To slake its thirst for natural resources, the PRC–like the Qing Empire whose territorial legacy Beijing continues to claim–looks west.
To satisfy the energy demands of its fast-growing coastal cities, China is building a 4,200-kilometer, or 2,600- mile, pipeline from here that will traverse the craggy steppes and sparsely populated villages of the old Silk Road, and run directly to Shanghai and possibly to Beijing. But the manner and terms under which the government is extracting resources from Xinjiang angers many of the region’s 7.5 million ethnic-Uιghur Muslims.
Many Uιghur want independence from China, and they accuse Beijing of using the energy resources to tighten its grip on Xinjiang. They also say the region receives little benefit from its own energy reserves because energy production is controlled by China’s state-owned companies, consumed by China’s coastal cities and taxed in a way that the central government gets most of the revenues.
The IHT article above gives a little background into Beijing’s claims to Xinjiang, mentioning the founding of Eastern Turkestan in the 1930s and the subsequent annexation of the territory by the PRC in 1949. It leaves out that Xinjiang was, of course, a part of the Qing empire though the Qing never gained full administrative control over the territory until Zuo Zongtang defeated the armies of Ma Hualong in 1871.
Leaving aside Zuo’s “sow the earth with salt” approach to provincial pacification for a moment, the real question is to what extent the PRC can claim to be the legitimate territorial heirs of the Qing
empire–a polity ruled by Manchus, of which the former Ming territories were only one part. Granted, Han Chinese made up a substantial portion of the population and the bureaucracy and the old Ming territories formed the core of the Qing empire…but the Qing dynasty’s greatest success was its ability to incorporate, into a single polity, the Mongolians, Manchus, Muslims,Τibeτans, Taiwanese, and Han. It wasn’t always an easy balance–as the revolt by Ma Hualong (among many, many others) showed. But no other government in Beijing or Chang’an before had ever successfully held such a large swath of territory nor ruled directly over so many disparate people.
It seems only natural that the
PRC wishes to claim this legacy for their own. As far back as 1911, Sun Yatsen–no fan of the Manchu rulers he–had little interest in spinning off Manchuria or the other parts of the Qing empire after the fall of the imperial house. The point was somewhat moot: for three decades, none of the successive regimes had the power to hold on to the old Qing territories. Parts of the empire fell into foreign hands, other parts enjoyed a kind of autonomy under warlord rule, while others attempted to redefine themselves as independent states. In 1949 the CCP managed to reunify Manchuria, the North China plain, and the Yangtze and Pearl River deltas…the stepping stones for a reclamation of the old borders of the Qing. With the exceptions of Outer Mongolia (by then under the Soviet wing), disputed territories on the Indian and Soviet borders, and the island of Taiwan–a new socialist republic appeared…awkwardly superimposed on the old imperial map.
The political goals of the CCP differed from those of the Manchu rulers. The Manchus were generally happy to allow different religions, languages, and local administrative practices to continue so long as order was maintained and revenue flowed to the center.* When the CCP took power, however, the new government required the polity to identify first and foremost with state and party. The administrative and legal control desired by the CCP government reached deeper into society than anything under the Qing. The abilities and demands of the modern socialist nation quickly clashed with the desires of those on the periphery to maintain their own culture and political traditions. It was not entirely unprecedented. The CCP “socialist civilizing” project has something in common with the Confucian civilizing projects during the Qing carried out by Han officials such as Chen Hongmou in Southwest China, and “Sinicized” minority officials, such as Lan Dingyuan on Taiwan. But these tended to be ad hoc programs formulated to deal with the specific demands of localities with large non-Han populations. By contrast, the CCP civilizing project is a nationwide attempt to forge a unified “Chinese” national identity. The continued conflation of race, culture, and nation (just what does it mean to be “Chinese”?) further complicates the issue.
