’S OFFICIAL IN RESPONSE TO IN : A QUEST FOR “HOMOGENEOUS, EMPTY TIME”

Md. Abdul Mannan1 Md. Ataur Rahman Talukder2

Abstract This article examines the current phase of China’s response to Uyghur nationalism in its Xinjiang province. A massive and unprecedented level of China’s cultural offensive on the distinctness of the is underway. The central question that this article asks is: What is the motive that explains this intensive Chinese cultural offensive on Uyghur vernacular nationalism? The article claims that the current Chinese policies and actions against Uyghur nationalism fulfils the requirement of its official nationalism, in its bid to construct or reconstruct a homogeneous and unitary Chinese nation to a certain point—namely, “homogeneous, empty time”—for the stability and territorial integrity of the Chinese state. “Homogeneous, empty” time refers to a circumstance where a state achieves homogeneity of the nation that it represents to such an extent that the extent of homogeneity becomes an eternal continuity; and time becomes empty, because no changes occur with the passage of time after eternal homogeneity of the nation is achieved. Hence this article claims that the current phase of China’s cultural offensive fulfils the requirement of its official nationalism which, in turn, seeks to assimilate or homogenise the Uyghurs to such an extent where the Uyghurs will no more be Uyghurs but Chinese, helping China achieve a “homogeneous, empty time, in its nationalist imagination.

Keywords: Uyghur, official nationalism, ―homogeneous, empty time‖, re-education,

Introduction China‘s response to Uyghur nationalism in its Xinjiang province has recently drawn much international attention. The Uyghurs, who are ethnically Turkic and Muslim by

1 Md. Abdul Mannan, PhD, Professor, Department of International Relations, University of Dhaka. E-mail : [email protected] 2 Md. Ataur Rahman Talukder, Lecturer, Department of International Relations, Bangladesh University of Professionals, Dhaka. E-mail: [email protected] Social Science Review [The Dhaka University Studies, Part-D], Vol. 37, No. 1, June 2020 2 Mannan and Talukder religion, believe that they are different from the mainstream Chinese people — the — and therefore they deserve an independent state. Over the years, this aspiration of the Uyghurs has stood in sharp contrast to China‘s strong nationalist sensitivity and territorial integrity and elicited different types of responses (Bovingdon, 2010). In 1949, for example, the Uyghurs constituted 75 per cent of Xinjiang‘s total population, with the Hans accounting for just 7 per cent. Today, although the Uyghurs are still numerically the dominant group, they make 46 per cent of the region‘s population while the Hans accounts for at least 40 per cent (Liu, 2017, p.269). Thanks to China‘s massive state-sponsored ―in-migration‖ of the Hans in Xinjiang since the 1950s, it has caused the loss of overwhelming numerical superiority of the Uyghurs in the region in question (Gladney, 1998). The focus of analysis of this article, however, is the current and new phase of China‘s response to Uyghur nationalism. The new phase is clearly identifiable since the beginning of the reign of President Xi Jinping in 2013. A massive and unprecedented level of cultural offensive on the distinctness of the Uyghurs is underway. This includes, for example, the drive to eliminate from school premises and replace that with the standardised Mandarin Chinese, namely, Putonghua. Chinese adults are being detained in political re-education camps where they undergo political indoctrination, such that it empties their minds from Uyghurness and converts them to ―pure‖ Chinese. Uyghur children face similar fate. An ―intergeneration separation‖ of the Uyghur community as a whole is in the making, as children are reportedly taken care of and re-educated by state-run boarding schools or special children centres. There, they are immersed in education, alongside political indoctrination, and psychological modification. A parallel offensive on the Muslim root of Uyghurs runs as well. The offensive seeks to ―sinicize‖ . Uyghur are banned from performing religious activities and rituals and are forced to do what is forbidden in Islam. This campaign seeks to supplant religious faiths of the Uyghur Muslims with the ideological faith of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC). Some commentators term these Chinese actions as China‘s ―cultural genocide‖ on the Uyghurs (Withnall, 2019; Finnegan, 2020). The intensities of these Chinese action since the beginning of Xi Jinping‘s reign is just unprecedented. The central question that this article asks is: What is the motive that explains this intensive Chinese cultural offensive on Uyghur vernacular nationalism? In examining this question, the article asserts that the current Chinese policies and actions against China‘s Official Nationalism in Response to Uyghur Nationalism in Xinjiang 3

