ROOTS . 1
Asia:
an atlas of minorities
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Russia officially lists 120 minority groups while China claims 55.
territories between the two massive states.
Caucuses, the Chinese may soon face even
greater problems in Xingjian, where the
Uyghurs want their voices heard.
by Fernando
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Most inhabit border
While Russia has its hands full in the
with a substantial or dominant minority group) and the
Jewish Autonomous Oblast established by Stalin situated
in the Russian Far East bordering the Chinese province of
Heilongjiang. According to 2002 data, there were only
2,237 registered Jews in the province, while over 90 percent of the population was made up of Russians.
Orlandi
The “small peoples”
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Monsoon / Photolibrary / Corbis / A. Russell
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Corbis / L. Liqun
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sian Russia is home to a special category of minorities, the so-called “little people,” the indigenous peoples of the Russian North and Far East,
covered by Siberia. They maintain traditional customs
and habits and often dwell in places where climate and
living conditions are bleak. Overall, they constitute less
than 10 percent of the Siberia’s 40-million-strong population. Some of these peoples face extinction (the Yukaghirs,
for example) while others have been all but assimilated.
The Yukaghirs, who originated in the Kolyma River
Epa / Corbis / D. Azubel
mong the many legacies the Russian Federation inherited from the Soviet Union was the complex architecture that organizes and institutionalizes the
multinational stamp the country bears. The Russian Federation is multinational state composed of more than 170
ethnic groups, each one recognized as a separate nationality by the 2002 census. The Russian majority aside, some
of these groups are miniscule. As a whole, Russia numbers
21 national republics (each one the home of a specific ethnic minority group), five autonomous okrug (territories
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basin, numbered only 1,509 in 2002. Known only to a few
dozen people, their two original languages (Tundra Yukaghir and Kolyma Yukaghir) are rarely spoken. Most Yukaghirs instead speak Yakut or Russian.
The Buryat make up the largest Siberian group, numbering 436,000 people. Their costumes, nomadic farming tradition, and building of yurts for housing betray
their Mongolian roots. The process of “Russification”
that followed the annexation of their territory changed
the life styles of the Buryat living west of Lake Baikal and
on the lake island of Olkhon, as well as the Buryat who
dwelled in Irkutsk. Both groups abandoned their nomadic ways and itinerant agriculture. Soviet collectivism eventually reined in the remaining vagabond
Buryat. State promotion of atheism led to the closure of
local monasteries and the destruction of a large quantity
of cultural treasures, including Buddhist works.
The Karelians
n some respects European Russia presents a far
more problematic group of populations, both as
a result of historical dispersion and the flow of
contemporary politics. In the north are the Karelians,
whose language and culture is very similar to the border
people who would later form the Finnish nation. Despite
efforts by Soviet linguists to make it a national language,
Karelian is so closely related to Finnish that it’s considered a dialect.
They are the largest regional Russian ethnic group.
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Corbis / E. & N. Kowall
The estimated 436,000 Buryat people reside in Siberia.
Epa / Corbis / M. Reynolds
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The Soviet government granted Karelian lands the status of Autonomous Republic and repeatedly used them
as a springboard from which to attack Finland. In 1939,
soon after the signing of Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact,
Moscow demanded that Finland cede land and positions
for Soviet military bases. The Finnish Social Democratic government rebuffed Soviet pressure and the Red
Army began its invasion of Finland on November 30,
1939. Although the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of
World War II is commemorated frequently, Russia’s attack on Finland has fallen through the cracks of history.
Moscow’s Finnish campaign aroused considerable indignation and led to Soviet expulsion from the League of
Nations. Despite Soviet military supremacy, the tenacious Finns held firm.
As Finland neared capitulation (Moscow had created
an unrecognized puppet state known as the Finnish De-
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Heirs to the Golden Horde
mocratic Republic), the country was buttressed by Franco-British landings in Norway, an effective warning to
the Red Army, which halted its advance. A 1940 peace
treaty forced Finland to cede part of its territory, which
was quickly united with East, or Soviet, Karelia. After
1941, the Finns attacked the Soviets in what became
known as the Continuation War.
he middle and lower Volga region once played
host to the Khanate of Kazan and the Astrakhan
Kazanate, heirs to the Golden Horde that for 250
years dominated the medieval Rus’ peoples, later transformed, thanks to the Tatars, into Russia. Russians, Tatars
and people of other nationalities inhabited these lands
for centuries. When the Soviet Union undertook the
complex process of national and linguistic engineering
intended to shape the country into a whole, its well-laid
plans met with the greatest resistance in these regions.
The problem also included confusion, since it was difficult to who owned what. As a result, the Mari and Mordovin languages were both recognized without the imposition of geographical divisions, while the Komi people found themselves split into two parts, while maintaining the same language.
