＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳 | 団塊世代が雑学や面白い話を発信しています
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49）さん / X
Recently, criticism that the Chinese government is oppressing the Muslim minority Uighurs in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region has spread internationally, and the Xi Jinping administration seems to be struggling to respond. As the government places top priority on maintaining stability in the region, it cannot ease up on its crackdown and has taken the position that it completely denies the allegations, but criticism from Japan, the United States, and Europe is only getting stronger.
This is similar to the oppression of the Tibetans and the repressive response to the Hong Kong democratization movement.
In this article, I would like to consider the reasons for the Chinese government’s oppression of the Uighurs, a so-called ethnic minority, while also taking into account the historical background.
1. Oppression of the Uighurs
At the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly on October 29, 2019, 23 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, and others, expressed concern about China’s large-scale detention of the Uighur ethnic minority in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, stating, “We call on the Chinese government to abide by domestic laws and international obligations in order to respect human rights, including religious freedom,” and issued a joint statement calling for an end to arbitrary detention.
Additionally, on December 3, 2019, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Uyghur Human Rights Act (a bill calling on the Trump administration to take strong action against China for oppressing Muslims, including the Uyghur minority, in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region) by an overwhelming majority of 407 to 1. If the bill also passes the Senate, it will be signed by President Trump before becoming law. At this time, the White House has not revealed whether the president will sign it or veto it.
US Ambassador to the United Nations Craft condemned the situation, saying, “More than one million people are being held in detention facilities.” It appears that the same oppression that is being done to the Tibetans is also being done to the Uighurs.
This oppression seems to be caused by the view that the Uighurs are “dangerous elements that threaten the one-party dictatorship of the Chinese Communist Party,” but on the other hand, I think it can also be seen as “an expression of the sense of crisis of the one-party dictatorship of the Chinese Communist Party.”。
2. What are the Uighurs?
The Uighurs are a Turkic nomadic people who were active in Central Eurasia from the 4th to the 13th centuries and their descendants. Currently, they live in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region of China (11-15 million people), as well as in Central Asia, including Kazakhstan (230,000), Uzbekistan (55,000), and Kyrgyzstan (50,000), Turkey (40,000-50,000), and Saudi Arabia (50,000). They are Muslims who speak the Uighur language.
Culturally and linguistically, they have very little in common with the Han Chinese. They are a people with an appearance somewhere between “Caucasoid” (Southern European or Turkic) and “Mongoloid” (the so-called “Central Asian” appearance).
Uighur historians claim that they have been living in the area that is now the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region for as long as 9,000 years, but the veracity of this claim is unclear.
The Chinese government has consistently maintained the view that “the people currently known as ‘Uighurs’ are the descendants of Turkic nomads who fled to Xinjiang from the nomadic Uighur Empire (744-840), which collapsed in the 9th century.”
3. History of the struggle between the Uighurs and China (Han people, etc.)
Due to the complex historical issues surrounding the country’s territory, some Uighurs are leading activities calling for separation and independence from the Chinese government. On the other hand, the Chinese government considers these activities to be “terrorist acts” and continues to oppress them, ignoring human rights.
Like Tibet, the Xinjiang region where the Uighurs live came under the control of the Chinese Qing Dynasty (Manchus) in the late 18th century. However, for the next few centuries, the region was under a “loose control” system, and the Uighurs were allowed the freedom to practice their own culture and religion, which was based on Islam.
However, after this region was designated the “Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region” in 1955, when China became the People’s Republic of China under a one-party dictatorship under the Chinese Communist Party, the environment surrounding the Uyghurs gradually began to change.
In 1966, as the Cultural Revolution spread, some of the mosques that are important to the Uighurs were destroyed.
Since 2001, the influence of the growing global anti-terrorism trend (especially against Muslims) has led to increased oppression of the Uighurs, the majority of whose population are Muslim.
In 1966, as the Cultural Revolution spread, some of the mosques that are important to the Uighurs were destroyed.
Since 2001, the influence of the growing global anti-terrorism trend (especially against Muslims) has led to increased oppression of the Uighurs, the majority of whose population are Muslim.
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