Uyghur nationalism fulfils the requirement of its official nationalism, in its bid to construct or reconstruct a homogeneous and unitary Chinese nation to a certain point—namely, ―homogeneous, empty time‖—for the stability and territorial integrity of the Chinese state. ―Homogeneous, empty time‖ refers to a circumstance where a state achieves homogeneity of the nation that it represents to such an extent that the extent of homogeneity becomes an eternal continuity; and time becomes empty, because no changes occur with the passage of time after eternal homogeneity of the nation is achieved. Hence this article claims the current phase of China‘s cultural offensive fulfils the requirement of its official nationalism; and official nationalism, in turn, is an instrument of homogenizing the Uyghurs to such an extent where the Uyghurs will no more be Uyghurs but Chinese, helping China reach a ―homogeneous, empty time‖ in the construction of a homogeneous Chinese nation. The article is divided into three sections. The first section offers the analytical framework. The section defines the concepts of ―official nationalism‖ and ―homogeneous, empty time‖ and shows that official nationalism fulfils the requirement of achieving the goal of ―homogeneous, empty time‖ with regard to creation of a homogeneous nation. The second section presents a discussion on the vernacular Uyghur nationalism in China‘s Xinjiang province. The final section analyses the central argument of the article. The Chinese government perceives Uyghur nationalism as threatening to an imagined and unitary Chinese nation, and to the territorial integrity of the Chinese state. Thus, as the final section shows, China‘s official nationalism embeds an offensive cultural policy that seeks to erase the Uyghurness of the Uyghurs and convert them to ―pure‖ Chinese; and such aggressive policy is aimed at achieving the goal of ―homogeneous, empty time‖—i.e. a point of time or situation when there would be no existence of the elements of Uyghur nationalism but only official .

Analytical Framework: The Interplay of “Homogeneous, Empty Time” ’and “Official Nationalism” This section presents an explanation of the concept of ―homogeneous, empty time‖ as a precursor to framing how China seeks to achieve the goal of ―homogeneous, empty time‖ on the Uyghur question. Any explanation of the concept of ―homogeneous, empty time‖ cannot be divorced from the concept of ―official nationalism‖, because conceptually it is through official nationalism a state enters into homogeneous empty time in its nationalist imagination. 4 Mannan and Talukder

