Brief History of Colonization of East Turkistan

Brief History of Colonization of East Turkistan

Brief History of Colonization of East Turkistan

East Turkistan has natural boundaries as well as a constructed border formed by the Great Wall. In the past, before the Mongol and Manchu invasions, Uyghurs established their own kingdoms and states, such as the former Ediqut Uyghur state and the Qarahanli state. Today, the Chinese ⁵⁴ government claims that East Turkistan was part of its former Han dynasty’s empire. However, this claim is unfounded; the Han dynasty only captured the Turpan area—a minute portion of the vast Tarim and Jungaria regions of East Turkistan—for a short period in 120 BCE. The Han Chinese state was never able to rule East Turkistan until after 1949.⁵⁵

In 1949, when the new Chinese nation state was established, it claimed the previously colonized borderland territories of the Manchu empire, including East Turkistan, Mongolia, and Tibet. Globally, this was a period of decolonization, and the people of East Turkistan had already established the East Turkistan Republic after the Manchu empire collapsed.⁵⁶ Undeterred, the newly established Chinese state claimed East Turkistan as Chinese state territory, which was illegitimate and should be regarded as an invasion. Nonetheless, the newly formed UN officially recognized China’s territorial claim. Despite this victory, Chinese

⁵²Maureen S. Hiebert, Constructing Genocide and Mass Violence: Society, Crisis, Identity (London: Routledge, 2017), 23.

⁵³Xi Jinping, “Secure a Decisive Victory in Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects and Strive for the 53 Great Success of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” (speech, Beijing, delivered at the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, October 18, 2017), accessed September 23, 2020, www.xinhuanet.com/english/download/Xi_Jinping’s_report_at_19th_CPC_National_Congress.pdf.

⁵⁴James A. Millward, Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang, 1st ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 52.

⁵⁵Ibid., 24.

⁵⁶Gardner Bovingdon, The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land, 1st ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2019), 56 31–39; Rian Thum, The Sacred Routes of Uyghur History (Boston: Harvard University Press, 2014), 4.

government officials continued to grow uneasy; because the religion, culture, and ethnicity of East Turkistan’s population are highly distinct from those of the Han Chinese, the assimilation of Uyghur and other Turkish people would still be difficult to accomplish. Beijing increasingly felt that they had failed to assimilate Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims. Further, since its recent rise to power, China has aimed to expand, through central Asia and Europe, to implement its New Silk Road project (or “One Belt, One Road,” OBOR) to create economic connections between more than 65 countries. This has rendered East Turkistan even more geostrategically significant as the region is pivotal in China’s ability and capacity to accomplish such a project. The characteristics of both China’s military and civilian-settler colonialism of ⁵⁷ East Turkistan have also determined China’s intention to destroy the Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims, as the Chinese government has come to view the local population as an obstacle. ***

Brief History of Colonization of East Turkistan

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