‘It’s hard enough to get a permit to come here. It’s almost impossible to get a passport,’ replied Majid. He was right. Most Uighurs under the age of fifty have as much chance of obtaining a passport as they do of winning one of China’s lotteries. Old people with relatives overseas can travel, but a twenty-three-year-old like Majid would need both connections at home and a powerful sponsor in his destination country to leave.
He spoke English, which is perhaps why he felt he could be outspoken despite the audience watching us play. I didn’t have to ask leading questions to get Majid to talk about the situation in his homeland. ‘Most Uighurs want independence, but Xinjiang has too much oil and gas for the Chinese to let that happen. It’s cruel, because if we were independent then all our resources would enable us to develop very quickly. We could sell them and use the money to raise our living standards. But there’s no hope of that. Uighurs have tried to be independent many times and it has never worked,’ he said.
Neighbouring countries like Kazakhstan are resource-rich too, but also extremely corrupt, so that little money trickles down from the government to the people. Majid brushed that fact aside, as easily as he pocketed balls. ‘Maybe, but we’d still rather be like them,’ he said. ‘You know why Uighurs are jealous of the ethnic Kazakhs and the Kyrgyz and even the Tajiks? It’s because if they have a problem here, they can always go to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan or Tajikistan. We don’t have that option. If there was a Uighurstan, none of us would be here.’
7
Uighurstan
Talking to Majid reinforced how frustrating it must be not to have a homeland, while living alongside people with their own countries next door. It had been easier for the Uighurs before 1991 and the break-up of the USSR, when central Asia was still subsumed within the Soviet empire. Now, there are five ’stans, three of which border Xinjiang, and they are a permanent reminder to the Uighurs of what they lack the most.
The closest thing to a Uighurstan lies in the far south of Xinjiang, where the former oases of the southern Silk Road are strung along the edge of the Taklamakan in a long slow curve. Those towns are the Uighur heartland, the places with the fewest Chinese migrants. Exploring them would be my long goodbye to Xinjiang, as I travelled back towards Han China along a route dating back thousands of years.
I spent a disappointing time in Yarkand, searching vainly for an echo of the trade terminus it once was. Most of the city’s historic buildings were knocked down in the 1960s and 1970s during the Cultural Revolution, with even the so-called old town no more than a cluster of rebuilt alleys. Only the Altun Mosque, a smaller version of the Id Kah in Kashgar, and the mausoleums of Yarkand royalty survived the Red Guards’ fury. They sat in a square, overlooked by restaurants and carpet shops.
Yarkand was important not just as a Silk Road stop, but because it is where Xinjiang starts to bleed into India and Tibet. Until 1949, when the Chinese closed the border with India which lies some 300 kilometres south of Yarkand, caravans of Buddhist traders from Leh in Ladakh were regular visitors, along with Hindu merchants. Now much of what was formerly north-east Ladakh is a disputed no man’s land, occupied by China but claimed by India as part of its territory.
Known as Aksai Chin, it is a region where high-altitude desert, saltwater lakes and untouched peaks combine in a landscape that could be a science-fiction writer’s dream of a far-off planet. Barely inhabited, save for PLA soldiers, and barred to foreigners, Aksai Chin can be reached only via Highway 219, which snakes south from Xinjiang for almost 2,100 kilometres, across passes as high as 5,400 metres, before it reaches Lhatse in Tibet.
The construction of 219 caused a war. The Chinese started building a road linking Xinjiang with Tibet in the early
He spoke English, which is perhaps why he felt he could be outspoken despite the audience watching us play. I didn’t have to ask leading questions to get Majid to talk about the situation in his homeland. ‘Most Uighurs want independence, but Xinjiang has too much oil and gas for the Chinese to let that happen. It’s cruel, because if we were independent then all our resources would enable us to develop very quickly. We could sell them and use the money to raise our living standards. But there’s no hope of that. Uighurs have tried to be independent many times and it has never worked,’ he said.
Neighbouring countries like Kazakhstan are resource-rich too, but also extremely corrupt, so that little money trickles down from the government to the people. Majid brushed that fact aside, as easily as he pocketed balls. ‘Maybe, but we’d still rather be like them,’ he said. ‘You know why Uighurs are jealous of the ethnic Kazakhs and the Kyrgyz and even the Tajiks? It’s because if they have a problem here, they can always go to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan or Tajikistan. We don’t have that option. If there was a Uighurstan, none of us would be here.’
7
Uighurstan
Talking to Majid reinforced how frustrating it must be not to have a homeland, while living alongside people with their own countries next door. It had been easier for the Uighurs before 1991 and the break-up of the USSR, when central Asia was still subsumed within the Soviet empire. Now, there are five ’stans, three of which border Xinjiang, and they are a permanent reminder to the Uighurs of what they lack the most.
The closest thing to a Uighurstan lies in the far south of Xinjiang, where the former oases of the southern Silk Road are strung along the edge of the Taklamakan in a long slow curve. Those towns are the Uighur heartland, the places with the fewest Chinese migrants. Exploring them would be my long goodbye to Xinjiang, as I travelled back towards Han China along a route dating back thousands of years.
I spent a disappointing time in Yarkand, searching vainly for an echo of the trade terminus it once was. Most of the city’s historic buildings were knocked down in the 1960s and 1970s during the Cultural Revolution, with even the so-called old town no more than a cluster of rebuilt alleys. Only the Altun Mosque, a smaller version of the Id Kah in Kashgar, and the mausoleums of Yarkand royalty survived the Red Guards’ fury. They sat in a square, overlooked by restaurants and carpet shops.
Yarkand was important not just as a Silk Road stop, but because it is where Xinjiang starts to bleed into India and Tibet. Until 1949, when the Chinese closed the border with India which lies some 300 kilometres south of Yarkand, caravans of Buddhist traders from Leh in Ladakh were regular visitors, along with Hindu merchants. Now much of what was formerly north-east Ladakh is a disputed no man’s land, occupied by China but claimed by India as part of its territory.
Known as Aksai Chin, it is a region where high-altitude desert, saltwater lakes and untouched peaks combine in a landscape that could be a science-fiction writer’s dream of a far-off planet. Barely inhabited, save for PLA soldiers, and barred to foreigners, Aksai Chin can be reached only via Highway 219, which snakes south from Xinjiang for almost 2,100 kilometres, across passes as high as 5,400 metres, before it reaches Lhatse in Tibet.
The construction of 219 caused a war. The Chinese started building a road linking Xinjiang with Tibet in the early
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