The term ―homogeneous, empty time‖ was originally coined by German Philosopher Walter Benjamin (1940). Benjamin contradicts traditional historicism‘s conception of time as a linear continuity. He sees that time is non-linear while asserting that the progression of ―human race in history is not to be separated from the concept of its progression through a homogenous and empty time‖ (Benjamin, 1940). A concise and precise definition of ―homogeneous, empty time‖ can be captured from one of the works on Benjamin (1940) by a political theorist: In homogeneous empty time, every moment of time is equivalent and empty. It is homogeneous because one ―day‖ or ―minute‖ or ―hour‖ is treated as equivalent to any other. It is empty because, on the whole, it lacks special moments which give it meaning (in contrast to cyclical, ritual, and biological time). It simply passes, and people fill it with contingent contents. Homogeneous empty time passes in an eternal present which remains fundamentally the same. The new reproduces the old in a series of structurally similar moments. This experience of time arises from the constant replacement and renewal of commodities. People experience time this way because of its technological and social underpinnings in the capitalist way of life (McLaverty-Robinson, 2013). The application of the concept of ―homogeneous, empty time‖ in the study of nation and nationalism is credited to Benedict Anderson (1983), the author of Imagined Communities. Nation, as Anderson defines, is an imagined community: ―It is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion‖ (1983, p.6). The fellow feeling among the members of the imagined community becomes an eternal phenomenon when the development of ingroup imagination among the members of the group enters into the phase of ―homogeneous, empty time‖. In the concept of ―homogeneous, empty time‖, time is homogeneous, because the ingroup imagination among the members of the community takes place simultaneously such that they experience any particular event (i.e. fellow feeling) homogeneously; and the time is empty because the homogeneous experience continues eternally. Thus, for Anderson (1983), nations exist in ―homogeneous, empty time‖—a time that must be discerned as an outcome of print capitalism. From its very inception, capitalism targeted untapped vernacular language markets and created an increasing demand for vernacular literature. In satisfying consumers‘ demand for newer products—i.e. vernacular literature and mechanical (re)production of the old contents—print-capitalism enriched vernacular languages as a by-product. Through China‘s Official Nationalism in Response to Uyghur Nationalism in Xinjiang 5 lexicographical and philological development, print capitalism produced a standardized version of vernacular languages which made communication within diversified vernacular populace easy (Anderson, 1983, pp.9-46). Through vernacular products—such as novel, magazines, and newspaper—print capitalism produced unprecedented simultaneity of imagination which by and large captured vernacular consumers on a single horizontal plane. The interior of these products represented the exterior imagined communities of the consumers in such a way that only reinforced their hypnotic imagination. Industrial scale production capacity of print capitalism kept the prices of these products affordable to a growing number of consumers. Daily consumption of newspapers and popular novels contemplated a simultaneous homogeneous imagination within its consumers. The impact was as such that these consumers experience of any event and their general attitude towards it was fundamentally identical and homogeneous (Anderson, 1983, pp.9-46).This homogeneity without any hindrance took the shape of an eternal present such that tomorrow is nothing but a replication of today with regard to the nationalist imagination of a group. Printing capitalism, therefore, made the time empty. A critical question then arises: From whose point of imagination is the time homogeneous and empty (Hamilton, 2006, p. 78)? As the imaginer and the imagined may live together, yet they can belong to different cultural realms, making it difficult to (re)produce an imagined community and ―homogeneous, empty time‖. If the imaginer and the imagined belong to different cultural realms, it also creates a hierarchy. For the imaginer (subject) is the power maker and the imagined (object) is the power taker. The powerful imaginer may impose its imagination on a weak group if the latter is reluctant to merge itself with the nationalist imagination of the former. Anderson‘s use of the concept of ―official nationalism‖ reinforces this argument and narrates how dynasties and states having more than one cultural realms tried to impose an official imagination through multiple policy levers (Anderson, 1983, p.101). Official nationalism is an instrument of indoctrinating the members of vernacular groups with the ideas of nationalist imagination of the dominant groups— usually represented by states or dynasties; it helps them enter into an eternal phase of their nationalist imagination, called ―homogeneous, empty time‖. It is worthy of amplifying how acquiring the phase of ―homogeneous, empty time‖ regarding the nationalist imagination of the state or dynasties is intrinsically related to official nationalism. Anderson borrowed the concept of official nationalism from Hugh Seton- Watson (1977) who described the term as a phenomenon of the 6 Mannan and Talukder nineteenth and early twentieth century. Seton- Watson notes that official nationalism developed as a reactionary policy to offset the vernacular nationalism produced by vernacular printing capitalism. Eighteenth century dynasties feared the vernacular nationalism as a source of separatism among their ethnically distinct subjects, and in reaction they imposed their version of nationalist imagination—i.e. ―official nationalism‖ (Seton-Watson, 1977, p.148).Thus, borrowing from Seton- Watson, Benedict Anderson narrates that official nationalism is ―an anticipatory strategy adopted by dominant groups which are threatened with marginalization or exclusion from an emerging nationally imagined community‖ (Anderson 2006, p.101). States impose ―official nationalism‖ by introducing state-run compulsory schooling where texts are intended to generate a sense of homogeneous and single community among the students. State declares and promotes the language of the ruling elites as the state language and encourages vernacular groups to take the state language as their primary medium of communication (Anderson, 2006).The history of the nation is rewritten, and culture is redesigned to produce homogeneity. Even foods and cuisine become a part of this imagining project (Ichijo & Ranta, 2016). State sponsored propaganda and administrative regulations are carefully designed to annihilate any sources of vernacular nationalism and ensure the success of ―official nationalism‖. The successes of the official nationalism are measured by the achievement of an eternal present—i.e. ―homogeneous, empty time‖—in the nationalist imagination of the state. of Czarist Russia and of may be cited as a couple of examples ―official nationalism‖. Under the reign of Alexander Ш, Russification became a dynastic policy. In 1887, Russian language was introduced as medium of instructions above the lowest primary classes and later private schools were incorporated within this Russification project. Even a university—the University of Dorpat—was shut down because it used German language as medium of instruction (Anderson, 2006).This Russification by the Czarist dynasty was aimed at achieving a key purpose: ―marshalling a growing ‗Great Russian‘ nationalism.‖ Such application of official nationalism was not geographically limited only within the borders of Europe. Thailand was one of the Asian countries which embraced an official nationalism, namely, Thaification. In pursuit of ―homogeneous, empty time‖, Thai king Wachirawut (1910-1925) imposed necessary policy levers of Thaification that included compulsory state-controlled primary education, official rewriting of history and administrative regulations. Along with these, the king personally added state- organized propaganda by writing two pamphlets: one of them was The Jewish of the Orient, and the other being Clogs on our Wheels (Anderson, 2006). China‘s Official Nationalism in Response to Uyghur Nationalism in Xinjiang 7

