Study On Turkic Factors In The Xinjiang Separatism

The Xinjiang separatism was formed under the support of a series of conditions,then has developed under the stimulation of a series of internal and external factors and posed a major threat to China's domestic security and stability development.In order to further explore the law of development of Xinjiang separatism the author attempts to start with the features and changes of Pan-Turkism,tries to find its relationship with Xinjiang separatism.Therefore,the author presents the concepts of�Turkic factors�and lays special stress on analysing the status and role of Turkic factors in the emergence and development of Xinjiang separatism.It should be noted that as two different and interrelated political views Pan-Turkism and Pan-Islamism played an important role in Xinjiang separatist emergence and development,but limited by the length of thesis,the author doesn't research Pan-Islamism,only briefly mentions it when necessary.As the early migration of the Turkic people and the Turkification and Islamization of Central Eurasia?including Xinjiang?,the people in this region had become the main body of today's Turkic languages world,and Turkic factors had been formed by the main characteristics of their culture.However,in a long historical period Turkic factors hadn't been commonly understood and clearly expressed by Turkic languages people,and therefore the cultural integration function of Turkic factors wasn't obvious.In the middle of the 19^thh Century,Turkic-muslims in Russia were awakened due to the rising of the Turkic studies in Europe,Zimmet reform in Ottoman Empire and cultural assimilation pressure from Pan-Slavism.Ismail Bey Gasprinskii proposed the idea of Pan-Turkism,the essence of which was to strengthen the cultural integration function of Turkic factors and revive the culture of Turkic-muslims in Russia.Based on Turkic factors,Pan-Turkism was introduced into the Ottoman Empire and Xinjiang thereafter.Pan-Turkism has went through three transformations in the Ottoman Empire and afterwards the Republic of Turkey.The first transformation occurred in the beginning of the 20^thh Century with the change of leadership,region,service object and sphere of Pan-Turkism,which is to say that the leadership has changed from the Russian Tatars to Turks,and the Pan-Turkism served for the cultural integration of the Turkic Muslim in Russia has changed to the political unification of the ethnics with Turkic language.In addition,featured of militarization and extremelization during the World War I,Pan-Turkism was formed with the ideology of anti-Russian.The second transformation was happened during the period of the World War II and the Cold War.The Pan-Turkism began to share the characteristic of extreme nationalism,and became ideological tool strengthening of Turkish national identity internally and joining up Turkic languages people to fight against Soviet and Communism externally.The third transformation occurred in the 1990s,which was featured with the�return�of the Pan-Turkism to the field of culture.After the collapse of the Soviet Union,the newly independent Central Asian countries had a short-lived enthusiasm for the"Great Turan"conceived by Turkey,but started to reject it quite soon.The Turkish government had no choice but to emphasize the cultural integration of the Turkic factors towards the Turkic language world.These three transformations of Pan-Turkism significantly affected the emergence and the development of Xinjiang separatism,especially in the role of Turkic factors.The Russian Tartars and the Young Turks of the Ottoman Empire began to introduce the Pan-Turkism into Xinjiang actively at the end of the 19^thCentury and the beginning of the 20^thh Century.With the conditions of enclosed environment,declined power from central government,and the rising of the local elites,Xinjiang separatism was stimulated due to the introduction of the Pan-Turkism and existed Turkic factors in Xinjiang.In the initial stage of Xinjiang separatism,the Pan-Turkism was in the dominate position.Meanwhile,the Pan-Turkism highlighted the Turkic factors in Xinjiang.Based on this,Turkic factors contributed to the national enlightenment and consciousness of the Uighur people,enlarged the cultural differences between the Han people and the Uighur people,and thus became the basis for the survival of Xinjiang separatism and its tools later on.During 1930s-1940s,Xinjiang separatism has ripened into action.During this period of time,since the Pan-Turkism has been politicalized and developed in Turkey,the Xinjiang separatists began to politicalized Pan-Turkism as well and established two regimes named as�East Turkistan�.Meanwhile,Turkic factors played an important role in the construction of the two regimes.Firstly,Turkic factors become a main excuse for the separatists to"anti-Chinese"and�froze out the Han people�among Turkic population in Xinjiang;secondly,Turkic factors became a major tool for the separatists to seek for external support;thirdly,external forces such as Turkey and the Soviet Union had supported the regimes by using of the Turkic factors.However,as the development of the Xinjiang separatism,the Pan-Turkism and Turkic factors'role in it began to change.On one hand,the Pan-Turkism in separatist activities no longer occupied the dominate position in terms of both culture and politics;on the other,Turkic factors,which were crammed into a lot of false and forged content with the representative of Muhammad Amin's?East Turkestan History?,became a cultural building tool of separatist