ABSTRACT
Because of the intransigence of Beijing’s opposition to anything that appears to
support separatism and the scale of the Chinese military presence in Xinjiang,
organised political dissent within the region has always of necessity been
clandestine,1 but the Turkic-speaking and other non-Han Chinese peoples have
maintained and asserted their separate ethnic identities through the open
expression of their cultural distinctiveness. The Chinese authorities have
frequently mounted public demonstrations of their support for ethnic minority
cultures, and for Islam, both to placate members of the minority communities
whom they wish to keep loyal to the PRC state and, in the case of Islam, to show
foreign Muslims that their Chinese co-religionists can take part freely in religious
observances. At the same time the authorities have made clear their opposition to
individuals and groups whose cultural or religious activities could be construed as
support for separatist activities. Chinese officials regularly take part in Muslim
festivals, describing them as ‘festivals of unity’, while warning against separatist
activities, ‘carried out under the pretext of religion’.2