To recapitulate, nations, as Anderson asserts, tend to live in a ―homogeneous, empty time‖—i.e. a point of time or moment when members of a nation imagine their belongingness to the nation simultaneously to such an extent that no new event occurs to challenge their homogeneity. Entering this moment intrinsically requires what Anderson calls ―official nationalism‖. That is to say, official nationalism is an instrument of the state to enter ―homogeneous, empty time‖ per say an eternal present where only the nationalist imagination of the state—the powerful imaginer—exists. It is such an instrument which subsides all heterogeneities that could prompt separatism; it thereby brings all the heterogeneous components under a homogeneous identity to the extent that no new event emerges challenging the homogeneous imagination of the members of the nation that the state envisions.

Vernacular Uyghur nationalism in China’s Xinjiang province This concept of ―homogeneous, empty time‖ is a useful framework to capture China‘s recent response to vernacular Uyghur nationalism in its Xinjiang province. As a precursor to examining this issue in the next section, the present section presents a concise description of the birth and growth of vernacular Uyghur nationalism—a phenomenon that has been hugely blessed by ―print capitalism‖ and ―educational reform‖. Xinjiang is an autonomous region in . The region constitutes one-sixth of China‘s territory with about twenty million people (Bhattacharji, 2012). The population is ethnically diverse. As mentioned in the introduction, the Uyghurs are the largest in the region. They are ethnically Turkic, and overwhelmingly Muslim. Xinjiang has had a long history of conflict between the Chinese authorities and the indigenous ethnic Uyghur population which can be dated back to the . ―Mandarin name Xinjiang means simply ‗New Frontier‘— perhaps a reflection of the fact that the region was only brought under Beijing‘s control in its entirety during the 19th century rein of the Qing dynasty,‖ writes Ishan Tharoor (2009). Over the time, the tension between the Uyghurs and the Chinese increased incrementally. The central cause of the tension was the rise of vernacular Uyghur nationalism. Uyghur nationalism demands Uyghur‘s right to self- determination which the Chinese authority translates as the dismemberment of the Chinese state. The phenomenon of print capitalism and educational reform hugely blessed the birth and growth of Uyghur nationalism. To take educational reforms at first, it started in 8 Mannan and Talukder

