Xinjiang Province: China's Piece of the Muslim World

—by Wesley Kawato

Xinjiang Province, located in Northwest China, is a land of grassy plains and barren deserts. It lies on a direct overland trading route between the Middle East and China. For many centuries this route was used by Arab and Persian merchants seeking to bring silk and spices from China to Middle Eastern and European markets. During the 15th century, Marco Polo passed through Xinjiang on his way to China.

Although closely associated with China through trade ties, the early people of Xinjiang were not of Chinese descent. The majority of them were Uygurs. The Uygurs are a Turkic people group, who speak a language similar to Turkish. Throughout history the Chinese and the Uygurs have, at times, been enemies, but more often, they have been allies and trading partners. China has directly ruled the Uygur-dominated Xinjiang region for less than 300 of the last 2,300 years. Many of the weaker Chinese dynasties found Xinjiang to be too far away and too militarily strong to control.

Ethnologists believe that Uygurs, along with all other Turkic people groups, originated in Siberia, just north of present-day Mongolia. No one knows when the Uygurs migrated to Xinjiang. We only know that they were already firmly entrenched in the land in 300 BC when the Uygurs were first contacted by Chinese, Persian and Greek merchants. These early Uygurs were Buddhists of the Mahayana sect. No one knows when the first Buddhist missionaries arrived in Xinjiang. We only know that this land was ruled by the loosely-organized Kocho Kingdom, and Buddhism was the religion of the aristocracy.

A Long Era of Wars
Wars in the 7th century AD weakened the Kocho Kingdom. The first attacks came from the Mongols, who conquered Xinjiang, but were driven out a few years later. In 691, Arab raiders sacked Kashgar, the capital of Kocho, causing the kingdom to collapse. In 744, a Uygur general named Kutlugh unified the region, creating the Kingdom of Yensay. In 751 the Chinese Tang Dynasty attacked Yensay, fearing the new nation might threaten its borders. Yensay, aided by Arab and Tibetan mercenaries, defeated the Tang at the Battle of Talas. The Chinese wouldn't attempt another invasion for many years.

In 759 Prince Mayanchar succeeded his father as Khan of Yensay. In 744 he had secretly converted to the Manichean faith, a heretical Christian sect, and converted the rest of the royal family to the new religion.

The Manichean sect originated in Persia, but had quickly developed a strong following in Roman circles. It taught that God and Satan were equal in power and the material world was evil and to be rejected. The Manicheans didn't believe Jesus had a physical body. The early church fathers condemned the Manicheans as heretics and eventually drove all followers of the sect out of the Roman Empire. Nevertheless, the sect survived for centuries after that in Persia.

During the 8th century another Christian sect called the Nestorians also gained a foothold in Yensay. The Nestorians believed that Jesus had two natures, one human and the other divine. Though they believed in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the early church fathers condemned the Nestorians as heretics. Today church historians are divided as to whether the Nestorians were a true expression of Christian faith or a heresy. The Manichean and Nestorian sects never spread beyond Yensay's elite. The common people remained firmly Buddhist.

Renewed warfare with China's Tang Dynasty caused Yensay to collapse in 840. The war also weakened the Tang to the point where they could not take control of Yensay territory. In 911, another Uygur general reunited the various tribes in Xinjiang, thus creating the Kingdom of Gansu and reviving the title of Khan. The new royal family wanted to distance itself from the old Yensay aristocracy, which had remained firmly Manichean and Nestorian. In 934, Khan Satak Bughra welcomed the first Muslim missionaries to Gansu. He eagerly converted to the new religion, forging an identity separate from the old aristocracy. Satak Bughra knew that the old aristocracy would never convert to Islam and used their refusal as an excuse to purge Gansu's elite families. The purge scared the common people who slowly began converting from Buddhism to Islam.

There was still a large Buddhist minority in Gansu in 1124 when China's Western Liao Kingdom conquered the Gansu kingdom. The new Liao Dynasty was Muslim, and conversions to that faith accelerated after the conquest. By the time the Mongols conquered Western Liao in 1218, there were no Buddhists left in Xinjiang.

