1.1 The Kaleidoscopic Dimension of Xinjiang and the Genesis of This Work
Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is a multidimensional space1 encompassing a complex variety of identitarian factors, an autonomous region in China, with a geographical and territorial dimension, but also a metaphorical space, loaded with a multiplicity of political meanings and senses of belonging. Writing about Xinjiang today, in summer 2019, as a Western scholar and observer, means drawing a direct link with the intense campaign of ideological reeducation in force in the region and reflecting over the nature and challenges of the Chinese authoritarian regime. We should not make the mistake though of thinking about Xinjiang almost exclusively in connection with Beijing. Xinjiang is much more than that: It is a metaphorical, emotional, interactive and intellectual place where the production of knowledge is usually highly polarized, due to an engrained and well-rooted-in-history political struggle. As scholars, but above all as human beings, we should avoid the epistemological and heuristic fallacies which lead to reinforcing binarisms and oppositions, such as UyghursâHans, Chineseânon-Chinese, oppressors and oppressed. Opening our minds to new perspectives of knowledge is the only way to make progresses in better understanding the world.
This study takes into analysis the disparities in the social and economic development in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), Peopleâs Republic of China, in a time span ranging from 1999 to 2016. The original study, my Ph.D. dissertation, analyzed the socio-economic development of the region from 1999 to 2009; therefore, this work required an important process of updating and re-interpreting the situation on the basis of the new conditions. China today is different from the country I lived in 1999 and different also from China in 2009. Standards of life improved, allegedly for all,2 but in an unequal way, and while all what is âWesternâ attracted the curiosity and interest of Chinese people until some time ago, today more space is left to the idea of rediscovering the culture and local characteristics of a rich and diverse civilization. Basic needs are not anymore peopleâs first concern. This is also partially true for the area which today we call Xinjiang, ânew territoryâ in Chinese, a vast region lying in the Northwestern part of China, the biggest administrative unit in the country, covering the same land area of Germany, France and Italy altogether. Populated by more than 23 million people mainly belonging to thirteen officially recognized ethnic groups, the majority of them Muslim,3 Xinjiang borders on eight independent states: Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, and internally with Gansu and Qinghai Province on its Eastern border and the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) on the South. Its geography and demography, as well as its natural resources, make the region a geo-political and a highly strategic area for Beijing since at least two thousand years.4
This work is focused on social and economic disparities in Xinjiang, in the framework of the more extensive literature on development, identity and dynamics underlying economic and social inequalities in contemporary multi-ethnic contexts. Other countries and political environments could have been chosen as well.5 Reasons why I chose Xinjiang are several: The interaction between âdevelopmentâ, âdisparitiesâ and âethnicityâ in this frontier region is highly emblematic; center-periphery mechanism and the related socio-economic implications overlap at different levels; Xinjiang is currently undergoing a transformation from a traditional society, based on a familial and state-directed economy, to a âmodernâ society, where the central state continues to control fundamental economic activities, but at the same time, other actors are striving to obtain their socio-economic space. At the same time, the role of religion, Islam, traditionally constitutive of Xinjiangâs society, politics and economy, is being downsized in a deep political effort undertaken by the CCP. While the majority of local Uyghur Muslims perceives the development model which is being implemented in Xinjiang as top-down, Han immigrants hold a different, more positive, perspective: They thank the CCP for taking care of the area by investing and supporting it in a clear path to development. In a region where these forces concentrate and interact to generate or influence change and development, deep dynamics and factors at the basis of disparities can be detected, analyzed and interpreted. This is basically why the area is a perfect object of research.
Another reason is my background of studies on Chinese politics and international relations: The choice of this autonomous region is therefore more suitable than any other areas, on both a methodological level and an analytical level.
A third reason for this choice is that, before the formal beginning of this research in 2009, I had already been in Xinjiang for relatively long spans of time. During these early phases back in 2007 and 2008, she had the opportunity to collect an amount of contacts and material which allowed her to start approaching the issue of interconnections between ethnicity and disparities with a certain level of awareness, in the framework of the more extensive scientific discourse on inequalities and their determinants.
1.1.1 How Did This Work Start?
The genesis of this research work is rooted in a series of journeys to Israel and in the occupied territories of Palestine in different occasions from 2005 to 2008. Simultaneously, I had the chance to go to Xinjiang in 2007 to write reportages for Italian magazines. It was not easy not to compare the two situations. Their resemblance, on which I reflected across the years, was the starting point for the elaboration of a research project on Xinjiang. In the phase of the project draft, an attentive eye was constantly put on the Palestinian situation, mainly on the colonization process in the West Bank. Dru Gladney6 already analyzed, even if partially, similarities and differences between the two situations. After a careful evaluation of the possibility to elaborate a comparative research project, I realized that too many difficulties and obstacles were on the way. The distance between the two countries and cultures, the complexity of both situations, together with the linguistic and analytical skills required for such a research, were complex enough factors to discourage me from starting such an ambitious work. Thus, I decided to start studying in depth what, in works by Western authors and media, it has often been called the âinternal colonisationâ process of Xinjiang. The main actors involved are considered to be the Han organization Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XJPCC, also called bingtuan),7 while the primary theoretical framework I relied on is the âinternal colonialismâ model elaborated by Michael Hechter,8 who, taking as reference the Welsh and Celtic questions in Great Britain, worked out a comprehensive yet detailed theory of internal colonialism. As a critical voice, I considered Barry Sautman (2000) as an interesting alternative perspective.9
After two years of Ph.D. research on the bingtuan system in Naples, London, Beijing and Xinjiang, I had the opportunity to join the Ph.D. dual degree agreement between my home university, Oriental University of Naples, and the Department of Tibetology at Minzu University of China. The occasion was unmissable, since provided the opportunity to work together with a Uyghur tutor, live and study in the region with a regular student visa and with a research authorization issued by a Chinese institution of higher education. This new situation, together with the new research environment at Minzu University of China, required a reconsideration of the original research project, which is still fundamental in the current work, since Shihezi, one of the two areas chosen as case studies, is in fact the most important bingtuan city in Xinjiang.
The new research pro...
