Investing in Insurance Risk

06 Szadziewski_Inner Asia 13/1 14/06/2011 10:45 Page 97

Commanding the Economy: The Recurring Patterns of Chinese Central Government Development Planning among Uyghurs in Xinjiang HEnRyk SzaDziEwSki Uyghur Human Rights Project [email protected]

abSTRaCT The Xinjiang work Forum convened in May 2010 set out an ambitious package of economic reforms in the wake of unrest in Urumchi, Xinjiang, in July 2009. The reforms can be interpreted as a tacit admission of economic failures in the region, especially the capacity of the Great western Development Drive to bring economic prosperity to all ethnicities. However, the formation and implementation of Xinjiang work Forum policies followed patterns evident in the formation and implementation of the Great western Development Drive and many centrally driven economic initiatives before it; namely, non-participatory, lacking in monitoring mechanisms and filled with traditional approaches of Han Chinese management of minority affairs. while the first two patterns occur frequently in Chinese government development planning nationwide, the third pattern is not as prevalent, and in Xinjiang it has exacerbated tensions. This makes development planning in Xinjiang distinct from many other parts of the country. attention to local conditions and local expertise is all the more acute in such situations. although the final assessment on Xinjiang work Forum policies is pending, the continuance of exclusionary practices makes it difficult to predict anything other than a new cycle of building Uyghur frustrations over economic conditions. Keywords: Xinjiang; Uyghur; Great western Development Drive; Xinjiang work Forum; participation

inTRODUCTiOn Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has had a continuous history of intervention in national economic development policy through centrally initiated campaigns. although the Chinese party-state maintains extraordinary control over the nation’s ecoInner Asia 13 (2011): 97–116 © 2011 Global Oriental


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nomic direction, the use of traditional CCP campaigns to encourage bursts of growth have somewhat abated in China’s east. nonetheless, in the more impoverished west and, in particular, in the Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous Region (XUaR or Xinjiang),1 the use of centrally initiated campaigns has not lessened. The Great western Development Drive2 (GwDD), adopted as state policy in 2000, is a case in point. as a centrally directed push that attempts to bring China’s west,3 including Xinjiang, into economic parity with the more prosperous east, the GwDD is a further example of a beijing-led campaign for accelerated economic development. The experiences of the Uyghur4 people in Xinjiang under successive ‘big push’ economic campaigns, from the Great Leap Forward in the 1950s to the Open up the northwest campaign in 1992, have constituted one of many sources of suspicion towards central authorities. Much of this suspicion stems from ‘topdown’ policy formulation and implementation, sensitivities over inequitable distribution between ethnicities and an absence of local participation in decisionmaking (bachman 2004; Sines 2002). These suspicions have not abated under the GwDD (aDb 2002: 277–8, 281). nicolas becquelin provides a typical example of imposed ‘top-down’ policies that explains continuing wariness among Uyghurs of central economic initiatives. From extensive fieldwork, becquelin describes how a central campaign to increase the cultivation of cotton in the 1990s predominantly favoured Han Chinese farmers of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC) over farms worked by Uyghurs. Farmers in Xinjiang were expected to grow cotton as a way to increase their income; but the availability of greater capital and machinery gave the XPCC an advantage over small Uyghur-owned farms to achieve the necessary level of investment to make cotton cultivation profitable. becquelin believes the explanation behind the central government’s aim in pushing cotton production ‘lies in the opening up of new land through reclamation: a key element in bringing in massive numbers of Han settlers to reinforce territorial consolidation’ (becquelin 2000: 80–83). according to becquelin, the GwDD is no different despite its stated economic aims. writing in 2004, he characterises the campaign as ‘a classic process of consolidation by the central state’ (becquelin 2004: 378). This is a view echoed by Moneyhon, who calls the GwDD an attempt ‘to quell ethnic unrest, solidify the nation, and legitimize the current regime by taming the “wild west”’ (Moneyhon 2004: 492). in the nine years between the adoption of the GwDD and the outbreak of unrest in Xinjiang’s regional capital of Urumchi in July 2009, the effects of the GwDD on collective Uyghur standards of living were broadly viewed as negligible (Roberts 2008). The unrest in Urumchi followed a peaceful demonstration against government inaction over an attack on Uyghur workers by Han Chinese at a toy factory in Shaoguan, Guangdong province; however, many observers pointed to a boiling-over of Uyghur frustrations as an underlying reason for the outbreak of unrest, especially frustrations concerning deteriorating economic


