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Subscribe to RSSRAWALPINDI, Pakistan – The community of Uighurs in Rawalpindi’s China Market is small and close-knit.
About 50 families have emigrated here from China’s Xinjiang Province over the past 30 years, focusing on cross-border trade and driving the transformation of Gordon College Road from a sleepy hamlet into a thriving commercial district now known as the China Market.
“We celebrate holidays, weddings, and funerals together,” said one Uighur businessman originally from Khotan, a city in China’s Xinjiang Province, and who would only give his first name, Muhammed.
Adrienne Mong, NBC News
Shops in the China Market are mostly run by Uighurs from China's Xinjiang Province.
But they don’t share everything.
“We don’t talk openly about our politics or our beliefs,” said another Uighur businessman and community leader who also wanted to remain anonymous. “We’re always suspicious of Chinese spies.”
Persecuted at home
The Uighurs are one of China’s 56 officially recognized ethnic minorities, but in recent years they’ve also become one of the most restive.
A Turkic-speaking people with an Islamic faith, the Uighurs live mostly in Xinjiang, but their presence has been overwhelmed by a steady influx of ethnic Han Chinese. Before the Communist Party took over China in 1949, the Han comprised only five percent of Xinjiang’s population; they are now closer to 40 percent, with the Uighurs totaling nine million out of the 20 million or so residents.
The Han dominance in Xinjiang has fueled tensions between the two groups. In addition to commanding the government bureaucracy and local economy, the Han also dictate religious and cultural norms. Uighurs wanting to succeed – particularly in government – must learn Mandarin and forsake Islam.
In the last decade, the practice of their religion has been severely curtailed. The call to prayer on loudspeakers is banned – as are madrassas (religious schools). The number of Uighurs permitted to travel to Mecca to perform the Haj is also strictly limited.
Beijing argues these restrictions are necessary for maintaining “social harmony” and eradicating a terrorist movement it claims is designed to achieve a separate Uighur state.
The Uighurs we met in Rawalpindi, for the most part, said they had left Xinijang because they wanted more freedom.
“We decided to settle here in the 1990s,” said Muhammed. “It was better to stay here in Pakistan than in China, because there was no religious freedom in China.”
Adrienne Mong, NBC News
Haji Abdul Hamid, a 76-year-old Khotan native, has spent the last 18 years of his life in Rawalpindi.
Yet even as the Pakistanis have welcomed the Uighurs, this small community puts Islamabad in a delicate predicament vis-à-vis its giant neighbor.
The rise of Islamic militancy inside Pakistan has alarmed China, which suspects Uighur separatists from Xinjiang are hiding in Pakistani tribal areas. In fact, it’s believed that during the 1980s many Uighur militants were enrolled in madrassas in the South Asian nation and fought in the Soviet-Afghan War, and then again in 2001 when the current war began in Afghanistan.
These suspicions over the years have prompted Beijing to shut down the Karakorum Highway periodically, owing to concerns that the road has contributed to “the spread of Islamic ideology into Xinjiang and the movement of radical Uighur militants,” according to Ziad Haider, who has researched the highway’s impact on Islamic awareness among the Uighurs.
And harassed abroad…
Out of respect for its close friendship with Beijing, Islamabad has also taken action. The Uighurs in Rawalpindi said they are regularly brought in for questioning by Pakistani authorities. (Fear of harassment is the reason many traders did not want to be identified by name for this article.)
“They are worried that we are against the Chinese,” said the Uighur businessman and community leader whose family moved to Pakistan from Xinjiang in the 1980s and who spoke on the condition of anonymity. He cited an example from three months ago when one trader was detained by local authorities for 15 days of interrogation.
Another described the rough treatment his elderly parents endured when they were crossing the border from Pakistan into China. “They were interrogated on suspicion of terrorism,” he practically shouted as he remembered the scene. “My father, 85 years old! My mother, 75 years old! Terrorists? It’s ridiculous.”
Suspected Uighur separatists have been not only been arrested but also killed in Pakistan. Earlier this year in May, Pakistan’s Interior Minister announced that his forces had killed a leader of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, which Beijing has branded a terrorist group responsible for fomenting ethnic unrest in Xinjiang.
“The [Uighur] community here has to respect our rules, our laws, and also the fact that we have an excellent relationship with China. So we don’t want this community to create any problems for that relationship,” said Riaz Khokar, a former foreign secretary of Pakistan who nevertheless denies the Uighurs in his country are targeted in any way.
Adrienne Mong, NBC News
Abdul Rahman's parents are Uighurs from Khotan, but he was born in Pakistan.