The Ural region also hosts the Bashkirs (Sunni Mus-
European Russia is rife with Asian peoples,
making governance from Moscow difficult.
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Epa / Corbis / D. Azubel
Hemis / Corbis / B. Morandi
Webistan / Corbis / Reza
Following World War II, Karelia became a largely Russian immigrant region. Today, only 9.2 percent of the Autonomous Republic is Karelian. As a minority, the Karelians long ago put aside dreams of independence and reunification with Finland.
Corbis / D. Conger
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Corbis / K. Su
Corbis / K. Su
lims) and the Mordovians, descendants of Finnish people who settled in Russian forests before the arrival of the
Slavs. Additionally, there were the Mari, Udmurtians
and Chuvasians, whose origins date back to the eighth
century, the fusion of the Turkish-language Bulgarians
with the Finnish-language Mari. The early years of President Boris Yeltsin saw Tatarstan obtain considerable autonomy, culminating in formal treaty (in an effort to assuage separatist ambitions). Had the Kremlin had chosen to maintained a similar policy in Chechnya at the
time it would very likely have averted the wave of bloodshed that for 15 years has haunted the Russian Caucasus.
The Tartarstan deal could have been a model. Instead, it
was a wasted opportunity.
Deported populations
n the Volga region, just as in the Caucasus, many
local peoples became victims of deportation. Between February 23 and March 9, 1944, while
World War II was still raging, some 500,000 Chechens
and Ingush were shipped off to Central Asia. They were
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The Volga and Caucuses are still home to people deported from Asia.
Some Russian regions are swamped with different ethnicities and languages, making uniform education difficult.
soon followed by contingents of Balkars, Kalmyks,
Karachay, Crimean Tatar and Turkish Meskets. People
were crammed into cattle cars and died by tens of thousands, many lose to cold, hunger, and disease.
The Babel of the Caucasus
Following Nikita Khrushchev’s “secret report” to at the
Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party, many of
these peoples were “rehabilitated,” but their return to
their families and lands of origin was frequently complicated. Once back, many were ostracized. A 1991 law provides for compensation of victims and restoration of administrative divisions as they were before the wartime
exiles. But the law is rarely implemented. For example,
four districts of Balkaria that existed at the time of the
1943 deportation were never recreated. Instead, returning Balkar deportees were forced to live in Kabardin districts, generating discontent and friction between the two populations.
n the Caucasus, the national and linguistic engineering imposed by Moscow clashed with the realities of a territory that was limited in size and
inhabited by a large number of peoples. In terms of ethnic and linguistic diversity, the Caucuses represent one
of the most complicated regions of the world. There are
ethnicities and nationalities that while living in the same
lands are profoundly different, with languages that,
though they emerge from the same family, are non-mutually intelligible. It’s no accident that people of the Middle Ages believed the occupants of the Tower of Babel
had found new homes in the Caucasus. In this context,
the results of Soviet policy on nationality were sometimes paradoxical. To meet a variety of local needs, for
example, the Circassia (or Cherkessia) was divided into
three territorial entities. The Republic of Dagestan was
then established paying no heed the principles of nation-
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ality. Then, in violation of the (seemingly forgone conclusion) principle of territorial unity, Ossetia was arbitrarily divided: North Ossetia was transformed into an
autonomous republic within Russia, while South Ossetia became an autonomous region of Georgia which in
turn was a Soviet republic.
Of Iranian descent, the Ossetians settled in the Caucasus around the second century AD and retained their independence until the 13th century, when they found
themselves sandwiched between the Kabardins and Circassians on one side and the Georgians on the other. Within two centuries they were the ruled subject of either of the
Islamized Kabardins or the Christian Georgians. During
the Soviet period, the Ossetian language first used Latin
alphabet, only to shift to Cyrillic in 1938. Meanwhile,
South Ossetians used Georgian characters until 1954.
Over the years, the Ossetians displayed their nationalist hankering more dramatically than other regional peo-
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The Minzu of Beijing
he People’s Republic of China formally refers to
itself as a united multinational state. In addition
to Han majority, namely the Chinese themselves
who constitute more than 92 percent of the population,
there are 55 recognized ethnic groups, Minzu, or “national minorities.” The position of minority groups within
the Chinese system was strongly influenced by the Soviet ideological approach. As a result, Beijing’s official position is to place the right of ethnic groups to preserve
their language and develop their culture ahead of assimilation. But as it often the case in non-democratic
regimes, the reality doesn’t necessarily conform to official statements or national propaganda.