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conditions (blank 2009; Elegant 2009; Oster & Dean 2009). with documented cases of widespread hiring discrimination, high unemployment and low incomes among Uyghurs in Xinjiang (Human Rights in China 2007; Maurer-Fazio et al. 2004; wiemer 2004; zang 2011), the increased investment of the GwDD era appears to have exacerbated inter-ethnic economic inequity while attempting to solve an inter-regional one. This paper argues that the failure of GwDD initiatives to address inter-ethnic economic inequity cannot be ascribed solely to the targeting of investment to certain sectors of the economy, namely natural resources, that bypass the local Uyghur population, but also to the lack of participatory and monitoring mechanisms that permitted an unchecked continuance of growing inequality between Han Chinese and Uyghurs in Xinjiang. while a sceptical relationship with centrally directed economic campaigns among the broader Uyghur population may explain the suspicion that came to be attached to the GwDD, the continuation of ‘top-down’ policy formation also explains the persistence of that wariness. as has been extensively argued in development literature, grassroots stakeholder participation in development policy formation and the monitoring of resultant policies through participatory mechanisms lead to greater probabilities of equitable outcomes (brocklesby & Crawford 2005; DfiD 2000; Hamm 2001; Piron 2003; Veneklasen et al. 2004). Conversely, development practitioners who have critiqued participatory approaches object to the unquestioned primacy of participation in development interventions (Cooke & kothari 2001). Much of the debate has centred on the interventions of non-governmental organisations, as well as bilateral and multilateral development agencies. in this paper, participation is understood as an interaction between the state and grassroots stakeholders, ‘whereas elsewhere participatory processes emerge from partnerships formed in civil society – partnerships that build on diversity of relationships and benefit from non-governmental demonstration projects – in China, the partner is invariably the government and the interface role is restricted to government officials’ (Plummer 2004: 8). The participatory process in this sense creates positive outcomes through the establishment of a forum between government and civil society that provides an opportunity to air grievances and to share responsibility for the performance of agreed courses of action (Júnior et al. 2004; Lumbantobing & zulminarni 2004; Veneklasen et al. 2004). However, such a forum has never been a feature of GwDD planning, and not only highlights beijing’s sensitivity over criticism of its policies, but also underscores a discourse of the centre’s civilising mission towards China’s non-Han peoples. Sines states that ‘[although] there is the possibility for some positive impact, western Development as a programme of the central government is still entrenched in a colonial ideology. national minorities still seem to lack agency for their own development and are talked about as if they have little or nothing to bring to the table’ (Sines 2002: 16). in an unstated admission of deteriorating economic conditions among Uyghurs in Xinjiang as a contributing factor to the 2009 unrest, the Chinese