There are many ways to view the desire by Τibeτans and Uighurs (or the Taiwanese) for a sense of true sovereignty. The continued oppression of dissidents and the suppression of language and culture in Τibeτ and Xinjiang is appalling. On the other hand, Western nations can open themselves up to charges–spurious though they may sound to some–of hypocrisy. A Chinese friend of mine once quipped (after quite a few shots of baijiu): “I’ll be happy to discuss the status ofΤibeτ and Xinjiang…just as soon as you agree to give California back to the Mexicans.”
There are obvious differences, as I (equally drunkenly) pointed out to him. But the point was taken. How to evaluate the PRC claims inΤibeτ and Xinjiang in light of 400 years of Western imperialism? Just how do modern nations justify territorial claims made under former imperial banners? Whether the PRC inΤibeτ and Xinjiang or the French in Algeria and Vietnam or the United States in territories seized from Native Americans (or the Iraqis)–what sorts of claims are made? How to sort them out? Can we throw out some of them without damaging other (stronger?) contemporary territorial claims?
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A quick note, for issues Xinjiang and Uιghur…the first place I turn is the fabulous Opposite End of China blog. Absolutely invaluable for anyone interested in Xinjiang and Central Asia.
Also, be sure to check out Dave’s comments on this post. Dave is a former resident of Xinjiang and is more versed in Xinjiang lore than I am, he provides the backstory for this article along with some worthwhile critiques of things which I overlooked.
* There were exceptions obviously.
Top right map: Ming Empire
Bottom right map: Qing Empire
9 responses so far ↓
1 Silkworms // Nov 8, 2006 at 1:53 am
Nice post, J. But Xinjiang was more contested than that, and didn’t belong to Ma Hualong.
For starters, looking at my Joseph Fletcher, Studies on Chinese and Islamic Inner Asia:
“During the rise of Oyirad (or Kalmuk) Empire in Zungharia, the Ch’ing court gradually began to regard Central Asia as a potential source of danger, especially after the Oyirad ruler Galdan invaded East Turkestan in the late 1670s and incorporated it…”
“In 1688 the Oyirad invaded Outer Mongolia, and by 1690 they were openly at war with the Ch’ing. Six years later the Manchus succeeded at driving the Oyirad out of Mongolia, but the fighting recommenced in 1715, and it took another forty years of intermittent warfare for the Manchu forces to eliminate the Oyirad menace. During this time Ch’ing relations with East and West Turkestan were restricted to the traditional blend of “tribute” and trade, with merchants sometimes coming directly from Central Asia and sometimes coming as part of Oyirad “tribute” embassies.”
From James Millward and Peter C. Perdue in Xinjiang: China’s Muslim Borderland:
“Between 1678 and 1680, the Zunghars took control of the Tarim Basin and the Turpan area, setting up the Afaqi Khojas as local authorities. From that date until the mid-eighteenth century, the Zunghar state was the predominant power in Xinjiang.”
After 1765, Xinjiang was indeed under Qing control and truly integrated. But I think it’s worth noting it took the Qing nearly a century to pull it off, and the Zunghars fought Kangxi’s armies 250 kilometers north of Beijing at the Battle of Ulan Butong. Then later (Millward and Perdue again):
“The Khan of Kokand began demanding exemptions of customs duties for his trade in 1817, and when the Qing refused, he supported an invasion by the Khoja Jahangir that succeeded in slaughtering the Qing garrison in Kashgar… in 1835, Qing negotiators agreed to allow Kokand to station a trade representative at Kashgar and commericial agents in other oases of the Tarim basin, and even to levy duties on trade within the empire. This was China’s first “unequal” treaty; its terms became a model for those later treaties signed with the British after 1842.”
