Published: 20:00 August 2, 2014<\/p>\n
The deaths of a 100 people in the Xinjiang region of China last week is but another outcome of the self-destructive relationship China has cultivated with its largest minority group, the Uighurs. China may well believe that its neglect and repression of them, since it annexed Xinjiang in 1949, is its birthright \u2014 given its unblinking claim that Xinjiang is its primordial territory. But the problem with this intractability is that it is slowly but surely pushing China into a crossfire of regional power play that it may truly not be ready for. Even as it comes down with a heavy hand on the continuing episodes of violence, it needs to realise that the world is in no mood to be undertsanding about it.<\/p>\n
China\u2019s xenophobic zeal has worked to consistently de-legitimise the Muslim Uighurs in their own territory \u2014 with their religion, language, customs and traditions finding little space to flourish under China\u2019s baleful glare. Their socio-economic conditions have worsened over the decades due to the influx of millions of Hans into the Xinjiang region who enjoy better economic opportunities than the Uighurs, who are endemic to the region. In perpetuating decades of discrimination against them, China has once again demonstrated its love for aggrandisement.<\/p>\n
If it is serious about tackling the Uighur problem, China first needs to acknowledge its own role in creating it rather than calling it an act of terror. Like every country that has a minority population that calls for assimilative approaches in the interest of its well-being and political credibility, China too needs to consider the Uighurs as an integral part of its identity rather than a group of people that occupies land and benefits due to its oil and mineral wealth. Unless it takes a conciliatory route and considers a degree of autonomy for them, upholding their right to practice their religion and traditions, the Uighurs\u2019 clamour for separatism will have made the pragmatism of autonomy irrelevant. Above all, what China needs to also realise is that while the problem may be erupting in its backyard, it is attracting support from beyond its borders. It is not a situation that leaves it with many options.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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