Published by: World Tibet Network News, Saturday, July 13, 1996

HONG KONG (Jul. 10, 1996) IPS -- One of the main issues that Chinese President Jiang Zemin would have raised when he met Central Asian leaders earlier this month, no doubt concerned border security and the threat posed to China by Muslims opposed to Beijing rule.

Jiang wrapped up a six-nation European and Central Asian tour with a two-day trip to Kazakhstan that ended July 5, following visits to Spain, Norway, Romania, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

"China stands ready to join Kazakhstan and other Central Asian countries in opening, with an eye on the 21st century, a better future of friendship, cooperation and common development," Jiang said in an address to the Kazakh parliament.

Kazakhstan shares a 1,700 km border with China and along with the other former Soviet republics of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, has a large Muslim population, elements of which, says Beijing, are supporting a separatist movement in western China.

Chinese public security officials say that separatism in Tibet, and Xinjiang -- the latter home to China's substantial Muslim minority -- is the number one threat to China.

The Uigur Turkic minority in Xinjiang at China's western border, has for decades been fighting to establish an independent republic.

The nationalists accuse the Chinese authorities of "forced assimilation" by clamping down on religious and cultural freedom, forced birth control and "swamping the Uigur culture" by forced migration of Han Chinese into the region from other parts of China.

For years, tensions have run high between the ethnic Han Chinese majority and the Muslims. Flashpoints include China's exploitation of potential oil and other resources in the regions and use of desert areas for nuclear testing.

Historically, sporadic revolts against Beijing have been routinely silenced, but the separatist movement has regained strength since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Beijing believes the separatists are using religion as a front to gain converts to the nationalist movement.

The official Xinjiang Daily said in a front-page editorial recently: "We must distinguish between lawful religious activities and those which are against the law, and between true believers and those who are plotting separatism."

"Uighur nationalism and illegal religious activities pose the greatest danger to the stability of Xinjiang," Wang Lequan, the region's Communist Party secretary has been quoted saying by the newspaper.

Beijing had hoped that a new security pact between China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Russia signed in Shanghai in April would thwarting separatist attacks believed to be masterminded from across the border.

According to the agreements, the four countries would establish a demilitarized zone along the 8,000 kilometer border shared with China, and improve cross-border security cooperation.

But Uigur separatists have if anything become more militant in the wake of the agreements.

Hong Kong's Chinese language newspapers reported on an attempted assassination in May of a leading pro-government religious leader who was stabbed and wounded in Kashgar, Xinjiang's second largest city and a center of Uigur nationalism. Another pro-communist mullah Akenmu Sidke was killed.

Then in June, the Kazakhstan-based United Revolutionary National Front of Eastern Turkestan reported street protests in the cities of Turfan and Karamay and said that violence had broken out in a number of Xinjiang towns.

The Islamic group says this was in response to the detention of thousands of Muslims who had been rounded up since late April and were being held in camps in Yanji and Karamay.

The official China Business Times quoted Chen Jinchi, head of Xinjiang Public Security Bureau, as saying that those arrested were terrorists, murderers and other criminals.

Communist Party officials in Xinjiang worry that the separatist movement is becoming more organized and violent and have called for "vigilance against foreigners using religion to stir up anti- Chinese sentiment."

Xinjiang Daily reported in May that border controls between Xinjiang and the Central Asian republics had been stepped up to curb weapons smuggling and to crack down on the separatists.

Central Asian governments in desperate need to develop trading relations with China, have publicly condemned separatist activities and have banned nationalist Uigur movements on their soil.

"Any cataclysm on its (Chinese) territory naturally leads to instability in the whole Central Asian region," Kazakh Foreign Minister Kazymzhomart Tokayev said recently.

On his trip to Alma Ata, Jiang also made clear that Beijing stands ready to "take and active part in the various initiatives by the Central Asian countries aimed at promoting peace and security in the region."