ABSTRACT
The ethnic composition of the northwestern part of the People’s Republic of
China, which stretches westwards from Xi’an, the old imperial capital and home
of the Terracotta Army, to the western marches of Xinjiang is extraordinarily
complex. It is the area where Chinese dynasties, expanding and contracting over
many centuries, encountered peoples speaking Tibetan, Mongolian and Turkic
languages and where the Chinese beliefs of Confucianism and Daoism came into
contact, and often conflict, with Buddhism in its Tibetan and Mongolian lamaist
forms and with Islam. In the provinces of Shaanxi, Gansu and Qinghai and the
Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region there is a mixture of Han Chinese and Muslim
Hui communities, together with some Tibetan communities, especially in
Qinghai. Further west, the influence of Chinese culture grows less and less.
Although it has been under nominal Chinese control for centuries, Xinjiang,
particularly in the south and west below the Taklamakan desert, is almost
entirely Turkic in its language and culture and Muslim in religion.
