TWoU - Ch5 - The self-fulfilling prophecy and the People’s War on Terror 2013–2016

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• 2013 Tiananmen Square SUV attack was the first time the violence in Xinjiang spilled over to mainland.
  • [r_e] China blamed TIP.
    • [ q ] TIP congratulated the attack, but did not take responsibility or claim any links.
  • [ q ] It was likely a result of tensions between security organs and Uyghurs in southern Xinjiang.
    • [ s ] Its rudimentary nature.
    • [ s ] A man, wife and mother are a strange terrorist cell combination.
    • [ s ] Some sources suggest it was a case of self-immolation to protest the destruction of a mosque in their hometown of Akto.
• Violent attacks by Uyghurs increased over the coming three years.
  • [r_i] The increasing attacks over the coming three years imply several things.
    • [r_i] There was no international jihadist threat.
      • [ s ] All incidents had their own local peculiarities.
    • [r_i] How widespread frustration and rage had become.
      • [ s ] So many acts of violence were carried out that were isolated from each other.
  • [r_e] PRC responded to the increase in violent resistance with an escalation of its own state-led violence.
    • [ s ] Intense security measures would overshadow the Pairing Assistance Program (PAP) projects started earlier.

• Self-fulfilling prophecy originated with sociologist Robert Merton.
  • He describes it as a false assessment about a social problem that leads to social or policy actiosn that make the false assessment a reality. Once this false Once this false assessment becomes a reality, it further justifies the actions that facilitated its existence.
    • In his words:

      this specious validity of the self-fulfilling prophecy perpetuates a reign of error; for the prophet will cite the actual course of events as proof that he was right from the very beginning.

  • Example is structural racism in the US during the 40s. Beliefs that black people were intellectually inferior –> less investment into their education –> less black people in colleges –> justifying the original belief.
• It can help us understand how PRC policies lead to actual Uyghur militancy and terrorist attacks.

• Violence was on the rise in 2013.
  • Uyghur and Han citizens clashed for unknown reasons
    • Korla, March.
    • May, Karghilik.
  • Most other incidents were violence between security organs and Uyghurs.
    • Gasoline bomb thrown at police station in March, Khotan.
    • Murder of two community policemen in April, Khotan.
  • Bloodiest took place in Lukqun (near Turpan): 2013 Lukqun incident
• Most of it went unreported, we know only of them because of social media.
  • Aside from the 2013 Lukqun incident and 2013 Tiananmen Square SUV attack, another was much reported on: 2013 Maralbeshi incident
• As a result, new effort seeking to link growing violence to religious ideologies they would label ’extremism.'
  • [ q ] This was more than just punishing religious practice outside state institutions, but identifying physical signs and cultural practices of those who might hold “extreme” religious beliefs.
  • [ s ] According to one counter-terrorism expert, this was aided by an internal document called ‘Several Guiding Opinions on Further Suppressing Illegal Religious Activities and Combating the Inflitration of Religious Extremism in Accordance with the Law’ (Document No. 11).
• One example was the Project Beauty campaign
  • Implemented especially in the south.
  • In Kashgar, checkpoints were instituted to police women’s facial coverings.
  • Women wearing veils in public were written up and forced to participate in re-education.
• Not just in public, but at home too. 200,000 cadres were deployed to 9,000 villages to live and intermingle with local population.
  • More regular house-to-house searches to evaluate the behaviors of Uyghurs in private and todetermine whether they met the expectation of ’extremism.’
• Proactive actions against alleged extremists.
  • Raids on any gathering of Uyghur men, characterized as “uncovering a terrorist cell.”
    • Usually all men were killed, so little evidence of what actually happened.
    • Examples:
      • August 2013, authorities killed 15 Uyghurs who were surrounded while praying in a desert location.
      • In Poskam area, 12 Uyghurs killed who were in a rural area to ’train in preparation for terrorist acts.'
      • Similar incidents around Kashgar and Yarkand killed 7 more Uyghurs in September and early October.
    • [r_e] Local towns were virutally locked down.
• The 2013 Tiananmen Square SUV attack provoked the fastest response.
  • Five Uyghurs in Khotan were arrested who allegedly planned the car crash.
• Violence would continue into 2014.
  • Nine Uyghur youth attacked a police station with axes and knives in Maralbeshi.
  • In December, an alleged raid in Kshgar’s old city. 16 Uyghurs killed including 6 women. Unclear what happened.

