KHORGOS, Kazakhstan, April 28, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Traders travel freely
through the bustling Khorgos special economic zone that straddles the
Kazakhstan-China border, but signs on the Chinese side bear a blunt warning –
– no veils or long beards allowed.
It’s a stark reminder of the severe security policies that China has
imposed on mostly Muslim ethnic minorities in its vast border region of
Xinjiang, which it considers crucial to the success of President Xi Jinping’s
cherished Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
The gateway to Central Asia and key project partner Pakistan, Xinjiang is
at the heart of the globe-spanning trade infrastructure programme.
A series of riots, bombings and stabbings blamed on ethnic Uighurs over
the years prompted authorities to launch a massive security crackdown in the
far western region.
“The BRI is an important factor behind the central government’s urge to
bring the restive region of Xinjiang once and for all under its control,”
said Adrian Zenz, an independent German researcher specialising in Xinjiang.
The drastic measures have included placing as many as one million Uighurs
and other mostly Muslim Turkic-speaking minorities, including ethnic Kazakhs
and Kyrgyz, in internment camps that Beijing downplays as “vocational
education centres”.
Uighur wives of Pakistani traders have also been swept up in the dragnet.
The crackdown has put the leaders of Central Asia and Pakistan, who
attended a Belt and Road summit in Beijing this week, in an awkward position.
Key recipients of BRI projects, they have refrained from publicly
criticising China’s Xinjiang approach despite discontent within their own
countries.
“Frankly, I don’t know much about that,” Pakistani Prime Minister Imran
Khan told the Financial Times in March when asked about China’s treatment of
Uighurs.
Although Kazakhstan has stated that the wellbeing of ethnic Kazakhs in
China is an “important factor” in ties with Beijing, it has also voiced
support for China’s battle against terrorism, extremism and separatism.
Kazakh authorities are holding an activist on suspicion of inciting inter-
ethnic hatred after he highlighted the treatment of ethnic Kazakhs in
Xinjiang, while an escaped Chinese national who described conditions in an
internment camp has been denied asylum.
“Fundamentally for these countries it’s quite difficult because they have
this economic partner which is only going to become bigger and more
powerful,” said Raffaello Pantucci, director of international security
studies at the Royal United Services Institute.
“They need to try to manage that relationship while at the same time make
sure that they are representing their people to some degree,” Pantucci said.
– Trade hub –
Xi picked Kazakhstan’s capital to launch his pet project in 2013, a
symbolic choice highlighting Central Asia’s historic place on the ancient
Silk Road.
Projects include a highway connecting China, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, a
railway tunnel in Uzbekistan and a regional natural gas pipeline.
China’s investments in Central Asia pre-date BRI as Beijing has long seen
development in the region as key to pacifying Xinjiang, Pantucci said.
“From China’s perspective, the long-term answer to problems — separatism,
unhappiness in Xinjiang — is basically economic prosperity,” he said.
Kazakhstan and China share the massive, special trade hub in Khorgos,
where traders can shop for clothes, kitchenware and other goods without
needing a visa to go through security checkpoints.
“The goods are cheaper there. Every day we can come to the border without
it (feeling) like a border,” said Aida Massimzhanova, a resident of
Kazakhstan’s largest city Almaty.
But Khorgos is also a reminder of China’s tightening stance on the Muslim
faith that is dominant in Kazakhstan.
A Kazakh journalist on a press tour was told by Kazakh officials that she
would not be able to pass through the Chinese security check if she kept her
hijab. She chose to stay back.
On the Chinese side, journalists were prevented from approaching a sign
showing Muslim veils are prohibited — an apparent violation of an agreement
on a common law governing the special trade zone.
Authorities have banned a number of Muslim practices in Xinjiang,
including wearing “abnormal” beards.
– Public anger –
Gaukhar Kurmanaliyeva associates the special economic zone on the border
with the long arm of Beijing after her cousin Asqar Azatbek was allegedly
snatched by unknown Chinese people on the Kazakh side in December 2017.
The Kazakh foreign ministry raised the case with Beijing and told
Kurmanaliyeva that Azatbek, a Chinese-born Kazakh passport holder, was jailed
for breaking Chinese citizenship laws.
“We don’t know where he is (being held) or how he is,” Kurmanaliyeva told
AFP.
In Kyrgyzstan, a committee was formed by relatives of those vanished in
Xinjiang’s security sweep.
Marat Tagayev, who joined the committee over fears for friends living in
China, said the foreign ministry reported that most Kyrgyz have left the
internment camps.
“But how many still remain in the camps?” Tagayev said.
The Chinese foreign ministry did not respond to questions related to
security or detentions in Xinjiang, but said in a statement that Belt and
Road “has become the main line of cooperation between China and Central Asian
countries.”
In Pakistan, which hosts the multi-billion dollar China-Pakistan Economic
Corridor linking Xinjiang to the port of Gwadar, traders have protested over
the detention of their Uighur wives in the Chinese region.
Ali Ibrar, a 39-year-old trader from northern Pakistan married to a woman
from Xinjiang, has been involved in a push to bring abuses there to the
attention of Islamabad.
“Pakistan is not only silent about the plight of Uighur Muslims but is
also aiding and abetting China by forcing people like me to silence,” he
said.