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central government convened the Xinjiang work Forum in May 2010, that set out to bolster the GwDD campaign in the region and, consequently, to realign the campaign so as to ameliorate widening inter-ethnic inequities. The Xinjiang work Forum commanded direct attention from the central leadership of the CCP and set new economic policies and priorities that included emphases on human resources, education, investment, natural resources and transportation, as well as the establishment of Special Economic zones (SEz) in kashgar and khorgas. One detail was conspicuously absent in the formation of, and in the policies emerging from, the Xinjiang work Forum. not one Uyghur, other non-Han or Han Chinese grassroots stakeholder from Xinjiang participated in the shaping or implementation of Xinjiang work Forum policies. while the phenomenon of non-participatory development planning is not unique to Xinjiang, the latitude that is occasionally applied in other areas of China, especially in cyberspace, even to discuss the policies that do emerge from such closed spaces, most certainly does not apply in Xinjiang (yang 2008). The Chinese government views discussion of state policy in Xinjiang, especially among Uyghurs, as a breach of state security: an approach to criticism that was illustrated in the July 2010 sentencing to 15 years in prison of Uyghur journalist, Gheyret niyaz, who had discussed regional inequities with the foreign media (bbC 2010; wong 2010a). Schrei states that large-scale investment in the economy, as experienced by Xinjiang under the GwDD, has come to be viewed negatively by some economists, especially when ‘people have no control over their resources and no ability to speak freely’ (Shrei 2002: para. 17). This paper also argues that the absence of grassroots stakeholder input on Xinjiang work Forum policy formation and on policy monitoring will result in a continuance of unfavourable outcomes for Uyghurs. Despite the implication of Uyghur participation in Xinjiang’s regional governance under the minzu autonomy system, there is little autonomy in policy implementation, let alone policy formation and performance, evident as central authorities dominate Xinjiang’s economic and political direction (bovingdon 2004a). Since July 2009, there have been few indicators that this situation will change. Lack of a civil society and state interface is a recurring problem nationwide in Chinese state economic interventions (aDb 2002: 114); however, in the case of the Uyghurs, such an approach creates exceptional problems. Differing income levels between ethnicities and the necessity of skills in Mandarin as a second language to take advantage of economic opportunities mean central planners should approach interventions in Uyghur areas with a high degree of sensitivity. baCkGROUnD Xinjiang covers 1.6 million square kilometres of China’s territory (approximately one-sixth of its total). Located in the northwest of China, the strategic importance of the region is underscored by its sharing of frontiers with eight countries as well



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as three Chinese province-level administrative units. The terrain varies across the region from alpine forests in the north to a vast desert in the south. Mountain ranges run east to west, which include some of the highest mountains in the world. The population according to census figures from 2000 stood at 19,630,000. The Uyghur population was 45 per cent of this total, while the Han Chinese population represented 41 per cent. The remainder of the recorded population in the 2000 census is composed of 11 ethnic minorities, many of whom share linguistic, ethnic and religious similarities with the Uyghur. kazakhs (7 per cent) and the Hui (5 per cent) are the largest ethnicities among the non-Uyghur and non-Han Chinese peoples. Despite the near-parity in percentage between Uyghur and Han Chinese populations region-wide, the southern part of Xinjiang is predominately Uyghur and the highest concentration of Han Chinese is found in the northern part. Politically, Xinjiang is administered as a Uyghur autonomous region, although internal administrative divisions separate the region into a variety of ethnically based autonomous subunits. The economy of Xinjiang is heavily reliant on natural resources (oil and gas) and agriculture (grains, fruit and cotton). THE GREaT wESTERn DEVELOPMEnT DRiVE Since the inception of the reform era in the late 1970s, China’s main centres of economic growth have been focused in the Han Chinese-dominated areas on the eastern seaboard of China. The establishment of SEz in Shenzhen (1980), zhuhai (1980) and Shantou (1981) in Guangdong, Xiamen (1980) in Fujian and the province of Hainan (1988) served to encourage a growth trend that emphasised the development of coastal regions with easy access to export markets. as eastern China’s economy accelerated, so the western regions of the country, comprising the large proportion of China’s ethnic minority population, experienced slower growth (Chaudhuri 2005). by 2004, statistics revealed the scale of the imbalance between east and west. The western region, constituting 71 per cent of the country’s landmass, and over 28 per cent of the total population, accounted for only 17 per cent of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) (Lu & neilson 2004: 1). in addressing this imbalance, the GwDD did not appear to be a state economic intervention as generally understood among development practitioners. The GwDD did not outline any measurable aims beyond the broad goal of interregional ‘equity’ or the establishment of a monitoring body to oversee progress and grievances, or even the creation of a process of participation in decisionmaking on priorities and implementation. an absence of intermediate measures on progress also created difficulty in quantifying the success of the initiative, while at the same time offering space to state authorities to define the achievements of the GwDD. Holbig (2004: 40–41) characterised this loose framework ‘as a highly diffuse decision-making process shaped by dynamic interactions between numerous actors at central, provincial and local levels’.