Millward and Perdue get this from Fletcher as well, whom I think of as the “Fairbanks of Xinjiang Studies”. The same essay by Fletcher quoted above points out that in the 1830s Kokand also “pressed the Ch’ing for the right to tax all foreign merchants in Kashgaria as well. Because such a concession meant a virtual Kokandian monopoly on Kashgaria’s trade, the Manchus refused, only to have Kokand raid the Kashgarian borderlands regularly for the next five years and impose its monopoly anyway.” Millward/Perdue’s citation of Fletcher for the “Unequal treaty” comparison refers to Volume 10 of the Cambridge History of China, but I don’t have that here.
Zuo Zongtang dealt with Ma Hualong in 1871, but that was in Gansu. Ma controlled Jinjibao, and after that the Qing had access to Xinjiang - where they had to fight Yaqub Beg. Or rather, they thought they would, but Yaqub Beg a) died of a stroke and b) ordered his troops just before that to not open fire on the Chinese, presumably because he didn’t want everyone slaughtered. Nonetheless, Kashgaria was it’s own state from 1864-1877 (See Hodong Kim, Holy War in China).
Basically the Qing didn’t gain control of Xinjiang until 1765, then from 1820-1864 they were making concessions nearly identical to Opium War concessions to Kokand, then from 1864-1877 it was a Muslim state protected by the Tungan buffer. To say that it was part of the Qing Empire doesn’t do justice to the near continuous contestation of the region by indigeneous or external forces.
2 Chris // Nov 8, 2006 at 4:37 am
Slight tangent for you:
“By contrast, the CCP civilizing project is a nationwide attempt to forge a unified “Chinese” national identity. The continued conflation of race, culture, and nation (just what does it mean to be “Chinese”?) further complicates the issue.”
I’ve been pondering this one lately, mostly by asking my Chinese friends how many nationalities there are in China. The usual answer is 56. Then we have a short conversation about the definition or race, ethnicity and nationality.
I don’t know if this is a mistranslation (or trans-lingual misinterpretation, as you put it) or if it’s a genuine vagueness as to who actually gets counted as “Chinese.” Is there a historical origin to this confusion? Love to hear your thougths.
3 花崗齋之愚公 // Nov 8, 2006 at 9:42 am
Thanks for the great comment, Dave, and the summaries/quotes from the Fletcher article in CHOC and the Perdue book. It wasn’t my intention to make Ma Hualong the leader of Xinjiang, but after his defeat and the death of Yakub Beg (whose omission was an oops), the Qing ‘reorganized the province’ to place large parts of it more directly under Qing control–well, until Chonghou almost gave away the store to the Russians at St. Petersburg in the late 1870s. I was kind of in a rush to get to my main point and didn’t feel like doing a “Perdue lite” last night. Perhaps I should have.
Agreed that Xinjiang’s status was complicated (at best). Fletcher makes a wonderful point (can’t remember if it’s in CHOC or elsewhere) that while the Qing emperors could play the Lamaist ruler in Tibet and Mongolia, as a non-believer they were always on the outside looking in at Xinjiang society. There were a host of other factors as well. I think one challenge is what we mean when we say “Xinjiang”–a name given by the Manchus and Chinese to a huge swath of territory with many different groups. As your 走马看花 trip through Xinjiang history demonstrates, different groups presented various challenges in a myriad of places throughout the period of “Qing rule.”
BTW, Fletcher was certainly the leading figure in Central Asian/Chinese studies. It was he who coined the brilliant term for Mongolian succession: “bloody tanistry.” Sad that his career was so tragically short.
Finally, I think you raise a great point above and an assumption that I glaringly failed to mention: what qualifies an empire’s claim on a particular territory? It seems we might need to tackle that one before we get to the question of imperial heirs.
4 花崗齋之愚公 // Nov 8, 2006 at 9:54 am
Chris,
That’s a great question. Probably deserving of its own post. It was a problem that bedeviled Chinese nationalists in the late 19th and early 20th century–how to define the “Chinese”–a race? a culture? a nation? Each one is problematic.
One of the questions I will occasionally ask my students is to “define China.”
