The Impact of Development

 

There is immense animosity among Uyghurs towards the steadily increasing Han immigrant population, and their consequent economic and political domination in Xinjiang.

- While senior government posts are allotted to Uyghurs, the real political power resides in the organizational hierarchy of the Communist Party, whose leading officials are mostly Han Chinese.

-Ethnic minority children attend their own schools and colleges, but the language of instruction remains Chinese. Patrols are made in these schools to ensure that there remains no religious activity.

-The 2000 Census revealed that the Han population had grown to 7.49 billion. Around 90% of Xinjiang’s population were Uyghurs in 1949; now they make up only about 45% of the population.

-The influx of Han Chinese has heightened the competition between Han and local ethnic minorities for land and water resources in rural areas, and jobs in urban areas.

-Local authorities have also been increasingly inclined to discriminate against local minorities, which has only increased Uyghur resentment.

-The Chinese Government is also staking its claim to the province’s rich natural reserves, such as oil. In the Tazhong oil refinery in the middle of the Taklamakan desert, all workers are Han Chinese. The Chinese Government claims that Uyghurs do not possess the skills for jobs like these.

 

Han Chinese migrant workers in Xinjiang. Photo courtesy of BBC.

 

-Uyghurs speak a Turkic dialect and many of them speak little to no Chinese. As a result, many are disqualified from official jobs.

 

A young Uyghur shoeshiner. Photo courtesy of BBC.

 

Beggars are a commonality in Xinjiang, but most are Uyghurs. Many Uyghurs fear that the influx of Chinese settlers, with their built-in advantages, threatens their own culture, existence, and survival.