Development will dampen China's separatism

By Robert J. Saiget

URUMQI, China (AFP): China hopes that pouring money into ethnic minority areas in the economically-backward western regions will be the solution to ending decades of religious and ethnic strife.

Leading officials in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region say the new policy to develop China's western-most region is aimed at raising the living standards of ethnic minorities by increasing the influx of ethnic Han technology and investment.

"Without the Communist Party there would be no improvement in living conditions, so economic development and social stability are linked," said the chairman of the region, Abulaiti Abudurexit.

For this reason much of the western development program is go towards developing the poor southern portion of Xinjiang where Muslim ethnic minorities form some 90 percent of the population.

Southern Xinjiang has long been a hotbed of Uighur separatism and Muslim religious groups who oppose the growing influx of the ethnic Chinese Han to the region, despite the economic development of the last 20 years.

"Today southern Xinjiang is stable and enjoys ethnic unity, but not too long ago we witnessed increased splittist activities and terrorism so the provincial government decided to add impetus to the region by developing the economy," said Abulaiti, a Uighur.

Poverty alleviation programs have "basically solved the food problem," while the government is continuing to lay down an electricity grid capable of reaching most remote villages by the end of the year, he said.

Some six billion yuan (US$722 million) has also been poured into the recently completed rail network, linking the region's capital of Urumqi to the western-most city of Kashgar. A north- south road running across the oil-rich Taklamakan desert was completed in 1996.

Xinjiang has maintained a healthy annual economic growth rate of between 6.4 and 11 percent annually since 1995, while both urban and rural per capita income has nearly tripled since 1990, according to official statistics.

Ethnic minorities in Xinjiang make up 62 percent of the region's 17 million inhabitants, while the Han population grew to its present size by the early 1990s, up from around six percent in 1949 when China says it "peacefully liberated Xinjiang".

While implicitly acknowledging the sensitive nature of Han migration into both north and south Xinjiang, Abulaiti refused to reveal how many Han settlers the government expects to come to the region in the coming years as the plan to develop the west unfolds.

Beijing has long encouraged Han migration here both to alleviate population strains in the developed east and to strengthen China's strategic claim to the region which borders eight Central Asian Muslim states.

Some 2.4 million of the 6.8 million ethnic Han in Xinjiang work on state-run farms and industries run by the quasi-military- run Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, commonly known as the bingtuan.

Abulaiti said that since the 1950s the bingtuan has spread throughout the region and has played an important role in protecting the region's borders and developing agriculture and industry, despite being administered and financed from Beijing.

Furthermore some 40 percent of Xinjiang's government budget is subsidized by the central government, further underlining the strategic importance of a region still rich in unexploited natural resources.

"The bingtuan has long played an indispensable role in the development of Xinjiang and will continue to play a bigger and bigger role as we economically develop the entire region," said Nur Bakri, mayor of Urumqi.

Nur, 39, one of several young ethnic minority officials that are heading local governments in Xinjiang, epitomizes the up-and- coming minority leader loyal to the Communist Party and willing to forgo traditional values in return for modernization.

"As a Communist Party official, I am an atheist," Nur said, "I tell the young people of Urumqi that it is better to spend their time studying science and technology than going to the mosque and praying."

But Nur admits friction continues to exist between the Han and the local ethnic minorities that include Uighurs, Mongolians, Huis, Kazakhs, Uzbeks and Kyrgyzs, saying the fight against separatist activities will be "a long-term struggle."

Meanwhile ethnic minorities in Urumqi also appear to accept the fact that the Han have brought much economic expertise and technology to Xinjiang, but this is tempered with concerns about Beijing's heavy-handedness in dealing with Muslim religious activities.

"The main problem has and will always be religion. The Chinese want to control our religious beliefs and this has been difficult to accept," one Uighur worker said out of earshot of Chinese officials.

"We recognize the economic benefits that they are bringing and for now as living standards increase more and more people are concerned only with earning money," he said.