forces.After the founding of New China,the ideology and activities of Pan-Turkism in Xinjiang were suppressed as a result of the people's democratic dictatorship,the spread of communist ideology,the restrain of the international environment,and the Turkey's Pan-Turkism with the color of anti-communism happened in the second transformation.The Xinjiang separatism accordingly entered relative stagnation period.Though the Xinjiang separatism decreased dramatically during this period of time,the national identity for minority Uighur?mainly minority of upper intellectuals?was not strong and the Turkic factors were continued to be tooled.On one hand,the Turkic factors were used to enlarged the cultural differences between the Han people and the Uighur people;on the other,the Soviet Union supported the Xinjiang separatism by using the Turkic factors due to the deterioration in the Sino-Soviet relations.Since the reform and opening up,separatist activities in Xinjiang have increased under the influence of various factors inside and outside.Xinjiang separatism developed rapidly with numbers of different organizations that polarized into violent party and non-violent party.Xinjiang separatism was directly and fundamentally effected by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the independent of the Central Asian countries,resulting in the continued rising of the Turkic factors towards the Xinjiang separatism?mainly the non-violent party?.At the same time,influenced by the external environment,Xinjiang separatists changed the mode of development to follow the Turkey's Pan-Turkists,and the cultural factors of Pan-Turkism became the characteristics of Uighur culture,i.e Uighurization.The decline of Turkey's Pan-Turkism further promoted this process.In this process the Turkic factors are an instrument of being used and an object of being factitiously processed and uighurized.On the surface,in the process of Turkic factors Uighurization,the Turkic factors are reduced,but they are more obviously becoming a cultural tool and an integral part of separatism in Xinjiang.The purpose is to strengthen the Uighur characteristics,strengthen ethnic border between Uighurs and other nations?mainly Hans?,strengthen Uighur identity,the result would be the weakening of national identity.So the main ideological content of current Xinjiang separatist is not the Pan-Turkism,but the being uighurized and politicized Turkic factors,which should been known clearly.At the same time,must be soberly aware that,Xinjiang separatism is not a political subservient to the Turkey,but the politicization of Turks factors makes the cultural and political impact of Turkey growing on the Xinjiang separatism.For a long time,there are two battlefields in the struggle against the Xinjiang separatism that are the social practice field and the ideological field,and in the field of ideological have not achieved remarkable results for a long time.One important reason is the lack of case studies in cultural creation of Xinjiang separatism.Especially in recent years,under the pressure of national policies the Xinjiang separatist forces have changed the strategy and tactics,and pay more attention to the cultural creation of separatism.Like the development of Xinjiang separatism,the cultural creation of Xinjiang separatism has experienced the same period as well.In the mature period of Xinjiang separatism its cultural type was formed on the basis of Pan-Turkism.Xinjiang separatists added more content of Turks factors to the separatist culture after the reform and opening up.Unfortunately,most of these factors were false or unscientific.And now,with the adding of this part of the content,the facts were hidden.Moreover,Xinjiang separatists made the Turkic factors Uighurization by changing the scope of internal and external factors,which shows that Xinjiang separatists has shrank its culture from the Pan-Turkism to the strengthened identification of Uighur culture by using the Turkic factors.During this process,Turkic factors acted as both the transitional medium and the target of being processed,used and politicalized.The content of Turkic factors consists two parts after its toolization and politicalization dominated by separatist forces.The first part is the historical and cultural content of some objective existence;the second part consists something that was distorted,exaggerated and produced by Xinjiang separatist forces.The countermeasures to these two parts should be formulated respectively.The practice of against Xinjiang Separatism over the years shows that,study on the cultural countermeasures is not only crucial but also needs to strengthen.In this regard,firstly,it is necessary to strengthen the research on the Pan-Turkism home and abroad,the Turkic factors and their relathionship with Xinjiang separatism.Secondly,it is essential to avoid politicizing the issue of cultural differences and accelerate the development of the new socialist culture in Xinjiang.Thirdly,it is important to solve the problems of minority education and strengthen the role of the modern media in order to expand the cultural position in the fight against separatism.Fourthly,narrowing the economical development gap,perfecting the system of regional national autonomy and strengthening regional autonomy and lingual legislation,which will provide material,institutional and legal support to anti-separatism fight.Finally,it is worth paying attention to the impact of Turkic languages countries and regions along the Silk Road economic belt on the construction of ecological culture in Xinjiang.