Comments on: Background on Xinjiang and Chinese Policies in the Region (1800s-2001)

By: Chang

Chang — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 08:17:24 +0000

Jess, thanks for catching it. I meant “largest minority group in Xinjiang,” not all of China.

By: Jess

Jess — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 13:20:32 +0000

Uyghurs are not the largest minority group. The Zhuang, Manchu and Hui populations are still larger. Uyghurs might possibly have recently overtaken Miao for fourth place, but detailed 2010 census data on ethnicity has not yet been made available. Nonetheless, you would still need several million more Uyghurs for it to be the largest minority population in China.

By: Roadblock

Roadblock — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 10:00:08 +0000

1884 was the year when the Chinese authorities officially set up “Xinjiang Province”, which was after China was fed the Western notion of sovereign nation state. People typically point to that year at an attempt to delegitimize Chinese rule in that area. But Xinjiang was taken under the control of Qing Dynasty long before that. This point shouldn’t be hard to understand. Hawaii was not a state of the US until 1959. So you could make an awkward statement that Hawaii was not incorporated into the US until 1959. Nonetheless, there should be no deny that Pearl Harbor 1941 was an attack on the US.

If you are interested in original historical material on Xinjiang, see if you can find this: ????????. If you can read that, I’m sure you could find all other relevant texts on your own.

I hope you are reasonable enough to agree with me that everyone is different, and that some people are just more prone to violence than others. I know it’s not a politically correct thing to say, but it is true.

By: Chang

Chang — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 07:06:24 +0000

@Roadblock

“Historically the Turkic people were not peaceful.”

I do not think any civilization on this planet has ever been “historically peaceful.” Do you think Chinese people are “historically” peaceful?

By: Chang

Chang — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 06:59:03 +0000

Roadblock,

Sometimes you come off as hostile towards my viewpoints, as if they are invalid. However, I welcome your feedback, even if you disagree with me most of the time.

If this were an academic article for publication, I would edit this post with footnotes, but this is just a blog. I don’t see many news articles or blog posts that even cite sources; if so, they do what I did and put them at the end. I posted this because I am frustrated with recent news coverage in both Western and Chinese media regarding Xinjiang–lots of misinformation, lots of political play. I feel that my interpretation is more balanced (albeit nothing is ever completely neutral) and investigates the issue further back than media coverage out there.

Despite what you say, I never stated that Uyghurs were indigenous to Xinjiang. I just said that they currently live there. Regarding the line you think is BS (In 1884, the Manchu Qing empire brought Xinjiang under its control and incorporated it into the Chinese empire), check:

James Millward, “Violent Separatism in Xinjiang: A Critical Assessment,” Policy Paper 6 (Washington, D.C.: East
West Center Washington, 2004), 3.

“Conquest by the Manchu Qing empire in the mid-eighteenth century brought the territories now known as Xinjiang under Qing rule.”

and

Joseph Esherick, “How the Qing Became China,” in Empire to Nation: Historical Perspectives on the Making of the Modern World, eds. Joseph Esherick et al. (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2006), 231–2.

“It was only under the Manchus that Mongolia, Tibet, and the Muslim areas of Xinjiang…were incorporated into the empire.”

I admit, the date 1884 is a little arbitrary. I wouldn’t mind reforming my previous statement to say mid-eighteenth century.

Where are your sources?

By: Summary of events for the week ending July 15th | joeflasher.com

Summary of events for the week ending July 15th | joeflasher.com — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 06:19:06 +0000

[...] Shared Background on Xinjiang and Chinese Policies in the Region (1800s-2001) [...]

By: Roadblock

Roadblock — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:28:50 +0000

And Mr. Herbert, I read Chinese history in Chinese because I can, and because that’s how most of the original texts were written. I doubt it would be very useful to you if I list my sources. Also, how could reading history from Wikipedia any worse than reading history from a blog post?

By: Roadblock

Roadblock — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:15:46 +0000

Hello Miss. Chang. If I haven’t said so, thank you for your brilliant article. I appreciate the time and effort you put in. And I’m sorry for being so uncharitable. But if you can, please do list more, and please make some footnotes, because you really don’t show me which single piece of information comes from which source. I believe footnotes are a requirement for any serious scholarly paper in CMOS style. It is not helpful to the readers, if you just compile a list of every book or paper you came across on this topic, and put it at the back.

By: Roadblock

Roadblock — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:05:29 +0000

Hi Tom. Sorry about my spelling. It should be evident to you that I’m not used to writing in English. But what really matters is not my spelling, but my message: Historically the Turkic people were not peaceful. They are typically on the delivering end of racial violence. The Uyghurs have a extremely violent side as well, which manifested itself in Urumqi a couple of days ago, and resulted in 156 deaths.

Thanks again for correcting my spelling.

By: Chang

Chang — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 12:25:37 +0000

Where did I get this material? Please check the long sources list at the bottom of my entry. If you should like me to cite even more sources, I can list more for you, all in CMOS format.