Xinjiang as part of the greater Jadidist movement during the late nineteenth century— a period when Xinjiang was loosely ruled by China‘s Qing dynasty. Jadidism was a pan Turkic educational reformist movement which spread throughout the valleys and plains of . Jadidist key objective was to introduce Turkic people with modern ideas by setting up new style schools and progressive texts as a parallel alternative to traditional Islamic schools, namely, Madrasas. People from Russian central Asia—such as Kazaks, Uzbeks, and Tatars—all were influenced by Jadidism. The Uyghurs, being a part of the greater Turkic family, could not but be inspired by the movement. Uyghurs were well connected with their central Asian and Ottoman Turkic cousins through business networks, and it was the philanthropist Uyghur business class who felt the necessity of bringing educational reforms in Xinjiang (Tursun, 2018, p.29-30). The first modern Uyghur school was set up at Artush in 1885. The school named Hüseyniye was solely financed by the philanthropist Uyghur capitalists. Over the time, similar European style schools were set up throughout Xinjiang. Students displaying sign of merits were sent to Russia and Turkey for advanced studies. Teachers were invited from Kazan and Istanbul to push educational reform far ahead. For better classroom performances, teacher training centres were set up as well. Uyghur youths receiving advanced education abroad joined the cause of educational reforms upon their return. In this new type of school, students were taught science, history, geography, politics as well as other contemporary subjects (Tursun, 2018, p.30-31). In stimulating the feeling of vernacular nationalism among the Uyghurs, educational reforms interplayed with the blessings of print capitalism. Uyghur publication houses began to emerge in Xinjiang in the last decade of the nineteenth century. Printing technologies were imported from abroad in 1890 by the same business class who previously initiated the educational reform programmes. Metbei Xurshid and Metelli Nuri were the first two printing houses in Xinjiang. Publication houses printed textbooks in vernacular language and played a key role in meeting an increasing demand for Uyghur vernacular literatures—e.g. textbooks, magazines, and newspapers. The Ili Wilayitining Geziti was the first newspaper printed in Uyghur language. Later, the Xinjang Gazette appeared as the most dominant newspaper in Xinjiang (Tursun, 2018, p.30). Vernacular Uyghur newspapers and magazines became a source for Uyghur people to learn about socio-political as well as cultural changes across the world. The Uyghur people reinvented their history and culture China‘s Official Nationalism in Response to Uyghur Nationalism in Xinjiang 9 through the products of vernacular Uyghur printing capitalism. Indeed, printing capitalism turned to be a vehicle for Uyghur intellectuals in creating nationalist imagination of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang (Tursun, 2018, p.30). Of note, prior to 1920s, not many people from Xinjiang identified themselves as Uyghur; rather, the Uyghurs were part of prevalent Oasis identities—such as Kashgari and Turpan. Thanks to the blessings of educational reforms and print capitalism, after 1920 many people from Xinjiang increasingly began to imagine themselves as being ethnically Uyghurs and nationally distinct from the Han Chinese. The idea of national self-determination gradually captured the imagination of the Uyghurs (Tursun, 2018, p.36). The fervency of Uyghur nationalism was first manifested in 1933 when Uyghur nationalists proclaimed independent Uyghur Republic in 1933. The Republic could not last long in face of suppression by the Chinese authority. Proclamation of independent Republic recurred on a second occasion in 1944 but experienced similar consequence. Although these two attempts failed to achieve intended objectives, their impacts on the nationalist imagination of the Uyghurs were far reaching. Primarily, these events vividly and clearly displayed Uyghurs‘ distinctness from the Chinese, and their assertion to achieve self-determination (Tursun, 2018, p.51). They influenced successive Uyghur generations to struggle for national self-determination by asserting a discrete Uyghur identity. A graphical example of the influence was the rejuvenated demand for Uyghur Independence in the post-cold war era when the young Uyghurs drew inspirations from their past (Smith, 2000). This Uyghur vernacular nationalism has been a source of concern for the Chinese ruling elites. As mentioned before, there were two main sources of the Uyghurs‘ nationalist imagination: one was their vernacular print capitalism, and the other was educational reforms initiated by their philanthropist business class. Hence, all Chinese ruling elites—from the Qing dynasty war lords to the Communist Party officials— shaped policies to offset Uyghurs‘ nationalist imagination and dry out its sources— i.e. print capitalism and educational reforms (Tursun, 2018). As a case by illustration, policies of three successive governors in Xinjiang— (1911-1928), (1928-1933), and (1933-1944)—may draw our attention. Yang Zengxin used traditional Islamic scholars to oppose the educational reforms by tagging it as being non-Islamic. Jin Shuren and Sheng Shicai followed the footsteps of Yang Zengxin. They prosecuted and killed many Uyghur intellectuals to obstruct the spread of Uyghur nationalist ideas. Such policies, however, failed to thwart the 10 Mannan and Talukder progress of vernacular Uyghur nationalism (Tursun, 2018). This is evident from the two events of 1933 and 1944. During these events, also stated before, the Uyghurs proclaimed independent Republic. After communist takeover of China, ―Xinjiang was wholly subsumed into the new state in 1949 with Beijing steadily tightening its grip on the oil rich territory‖ (Tharoor, 2009). Interestingly, prior to 1949, particularly since 1922, the Communist Party of China (CPC) had pledged granting the Uyghurs the right to self- determination; but after the communist takeover, the newly established People‘s Republic of China (PRC) moved away from its previous pledge, and instead it granted autonomy to Xinjiang. Soon the revolutionaries discovered that ―every features of culture among the Uyghurs was different from that of China,‖ Dolkun Kamberi (2005) writes. ―This included languages, writing system, arts, literature, ideas, values, attitudes, history, religion, customs, music, dance, songs, and thought, even the personal features of the people, including their clothes, style of house decoration and food‖ (Kamberi 2005). Hence Xinjiang‘s autonomy did not prevent the PRC to consolidate its control over the province through various political, social, economic, demographic, cultural and ideological policies. All the distinctness of the Uyghurs was attacked by the Chinese government to convert them to ―authentic‖ Chinese (Kamberi, 2005). The government of the PRC contemplated vernacular Uyghur nationalism as a severe threat to its territorial integrity. As ―Chinese authorities consider China a multi-ethnic state of Han Chinese and various minorities and any nationalist or independence movements are considered illegitimate because China does not recognize the right of national self-determination and adheres strictly to a policy of assimilation‖ (Hyer 2006, p.75). Events, however, did not follow what the Chinese authority expected. The end of the Cold War was followed, inter alia, by the resurgence of , ethnic conflicts, secessionist movements throughout the world—all based on the demand for right to self-determination. The emergence of Central Asian Republics through the breakup of the Soviet Union sparked a drive for self-determination in Xinjiang. As Hyer (2006, p.75) explains, the ―independence of the former Soviet Central Asian republics had a ―demonstration effect‖ in nearby China, resulting in a stronger assertion of [Uyghur] and pan-Turkic nationalism with renewed demands for a change in the status quo.‖ Eventually, a new phase of conflict between the Uyghur nationalist and the Chinese government started. The Chinese government responded with a ―strike hard campaign‖ designed to build a ―great wall of steel‖ against the China‘s Official Nationalism in Response to Uyghur Nationalism in Xinjiang 11 nationalist Uyghurs (Gladney, 1998). ―We must oppose separatism and illegal religious activities in a clear and comprehensive manner striking hard and effectively against our enemies,‖ declared a Chinese official in late 1996 (italics original, cited in Gladney, 1998).

