Friday, July 24, 2009

IntelliBriefs: Unrest in Xinjiang: Birds coming home to roost for China

  • IntelliBriefs: Unrest in Xinjiang: Birds coming home to roost for China

    tags: no_tag

    • by Mohan Guruswamy

      http://www.tribuneindia.com/2009/20090722/edit.htm#4
    • Historically, India had many other linkages with Turkestan. These links were snapped after China annexed both Xinjiang and Tibet after the Communists seized power in Beijing in 1949.

      Like Tibet, Xinjiang also had a troubled relationship with China
    • In the recent years the Government of India has been active in Ladakh. It has begun to build a motorable road that will link Leh via Nubra with the far-flung Daulet Beg Oldi. It has also recommissioned the airfield at DBO to receive larger aircraft. DBO overlooks the Karakorum Pass that is linked by motorable roads to Kashgar and Khotan. It is obviously hoped that one day modern caravans will ply these roads and re-establish the lost economic linkages with Xinjiang.
    • Many Uighurs speak a bit of Urdu due to the burgeoning relationship developed with Pakistan after the construction of the Karakorum highway. Urumqi has several restaurants that advertise themselves as serving Pakistani food.

      There is also another unintended but nevertheless burgeoning Pakistan connection. Well-known Pakistani terrorist outfits like the Lashkar-e-Toiba and the Jamaat-ul-Dawa have trained no less than 4000 Uighurs to wage jihad in their homeland. The ISI connection with these outfits is well known.
    • Since missiles can be made to point anywhere, the Chinese now fear the takeover of Pakistan by the jihadis as much as India or the US. So much for Chinese foresight.
    • The East Turkestan Freedom Movement predates the clandestine war on Soviet-controlled Afghanistan by an axis of the US, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and China. This axis even orchestrated attacks on the Turkic underbelly of the former Soviet Union. One fallout of this unholy alliance is the advent of Wahabi Islam in the Turkic regions which hitherto mostly adhered to the Sufi traditions of Islam.

      If what the Chinese claim about Al-Qaeda is true, then it is just a case of the birds coming home to roost.
    • The writer is President, Centre for Policy Alternatives, New Delhi.