• First few months of 2014 were calm.
• In March: 2014 Kunming train attack.
  • This was the first time since the Urumqi bus bombings (1997) that an Uyghur-perpetrated violent act could reliably be called a terrorist attack.
  • TIP released a video praising the attack. but did not claim responsibility.
  • The attackers appeared to be acting on their own, not ordered by international terrorist orgs.
    • [ s ] According to state officials, they tried to leave China through SEA but were blocked so they were stuck in Kunming without any residency documents.
  • [r_e] Han islamophobic fears increased.
  • [r_e] Xi, CCP General Secretary, visited Xinjiang in late April. He announced the ‘Strike First’ campaign.
• As Xi was leaving, an Uyghur set off an explosion in Urumqi train station. One other person died, but 79 injured.
  • TIP issued a video about the attack, featuring Emir Abdul Haq, who was presumed dead since 2010. (wtf?)
  • [r_e] Led to escalation of securitization in south.
    • [r_e] Protest in Aksu over detention of women wearing headscarves.
• Two days after Aksu protests, another attack in Urumqi. Urumqi SUV attack (May 2014)
• In total 98 violent incidents reported involving Uyghurs and police or Han civilians in 2013 and 2014 so far.
• The week after Urumqi SUV attack (May 2014), Zhang Chunxian announced the People’s War on Terror.
  • Zhang signaled the war should be about ideology first of all.
• Second Xinjiang Work Forum laid the emphasis on stability instead of development.
• Xinjiang was now important for the Belt and Road Initiative.
  • Stability was now the precursor to development instead of the other way round.
• Stability was now premised on a strategy of dismantling Uyghur identity.
  • [r_e] Setting the tone for new assimilationist policies.

The People’s War on Terror, 2014-2016

• An attempt to cleanse Uyghurs of Islamic influences while trying to instill PRC nationalism at the same time.
  • [ q ] By violently punishing ’extremists’
  • [ q ] Wider efforts to alter social behavior and cultural practices.
    • Further implementing Project Beauty campaign among both women and men.
    • Intensifying anti-religious education.
    • Attempts to prevent Uyghurs from doing some religious practices.
    • Having citizens monitor each other.
• It was very extreme from the start.
  • In schools, students actively discouraged from the start.
  • Students were encouraged to report on religious behavior from their parents ^725df5
  • Public anti-extremism campaigns
    • prevent fasting during Ramadan
    • Promote alcohol and cigarettes
    • Increase surveillance of mosque attendance and religious rituals (circumcision, weddings).
  • Encouraging community to report who was religious.
  • Anti-religious murals.
  • Monetary incentives to promote inter-ethnic marriage between Han and Uyghurs.
• The campaign also targeted irreligious intellectuals and nationalists
  • [ s ] Increased surveillance of Uyghur-language internet for religious or nationalist content.
    • [r_e] Led to arrest of Ilham Tohti.
      • [e_c] He created an internet forum that encouraged honest discussion between Uyghurs and Han. (uighuronline.cn)
• In 2015, new Counterterrorism Law implemented, to codify the assimilationist policies already going on in some regions.
  • Very broad understanding of “extremism” but included any political act.
    • [ s ] Articles 80 and 81 include a variety of vague extremist activities
      • “using methods such as intimidation or harassment to interfere in the habits and ways of life of other persons”
      • activities regarding the promotion of religion
      • actions meant to discourage people from living or interacting with other ethnicities.
  • Particularly parents were targeted for any actions they might take in the course of parenting their children. ^9d79b5
• Laws were reinforced with new ‘Religious Affairs Reglations’. They were intended to distinguish between legal and illegal expressions of Islam.
  • [e_m] To codify many anti-religion policies that were already undertaken.
  • They remained vague.
    • [ s ] Article 38 prophibited people from adopting an ‘appearance, clothing and personal adornment, symbols, and other markings to whip up religious fanaticism, disseminate religious extremist ideologies, or coerce or force others to wear extremist cloghint, religious extremist symbols, or other markings.’
• The People’s War on Terror also increased violent policing of Uyghurs that had been escalating since 2011.
  • Public execution of 55 alleged Uyghur terrorists in Ghulja immediately after PWOT declaration.
  • 200 alleged terrorists arrested after a sweep.
• Violent incidents once again increased in 2014
  • July, five judicial officials assassinated in Aksu
  • August, assassination of Imam of Kashgar’s main mosque who was a vocal supporter of counter-terrorism measures.
• Most brutal violence occured in Elishqu in late July 2014.
  • CCP said it was a mass terrorist attack.
  • Uyghur sources asserted it was the result of repression of a protest responding to Ramadan restrictions.
  • 96 people died according to the state, but WUC would claim as many as 2000 Uyghurs were claimed.
  • [r_e] Area under complete lockdown, even 2 years later.
• Violence continued in 2015
  • Now also at checkpoints that had become common everywhere.
    • Alleged suicide attacks in Lop and Qaraqash in May.
    • • one in Kashgar in June.
  • Most violent incident of 2015 is 2015 Aksu Coal Miner incident ^5cuql0
    • CCP only reported on it 2 months later, claiming it was international terror.
    • Uyghurs told Sean Roberts it involved a land dispute.
    • Security forces killed 28 Uyghurs on the spot without arresting them.
• Securitization level up!
  • By 2016, many Uyghur neighborhoods fenced off and surveilled by police and CCTV.
  • Call to prayer was outlawed.
  • Some Arabic children’s names were outlawed.
  • [r_e] Psychologically scarring Uyghurs
    • [e_c] Peak securitization in summer 2016.
      • [ s ] A lot of pressure, including almost nightly checks on households.
      • [ s ] Quarantining rural Uyghurs out of urban areas.
        • [ q ] Through scrutiny of residency permits.