China’s Quest for “Homogeneous, Empty time” by Homogenizing the Uyghurs As noted above, a new phase of conflict between the Uyghur nationalists and the Chinese authority erupted after the Cold War: the Uyghurs have been inspired by a worldwide tendency of resurgent nationalism and the assertion of national self- determination on the one hand, and the Chinese authority adopted a policy of striking hard against Uyghur nationalism and separatism on the other. A new pattern of Chinese aggressive policies and actions against Uyghur vernacular nationalism is, however, clearly identifiable since the takeover by Xi Jinping in 2013 as China‘s new President (Zenz, 2018). A state sponsored Chinese official nationalism is explicitly visible since 2013 that seeks to eliminate the distinctness of the Uyghurs to convert them to ―authentic‖ Chinese. This section claims that such Chinese endeavour is aimed at achieving ―homogeneous, empty time‖ in China‘s nationalist imagination by transforming the Uyghurs to ―pure‖ Chinese. To begin with, it is worthy to be precise what China‘s official nationalism is to capture how it serves as an instrument of achieving ―homogeneous, empty time‖ in China‘s nationalist imagination. Chinese official nationalism is understood here as a state-sponsored cultural and political engineering aimed at homogenizing ethnic minorities with the dominant and majoritarian culture of the Han Chinese through a unifying ideology (Bislev & Li, 2014). For this purpose, as detailed below, Chinese official nationalism seeks to erase the sources of ethnic minorities‘ nationalist imagination—i.e. vernacular ethnic attributes—and replaces those with Chinese language, culture, and the ideological faith of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC). Erasing the sources of vernacular nationalism is designed to make the ethnic minorities imagine their identity in terms of nothing else but only being ―Chinese‖. This project of China‘s official nationalism is aimed at achieving an ultimate objective of entering into a ―homogeneous, empty time‖—a point of time where no further change in the ingroup homogeneous imagination of the Chinese nation will take place, with such homogeneity to continue as an eternal reality. This is, in the first place, quite discernible from China‘s monolingual policy which, in particular, seeks to eliminate vernacular language of the Uyghurs so as to homogenise 12 Mannan and Talukder them with a monocultural identity of the Chinese nation. Fifteen years ago, Dwyer (2005) wrote, ―Uyghur [language] is situated within a hierarchy of languages within Xinjiang, where it has become a supra-regional language but is clearly subordinate to the national Chinese.‖ This was not unsurprising, because Chinese language ―has been an enduring pillar of China‘s national identity‖ (Dwyer, 2014). Yet ―China historically accommodated multilingualism and promoted minoritized language education‖ (Han and Johnson, 2020, p.1). This has not been the case, however, over the last few years. The Chinese authority now pursues a monolingual policy in which only Putonghua—the standardised Mandarin Chinese language—is to exist in the construction and reconstruction of a unitary Chinese nation (Han and Johnson, 2020). Hence Uyghur language and culture faces elimination, let alone the question of its subordinate status to the national Chinese, in face of the onslaught of China‘s official nationalism. Reportedly, a concerted drive of the Chinese government is underway ―to all but eliminate the use of [Uyghur] and other local languages from school premises‖ (Sudworth, 2019). As part of this, individual school management frames ―strict, points-based punishments for both students and teachers if they speak anything other than Chinese while in school‖ (Sudworth, 2019). With Xinjiang already achieving ―full Chinese language teaching in all of its schools‖, vernacular language of the Uyghurs just embraces the fate of extinction (Sudworth, 2019). This aggressive language policy to covert the Uyghurs to ―pure‖ Chinese goes at par with political ―re-education‖ campaign (Zenz, 2018).The Chinese government has set up a large number of political re-education camps in Xinjiang where the Uyghurs are detained and forced to be assimilated with Chinese identity (Raza, 2019). Detainees are ―often held, unlawfully and without charge, as a result of religious ‗offences‘ such as excessive praying or non-religious acts such as accessing proscribed websites,‖ writes Maya Wang, a Human Rights Watch activist (cited in Phillips, 2018). At the political re-education camps, the Uyghurs are forced to sing China‘s patriotic songs; recite laws that bans unapproved religious practices; and learn the Chinese language (Philips, 2018; Shepherd, 2019). These ―patriotic‖ measures are aimed at making the Uyghurs forget their vernacular identity and love things that are associated with Chinese identity (Philips, 2018). An individual Uyghur detainee is released from detention camps only when the authority believes that he/she has been ―transformed‖ into an ―authentic‖ Chinese (Tazamal, 2019). Such campaign of re-educating the Uyghurs has ―expanded beyond adult education to children in an effort to sever the cultural linkages of the new generation‖ (Raza, China‘s Official Nationalism in Response to Uyghur Nationalism in Xinjiang 13

