Its name alone indicates what the western region of Xinjiang means to the Chinese state: it translates as New Frontier or New Dominion,a place at the margins of the empire. For centuries,the rulers of China have sought to control and shape Xinjiang,much as the dry winds of the vast deserts here sculpt the rocks. A history exhibition in the main museum in this regional capital goes one step further. Xinjiang has been an inalienable part of the territory of China, it asserts. But many Uighurs,a Turkic race of Muslims that is the largest ethnic group among the 20 million people of Xinjiang,have their own competing historical narrative. In it,the region is the Uighurs homeland,and the ethnic Han,who only began arriving in large numbers after the Communist takeover in 1949,are portrayed as colonisers. Mechanisms typical of colonial controlthe migration of Han,who are Chinas dominant race,and government policies that support the spread of Han language,culture and economic powerprovided tinder,some scholars say,for the conflagration of the past week in Xinjiang. The upheaval began with young Uighurs marching last Sunday in this regional capital to protest a case of judicial discrimination. That exploded into clashes with riot police and the killing of Han civilians. Then,bands of Han vigilantes roamed Urumqi,attacking and killing Uighurs. The government said at least 184 people were killed and 1,100 injured in the violence. Xinjiang has always been a great melting pot,a former hub on the Silk Road that today has 13 sizeable ethnic minority groups and borders eight countries. The concept of homeland is at the heart of the conflict. Though Uighurs claim to be the indigenous people of the region,foreign historians say the Uighurs did not migrate from the Mongolian steppes to what is now Xinjiang until the 10th century,in the area of the Tarim Basin. Archaeological finds,especially recent excavations of amazingly well-preserved mummies,show that the first people to live in the region were likely West Eurasians,some of whom seem to have worshipped cows. The oldest of those mummies date back 3,800 years. As for signs of the Chinese empire,the most prominent Chinese gravesites were discovered at a place called Astana,believed to be a former military garrison. The findings there date from the 3rd to the 10th centuries,ending with the Tang Dynasty. But for that period and for centuries afterward,ethnicities,tribes and power centres in the region remained in flux,with no one culture exerting long-term rule. The Chinese empire did not exercise full political control over the territory in its current shape until the Qing Dynasty,ruled by Manchus,annexed the region in 1760 and later gave it the name Xinjiang,according to the scholars James A. Millward and Peter C. Perdue. By first establishing military and civil administrations and then promoting immigration and agricultural settlements,it went far toward ensuring the continued presence of China-based power in the region, the two professors wrote in a 2004 volume of essays,Xinjiang: Chinas Muslim Borderland. Millward wrote in an e-mail message that the emperor Qianlong had conquered Xinjiang because efforts to rule it through Mongolian and Uighur proxies had failed. Xinjiangs location,bordering the nomadic areas of Central Asia,had made it a strategic place for military garrisons during earlier periods. Each time,the military would reclaim land for farming and build irrigation works,according to Calla Wiemer,another of the books essayists. But the Qing dynasty brought the practice to a new level,greatly expanding the regions economy. More than 50,000 demobilised troops were offered benefits if they stayed and farmed,and free land and seeds were given to Chinese willing to move here from the interior,Wiemer wrote. It was a precursor to the policies of the Communist Party. In the early 1950s,the central government established the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps to manage large farms and construction projects called bingtuan and provide jobs for demobilized soldiers. The bingtuan are hugely profitable,and an estimated one out of every six Han in Xinjianabout 1.3 million peoplebelongs to one. But Uighurs rarely get work there. Han now make up at least 40 per cent of the population,compared with 6 per cent in 1949. Most of the settlers are from poor rural areas. Uighurs resent not only the increased competition for jobs,but also the tightening of cultural policies since the 1990s as the Chinese government feared that the collapse of the Soviet Union would lead Uighurs to identify with Turkic nationalist causes or Islamic fundamentalism. The result? Uighurs say a lack of jobs for non-Han; strict limits on the practice of Islam; a need to subsume their own language to Mandarin in order to get ahead economically. The Chinese government points to the fact that the gross domestic product of Xinjiang doubled from $28 billion in 2004 to $60 billion in 2008. With that has come a rise in living standards and more jobs overall,and better education for every ethnic group,including the Uighurs. Officials say Xinjiang is an example of the future in borderlands of China,with ethnic minorities and the Han prospering side by side. It is,they say,the best that one can hope for from a new frontier.