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Through a review of GwDD policies, Holbig (2004: 41) nevertheless identifies five areas of campaign priority: quest for equality, foreign investment, infrastructure investment, tackling the nationalities issue and sustainable development. The focus on infrastructure investment is central to CCP economic and political goals in Xinjiang by affording access to remote areas, as well as to encourage transfers of labour between Uyghur and Han Chinese areas. as a new wave of Han Chinese migrants, attracted by the opportunities created by the GwDD, moved to Xinjiang, predominantly Uyghur southern Xinjiang was targeted by an initiative to transfer Uyghur labourers to eastern Chinese factories (Uyghur Human Rights Project 2008). not only did infrastructure investment affect market access and demographic shifts, it also met the need for stability in ‘tackling the nationalities issue’ with a greater physical presence of Han Chinese. with the natural resources extraction sector in China dominated by Han Chinese, hiring practices and contract awards are slanted against local ethnic minorities (Human Rights in China 2007). The following section looks at the indicators, as far as they are known, on the progress of the GwDD, and the development of Uyghur participation and representation in the GwDD era. aSSESSMEnT OF THE GREaT wESTERn DEVELOPMEnT DRiVE Chinese government officials and agencies have provided a variety of statistics charting the progress of the GwDD in western China and in Xinjiang that emphasise the campaign’s focus on infrastructure development and investment in large-scale projects. in Xinjiang, in particular, these projects are found in the natural resource extraction industries and in construction. The figures provided offer an impressive rate of growth and outline a concerted effort to bring Xinjiang into a new era of rapid economic development. On the other hand, the available statistics also reveal very little about the input of the grassroots population on investment and infrastructure development. in a report in the China Daily of 9 July 2010, Du ying, vice minister of the national Development and Reform Commission, stated that the western regions as a whole had averaged an 11.9 per cent rate of economic growth since 2000 (Xin 2010), which represented an increase of 4.2 per cent on the figure for 1999 (Tan 2009). Commission figures also reported that public and private sector investment had reached approximately Cn¥20 trillion (US$3 trillion, US$1=Cn¥6.69) by 2010, five-and-a-half times the amount invested in the western regions in the entire 50 years from the foundation of the PRC to the adoption of the GwDD (Xin 2010). in Xinjiang itself, the Chinese government subsidised the regional budget by nearly Cn¥400 billion (US$60 billion) from 2000 to 2010, of which nearly Cn¥111 billion (US$17 billion) was spent on projects spread across rural, transportation and energy industries. in the 2000s, cumulative fixed-asset investments in the region reached Cn¥1.4 trillion (US$209 billion), a reported



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four times the amount witnessed in the 1990s (People’s Daily 2010a). according to Chinese official media, foreign investment stood at US$22.2 billion in 2008 in Xinjiang; and up to the 2009 unrest, annual growth in foreign trade had seen an increase of 51 per cent in 2007 on the previous year and of 62 per cent in 2008 on the 2007 figure (wan & Mao 2010). in 2001, proven oil reserves in the region stood at 2.6 billion tons and at 647 billion cubic metres for natural gas (Li 2010a). in 2008, Xinjiang produced 27 million tons of crude oil and 24 billion cubic metres of natural gas (Chinese government 2009). in line with stated transportation infrastructure improvements, the western region railway and highway capacity reportedly grew by 1.6 and 2.8 times respectively between 2000 and 2010 (Moxley 2010). by 2009, GDP growth at 8.1 per cent in Xinjiang was slightly lower than in China as a whole, which stood at 8.7 per cent (yu 2010). Despite such notable statistics, GDP in China’s west was still only 17.8 per cent of China’s total in 2008, an increase of 0.8 per cent from 2004. a report published in 2010 by the Center for Studies of China western Economic Development at north-west University in Xi’an revealed that, in 2007, the average Xinjiang income was estimated at Cn¥13,775 per year (US$1,912 per year) against the estimated average beijing/Shanghai income of Cn¥55,752 per year (US$7,740 per year) (Moxley 2010). On the other hand, in 2008, Xinjiang ranked 15th out of 31 provincial level administrative units in terms of GDP per capita, which placed it in the lower-middle range of regions (Li 2009). nevertheless, this income within Xinjiang was not distributed evenly between the mineral-rich and Han-dominated north and the Uyghur and largely agrarian south of the region (Cao 2010). The statistics produced by Chinese sources disclose little more about differences in inter-ethnic income; however, the official statistics do reveal that the quest for material equality region-to-region does have some way to go. Chinese officials may argue that economic parity is a progressive goal, an observation that could be drawn from the lack of any sort of benchmark for its realisation. Even so, inter-ethnic parity is a key requirement for stability in Xinjiang, more so than in eastern China, and even the achievement of regional parity may not reflect an equitable distribution among ethnicities, considering the Han Chinese domination of key Xinjiang industries. indeed, as a proposed palliative for the ‘nationalities issue’, economic policies under the GwDD have produced negative economic outcomes for many Uyghurs, thus aggravating overall inter-ethnic differences in standards of living (yang 2010). writing in 2004, nicolas becquelin states: the socio-economic development of ethnic minorities continues to fall behind on all indicators: southern Xinjiang (with a 95 per cent non-Han population has on average per capita income half the provincial average. in the more prosperous yili kazakh autonomous Prefecture, bordering kazakhstan, 98 per cent of the officially designed ‘poor’ population are non-Han … The campaign to Open up the