2018). This is evident from the Chinese government‘s action of enrolling state- orphaned Uyghur Muslim children into high-security boarding schools (Withnall, 2019). State-orphaned children are those who have lost their both parents and are taken ―care‖ of and ―re-educated‖ by the state. This is particularly revealing from the work by Adrian Zenz (2019): The Xinjiang authority has pre-empted actions against the risk that children—who have lost both parents in detention centres, or have their both parents detained—would be motivated to turn against the state. Hence, for such Uyghur children, China has been using state-sponsored caring system and re- education as instruments of creating ―intergenerational separation,‖ of the whole Uyghur community, claims Zenz (2019). These Uyghur children, aged between pre- school to high, spends 15 or more years in state-run boarding schools or special sheltering centres where they undergo ―intensive, state-controlled and highly coercive Chinese language education and immersion, along with political indoctrination and psychological correction‖ (Zenz, 2019, also see Byler, 2019). Similar onslaught of China‘s official nationalism on the religious root of Uyghur vernacular nationalism is noteworthy as well. What is noteworthy in this regard is the campaign to ―sinicize‖ Islam throughout China, including Xinjiang, under a five-year plan (2018-2022). Since the beginning of the campaign, mosques and Islamic schools have faced closure or demolition. ―The campaign is further enforced by removing Islamic symbols, restricting the use of Arabic, supplanting quotes from the Quran with those of President Xi Jinping, and forcing imams to spread the communist ideology,‖ notes Mingxuan (2020).In particular, these actions are reportedly being carried out on a large scale in Xinjiang province in order to wipe out the Muslim root of Uyghur nationalism. Other types of actions are noteworthy as well. Xinjiang government‘s list of ―signs of religious extremism‖ disapproves, among others, ―praying in public places outside mosques or abruptly trying to give up smoking or drinking‖ (Tazamal, 2019). There is ban on fasting during Ramadan (Islamic holy month) in general; in particular, Uyghur students studying in inland China are not allowed to fast in Ramadan and perform other religious activities; they are forced to eat pork dishes with Han students (Wei, 2020). The Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang are also forced to raise pig (Wei, 2020). In a more general level, a short list of bans on them includes: ―having an ‗abnormal‘ beard, giving children Muslim names, wearing a niqab (face veil), saying As-Salam Alaikum (peace be upon you), buying [or] seeking [or] promoting halal products, fasting during Ramadan, having a Qur‘an in one‘s home, abstaining from alcohol,…studying at Islamic schools abroad,…and going on [pilgrimage]‖ (Tazamal, 2019; also see Aljazeera, 2017). Non-conformists 14 Mannan and Talukder are detained in re-education camps. Reportedly, ―detainees are also made to undergo political indoctrination, lectured on the dangers of Islam and ordered to chant ‗Thank the Party [the CCP]! Thank the Motherland!‘ before meals‖ (Lau, 2018). All these actions embedded in China‘s official nationalism are complemented by Chinese government‘s rewriting of Uyghurs‘ history. China‘s official documents denies the historical link between the Uyghurs and the Turkic people. The Uyghurs are presented/represented to have been descendants of the ―Ouigour people living on the Mongolian Plateau during the Sui and Tang dynasties‖ (The State Council Information Office of the People‘s Republic of China, 2019). Xinjiang is claimed to be historically an integral part of the Chinese territory. China‘s historical development, as Chinese narratives suggest, has been founded on the norm of multi- ethnic unity such that ―Xinjiang has always been part of a unitary multi-ethnic China‖ (Merican, 2019). The narrative that Xinjiang has been historically a multi-ethnic region conceals the very fact that the Uyghurs had overwhelming numerical superiority in Xinjiang until their overwhelming numerical superiority had been balanced over the years since 1950s by a state-sponsored Han Chinese settlement in the region (Gladney, 1998). Indeed, the Chinese narrative in rewriting the history of the Uyghurs provides a powerful justification of China‘s cultural onslaught on the ethno-religious roots of Uyghur vernacular nationalism. In essence, as the foregoing discussions suggest, China‘s policies and actions against vernacular Uyghur nationalism fulfils the requirements of its official nationalism which, in turn, fulfils the requirement of achieving the goal of ―homogeneous, empty time‖ in its nationalist imagination. Achieving this goal is intrinsically connected not only to the construction of the eternal homogeneity of the Chinese nation but also to the territorial integrity of China on the Uyghur question. As indicated by the intensity of Chinese policies and actions, China seeks to secure stability in Xinjiang to such an extent where the Uyghurs will no more remain Uyghurs but only Chinese—an endeavour that can be explained within the conceptual framework of ―homogeneous, empty time.‖ Indeed, achieving ―homogeneous, empty time‖ by converting the Uyghurs to Chinese is believed to secure China‘s access to not only key natural resources in Xinjiang but also its most important strategic project—the Belt and Road Initiative—that touches Xinjiang to a significant extent(Zenz, 2018; US-China Institute, 2016). This claim is backed well by the unprecedented intensity of the onslaught of China‘s official nationalism on the vernacular nationalism of the Uyghurs. China‘s Official Nationalism in Response to Uyghur Nationalism in Xinjiang 15