The Zhuang, who number 15.5 million people, are
China’s largest single minority group. The Zhuang share
linguistic roots with another Chinese minority, the Dai,
whose language shares much in common with Thai. Despite the Thai connection, the Dai, who number between
one and two million, are among the most integrated of
China’s minorities. The Manchu in turn number some 10
million, but their language is rarely mentioned. Most
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have been co-opted into Han Chinese life. The Manchu
are heirs to the knights and hunters that conquered China in the 17th century, founding the Qing dynasty.
In order of importance, the Hui are China’s third most
important contingent. Numbering more than 8.5 million,
most are Muslim. Large numbers have settled in the
southern part of the autonomous province of Ningxia, among the country’s poorest areas. The Hui descend from
Arab and Iranian traders who traveled to China at the
time of the Tang Dynasty between the 7th and 10th centuries. Another Muslim contingent, numbering some 7.2
million, are the Uyghur. Along with the Tibetans (about
4.5 million), Uyghur cause leaders of Chinese Communist Party the greatest concern.
Reckoning with the Uyghur
he Uyghurs live in the northwestern Chinese region of Xingjian (literally “New Territory” or
“New Frontier”), a territory nearly five-and-a-halftimes larger than Italy and sparsely inhabited by some 19
million people nineteen million inhabitants.
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Traversed by the Silk Road, the territory has had a variety of masters over the last two millennia: the Turkmen
Empire, Tibet, the Kingdom of Idiqut Uyghur, the Mongul
Chagatai Khanate, Yarkland County, the Dzungarians,
and for little more than a century the Han and Tang dynasties. The Qing controlled the region until Manchu emperor Qianlong took over in 1758. Manchu control was
exercised by through the Ili governor general, based in the
city of Ghulja. Muhammad Yaqub Bek gained independence from the Manchu in 1864, but they retook it in 1877,
and in 1884 established the province of Xinjiang. During
the late Qing Dynasty, the Russians ruled most of northwest Xingjian, extending to Lake Balkhash. Today, this
area corresponds to parts of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and
Tajikistan.
In the early 1930s, a rebellion against local governor
Yang Zengxin led to the founding of the East Turkistan
Republic. In the next decade, warlord Sheng Shicai controlled Xingjian. In 1944, thanks Soviet backing, a new
East Turkistan Republic was created in the current IliKazakh Autonomous Prefecture in northern Xingjian. It
was short-lived, however. In 1949, control of the region
was taken over by People's Liberation Army and the Chinese Communist Party.
The “Unification” Process
ince the Chinese Communist takeover, in a transparent effort to limit nationalist aspiration, Beijing took pains to disseminate near-mythical
propaganda that promoted 2,000 years of Han control
over the region, claiming Uygher lands an “inseparable
part of China.”
The story goes, and it’s unique in world history, that
Chinese expansionism is really part of an organic and ongoing process of “unification” (tongyi), ); “conquests”
(zhengfu) and “annexations” (tunbing) are never mentioned. Textural references to military conquest are confined to the actions of foreign empires, such as the British
and Russian. It was these colonial powers that wrested
territory from the Qing.
The official Chinese version of history is not only removed from reality but also profoundly disrespectful to
the Uyghur people, who are keenly aware of their contested history and resent China’s heavy-handed interference.
In 1955, Mao Zedong transformed the Province of Xingjian into the Xingjian Uyghur Autonomous Region.
But the cosmetic name change brought few tangible benefits to the province’s inhabitants, which was neither autonomous nor in the hands of the Uyghurs. Instead, it be-
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came increasingly militarized, with the establishment of
the Bingtuan, the so-called Xingjian Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), an economic and semi-military
governmental organization. In 1954, Mao ordered hardline General Wang Zhen to create the Bingtuan as part of
an effort employ troops and technicians demobilized following the Chinese civil war.
The Bingtuan
he Bingtuan initially numbered 175,000. But its
size gradually grew to 2.5 million. It controls an
area of 74,000 kilometers square area that includes five major cities. Bingtuan “garrisons” are administrative structures in their own right. They’re not responsible to the local government (only to officials in
Beijing), manage their own educational system and
healthcare services, have separate newspapers and television networks. Their presence helps produce and sustain a significant portion of the region’s local income
while maintaining tight military control over an effectively vast amount of territory. By day, the Bingtuan produce steel and cotton; by night they patrol the province.