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west, serving primarily as a vehicle for the interests of the state, gives no sign of altering this discriminative pattern. (becquelin 2004)

according to Uyghur economist and Minzu University of China Professor, ilham Tohti, the long-term record of the Chinese government in providing employment among Uyghurs has been poor. in an interview with Radio Free asia in 2010, Tohti stated that from his research, conducted under the auspices of the central government’s ninth five-year research plan in the 1990s, he understood that 1.5 million people were unemployed in Xinjiang. Even though no ethnic breakdown was given, Tohti implied that the majority of these people were in the Uyghur community (Hoshur 2009a). not surprisingly, Tohti’s assertion contradicted Chinese government statistics that stated the unemployment rate in Xinjiang stood at 3.8 per cent in 2002, 0.4 per cent below the national rate (Chinese government 2003; China internet information Center 2004). Tohti’s observations notwithstanding, evidence exists to illustrate the difficulties faced by Uyghurs in securing employment, especially in the state sector, in Xinjiang. The Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) reported hiring discrimination favouring Han Chinese for jobs with the XPCC and in the regional education sector. Employment advertisements posted online stated preferences for people of Han Chinese ethnicity. The survey of XPCC job announcements showed that of 894 available positions, 744 were reserved for Han Chinese applicants and that in aksu district, of 436 positions in the school district, 347 positions were set aside for those of Han Chinese ethnicity (Congressional-Executive Commission on China 2009). From CECC research, the practice of ethnic discrimination in the state sector job market is not new. CECC also reported in 2005 that all of the 500–700 new civil-service appointments made by the regional and central government in the Uyghur majority area of southern Xinjiang were reserved for members of the Han nationality (Congressional-Executive Commission on China 2005a). a source of this discrimination can be traced to the perceived Han Chinese responsibility to bring progress to non-Han Chinese peoples, which can be characterised as a developmental mission to bring infrastructure and technology, as well as fiscal and social investment, to non-Han Chinese peoples (Moneyhon 2004). in addition, the import of Han Chinese human capital to pick up the perceived shortfall of skilled workers in the local labour market to conduct such work is representative of such attitudes (bovingdon 2004b). These attitudes contribute to the Uyghur perception of ‘outsider’ ownership over Chinese government initiatives and reinforce exclusion from policy formation and implementation. a 2003 government white paper details an official view of how ‘other provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities have provided immense amounts of aid for Xinjiang in terms of technology and skilled people’ (Chinese government 2003: 658). Conversely, many Han Chinese in the region, especially during the September 2009 unrest in Urumchi, highlighted state policies that dis-