Conclusion This article has examined the current phase of China‘s response to Uyghur nationalism in its Xinjiang province. It started off from the following question: What motive does explain China‘s current phase of cultural offensive on vernacular Uyghur nationalism? While examining this question, the paper has asserted that the intensity of Chinese policies and actions serves its official nationalism in the construction of a homogeneous Chinese nation up to the point of ―homogeneous, empty time‖. To recapitulate, the Uyghur separatist problem in China‘s Xinjiang province is a long-standing issue. The distinctness of the Uyghurs is determined by their ethno- religious attributes that they are ethnically Turkic and Muslim by religion. Over the years since the 1920s, the Uyghurs developed a homogeneous nationalist imagination that they are distinct from the dominant majority of China‘s population—the Han Chinese—by their distinct ethno-linguistic and religious identities. In response, an aggressive policy of striking hard has been clearly identifiable since the takeover by President Xi Jinping in 2013. The article has shown an unprecedented level of China‘s cultural offensive—all embedded in China‘s official nationalism—against the distinctness of the Uyghurs. Such cultural offensive seeks to dry out the distinctness of the ethnic minorities to such an extent where the Uyghurs will perceive their identity in terms of nothing else but being ―Chinese‖ only. This Chinese policy of homogenizing the Uyghurs with Chinese identity can be attributed to the growth of modernity. Modern states stand on a conception of politics in which there is a constant congruence of sovereignty, territory, nationality, and citizenship. Such conception of politics has forced citizens to conform to state- imposed common and standardized cultural arrangements. This is what is called cultural homogenization by which modern states have sought to make ―the polity and the citizens ethnically and culturally‖ coterminous (Conversi, 2008, p. 1286). As a case by illustration, one would consider ―bans of minority languages and anti- minority legislation in nationalizing states, with an overall emphasis on strict monolingualism and assimilation‖ (Conversi, 2008, p. 1286). Such aggressive manifestation of modernity can be explained through the analytical framework of ―homogeneous, empty time‖; and this is clearly illustrated, in this article, by China‘s cultural offensive on the distinctness of the Uyghur minority in its Xinjiang province.

16 Mannan and Talukder

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