Xinjiang's ethnic clashes can be traced to Han migration in droves over the last two decades.AS MILLIONS of Han Chinese migrated to the Xinjiang region in north-western China about a decade ago, a senior government official likened the exodus to 'the peacock flying west'.
The migrating birds, said Mr Li Dezhu, head of the State Ethnic Affairs Commission, would lead to a decline in the non-Han population and this could cause ethnic friction.
But, crowed the sanguine Mr Li, such 'contradictions' would be eased with the economic development of China's West.
How wrong he was.
In a land where the wolf is regarded as a lucky omen by the native Uighurs, the Han peacock is an unwelcome bird.
'The new Han migrants are proud,' said Mr Litipu, 64, a retired Uighur engineer. 'They don't know our cultures and they just come here to take our jobs.'
Indeed, development and modernity did not turn out to be the magic formula that would unite the Han and the Uighurs in the 'greater Chinese nation'. They resulted, instead, in an inequality perceived to be race-based and favouring the Han.
Years of anger and grievances boiled over on July 5, when Xinjiang's capital Urumqi was rocked by the country's worst ethnic riots in decades. Nearly 200 people were killed and another 1,680 injured.
'Xinjiang belongs to the Xinjiang people. Han Chinese should go home,' said a young Uighur woman, who declined to give her name.
But more and more Han Chinese have been calling Xinjiang their home.
When the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) first took over the country in 1949, there were just 300,000 Han Chinese in Xinjiang, comprising 7 per cent of its population.
The Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking people who are mostly Muslim, accounted for 76 per cent.
But as China broke free from the shackles of a Maoist planned economy and allowed the freer movement of its people after 1978, many Han Chinese moved west in search of a better life.
By 2005, they were almost eight million strong, making up some 40 per cent of Xinjiang's population. The majority status of the Uighurs, who made up 45 per cent, was clearly under threat.
The Han numbers usually do not take into account the flood of migrant workers from other provinces, who are not officially registered as Xinjiang residents.
Xinjiang's communist party boss Wang Lequan told reporters in 2004 that one million labourers flocked to Xinjiang each year for the tomato and cotton harvests and that some decided to stay.
They were, no doubt, encouraged by the government's call since 1999 to 'develop the West' and by elite exhortations, such as former leader Jiang Zemin's wordplay on Mao Zedong's famous quote about the Great Wall.
'Bu dao Xinjiang, bu hao Han!' said Mr Jiang during a visit in 1990, meaning 'if you have not been to Xinjiang, you are not a good Han!'
Roads to rage
XINJIANG'S development exploded after Mr Jiang's visit. Kilometres of highways were added, airports constructed, and skyscrapers soon rivalled the mountains surrounding Urumqi.
The people prospered, with per capita gross domestic product in 2001 of almost 8,000 yuan (S$1,700), compared with 166 yuan in 1952.
In the 1990s, the Chinese government poured an estimated 900 billion yuan into the region, with a significant amount allocated to exploring energy resources.
Officials pushed the 'one white, one black' strategy, referring to cotton and oil, the twin pillars of the region's economy.
By 1998, for example, Xinjiang produced 1.5 million tonnes of cotton, up from just 55,000 tonnes 20 years earlier.
All that growth just fuelled the rage felt by the ethnic minorities, especially the Uighurs.
'Xinjiang has so much oil. We should be richer than the Saudis! But all the money has gone to the Han,' said a Uighur hawker who asked not to be named.
The Han Chinese dominate commerce with their clan networks that extend across China, and even government jobs are largely filled by them.
Said political analyst Chung Chien Peng of Hong Kong's Lingnan University: 'Many Uighurs do not speak Mandarin at all, which is usually the prerequisite for any good-paying job or government position, and many Han employers do not want to hire Uighurs.'
An ethnic Hui government official told The Straits Times that most ethnic minorities need to bribe their way into the civil service, with the going rate for an entry-level job at about 20,000 yuan.
