Published by: THE WORLD UYGHUR NETWORK NEWS November 6, 1997
11/03/97, Reuters, By Jane Macartney
URUMQI, China, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Tursun Imen is one of the richest Uighurs in China.
The story of the Moslem cook turned millionaire hotelier who runs the biggest private enterprise in Urumqi, capital of China's westernmost region of Xinjiang, bears testament to the entrepreneurial possibilities belied by China's communist label.
Even wealthier than Imen may be the vivacious Rabiya Khadir, the region's richest businesswoman.
But her success has run up against an unusual problem for an average plutocrat -- the government does not agree with her husband's views. Suspecting that he favours independence for Xinjiang, it has suspended Khadir's foreign trade rights.
The story of the two Uigher millionaires reflects China's dilemma in governing this restive region where Moslems Uighurs far outnumber ethnic Han Chinese.
A TALE OF TWO TYCOONS
Imen, 53, says he has not experienced prejudice from officials or banks.
Khadir, 49, has confronted not only the disadvantages of being a Uighur in China, but a traditional disdain for women.
Imen says he is worth about 100 million yuan ($12 million), although that could be a conservative assessment since capitalist entrepreneurs in communist China often prefer to downplay their success.
``I hope that my success can make other Uighurs proud,'' said Imen, who is of the 10-million-member Turkic-speaking ethnic minority who make up the bulk of the population in Xinjiang.
Seated behind an imposing desk, his head covered by the ubiquitous green embroidered skull cap preferred by most of China's Uighurs, Imen waves his arms in excitement as he describes his path to riches.
He attributes his prosperity to the sweeping capitalist-style reforms unleashed by late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping in 1979.
``As soon as I heard about Comrade Deng Xiaoping's reforms, I left my state job and set up my own restaurant,'' he said.
``Before 1979, everyone worked eight hours a day, and people spent most of the time looking at their watches to see how much longer they had to wait before they could go home,'' Imen said. ``You just went to work and went home again.''
``Now who has time to look at their watch?''
Imen certainly doesn't. He has just opened a 212-room hotel in the heart of Urumqi and is setting up a farm to supply produce from an oasis on the edge of Xinijang's desolate Taklamakan desert.
Urumqi has 6,900 private entrepreneurs and 360,000 individual businessmen. Imem is the biggest, officials say.
They try to ignore the colourful Khadir, dismissing her success as a bubble business built on suspect loans.
Khadir estimates her total worth at about 220 million yuan -- an impressive return on her initial start-up capital in 1980 of 60 yuan.
She boasts domestic assets such as an eight-storey shopping complex and a six-storey apartment building in Urumqi, while her international interests include a leather factory in neighbouring Kazakhstan and a department store in Uzbekistan.
But her business has been stymied since her passport and foreign trading rights were confiscated on March 28 amid suspicions that her husband, a college professor who is now in the United States, supported the Uighur separatist cause.
``My husband is his own person, I am my own person. We are not the same,'' she said. ``But people are jealous of me, they just can't stand to see my success.''
Khadir says that the bigger the challenge and the more difficulties she faces, the more determined she is to overcome these obstacles.
``My enemies cannot stop me,'' she said. ``I believe in the reforms of Deng Xiaoping and the policies of the (Communist) party. I will succeed.''
COMMUNISM LITTLE OBSTACLE TO MAKING MONEY
Khadir and Imen started out just after the radical 1966-76 Cultural Revolution when ``capitalist roaders'' were sent to jail and when setting up a private business was politically very daring.
Imen, the son of a prosperous farmer from the village of Yingjiashi near the Silk Road trading post city of Kashgar, had been trained as a cook and then worked in a state-run hotel in Urumqi for 18 years.
``I watched in the hotel as they sold their dumplings and their costs were very high,'' he said. ``I thought I could do a better job.''
On his first day of business in his tiny family-run restaurant near the city's bus station, Imen made 70 yuan ($8.3) -- a small fortune at a time when the average monthly salary was not much more than 100 yuan.
``We were so excited we couldn't sleep all night,'' he said.
Since then, Imen's rise has been smooth, helped by his warm relations with local Chinese and Uighur officials.
Three years after his business debut he opened a restaurant on the edge of one of the city's main bazaar areas. From running a family business, he expanded to hire a staff of 13 in the days when private employers were still regarded as exploitative capitalists.
``The people of Xinjiang are an ethnic minority and I wanted to serve them their own food,'' he said.
It was a recipe for success. By 1989, his eatery was so popular that he expanded once again, renting two floors of a building in a smarter part of town, taking on 89 people and opening a restaurant serving dishes from his home town of Yingjiashi.
Last year he opened a hotel that cost him 60 million yuan ($7.2 million), including a loan of 28 million.
Khadir said she was one of those who gave Imen a loan.
``I want to support other entrepreneurs to succeed,'' she said, adding that the Communist party's recent congress endorsing private enterprise had inspired her with confidence.
Khadir says 80 percent of her business is based on trade in steel, cotton, cement, fertiliser, wool and consumer goods with the Central Asian states of the former Soviet Union, and has little doubt her business will resume soon.
``We Uighurs face a lot of difficulties,'' she said. ``But just watch me. I will succeed. I trust in myself, I am a woman and I won't fail.''
