The Washington Post has an interesting article on Iraqi and other “immigrants” in China, particularly in Yiwu, Zhejiang. The thrust of the article, titled “Chasing the Chinese Dream”, is that “For a growing number of the world’s emigrants, China — not the United States — is the land where opportunities are endless, individual enterprise is rewarded and tolerance is universal.” The article then goes on to undermine this more or less completely towards the end by mentioning that these “immigrants” couldn’t even bury one of their dead in China, and only 700 foreigners have the equivalent of a green card.
Anyway, I was struck by this bit:
Over the past 20 years, the government has gradually allowed its own Muslim minority to rebuild institutions that were devastated by state-sponsored attacks on Islam during the Cultural Revolution. Islamic schools have opened, and scholars of Islam are being encouraged to go abroad to pursue their studies. Unlike Christians, China’s estimated 20 million Muslims are considered an ethnic minority, a status that confers certain protections and privileges.
OK… uh, China still confiscates passports to prevent Uyghurs from going on the Hajj, bans students, children and those employed by the government (which is alot of people in Xinjiang) from attending mosques, and all schools and imams are licensed and controlled by the state.
But even more wrong is the assertion that Muslim is “an ethnic minority” and the false comparison to Christianity. This is a misunderstanding that probably arose because one particular ethnic group associated with Islam, the Hui, are often called “Muslim Chinese”. While the Hui are historically defined by their religion, as an ethnic group, they are defined by heritage. You are Hui if your mom and/or dad was Hui. You cannot convert to Hui, though there are Chinese citizens who dig up any scrap of minority ancestry they can so they can miss out on the One Child Policy. Also, you are still Hui even if you don’t follow Islam, and many do just that.
The other problem with stating Muslim is “an ethnic minority” is that Muslims in China are found amongst various ethnic groups. Specifically, besides the Hui, there are the Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Dongxiang, Kyrgyz, Salar, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Bonan and Tatars.
And then there’s the bizarre Case of the Hui Tibetan, and in fact the Muslim Tibetan as well. This distinction is based on the legend of a Muslim named Pir Jacob, who came from the West and was granted land to build a mosque by the Fifth Dalai Lama after he spotted Jacob through a telescope. The Hui Tibetans, on the other hand, were Muslims who came to Tibet from China Proper to the East. The two groups have moved closer together in recent history.
Nice catches. I read the article this morning in about 3 minutes and I misssed all of this.
Chinese or not, it’s just plain absurd to describe Muslims as an ethnic group. Islam, like Christianity and Buddhism, is a religion embraced by a vast number of people of many different ethnicities.
I find the notion of confiscating Uighurs’ passports strange. How is it workable? Most Uighurs won’t have a passport. 80% of the Uighur population, like the most Chinese, are farmers and dirt poor, and won’t afford travel cost to Beijing, not to mention applying a visa there and traveling further to Mecca. Those who have, like the Businesspeople and those who have relatives across the border, can simply cross the border at any time without volunteering telling the authority where they are ultimately going. If you go to any border crossing point along Xinjiang’s thousand kilometer long international border or to the Urumqi International Airport, you can witness tens of thousands of Uighurs traveling into and out of the country at any given day. How can you prevent them travel to anywhere by any means?
I noticed that you retraced your source to RFA. I suggest that you reconsider it next time.
@Leo: If you read the RFA article, local bureaus in Xinjiang confirmed themselves that they were collecting passports from Muslims to be held in PSB bureaus, just in time for the Hajj. This began immediately after Wang Lequan announced a crackdown on illegal pilgrimmages. Whether it is appropriate for people to go on pilgrimmage without permission is not the issue here. The point is that the Washington Post provides an inaccurate portrait of the government’s role in Muslims traveling abroad. As for the RFAs credibility, I don’t see any problem when they are stating things the Chinese goverment itself has said. I suggest you consider debating RFAs credibility on the merits.
Furthermore, many better off Uyghurs are employed one way or another by the state, and many of those I’ve known had their passport, as well as diplomas and other key personal documents, held by their danwei (which exercises more power generally than comparable danweis in other parts of the country), making it impossible to change jobs, let alone visit another country, without permission.