'The crux of the problem is jobs. We are very easily satisfied. We just want our children to have jobs,' said an elderly Uighur.
'Our university graduates shine shoes and sell kebabs. They can't afford to buy their own homes and so can't get married. Are you surprised that they are angry?'
While all Uighurs interviewed conceded that two decades of development have raised their living standards, they also felt that the much higher cost of living these days has priced them out of their own land.
Property prices in Urumqi are now about 3,500 yuan per sq m on average, 10 times the rate in the early 1990s.
Even the price of lamb has spiked, with some Uighurs now unable to afford it during Korban, when sheep are commonly slaughtered as sacrifice.
'People have switched to chickens or pigeons,' said Mr Litipu.
Some experts believe that Beijing needs to change its thinking.
'The leadership must realise that many Uighurs and Tibetans are resentful of the Han not because they want to separate but because they feel discriminated against, and they want more respect and better economic opportunities,' said analyst Jiang Wenran of the University of Alberta.
'Beijing needs to think hard about how to deal with frustrations regarding inequality, a widening distribution gap and perceived injustice rather than purely focusing on 'separatist activities',' he added.
In fact, Uighurs whom The Straits Times spoke to never mentioned 'independence' or 'separation'. Most of them were concerned only about bread- and-butter issues.
The Han strike back
BUT ask the Han Chinese in Urumqi about income inequality and they never fail to attribute it to the Uighurs' laziness or lack of business acumen.
'They pay less tax and can have more than one child. Their children get 10 to 20 extra points during the university entrance exams. Government policies favour them more than us. But they are lazy,' said a Han taxi-driver, surnamed Zheng.
'Han shops open at 8am, but the Uighurs open theirs later. The Han people are better businessmen, getting better prices and selling products which are more popular.'
A persistent sentiment among the Han Chinese is that the Uighurs are ungrateful even though their lives have improved.
'They used to live in mud huts. Now they live in concrete buildings. Urumqi has developed so much. I don't know why they are unhappy,' said a retired worker, Mr Yi Kangzhan, 68.
'Labour migration exacerbates underlying ethnic tensions,' Professor Dru Gladney of the Pomona College in California, an expert on Muslims in China, said in a telephone interview.
This has created unhappiness that cuts both ways. Uighurs are discomfited by the large presence of Han Chinese in their midst, while the Han resent the Uighurs for enjoying what they see as the government's bias towards ethnic minorities.
When wolves leave home
TO MAKE matters worse, Uighurs have in recent years begun to venture out of Xinjiang as part of a government labour export drive to raise their wages and facilitate assimilation.
Since 2002, they have travelled to coastal provinces such as Shandong and Guangdong, taking up factory jobs that pay them two to three times more than in Xinjiang.
Some Uighurs left willingly but others were reportedly forced to go after local officials threatened them with fines.
As with many policies in China, implementation often takes on a draconian bent despite the policy's benevolent intentions.
The July 5 riots can be traced to clashes between Han and Uighur factory workers far away in southern Guangdong which led to two Uighur deaths.
'Han Chinese are going to Xinjiang for jobs while the government needs to take Uighurs across the country for work. That's very bizarre,' said Prof Gladney.
'There must have been resentment that Uighurs were getting jobs when Guangdong people were losing theirs.'
The obvious solution would be to restrict the migration of both Han and Uighur workers. But observers acknowledge that it would be tough to impose such barriers.
'The Han see that as citizens of China, they can go anywhere within the country. But their presence in large numbers causes resentment in Tibet, Xinjiang and even in Inner Mongolia,' said Professor Stevan Harrell of the University of Washington, an expert on China's ethnic minorities.
'But at least the government should not appear to be encouraging large-scale Han migration (into these regions) or providing economic incentives (for Han to do so).'
In all likelihood, the peacocks would continue to fly west.
But until the Chinese government makes real improvements to the daily bread-and-butter concerns of the Uighurs, Xinjiang would remain a hostile land to these Han birds. ST18/07/09
