Published by: THE WORLD UYGHUR NETWORK NEWS October 27, 1997

10/22/97, Reuters, by Jane Macartney

BEIJING, Oct 22 (Reuters) - China's Moslem minority has become increasingly restive in recent years but their separatist movement is unlikely to gather the strength to secede or to grow into a destabilising force, a U.S. expert said on Wednesday.

However, China's Moslems were gaining more attention, support and even capital from Islamic communities elsewhere in the world, Dru Gladney, a senior research fellow at the East-West Centre and professor at the Asian Studies Program at the University of Hawaii, told reporters.

Gladney, who was written extensively on the Moslems who live in China's far west, said Beijing's opening to the outside world since the 1970s and 1980s coupled with increasing globalisation had enabled its Moslems to boost international contacts.

China's Moslem minority has not only raised its links with other communities through rapid growth in travel and trade but also through more advanced means such as e-mail, Gladney said.

Beijing has become increasingly worried about Moslem separatism, especially as outbreaks of unrest among the Moslem Uighur minority -- a Turkic-speaking group in its westernmost Xinjiang region that borders Central Asia, Afghanistan and Pakistan -- have become more organised and more violent.

``They are seen as the last Moslems under communism and they are increasingly receiving world Moslem attention,'' Gladney said.

Beijing regularly accuses unnamed foreign forces of fostering a pro-independence movement in Xinjiang.

Local officials interviewed last week in Xinjiang insisted the separatists accounted for only a tiny minority but said the government was committed to setting up a ``great wall of steel'' to battle what it called ``terrorist'' groups.

Gladney said he had noted an increase in separatist violence in Xinjiang in recent years.

He described these as ``a few isolated incidents of separatism,'' but added that these were an extension of earlier problems in Xinjiang although on a larger scale. The region has seen sporadic rebellions against China over centuries.

However, Gladney said he saw scant possibility the Uighurs could secede from China although they could be destabilising in very localised areas as well as to China's world image as it enters and applies to join more international organisations.

The wider opening of China's borders to its neighbouring countries, particularly in Central Asia, would make it very difficult for China to close down again if the separatist movement gathered momentum, he said.

``China is a global country, it can't be hermetically sealed,'' he said.

Exiled Uighurs seeking independence for their homeland had set up groups in cities such as Istanbul, Almaty, Vancouver and Washington D.C., he said, adding that Uighur Moslems could rely on support and sympathy from the Moslem world.

Gladney said Beijing could avert ethnic tensions by making structural changes to ensure Uighurs did not lose out in China's race to modernisation and prosperity and that they were included in the political power structure.

Uighur militants want to set up an independent ``East Turkestan'' in Xinjiang, and last May eight people were executed after being found guilty of involvement in the planting of home-made bombs on buses in the regional capital, Urumqi, that killed nine people.

Last February, anti-Chinese riots in the Xinjiang border town of Yining left nine people dead and 198 injured.