It’s a tougher than they think. Define it as a “state” and you lose Taiwan (and the Chinese diaspora). Define it as a “culture” and you lose Tibet and Xinjiang. Define by “race”, and you have all kinds of issues. Not even mentioning the fluidity of such terms as “state”, “race” and “culture.”
I’ve had this conversation a lot with Chinese friends, especially YJ. To be an American (in theory) all you have to do is declare your allegiance and become a citizen. But none of us could become Chinese, right?
Certainly China is not the only place with this issue, as my recent summers in France dodging subway fires demonstrated to me.
5 Silkworms // Nov 8, 2006 at 8:13 pm
@J. “what qualifies an empire’s claim on a particular territory?”
I’m a realist on this, for the simple reason that I’d like to save the historical side from becoming a political football: it is qualified to the extent it is legitimized by its contemporary peers. By this measure, Xinjiang is definitely and indisputably part of China now, but that “since ancient times” line they throw around pure BS.
As for the Qing claim, they had it uncontested for something like 100 out of 270 years. That’s more than any of the others, it was a claim recognized by other powers such as Russia and England (both of whom recognized Yakub) and then another 110 odd years of the total was fighting and jockeying, 46 years in the beginning of Qing when it wasn’t in their possession and 14 years of Beg. All in all, there wasn’t a recognized state that ever had the region anywhere near as long as the Qing.
Pre-Qing it gets truly nuts. As a side project I’ve worked on and off on my own little Xinjiang historical atlas. The number of competing groups that passed through there is gigantic, and if you see all the different shapes and colors denoting them pass through on a map, you really start to wonder what kind of claims anybody can make.
The other thing Fletcher points out is that alot of these guys just faked deference to the Manchus while their compatriots were raiding border towns. Do you really think the Manchus were that successful at fusing a single polity? Or was it more that they were successful at getting their fellow barbarians to look like subjects and bringing individuals in to the Qing court? Cuz if we’re talking about the peoples of the Central Asian border, sure there were Uyghur accountants in the court and lots of tribute missions - but sometimes the tribute came from somebody sacking Qing garrisons!
As for playing the lamaist ruler of Tibet, I can’t remember but didn’t Galdan (Oyirad/Zunghars) get the second or third Dalai Lama on his side when he started busting Qing heads? And then there was a deal, or something?
And finally back to your question on Western imperialism: ack. Well, it always strikes me as apples and oranges. China’s exploits in Central Asia are kinda mirrored by Central Asian exploits in China. Actually, Central (or should I say Inner?) Asians took over China more than vice versa. They’ve all grown up together, and they’ve all got more in common than they’d like to admit. Contrast that with European imperialism - they show up out of freakin’ nowhere with guns, germs and steel. That’s cheating! And you can’t discuss the constant contest for Central Asia without talking about the indestructability of the horse mounted archer, the nomad tank.
6 舒 杰 瑞 // Nov 8, 2006 at 8:35 pm
How about “the Chinese nation”. Doesn’t that differe somewhat from “state”, to the effect that historians often define areas as “nation-states?” You’re essentially correct, though. Similar to the claim that “Hanzu” is in fact one ethinicity. China’s ethinic construction is much much more complex than 94% Han, 6% “other”. Similar to Africa, I think.
7 無名 - wu ming // Nov 9, 2006 at 1:16 am
the more practical definition is that if you can effectively crush uprisings, it’s yours. but that’s a little too 不牙 for many. history is irrelevant to current power, despite protests to the contrary.
as for pipelines, such a concentration of wealth (and thus power) in an area that doesn’t accept the legitimacy of its overlords is just asking for sabotage, much as like in afghanistan or iraq.
8 花崗齋之愚公 // Nov 9, 2006 at 11:35 am
Dave,
Love the commentary, great insights.
Wu Ming,
I agree with you, though I might suggest “不雅” rather than “不牙.”
9 無名 - wu ming // Nov 11, 2006 at 8:04 pm
oops. i was afraid of that.
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