There is an underground pilgrimmage movement in Xinjiang, and that’s why you are partially right when you say “How can you prevent them [businessmen] from traveling anywhere?” This is precisely what some of them do – they go to Pakistan to trade, then from there secretly travel to Saudi Arabia (or elsewhere), and this is what Wang Lequan is complaining about. Again, my only point is that the Chinese government tries very hard to control and regulate Muslims traveling abroad, something that was not mentioned in the WaPo article.
As for dirt poor Uyghurs and businessmen, poor Muslims take extraordinary steps to save for the Hajj, which is for many the crowning achievement of their lives.
@Leo:
It’s probably very simple for the police to confiscate Uyghur passports, as I’m sure that a list of local passport-holders is available at the PSB office. In fact, I’m sure it’s impossible for any Uyghur to obtain a passport without cooperation from the local security authorities.
What do you mean when you say that businesspeople and people with relatives can cross the Chinese border freely? I’m sure it’s a huge pain in the ass and dangerous. How can the Chinese prevent “travel to anywhere by any means” you ask? Guns with bullets is my guess.
Yes, it is very probable. One can assume a lot of things to be probable without evidence. The fact is that there are a lot of large colonies of Uighurs who hold valid Chinese passports and papers throughout the Central and West Asia countries. Most of them are small businesspeople who have to return regularly to buy their goods. Uighur business is the main front shop for the Chinese products in these countries. I did not hear any news that these vendors abruptly disappeared since their last trip back the home country.
@Leo: “Yes, it is very probable. One can assume a lot of things to be probable without evidence. The fact is…”
Self-contradict much? RFA cited evidence. You haven’t.
No, I am not challenging your point. I just find ridiculous the claim made by Michael that a list of Uighur passport holders is available at the PSB. How horrible does the claim sound! If we don’t mention the detail that the PSB issues passports. It also takes care of a lot of business that other countries would assign a civic dept to deal with. It has the list of every Chinese citizens and every bit of their personal information that would be kept in different governmental departments in another country, no matter the concerned citizens are from specific ethnic background or not.
I have cited my fact: It is quite business as usual for the Chinese citizens of the Uighur heritage in the foreign countries.
Another fact I want to be cautious about is that if a Chinese citizen works for the state or some SOE, he or she will get issued a special passport for the public servant, which is always kept by the authority when they are not used, and which is definitely not allowed to be used for private purpose, such as the Hajj. If he or she wants to go on a private business, such as the Hajj, he or she has to apply for another passport for private affairs. Up to now, only a few wealthy coastal province permanent residents are entitled to apply for a private passport for no extra reasons. For the residents outside these provinces it is an arduous process anyway for any average mortals. I do not contest that it is even harder for the Uighurs to get a passport. If one cut the single case out of the whole picture, people will get the wrong information.
Actually I am still not comfortable with the RFA claim, for other reasons. But I think I have no time to be bothered with it.
Another fact, even in Beijing and Shanghai state workers’ diplomas are kept by the authorities. They are not supposed to change job at will. And this practice is even more widespread in the private sectors.
Regarding the so called Personal Files, IT IS ALWAYS PRESERVED BY THE RESPECTIVE PARTY BRANCHES! The exact situation is more complicated.
@Leo: OK, but now you’ve just got me confused. If you agree that the PSB has details on every citizen and manages the issuing of passports, and state authorities hold individuals passports, then why did you originally say that it seemed unworkable for the govt to confiscate passports? It sounds like you just answered your own skepticism.
Also, I’m not familiar with this state passport vs. private passport distinction. Could you give the Chinese character names for each?
OK, let me put it in this way. According to RFA, the Chinese government is confiscating Uighurs’ passports. This “Uighurs” is totally unquantified and unqualified. It sounds like a act on the whole Uighur population. If one watches the daily human flow of Uighur population over the national border, one soon realizes that a lot of Uighurs obviously still hold their passports.
The reason I say it is unworkable is very simple: To confiscate the whole Uighur population’s passports during the Hajj also means shutting down a large part of Xinjiang’s international trade and personnel exchange within the same period, which will be a international blunder, attracting a lot of eyeballs.
As to the distinction between the “state” and the private passports.
In China there are four kinds of passports under three categories: Diplomatic Passport, Service Passport, and simply Passort. Under Passort there are normal Passort and Passport for Public Affairs. The PPAs are issued for the government workers, SOE employees, government-affiliated organization members, and private persons for the public purposes. They are governmental properties, and they should be preserved at specific locations when they are not used.
