The Turks and the Chinese

MUSLIMS LIVING AS MINORITIES The Turks and the Chinese: A History of Determination and Assimilation

Since becoming the Communist Party Secretary of Xinjiang on August 29, 2016, Chen Quango has applied the same brutal policies he used to “stabilize” Tibet

BY MUSTAFA GÖKÇEK

“The Chinese people, who give in abundance gold, silver, millet, and silk, have always used sweet words and have at their disposal overwhelming riches, they have drawn the far away peoples nearer to themselves. But after drawing near them, these have come to see their deception” (Translation based on E. Denison Ross and Vilhelm Thomsen, “The Orkhon Inscriptions,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London 5, no. 4 [1930]: 861-76).

Bilge Kagan inscribed these words of wisdom on the Orkhon Inscriptions in 732. The Khan of the Gök Türk Empire in Central Asia strongly warned his Turkish subjects against the tricks of their Chinese neighbors. Indeed, these Inscriptions, discovered in late 19th-century excavations, testify to the Turkish people’s struggle against assimilation and provide insights into China’s tactics to accomplish that very goal. History is once again repeating itself, and the Uyghurs are the latest victims of this most brutal assimilationist effort.

Leading a pastoral nomadic lifestyle and grazing their cattle and other livestock herds across the steppes of Central Eurasia, Turkic and Mongolian tribes constantly came into contact with the Chinese peoples, who led an agricultural lifestyle settled in cities. Historians have typically relied on the Chinese annals for most of the information regarding these nomadic tribes, as the nomadic lifestyle enables oral cultural elements — but not keeping and preserving written sources — to flourish.

This dependence has allowed long-standing Chinese stereotypes regarding these nomadic peoples as barbaric and violent to survive. The most recent example of this is Disney’s “Mulan,” which glorified the

Kul tigin Monument of Orkhon Inscriptions — Orkhon Museum, Kharkhorin, Mongolia leadership of a Chinese girl, posing as a boy, fighting against the barbaric attackers from the north — the Mongolian and Turkish tribes. While “history may be written by the victors,” this misrepresentation reminds us of the need to search for the truth in historical accounts and how history is reproduced everyday. Today, Beijing is leading a total and global fight to annihilate the Uyghur ethnic identity together with other Muslim minorities under its rule. These minorities’ distinct cultural and national identities are denied, and regular Islamic practices are characterized as evidence of “terroristic activity.” While historical examples of cultural assimilation are narrated as stories of the past, what we witness and hear today are clear glimpses of a genocidal campaign, even though many nations refrain from recognizing it as such. The Orkhon Inscriptions aren’t the only evidence of China’s attempts to assimilate historical Turkish nations. Incidentally, the Chinese sources themselves contain abundant evidence of the rulers’ various strategies developed over thousands of years and their many successes. Sending brides was a significant tool in this regard. While royal marriage between empires is a common theme throughout history, there are numerous accounts of Chinese leaders who considered giving a Chinese bride as a more practical alternative to war. In 814, a Chinese official explained how a marriage that accompanied substantial dowry would cost much less than a military campaign. Thus, Chinese rulers used dynastic marriages both to build royal connections with other empires and as a tool to expand against and subdue their enemies. Indeed, the same inscriptions in which the Turkish Kagan expresses his anger over the assimilation of Turks also testify to China’s influence. Bilge Kagan prides himself on building monuments, statues and mausoleums to honor his brother Kultegin, but it was the Chinese artists, sculptors and architects who helped build them all. The inscriptions were composed of four sections, one of which was written completely in Chinese. All of these indicate the level of Chinese cultural influence among the nomadic tribes.

Economic riches were long viewed as instruments of territorial gain and the assimilation of ethnic communities. As

Bilge Kagan’s inscriptions noted, China often sent silk, silver and other material goods as indicators of its vast wealth to the northern nomadic ruling elites as gifts, tribute or dowry. The long-term purpose was to increase its economic and cultural influence over the Turkish enemies and to enable expansion and control over the nomadic kingdoms.

Border markets were another economic tool. While they allowed for commercial warning. The Chinese continue to attract the world’s public opinion by utilizing their economic influence to cover up their assimilationist policies.

