AbstractThe article explains why the Uyghurs (sometimes spelt Uighur) are under China's harsh restriction and analyzes the future policies the People’s Republic of China (PRC) will adopt and possible reactions from the Uyghur side. The recent rise of violent incidents in Xinjiang further entailed Beijing to adopt austere regulation on Uyghur's religious right, which causes great concern in the global Muslim community. As is well known, Muslims in China account for less than two percent of the population, and most of them belong to the two ethnic groups: Hui and Uyghur. The context of the analysis is the two ethnic groups’ responses to assimilation policies. Hui people exhibit a greater level of assimilation to the majority Han people in language and culture, and such Sinification is reflected in greater degrees of indigenization of the Islamic faith. By contrast, the Uyghur people resist assimilation to the majority Han people and submission of their Islamic identity to China’s state nationalism.
According to the 2010 official census data (as shown in Table 1),(1) among 1.3 billion population, China's fifteen-five minorities altogether are composed of only 8.4 percent population, in which the number of Muslims accounts merely for 1.7 percent.(2) The ten Muslim minorities include Hui, Uyghur, Kazak, Dongxiang, Kirgiz, Salar, Tajik, Uzbek, Bonan, and Tatar. Except for Hui and Uyghur, both of which have a significant population of over ten million, each of the other eight minorities have only 0.1 percent or fewer in the total population. However, those Muslims are concentrated in the vast Northwestern region (30% percent of the overall territory), including three provinces (Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai) and two autonomous regions (Ningxia, Xinjiang).(3) Hui people are distributed widely in the Northwestern region and some of them also reside in China's inland provinces. Uyghur people mostly live in Xinjiang, especially the southern area. Kazak, Kirgiz, Tajik, Uzbek, and Tatar are all minority groups who live in Xinjiang's border areas and share the same ethnicity to the people of neighboring countries, such as Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Russia, and Afghanistan. Dongxiang, Salar, and Bonan are all Muslim peoples with their own ethnic identity, but they are usually conceived as part of the Hui people. Donxiang and Bonan mostly reside in Gansu Province and Salar concentrates in Qinghai. Other ethnic groups, including Han Chinese, also have a small number of the Muslim population. They are distributed all over China, relatively more in some provinces like Yunan and Henan, together having around one million Muslims.(4)
Data Source: China's 2010 Census Data, National Bureau of Statistics of China
http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/pcsj/rkpc/6rp/indexce.htm
To understand the current state of the Muslim minorities and their relations with the PRC governing elite, China's policy towards ethnic minorities and religious faiths must be explained. This is an important dynamic since Muslims account for only 20% of the minority population and that Han Chinese and the other forty-five minorities also have Muslims. The difference between the ethnic groups with Muslim majority populations and those who follow the religion of Islam regardless of their ethnicity must be distinguished. While China's official ideology by communist tenets is atheism,(5) many religious faiths have attracted followers, including the traditional five religions (Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Catholicism, and Protestantism) – in addition to new religious creeds.(6) In view of the large number of ethnic groups and religious faiths, the PRC central government has stipulated a set of general guidelines for managing minority and religious affairs.
China's Minority and Religious Affairs Policy
Since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) established the PRC power structure in 1950, its minorities policy can be characterized by three principles: (1) All ethnic groups belong to the great Chinese nation, which includes 56 peoples, and its political unity is inseparable. (2) Under the grand Chinese nation, all ethnic groups have equal status. The ‘equal status’ refers to all kinds of rights and obligations regardless of ethnic difference, language, religion, customs, etc... (3) Due to different historical, geographic, climatic, and other conditions, the central government should adopt preferential measures in economic, cultural, social, educational, and other arenas to increase the well-being of those underprivileged minorities.(7)
China's general policy in religious affairs, on the other hand, can be summarized into the following five principles: (1) CCP party members and PRC government officials should stick to Marxism-Leninism and adhere to atheism (2) All PRC citizens have the right to believe or not believe in organized religion (3) All legal religions have equal status, and their purposes should all promote national unity. (4) All religious organizations and activities should be domestically organized under state regulation, and any form of foreign influence in religious activities is strictly forbidden. (5) Religions should be separate from education and politics. Under no circumstance should anyone use religious causes to influence education and politics.(8)