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criminate in favour of Uyghurs, such as the lower score requirement for college entrance (Grose 2008; Sautman 1997). according to Toops (2010: 3), the ‘traditional economic landscapes of this Silk Road region [Xinjiang] were herding, oasis agriculture, and trade. On top of that the state has added the modern including distribution (road, rail, air), as well as production (oil, textiles, agri-business) and consumption (urban and rural).’ Differences in employment distribution between ethnicities during GwDD can be detected amongst the natural resources extraction (Ma 2003), and construction industries (wiemer 2004). at the outset of the GwDD, Pomfret (2000: para. 28) writes of how natural-resources extraction industries had, even by that time, become disconnected from the economic lives of Uyghurs: ‘[the oil] industry is now almost completely run by Han. The China national Petroleum Co. has brought most of its workers here from other parts of China, all but bypassing the provincial Xinjiang Petroleum bureau in carrying out exploration.’ The growth of the oil and gas industries under the GwDD not only highlights discrimination in hiring within those sectors, but stresses that large proportions of investment capital have not been directed to the industries in which the greater part of rural Uyghurs, representing a majority of Uyghurs, engage. a linguistic dimension to the discrimination facing Uyghurs in the labour market is also apparent. Mandarin Chinese is often a requirement for gaining employment, especially in urban areas, a point confirmed in a 2003 survey conducted by wang (2003), wherein 67 per cent of people questioned agreed on the necessity of Mandarin Chinese in finding a job in Xinjiang. in 2008, Grose reported that urban Uyghurs are twice as likely to be unemployed compared to Han Chinese in the job market. while the 2000s saw an increase in economic activity, Chinese authorities moved to intensify political restrictions. against a backdrop of harsh punishment for political expression, it became extremely unlikely that Uyghurs would speak out on the direction of the economic policies followed under the GwDD, or even be invited to comment. as a result, during this period the performance of the GwDD went largely unchecked by a significant group of the campaign’s grassroots stakeholders and consequently unvoiced frustrations accumulated (bovingdon 2010). Even as far way as beijing, ilham Tohti experienced harassment for criticism of economic management in Xinjiang (Hoshur 2009b). The disincentives for Uyghurs to speak out were made clear, and even when protest did occur, Chinese authorities further alienated Uyghurs by enacting harsher policies as a response (bovingdon 2010). Even within the CCP framework, meaningful Uyghur or non-Han representation was non-existent, as ‘each of the 125 regional, prefectural, municipal, and county-level Party first secretaries in Xinjiang was Han’ (Congressional-Executive Commission on China 2005a: 17). This broad consultative gap between grassroots Uyghurs and government not only ensures CCP control over the direction of the GwDD, but also marginalises the Uyghur from expressing an opinion from inside or outside of the party apparatus. in US congressional testimony, S. Frederick Starr, founding chairman of the Central asia-Caucasus institute, stated that Uyghurs have no ‘body …


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representing public opinion at the governmental level … [t]he Communist apparatus is alive and well in Xinjiang and is safely controlled from above from beijing’. Starr adds that the GwDD was conceived, not as a policy to promote equal economic rights, but as a policy to prolong the political control of the centre over a strategic and unsettled region. Starr also claims that the GwDD in fact corresponded to a new era of political repression. ‘For a decade after 1985 something approaching this [equal rights] occurred, but by 2000 political, economic, social, and religious rights of the Turkic peoples were again being systematically repressed’ (Congressional-Executive Commission on China 2005b: para. 6). DEVELOPMEnT by LEaPS anD bOUnDS – THE XinJianG wORk FORUM May 2010 The outbreak of unrest on 5 July 2009 in the regional capital of Urumchi caused the Chinese central leadership to focus once more on the Xinjiang region. President Hu Jintao cut short his attendance at the G8 summit in italy to concentrate on the increasing tensions between the Han Chinese and Uyghur communities across the region. This level of attention was repeated when almost one year later, a work Forum was convened between 17 and 19 May 2010 in beijing. The Chinese government had held five previous work Forums on Tibet but the May forum was the first to be held on Xinjiang. The objective of work Forums is to map out regional strategies, and all nine members of the Standing Committee of the Political bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee attended the Xinjiang meetings. The fine point put on economic issues during the work Forum signalled the nature of tensions underlying the 5 July unrest. President Hu stated that the twin strategies emerging from the work Forum would focus on development and security (FlorCruz 2010). President Hu also stressed the need for greater education on ethnic unity so that the people of Xinjiang identify with ‘the great motherland, the Chinese nationality, Chinese culture, and a socialist development path with Chinese characteristics’ (Xinhua 2010a). The term ‘Development by Leaps and bounds’ was coined to summarise the coming fiscal boost to the region, and the total financial aid package promised by the government between 2011 and 2020 would reach Cn¥2.1 trillion (US$314 billion), while fixed-asset investments would total Cn¥2.6 trillion (US$388 billion) by 2016 (People’s Daily 2010a). Policies also promised to create more jobs and to eliminate absolute poverty by 2020 (yu 2010). nevertheless, in the opinion of one observer, [t]he full amount [of investment] is only a slight increase over the amount invested in the program’s [the GwDD’s] first decade. From 2000–09, the government invested 2.2 trillion yuan in 120 projects as part of the program. if the new pledge sets the rate at which investment in the program will continue throughout the rest of the decade, the total at the end of 2019 will amount to 2.7 trillion yuan. in other