The Uyghur Khaganate had replaced Bilge Kagan’s Gök Türk Empire by 744. A fateful battle at Talas in 751 between the Muslim Arab armies and the Chinese would become a turning point on multiple levels. China’s expansion into Central Asia and suzerainty over local tribes by manipulating

TODAY, BEIJING IS LEADING A TOTAL AND GLOBAL FIGHT TO ANNIHILATE THE UYGHUR ETHNIC IDENTITY TOGETHER WITH OTHER MUSLIM MINORITIES UNDER ITS RULE. THESE MINORITIES’ DISTINCT CULTURAL AND NATIONAL IDENTITIES ARE DENIED, AND REGULAR ISLAMIC PRACTICES ARE CHARACTERIZED AS EVIDENCE OF “TERRORISTIC ACTIVITY.”

exchange, they also enabled the Chinese authorities to bring the nomadic tribes under control. As early as around 160 BCE, it is recorded that an official advised the Chinese emperor to build more border markets, for once the nomadic peoples from the north begin craving China’s luxury items “this will have become their fatal weakness” (David Christian, “History of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia” [Blackwell Pubs., 2018], p. 193). In their relations with their neighbors, utilizing economic means to assimilate the other appears to be a long-term strategy for China to realize its imperial ambitions.

Indeed today, a major factor that enables the ongoing Chinese genocide is Beijing’s economic influence, which has now reached a global scale. While almost two dozen Western countries have openly criticized China for its atrocities against the Uyghurs and a handful have recognized their ongoing oppression as genocide, the Turkic world and Muslim countries have remained mostly silent — some even openly support China’s policies. Among the numerous factors leading to this ethnic group’s loneliness, the leading one is the complex economic relations that Beijing has established with these countries, as well as the immense financial benefits they continue to reap. This is only the 21st-century version of Bilge Kagan’s their inner conflicts had reached its height, especially following the decline of the Gök Türks. When the Chinese armies invaded a Turkish town in today’s Uzbekistan and executed the local khan, the Muslim armies, which had already reached Samarkand, allied with the Turkic forces and defeated them at Talas.

This battle would have a significant impact on the rise of the Islamic civilization, as the Muslims quickly learned how to make paper from the captured Chinese soldiers and started using it on a large scale that would forever change the speed of learning and spread of knowledge. This also marked the farthest point that China’s control would ever reach, for this battle ended its expansion into Central Asia.

In addition, the Battle of Talas marked a significant turning point in Islam’s spread among the region’s Turkish tribes (Svatopluk Soucek, “A Short History of Inner Asia” [Cambridge University Press, 2000], p. 68.) From this point onward, Turks would quickly embrace Islam and, by the 11th century, they had become the forebearers of Islam in the Middle East and stand against the Crusades.

While these Turkic tribes continued to be more strongly connected with Islamic Middle East until the Russian invasions of the 19th century, the Uyghurs struggled with the continuous Chinese efforts of assimilation. The Turkish Muslim peoples of Eastern Turkestan were subjected to waves of assimilation under the Qing Dynasty (16441912) and Republican China (1912-49) (See Justin M. Jacobs, “Xinjiang and the Modern Chinese State [University of Washington Press, 2016]). Even the harsh assimilationist pressures unleashed during Mao’s Cultural Revolution (1966-76) seem quite light compared to what the Uyghurs have been going through for the last four to five years (See Sean Roberts, “The War on the Uyghurs” [Princeton University Press, 2020]).

Today, one of the most horrific episodes of assimilation, certainly meeting the definition of genocide, is ongoing in Eastern Turkestan. The leaked reports and the few survivors who are able to speak portray the 21st-century concentration camps in which millions of Turkic Muslim Uyghurs are being held against their will; forced to work to uphold China’s global economic enterprise; and subjected to indoctrination, torture, hunger, sterilization, unknown drugs, organ extraction, separation of children from parents and other as-yet-unknown crimes against humanity.

In the words of Bilge Kagan, the sweet words and riches are long over for the Uyghurs, for they are facing Beijing’s deception in one of history’s worst cases of forced assimilation. ih

Professor Mustafa Gökçek, who teaches courses on the history of the Ottoman Empire, the Middle East, Russia and Central Asia, helped establish the Middle Eastern and Islamic studies program at Niagara University, Lewiston, N.Y. His research focuses on the discourses of nationalism and Islamism at the turn of the 20th century in the Ottoman Empire. He is especially interested in the intellectual interaction between the Russian and Ottoman empires and looks into the role of Istanbul’s Kazan Tatar emigres in developing Turkish nationalism and secularization as regards Ottoman governance.