‘China is our most important relationship’
The value of the alliance between Beijing and Islamabad lies in each side’s view of the other as a key bulwark against a common adversary: India. In addition to low-level skirmishes and long-running simmering tensions, Pakistan has fought three wars with India over the issue of Kashmir. China and India fought their own border war in 1962 and are regularly pitted as geopolitical and economic rivals jockeying for pole position in the region.
“China is our most important relationship,” said Khokar, who also served as Pakistan’s ambassador to China. “We attach the highest importance to it.”
Economic relations certainly attest to that importance. During Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari’s visit to Beijing in July, Chinese Commerce Minister Chen Deming said trade between the two countries could more than double from the current figure of $7 billion to $15 billion by 2015.
Much of the trade comes from large-scale infrastructure projects in Pakistan, ranging from highways to mining to power plants. Last weekend, officials here announced they were preparing to award a contract to build a $2.2 billion hydropower project in Azad Kashmir to a Chinese subsidiary of the Three Gorges Corporation – without subjecting the company to the normal bidding process.
And then on Monday, it was reported that China was going to build a fifth nuclear reactor plant in Pakistan, fuelling worries in the U.S. and elsewhere that nuclear material could end up in the possession of Islamic extremists suspected along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
We can ‘live the life we want’
Given the significance of Pakistan-China relations, the Uighurs on Gordon College Road tread carefully in their adopted home.
In 1998, one Uighur trader attempted to politically organize his fellow men in Rawalpindi but met with little success. The would-be activist then disappeared, recalled the community leader. “We believe he was a Chinese plant who was trying to root out people who were anti-China.”
Their caution stepped up a notch last year after July riots in the Xinjiang provincial capital of Urumqi; Uighur businessmen were especially wary about traveling back to China. (Cross-border trade serves as not only their main source of income, but also the main source of information. The community closely monitors developments in Xinjiang, relying mostly on word of mouth and occasionally through the Internet.)
Those who would speak on record were circumspect about their public views.
Although his parents hail from Khotan, Abdul Rahman was born in Pakistan 40 years ago. He travels frequently to Xinjiang to buy textiles for his shop, the Khotan Silk House. “If I would have been born in China, I’m sure my life and opportunities would have been equally good,” he said.
Haji Abdul Hamid is grateful for the opportunities he’s had in Pakistan. “I worked as a civil servant in agriculture [in Xinjiang],” the slender 76-year-old told me in heavily-accented Mandarin as we sat beneath a setting sun off Gordon College Road. “After 40 years, I retired and went into business for myself.”
His business was cement. Hamid exported it from China to Pakistan, over the Karakorum Highway. Eighteen years ago, he moved to Rawalpindi to enjoy the fruits of his success.
But for many, “Life here is good” for a different reason. “We can practice Islam the way we want, live the life we want,” said Muhammed.
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The Uighur nation is made up of a very ancient people. At one time, the Uighurs were the dominant population in their region - long before the Mongols swept Asia, the steppes of Russia, the Persian empire, and ultimately the Byzantine empire. It was while a part of the Mongolian empire that the Uighurs became Muslim.
Many of China's complaints are specious. The Uighurs, as with the Tibetans and most of the other ethnic minorities under Beijing's thumb, have for a very long time suffered discriminiation, represession and an all-out assault on thier cultural identity. In China's borders, Uighurs are quite similar to the Lakota Souix of the 1800's. But just as the Souix indeed fought and raided and struggled, so also has there been a violent and armed body of Uighurs resisting China.
The three Uighurs held at Guantanamo, who were admitted by the U.S. as innocent of terrorism charges, are now "guests" forever left in strange foreign lands. They are stateless people who in many ways symbolize the folk depicted in this article.
I wouldn't turn my back to any Muslim. China knows how to deal with militant Muslims. Other countries should follow the example of China and put a stop to this militant Muslim @!$%#.
Monger that fear & hate!!!!
I can't say I agree with you, Four Rivers. An imperialistic dictatorship that uses forced social engineering to invade and take over other countries, disenfranchise large groups of people, rob them of their culture and rights to worship freely is not something I can endorse. Indeed the militant Muslims share a belief in religious persecution and totalitarianism that I would like to see eliminated for every man, woman, and child. You would pit them one against the other, but really they have much in common.
I think this article explains why Obama is building ties with India. And why we should end any and all financial support for Pakistan. Pakistan provides safe harbor for the Taliban who kill our troops in Afghanistan, yet cracks down on the Uighurs to appease China. It's clear where Pakistan's loyalty lies. And its clear that we need to support India, a democratic nation, as a counterweight against China, a totalitarian state without any respect for the rule of law or human rights.
Once again China shows that she knows how to deal with it's terrorist threats. Don't let them get strong in the first place and you will never have anything to worry about. Fear is all these people know and they understand it well.