You can get an idea what it looks like on the following site:
http://www.bjbj.gov.cn/detail.asp?id=65
@Leo: ok, lets parse this:
The RFA article quotes local authorities as saying:
“Local residential offices are collecting the passports in order to register them…The authorities will keep the passports for the public. If they want to go to other countries, they can come to fetch their passports. The authorities will give the passports back to them accordingly.”
They also say: “An official at a neighborhood committee in a town near the city of Kashgar confirmed the move, adding that passports were being collected only from Muslims, especially the Uyghur people” and quote him on it.
So we have open admission that this is directed at Uyghur people. It is not the RFA saying it “sounds like” its against the Uyghur population, they are quoting local officials saying it it very much indeed against the Uyghur population. While it may be “unquantified”, as you point out, I believe this certainly counts as “qualified”.
Now I agree with you that it isn’t a very effective solution. There will be some Uyghurs to whom they will return passports for the purposes of trade or other cross-border business, and those Uyghurs could, theoretically, make a run for Mecca. This is, in fact, the very problem I was referring to before. They can’t fully police Uyghur citizens after they have left Chinese territory, though through the SCO they certainly have tried. Bureaucratic edicts of this sort don’t usually work very well.
But I don’t see how you can say that the reference to “Uyghurs” being singled out is “totally … unqualified” (I agree they did not give a quantity) when they cite local officials as saying precisely that.
Furthermore, as far as eyeballs noticing a dearth of international exchange, I would point out that 1) many ethnic Uyghurs hold passports from Central Asian countries and could represent a number of such traders, 2) blundering in the international public eye is not exactly unknown to the Chinese government, especially in Xinjiang and 3) it seems that eyeballs certainly have been attracted to cross-border traffic in Xinjiang, namely the RFA. If you are skeptical of its truth because only the RFA is covering it, I would point out that beyond the RFA pretty much no one else even claims to pass on reports from the ground in Xinjiang, save Xinhua and Michael.
I am open to evidence that Uyghur traders holding Chinese passports have not been inconvenienced by these alleged confiscations. But that does not go so far as to demonstrate that officials have not been collecting passports in a new drive (as they appear to admit doing), nor does the fact that officials are pursuing an ineffective and unworkable strategy prove they are not in fact doing it anyway.
And once again, I point out that Wang Lequan announced tightening the net around illegal pilgrimmage the day before these confiscations began.
You did not get my point. With qualification I mean what Uighurs they are refering to. Without this one can only assume that it is against all Uighurs, every single Uighur. And this white-and-black picture is exactly RFA readily wants us to believe – China is just another Iraq under Saddam that’s worth dropping bombs right now.
Regarding the interview, I am utterly suspicious. China is not kind of place you can pick up a phone and say I am from the press / a concerned citizen / whatever, then the guy on the other end of the line begins to bla bla bla, dumping all the fishy details like “Yes, yes, yes, we are against the muslims. Yes, yes, yes, it is especially targeted at those Uighurs.” Both the internatinal and domestic press have considerable difficulties with Chinese government departments, have to cite unnamed sources, read between lines, play with wildest interpretations, pay for wining and dining. Now you have this cold-war news outlet, with limited personnel, funded only inadequately by the U.S. government, pick up a phone at their small Hong Kong head office and got all the interviews the big commercial agencies can only be envious of. Wow, what a job!
If you want to read such interviews and confirmations, you can pick up a free copy of Da-Ji-Yuan in Hong Kong, in which are all such kinds of “yes, yes, we did that”, “yes, yes, we did this.” Read it. Then you will in the same trench with Dick Cheney that the military missed their target back 2003 by entering Iraq instead of China. This paper has a much better financial stand and personnel resource than RFA.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t Saudi Arabia issue specific Hajj visas, with a quota for each country each Hajj? Wouldn’t this make it a hell of a lot easier for China to crack down on “illegal” trips to the Hajj?
Islam is a threat to China, especially those Uyghurs, they are particularly troublesome to us in coastal china where they live illegally as thieves, and they always want independence which is unacceptable because of its geopolitical and economic interest to us, and the some people in the west like pushing the disintegration of china for their interests, not those ‘values’ they claim to uphold. So whatever the policy we have to the muslims is our business, whether its tough line or not.
The more the west push us + their behaviour, the more we agree that Chinese govt should deal with them like those in the Vlaams Belang in the Belgium.