In September of 1995, talks were begun concerning the laying of oil pipelines which would run through Xinjiang (Socor and Yasmann, 1995). Last year, Xinjiang produced 10.4 metric tons of oil. All of the profits went to the central government. The local government only received a minuscule amount of revenue from the oil (Chen, 1994). Last year, 70 percent of Xinjiang's cotton crop was exported to Chinese areas outside of Xinjiang (Aitbayev, 1997). Xinjiang also has much gold and coal (Chen, 1994) as well as steel. Hundreds of goods are exported, including "cotton yarn, cotton cloth, carpet, casing, pilose antler, hops, licorice root, aniseed, safflower seeds, black and white melon seeds, leather, garlic, tomato ketchup, jade sculpture, handicraft articles, rare metals and so forth" (Economy, 1997). Yet, the region remains poor because the rightful owners are being exploited and degraded.
Despite the abundant resources of Xinjiang, the "wealth gap" has significantly widened between the minorities and ethnic Chinese of the region (Chen, 1994). Many benefits, such as job incentives are only available to ethnic Chinese, not the Uighurs (Quadir, 1997). Most of the Muslims of the region are farmers, only averaging an annual income of $90.50 (Chen, 1994). Nearly 80 percent of Uighurs live below the poverty level, averaging a yearly income of only 45 to 50 dollars. Each year, the Party Committee asks each citizen of Xinjiang to work anywhere from 45 days to six months without pay (Aitbayev, 1997). In the primary Muslim city of the region, Kashgar, less than one-fourth of the people even have running water. Most of the minority groups within Xinjiang, including the Uighurs cannot meet the basic standards required for the better jobs. Without being able to speak the Han dialect, they are at a major disadvantage. Many are left unemployed (Chen, 1994).

Marriage Patterns

On the marriage day, the bridegroom and his best man along with a procession of relatives, friends, pipers, and drummers, come to the bride's parents' home to bring the bride to his home. The ceremony begins with a cake being dipped into salt water and divided between the bride and groom. This symbolizes that the couple will stay together despite circumstances. Guests usually bring cakes or cloth as presents to the bridegroom's family. Traditionally every Uighur bride embroideries her wedding dress for her wedding day. The ceremony is usually held in the afternoon and climaxes with the taking off of the bride's veil. At this time, the guests praise the beauty of the bride. Then the guests begin to dance (Uigur, 1997).
In order to "speed up the assimilation of the Uighurs the Chinese Communists encourage mixed marriages by offering special bonuses to those who participate" (Aitbayev, 1997, p. 11). If an Uighur marries a Chinese, they are given 100 Yen. Chinese girls that are born in the region are sent to remote villages with a stipend of 300 Yen in order to attract a Uighur mate. In these remote regions, Uighur males are promised 2000 Yen and better jobs in the cities if they marry a Chinese woman.
In general, mixed marriages are frowned upon by the local. Uighurs who have given in to marrying a Chinese are hated because of their assistance in the furtherment of the assimilation of the Uighurs. Locals refuse contact with them. Children born from these marriages are registered as ethnic Chinese. These children are usually educated by their Chinese mothers and sent to Chinese schools rather than Koranic schools. According to Aitbayev, "[m]any Uighur fathers have been unable to cope with this situation and have committed suicide" (1997, p. 12).

Intellectual Environment

The Uighurs have possessed a highly developed literary language for many years. However, the ethnic Chinese have tried to eliminate the literary language of the Uighurs because of their belief that "language must serve the unification of the motherland" (Aitbayev, 1997, p. 12). In order to do so, the Arabic script used by the Uighurs has been replaced by the Latin alphabet. Many Chinese words and expressions have been infiltrated into the language. "In the city of Urumchi alone stood some 370 thousand books written in Arabic script, including the Holy Koran, Hadith and other valuable works were destroyed as ‘remnants of the past" (Aitbayev, 1997, p. 13). Then, twenty years later, the Arabic alphabet was reintroduced. After using the Latin alphabet for so long, this placed a great strain on the literacy of the people. "Although evening classes were organized to teach the Arabic script, the effort has not been much of a success so far. Members of the same families can only correspond with each other in the Chinese alphabet, because some have been educated in the Latin alphabet and some in the Arabic alphabet" (Aitbayev, 1997, p. 13). Only 16 percent of publications in Xinjiang are in the Uighur language. The Uighurs do not even have their own encyclopedia, dictionary, or basic scientific books in their language.
The educational system in Xinjiang has been purposely arranged so as to keep the Uighurs as ignorant as possible. Traditional Islamic schools have been banned. They believe that they can better assimilate the believers by eliminating their belief system and suppressing their education. An estimated 60 percent of the adult population in Xinjiang is illiterate. Because most of the Uighurs come from poor families, they are unable to afford higher education. Almost 70 percent of classes are taught in Chinese, posing a large problem to largely non-Chinese speaking Uighurs. After those Uighurs that go to Chinese language schools graduate, they cannot properly speak their mother tongue, constantly using Chinese words and forgetting their own Uighur traditions.
The Chinese have largely falsified much of Uighur history. Chinese scholars try to manipulate history so that it appears that Xinjiang has been a part of China since its foundation, and to undermine Uighur culture and civilization. "If an Uighur scholar writes about Uighur history, culture or civilization he is accused of propagating ‘nationalism,' ‘separatism,' or ‘endangering the unity of the Chinese people and the great motherland.' Scholars are punished, their works banned and publishing houses closed" (Aitbayev, 1997, p. 14).

Ethnocentrism and Cultural Relativism

The ethnic Chinese is an extremely ethnocentric culture. It is this reason that the Uighurs of Xinjiang have been treated as they have. In the tradition of other ethnocentric countries such as World War II's Germany, the ethnic Chinese in the area have gone to great measures to prove themselves as the superior race within China. Their fear of ethnocentrism within the minority groups has caused them to repress these minority groups. They fear that if the Uighurs and others like them were allowed to cultivate their own culture, they would seek a liberating type of nationalism that would separate the rich lands of Xinjiang from mainland China. Because of the actions of the ethnic Chinese toward the Uighurs, there is much prejudice against the ethnic Chinese. Those tensions in themselves are enough to produce undesired results as far as possible revolts go. The main goal within Xinjiang is assimilation of their culture into that of the Han Chinese culture. The ethnic Chinese have no sense of cultural relativism. They do not respect cultural differences. The goal is to create within China a homogenous mixture from the various cultures in order for Communist ideas to be upheld and to prevent uprisings from minority groups.

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Chinese Population According to the 1990 census:

Nationality	Population	Percentage
Uighurs	7,200,000	45%
Han	6,885,000	43%
Tajiks	33,000	.2%
Salar	3,000	.02%
Kazakhs	1,100,000	6.8%
Uzbeks	15,000	.09%
Russians	3,000	.02%
Hui	600,000	3.8%
Yellow Uighurs	11,000	.07%
Boan	300	.001%
Kyrgyz	150,000	.1%
Tibetans	5,000	.03%
Other non-Chinese	9,000	.06%
Ethnic Manchus	90,000	5.6%
Tartars	5,000	.3%
Dongxiang	40,000	.25%
Dawani	5,000	.3%

(Aitbayev, 1997)