• Likely at least 30,000 Uyghurs left China between 2010-2016.
  • [r_i] So its the greatest exodus since 1962 when Uyghurs fled to Soviet Kazakhstan.
• Since 2006, most Uyghurs had great difficulties obtaining passports for international travel.
  • [ q ] Those that had passports, they had to be housed with state travel agencies or local police.
  • [r_e] Many Uyghurs, especially in South, began using human trafficking routes through Southeast Asia.
• Since the 2009 Urumqi Riots, Uyghurs would flee from SEA.
  • [ s ] Cases of extradition
    • December 2009, Cambodia, 18 Uyghurs
    • March 2010, Laos, 7 Uyghurs
    • 2011-2012, Malaysia, 17 Uyghurs
  • Nobody knew how many Uyghurs were fleeing until 2014.
    • [ q ] Thai ahtorities arrested 424 Uyghur men, women and children in Songkhla province.
      • In 2015, 170 were sent to Turkey, mainly women and children
      • 109 men sent to China.
• Most of these refugees had come from southern towns in Xinjiang.
  • [ s ] Anecdotal. Interviews conducted in Kayseri during 2016 by Sean Roberts.
    • They mentioned the pressure from police was the primary factor. (constant household inspections and harassment).
    • Other factors were the inability to peacefully practice Islam, and mandatory education in Chinese-language schools.
    • Knowledge of the trafficking routes spread by word of mouth, but some said Han traffickers came directly to their village to ask if they wanted to leave.
• Chinese gov never recognized the scale of it, but when it acknowledged that it was occuring, it suggested the trafficking ring was founded by Islamic extremists to bring Uyghurs to fight in global jihad.
• Robert’s interviewees never claimed they left China to join militant groups. But some were recruited by TIP.
  • [ s ] According to Uyghur activists, there was another Turkish Uyghur in SEA who was recruiting for TIP.
• The PRC halted the flow of refugees by late 2014, but there were still leaks.
• In August 2015, China began implementing a policy to allow all Uyghurs whose passports had been held to freely get them back.
  • [e_c] Ordered by Zhang Chunxian months before his replacement.
  • [r_e] Many Uyghurs left the country legally, mostly traveling to Turkey.
    • [ q ] Much more than came through SEA.
  • [e_m] Unknown motivation, but perhaps to let dissatified Uyghurs leave on their own.
    • [e_p] Prevent violence in the future.
  • [e_m] Or was it an attempt to compile data for surveillance?
    • [ s ] Xinjiang residents had to submit extensive biometrics, like voice samples, DNA and a 3D image of themselves.
• By October 2016, passports were again gradually confiscated by police and the policy was reversed. Passport confiscation in Xinjiang 2016