Which people would that be, exactly?
Does that mean you support imperialism, broad government persecution based on religious beliefs, and officially sanctioned oppression of minority groups, joe?
Please don't tell me you want that for America.
Genocide is a well practice terrorist/opposition elimination strategy in China since Qin Dynasty. It is certainly effective. But I won't wish it practiced anywhere else on earth.
Actually this report shows exactly who's interests we are defending in Afghanistan & Pakistan. We are defending the interests of the Chinese, their southern front. And they have us paying the total bill, while destroying our means to manufacture and trade. The do this via their artificially devalued currency , human rights (lack of ) and regulation (again lack of) policies.
Perhaps some day the imperialistic dictators of communist China will be succeeded by men and women who will remove their feet from the throats of the Tibetans, the Uighurs, and the Catholics. I know it seems crazy, but one can always dream.
Maybe in a hundred years, all religions will be irrelevant and spiritual needs will be fulfilled on a personal basis. Once this happens, people will get along much better I think.
Didn't Karl Marx predicted that ? Did you get his permission to publish his ideas ?
Sounds more like John Lennon, to me.
To commonsense.......a complicated situation, similar to many areas of the world, in fact practically all of them, discrimination is rampant in all countries. Obviously the upper hand dictates. Users by their nature are unrelenting. China is now taking advantage of the economics taught to them by the Western Powers, including the USA. Payback is always a "bitch". You're not saying Catholics are an innocent party here, are you? Their history reeks of abuse, all forms. Remembering the "Davidians" at Waco and the slaughter of 25 children under the age of 15..........perhaps you should take the stick out of your own eye.
The Uighurs People must find all ways to retake their Uighuristan nation back from the invaders Chinese these bad greedy violent invaders chinese had invaded Uighuristan long time ago and now have dominted this unfortunate Uighuristan nation! Uighurs must be more courageous and brave to fight off the invaders chinese living on their land now! Tibet and Uighuristan were sovereigned nations and were invaded and dominated by China! Chin is an expansionist and the entire world have to assist these occupied nations Tibet and Uighuristan to help them retake their nations from the bloody hands of the barbarous China!
Greetings to you
China should be eliminated from the world as to stop this violent criminal state to do bad things to Uighuristan, Tibet, Mongolia, India, Vietnam, Burma, Cambodia, Philippines, Japan, Russia, and Central Asian nations! Also, Sudan was devastated by China by the made in China genocide done to people here! and it was similar as China masterminded the Kher Rouges to holocaust people of Cambodia!
China has done too many crimes to the world! the world must eliminate China from the world map as the only way to stop this violent criminal state to cease doing harms to the world!
Greeting to your family.
Eliminating the Chinese ? No way. They are the best trained slaves. So submissive. So trusting.
Interesting that according to the article, Pakistan considers its relationship with China to be the most important. How much aid do they get from China compared with the amount the US pours into Pakistan??
They get the most important aid: Weapons and munition..
If all the people in china who disliked communism were allowed to leave,then out of 20 million people
there would be a million people remaining. They only stay there because the are too spineless to stand up against the communist who rule by terror.
China is not a communist country. I spend much time there and they have embraced capitalism more than the USA. They are a totalitarian capitalist society. Yes. They rule with an iron fist and don't support dissent from anybody - Muslims, Catholics, Pro-Democracy activists - Nobody. That being said they will be the number one power in the world economically and militarily in the next 20 - 30 years.
We keep buying China products every day at the detriment of U.S. manufacturing. They take the money and buy and build aircraft carriers and other military hardware.Roberto,you are correct,the Chinese probably will be the only Superpower in 20 -30 years. Our business and political leaders have sold us out by allowing all of this outsourcing to China and one day it will bite us hard on the behind.
China is a totalitarian state. We are encouraging it to be all it wants to be and never change by buying anything made there - including products made by "sold their souls to the devil" American companies operating there.
We need to begin a full boycott of China; as it is, now, all we're doing is making them stronger and stronger. But, to accomplish something of that magnitude will require a President and Congress that is willing to call a spade a spade and recognize that China is the last remaining Great Evil Empire, that would if it could and won't stop trying till we stop them, to destroy us and all free nations on the face of the earth.
Red China has a simple formula for dealing with dissident states. They simply overrun them with residents exported from their overgrown cities. Should the Uighurs choose to stand up and complain they will simply be labeled "terrorists" and dragged into Red Chinese prisons and gunned down by Red Chinese army. Watch, and see these people be crushed as were the Tibetans. Population reconfiguration is Red China's main offensive arm, which they also use in the far eastern reaches of Russia, flooding them with wave after wave of immigrants who arrive and then continue to collect government paychecks from Beijing.