It’s also worth noting that Xingjian is rich in raw materials. The province provides is 22 percent China’s oil
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Sygma / Corbis / G. de Keerle
ples. Reunification was their first priority. The implosion
of the Soviet empire brought both the territorial division
and the status difference between the two territories to
the forefront, generating an explosive conflict that, alongside the struggle between the Abkhaz people and the Tbilisi government, has brutally marred Georgia’s recent
history. In August 2008, the drawn-out conflict led to Russia’s invasion of Georgia, allegedly in defense of North
Ossetia. By choosing the military option, the Kremlin
crossed a threshold. Russia’s relations with its neighbors
will never be the same. It was Chechnya, however, that
ended up producing the most violent conflict of the postSoviet period. Among the war’s victims were journalists
and human rights activists. Among the most well-known
cases is that of Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist and author who had repeatedly denounced Russian troop abuses in the powder-keg region. The subject of repeated death
threats, she was shot to death in her Moscow apartment
building on October 7, 2006. In September, Russia’s
Supreme Court ordered prosecutors to reopen the investigation into her unsolved death. As with many other similar but less high-profile cases, it’s safe to speculate the
new investigation will yield nothing of note.
China’s Han make up 92 percent of the population, but the country still harbors 55 ethnic groups.
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and gas reserves. The great salt lakes at Lop Nur, located
in the vast and remote Taklamakan Desert, provided an
ideal venue for China’s outdoor nuclear tests.
Potential Dynamite
he Uyghur’s nationalist goals, militarism on local
territory, colonialism, and repression of local culture, combined with an onslaught of Chinese immigration has made the Xingjian border area extremely
tense and rife with incidents. In the early 1960s, the ideological dispute between Moscow and Beijing was at full
tilt, the once-freely crossed border between the Soviet Union and China was shut tight. As a result, more than
60,000 Kazakh and Uyghur fled China in 1962. Recent
years have seen an increase in the number of violent confrontations. The Baren Uprising in April 1990, allegedly
devised by Islamist separatists, left an estimated 50 people dead.
After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Beijing
joined in global denunciations of Islamic terrorism — manipulatively, said critics. The decision gave the government further license to crack down harshly on Islamic
movements centered in Xingjian. In the West, this repression was largely met with indifference. More violence
came in July 2009, with ethnic clashes between the Han
and Uyghur in the capital city of Ürümq. According China’s official Xinhua news agency, 197 people died in the
two days of rioting. But the World Uyghur Congress, an
international organization of exiled Uyghur groups, disputed the figure and spoke instead of 600 deaths. But the
clashes were serious enough to ruffle the Beijing government. Chinese President Hu Jintao, in L’Aquila, Italy to attend the G-8 summit, returned home hastily while the entire province was isolated, a curfew introduced, and all
mobile phone and Internet communications severed.
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New Wave of Violence
ew violence came in September. The bizarre trigger mechanism, according to Wen Hui Po, a Hong
Kong-based Chinese language newspaper, was a
series of ethnic attacks in which people carrying needles
HIV-infected needles stabbed those of other ethnicities
at random. Bingtuan television confirmed the reports,
which appeared to reflect a kind of collective psychosis.
Whatever the cause, the attacks reflected the tense and
degenerative state of relations between Han and Uyghur
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residents of the province. At least people died as a result
of the September incidents. There were also political casualties. Li Zhi, who headed the Communist Party in Xingjian, was summarily dismissed. Changes were also
made in the hierarchy of the region’s security apparatus,
perhaps presaging fresh crackdowns.
Meanwhile, the Chinese press intensified its attacks on
Rebiya Kadeer, leader of emigrant Yoghurts and president of the World Uyghur Congress. Beijing’s Englishlanguage China Daily newspaper, aimed mostly at foreign readers, was particularly active in disseminating
government critiques of Kadeer. But Beijing’s relentless
propaganda attacks may have provoked an undesired
side effect: The 62-year-old businesswoman and activist
has gained international status and is now viewed as
anything but a threatening terrorist.
Rebiya Kadeer’s Ascent
ronically, early in her career, Kadeer was praised
by the same propaganda machine that now
works to disparages her. She was once presented
as a model Uyghur, a hardworking citizen who had managed a successful business career. In 1993, that model citizen role saw her appointed as a delegate to the eighth
session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative
Conference, a political advisory body considered a
façade for the regime.
But in February 1997, riots broke out in the city of
Ghulja after execution of 30 Uyghur independence activists. Shocked by the events, Kadeer turned to social
activism. She was arrested by Chinese authorities in August 1999 and charged with having “leaking state secrets” (what she in fact done was send newspaper clippings to her husband in the United States). Washington
officials lobbied for her release, finally succeeding on
March 14, 2005, days before the arrival in China of thenSecretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Releasing Kadeer
into U.S. custody on medical grounds seemed like an
ideal diplomatic gesture. But Beijing badly misjudged
Kadeer’s steely resolve. Since then, despite her exile,
she’s become a thorn in the side of the Chinese Communist Party. If the situation in Xingjian continues deteriorating, and there’s no end in sight, Rebiya Kadeer may
soon become for the Yoghurts what the Dalai Lama is for
Tibet and Aung San Suu Kyi for Burma, a representative
of resistance to oppression.
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