• Assistance and perhaps manipulation by Al-Qaeda and Turkey probably contributed to TIP’s emergence in Syria.
  • TIP in Waziristan gained recruits in 2011 and became more ideologically integrated into Al-Qaeda.
    • [e_c] Maybe, Al-Qaeda took notice of the group’s potential and took greater control.
      • [r_i] Then TIP began getting involved in Syria from 2012, when Al-Qaeda joined the civil war, when they established the Al-Nusra Front.
      • In March 2013, TIP’s magazine suggested it was already among the foreign fighters in Syria.
      • In 2014, a TIP video showed Uyghur fighters in Syria.
      • In 2015, clear evidence of a large TIP fighting force through videos documenting their battles near Idlib.
  • A small number has been recruited in ASEA, but most came after finding refuge in Turkey.
    • Upon arrival in Turkey, Uyghurs did not get full citizenship nor refugee status, but temporary residence permits, usually without the right to work.
      • [r_e] Uncertainty of immigration status and economic situation provided incentives to go to Syria, where they were promised housing, food, and schools for their children.
    • There were recruiters in Syria who promised the eventual plan was to wage war of liberation in East Turkestan. Activists who tried to prevent Uyghurs from going were harassed.
      • [ q ] It is unclear whether they were working for Al-Qaeda, TIP, or Turkish TIP supporters, or someone else entirely.
    • Turkey allowed Uyghurs involved with TIP to move over the Syrian border easily. (anecdotal)

• The number of Uyghurs may be much larger than the number of TIP fighters.
  • [ s ] Uyghurs in Syria include substantial numbers of families.
• TIP in Syria appears more like a community than militant organization.
  • [ s ] The community of TIP appears more loosely organizaed and independent of larger jihadist groups.
  • [ s ] People travel back and forth between Uyghur community in Syria and Turkey.
  • [ s ] They have Uyghur villages in Syria, complete with schools. Little evidence the villages are under command of any group.
  • [ s ] It is not clear whether those who have joined the community or even battles consider themselves ‘members.’
• Mohanad Ali Hage (Carnegie Middle East Center) calls Uyghurs ‘a different type of jihadi’
  • They do not appear interested in ruling over civilians. Rather, they tend to settle in abandoned towns where they keep to themselves and focus on fighting Assad and co.
• TIP videos suggest children are trained in weaponry and warfare, but no evidence TIP uses child soldiers.
• Therefore, it’s easy to understand the attraction to Uyghur refugees.
• Let’s describe some different types of Uyghurs who joined TIP.
  • Those who wanted to gain combat experience to eventually liberate Xinjiang from China.
    • Generally in their 20s/30s
    • Grown up in rural areas where they were under suspicion of being potential terrorists most of their life.
    • Some spent time in prison due to religious observation.
    • All of them left China due to intense pressure they felt.
    • Held intense animosity towards the Chinese state.
    • Had no real interest in global jihad.
    • All of them eventually returned to Turkey.
      • [r_i] They had becmoe disenchanted with fighting somebody else’s war.
  • Those who had come for economic reasons.
    • Especially those who came via Southeast Asia.
      • [e_c] Impoverished upon arrival.
        • [e_c] They had given all their money to traffickers.
        • [e_c] Little to no assitance by Turkey
    • They were promised everything in Syria, but must fight a war for it.
    • Some of them likely became true believers in global jihadism.
      • They stayed in Syria.
      • Now dedicated to the idea of fighting not only for East Turkestan, but for Islam.
• TIP is the most obvious manifestation of China’s self-fulfilling prophecy of Uyghur jihadism.
  • [ s ] One Uyghur noted in an interview:

    Why does the Turkistan Islamic Party exist? [it] profited from the Chinese oppression of our homeland; without that, it would not exist; China itself made the Turkistan Islamic Party.

  • 

• By 2016, there was a gathering storm of factors leading to the policies starting in 2017. TIP in Syria was only one of them.
• The cultural genocide that would begin in 2017
  • Purpose: To settle and colonie the Uyghur homeland and make it an integral part of the PRC.
  • Justification: The narrative of the ’terrorist threat’ posed by Uyghurs.
    • This narrative was used to dismiss the core causes of violent resistance to colonization and related aggressive assimilation practices measures in rural Uyghur communities since 2011.
    • It was also used to justify the violent repression of resistance.
      • Result: A self-perpetuating cycle of violence.
  • Biopolitical understanding of a ’terrorist threat’ as a contagion allowed the state to target all Uyghurs, and eventually Uyghur identity itself.
  • Robust TIP army would serve to
    • further justify the PRC’s genocidal strategies.
    • deflect international criticism
    • win support among Chinese citizens and government officials.
      • Many chinese citizens and state bureaucrats believe this group is
        • an existential threat
        • responsible for violent incidents in Xinjiang.
      • But the higher echelons are probably aware of the minor to non-existent threat.

Next: TWoU - Ch6 - Cultural genocide 2017–2020