Michael Edmund Clarke

China's Internal Security Dilemma and the “Great Western Development”: The Dynamics of Integration, Ethnic Nationalism and Terrorism in Xinjiang

Although much water has passed under the bridge in political, economic and ideological terms since Mao Zedong made this statement, it would appear that the sentiment expressed therein retains a powerful hold over the contemporary Chinese state’s approach to its geographically and culturally diverse ethnic minority populations. Most particularly, since Jiang Zemin’s launching of the Great Western Development [Xibu da kaifa] program in June 1999, Mao’s observation about the disposition of geography and population between China’s ethnic minorities and the majority Han has assumed a new importance. Although this campaign can be seen as “an amorphous set of diverse policy agendas and instruments not designed to form a complete and coherent programme, but rather appeal to as many interests as possible simultaneously”, it nonetheless appears to have one major guiding principle – the more thorough integration of China’s predominantly ethnic minority populated “western regions” (Holbig, 2004, pp. 335–38). This paper suggests that a number of key challenges to China’s security stem from its ongoing, and recently revitalised and reinforced, project to integrate the “interior” provinces in the form of the Great Western Development campaign. This is not simply a regional campaign, but a national one with potentially international implications. As the scope and immensity of this program and the diversity of the regions encompassed by it are impossible to address in this brief discussion, the paper will focus on one region in order to illustrate the security dilemmas for the state that are stemming from its accelerated integrationist project. The Asian Studies Review September 2007, Vol. 31, pp. 323–342

Xinjiang and China's Relations with Central Asia, 1991-2001: Across the 'Domestic-Foreign Frontier'?

The Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region is Chinas largest administrative unit and is populated by predominantly non-Han Chinese peoples. Throughout the 1991-2001 period, Xinjiang has witnessed regular and sometimes violent incidents of Uighur opposition to Chinese control of the region. The re-emergence of ethnic nationalist sentiment in Xinjiang has serious implications not only for Chinas internal economic and political development but also for its foreign relations with the states of Central Asia. This paper will argue that this process does not follow an internal-external trajectory exclusively, in that both its foreign policy objectives and the international environment in which those objectives are pursued can also influence Chinas policies in Xinjiang. Conversely, reformulation of Chinese foreign policy objectives toward certain states can also have an impact upon the formulation and implementation of minority policy within Xinjiang. An example of these processes is Chinas relations with the post-Soviet Central Asian Republics. This paper argues that Chinas relations with these states over the 1991-2001 period have been influenced by both fragmenting and integrating dynamics, whereby renewed ethno-religious conflicts have developed in parallel with increasing economic and political integration across Central Asia and Xinjiang.

China's ''War on Terror'' in Xinjiang: Human Security and the Causes of Violent Uighur Separatism

The paper argues that violent Uighur separatism and terrorism conforms in a number of important respects to the human security theory of terrorism, particularly in the realm of political and civil rights. However, it argues that impetus has been given to the various separatist organisations in the region by the development of interconnections between the largely internal aspects of Chinas policy of integration in the region and the wider Central and South Asian dynamic of Islamic radicalism since 1990.

China, Xinjiang and the internationalisation of the Uyghur issue

This paper argues that Beiijings handling of the Xinjiang and Uyghur issues at the domestic, regional and international levels is characterised by a number of contradictions. Domestically, the July 2009 unrest suggests that Chinas longstanding approach to Xinjiang is at risk of failure due to the contradictions inherent in the logic that underpins Beijings strategy. Regionally, Beijing faces a contradiction between its growing influence on the governments of Central Asia and the ambivalent attitude of Central Asian publics towards China. Internationally, the major implication of the July unrest has been to signal the internationalisation of the Uyghur issue whereby it has become a significant irritant in Beijings relations with a number of major Western states, including the USA and Australia. It has been Beijings own approach to Xinjiang domestically and its handling of the Uyghur issue in its diplomacy that has contributed to the internationalisation of the issue.

The Problematic Progress of 'Integration' in the Chinese State's Approach to Xinjiang, 1759-2005

The statement that Xinjiang is an integral province of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) is not as banal as it would first appear. The primary question that arises from this statement is how—by what processes and strategies—was Xinjiang brought to its contemporary situation as a province of the PRC? This paper seeks to highlight that, although Xinjiangs history since the eighteenth century has been one of great turbulence and dynamism, underlying continuities in both the practice of Chinese power and perceptions of Xinjiang impact profoundly on contemporary Chinas rule of Xinjiang. Therefore, this study attempts to chart the transition of the Qing goal of territorial incorporation of the region based upon a system of indirect rule c.1760 to the post-imperial Chinese states goal of territorial incorporation based on the extension of direct, modern strategies of government and control.

‘One Belt, One Road’ and China’s emerging Afghanistan dilemma

ABSTRACT This article argues that China’s approach to Afghanistan since the end of the Cold War has been shaped by the desire both for security in Xinjiang and for geopolitical advantage in Central Asia. While Beijing’s Xinjiang calculus was ascendant from 1991 to 2001, since 2001 a broader geopolitical calculus has emerged. This latter factor has been encapsulated in President Xi Jinping’s ‘One Belt, One Road’ strategy, which, at its core, is an outgrowth of Beijing’s decades-long agenda to integrate Xinjiang and utilise this region’s unique geopolitical position to facilitate a China-centric Eurasian geo-economic system. While China’s Xinjiang calculus determines that it shares an interest with the USA in combating radical Islamism in Afghanistan (and Central Asia more broadly), the geopolitical calculus of the ‘One Belt, One Road’ strategy points to a fundamental incompatibility between US and Chinese interests.

Widening the net: China's anti-terror laws and human rights in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region

Although a significant amount of attention has been paid to the implementation of anti-terror laws and their impact on human rights in the West, relatively little has been paid to this issue in the Chinese context. China has not been entirely immune from the anti-terror legislative wildfire generated by 9/11. I argue that the international dynamic of privileging security concerns over protecting human rights is prevalent in China and is acutely felt in the specific regional context of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Chinas anti-terror laws contribute not only to further human rights violations in Xinjiang but also hold the potential to criminalize dissent throughout the PRC via the application of an ambiguous and expansive definition of terrorism.

The Belt and Road Initiative: China's New Grand Strategy?

I n 2013, Chinese president Xi Jinping unveiled major components of what has since become known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). During an address to Nazarbayev University in the Kazakh capital, Astana, on September 7, Xi announced China’s desire to “jointly build an ‘economic belt’ along the Silk Road” with Central Asian partners to “deepen cooperation and expand development in the Euro-Asia region.”1 A month later, in an address to Indonesia’s parliament, China’s president encouraged Southeast Asian states to work with China to develop the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. Subsequently, China has put more “meat” on the bones of such aspirational statements through the identification of six core “economic corridors” linking the Silk Road Economic Belt and the Maritime Silk Road; the establishment of supporting multilateral financial institutions, such as the Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank (AIIB) and Silk Road Fund (SRF); and the publication of an official “blueprint” by the National Development and Reform Commission for the implementation of BRI.2 Beijing has also backed the initiative with a considerable financial commitment, earmarking

“Making the Crooked Straight”: China's Grand Strategy of “Peaceful Rise” and its Central Asian Dimension

40 billion for the Silk Road Economic Belt,

Ethnic Separatism in the People's Republic of China History, Causes and Contemporary Challenges

25 billion for the Maritime Silk Road,