But the Mongols didn't control Xinjiang for long. After the khan died in 1227, his four sons divided the area into four kingdoms. The Uygurs quickly rose up against these weak rulers. These revolts paved the way for the conquest of Xinjiang by the Kingdom of Changtai, a client state of the Chinese Yuan Dynasty.

The Changtai conquest restored peace and stability to Xinjiang which outlasted the fall of the Yuan Dynasty in 1368. China's new Ming Dynasty allowed Changtai to retain vassal status. Under the Ming, the khans of Changtai exercised broad local autonomy. When the Ming Dynasty fell in 1644, the early Qing Dynasty emperors also granted Changtai local autonomy.

Then in 1692 the Chinese Emperor Kanagxi, suspecting disloyalty, invaded Changtai, bringing what is now Xinjiang Province under direct Chinese rule. In 1768 the Qing reorganized what had been the Kingdom of Changtai into several provinces. One of them was Xinjiang.

Corruption weakened the Qing army, and in 1820 the Uygurs of Xinjiang rose up in revolt, led by a charismatic general named Changir Xoca. In 1826 General Xoca liberated Kashgar, the historic capital of Xinjiang. This conquest was his high water mark; the rebellion collapsed two years later.

Nevertheless, the revolt of 1820 exposed the weakness of the Qing Dynasty. Russia and Britain took notice and these two countries, along with others began competing for control of China. In 1863 Britain and Russia encouraged Yaqub Beg, a tribal leader, to declare Xinjiang independent of China. The rebels quickly defeated the various Chinese army garrisons, creating the Kingdom of Kashgari. In 1876 Britain turned against Kashgari when Yaqub Beg allied with Russia. That year Britain supplied China with the arms needed to re-conquer Xinjiang. The rebellion collapsed in 1877, after Yaqub Beg died in battle. Xinjiang remained pacified until the Nationalist Revolution of 1911.

Xinjiang Under the Nationalists and Communists
At first the Uygurs of Xinjiang welcomed the new government as liberators, but the Nationalists quickly wore out their welcome. Their refusal to grant local autonomy led to a new rebellion. By 1931 the Nationalists were fighting a full-blown guerilla war in Xinjiang. The Japanese invasion of 1937 forced the Nationalists to withdraw troops from Xinjiang which allowed the guerillas to capture the provincial capital of Kashgar. The Soviet Union used the fall of Kashgar as an excuse to invade Xinjiang. The Nationalists rushed troops back into the region, and by 1942, they had recaptured the entire province, forcing the Uygur guerillas to melt back into the population. Between 1942 and 1944, communist guerillas found a safe haven in Xinjiang. The Muslim Uygur guerillas found that they had little in common with the communists, but they allied with them after Mao Zedong promised Xinjiang local autonomy.

When Japan was defeated in 1945, the Nationalists never regained control of Xinjiang. After the collapse of the Nationalist government in 1949, Xinjiang eagerly joined the newly formed People's Republic of China. Tensions grew when Mao refused to grant Xinjiang local autonomy. In 1949 eleven Uygur guerilla leaders boarded a plane for Beijing to negotiate the structure of the new provincial government. The plane crashed, killing all aboard. No one knows whether this was an accident or an assassination. Either way, the communists took full advantage of the tragedy. They took direct control of Xinjiang while the rebels were too demoralized and disorganized to resist.

In the 1950s, the People's Republic of China was eager to develop newly discovered oil fields in Xinjiang. As part of their effort to control this valuable resource, they encouraged Han Chinese to migrate to Xinjiang. Since that time, the Han Chinese have become the majority in Xinjiang, and the Uygurs now face job discrimination. The resulting resentment sparked a wave of terrorism between 1997 and 2001, followed by a brutal government crackdown. This issue of autonomy for Xinjiang is still unresolved, but it seems highly unlikely that Xinjiang will become independent of China in the near future. The situation also creates a barrier between the Uygurs and the Han Chinese who live in Xinjiang.

History has shown that the Uygurs have heard only corrupted versions of the Bible's salvation message. Pray that faithful Christian workers will bring the true gospel to Xinjiang.