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words, beijing has not increased its commitment to the region’s development so much as pledged to maintain it at a rate that will not be eaten away by inflation. (Stratfor 2010 para. 6)

Tax reform and large-scale investment dominated the approach to stimulating economic development and increasing local revenue. in July 2010, as part of a plan to revive the GwDD, the central authorities announced that over US$100 billion would be invested in 23 projects concentrated on power-generating industries and transport infrastructure across the western region (Moxley 2010; agence France-Presse 2010). Tax reform in Xinjiang took on micro and macro forms with qualified private enterprises from impoverished areas receiving income tax breaks for up to three years (Xinhua 2010a). However, the most significant reform of the tax system in Xinjiang came in the area of oil and natural gas production. The revenue generated from natural resources has proved an especially sensitive issue with Uyghurs, who perceive the monetary benefits from oil and gas production to be in the hands of beneficiaries in eastern China. The reform proposed was a change from a tax on volume to a tax on price, which is standard practice in many other countries. The reform came into effect in June 2010 and, pending its success, would extend to other natural-resource production regions of China. The tax reform on natural resources was expected to generate Cn¥2 billion (US$299 million) by the end of 2010 alone in a region that holds 13 per cent of China’s crude oil and 30 per cent of China’s natural gas. with the anticipated increases in production, there would be an ensuing increase in local government revenue (zeng Sommer 2010). China national Petroleum Corporation (CnPC) announced in July 2010 an annual crude-oil refining capacity boost to 60 million tons by 2020 with current levels of production standing at 25 million tons (People’s Daily 2010b). a new spin in the region on a familiar pattern of transplanted expertise is the pairing of 19 prosperous provinces and municipalities from eastern China with 82 impoverished areas of Xinjiang, an arrangement that is expected to transfer financial and human capital. From 2011 to 2020, 0.3–0.6 per cent of fiscal revenue from the eastern provincial and municipal governments will be invested in the targeted areas in Xinjiang. in 2011 alone, these 82 areas will receive Cn¥10 billion (US$1.5 billion), a reported increase of Cn¥5.7 billion (US$852 million) on the previous 13 years as a whole (Li & Cao 2010). investment from other sources, namely from foreign enterprises, was loosely promised by the State administration of industry and Commerce ‘into almost every sector’ of the Xinjiang economy (Li 2010b). a focus on transportation with increased capacities in air and land links to eastern China will make Xinjiang more accessible to the Chinese heartland, with Urumchi as its hub (Toops 2010; Han 2010). The rail system, in particular, as the most favoured form of long-distance transportation for domestic travel and freight purposes, is singled out for development (About Xinjiang 2010). while offering the prospect for ease of export, and market access, a more connected


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Xinjiang, especially the southern area, is also more appealing for Han Chinese settlers. Stanley Toops (2010) notes how the development of Han Chinese populations moves along rail lines, and such a presence is likely to have a stabilising effect according to the Chinese government. The thorny issue of unemployment and poverty was targeted with measures to provide jobs for ‘zero employment’ families in Urumchi, to increase subsidies for 1.3 million low-income urban residents’ families, to increase the minimum wage and to establish pension systems (People’s Daily 2010c; 2010d; yu 2010). in order to encourage the development of marketable workplace skills, up to 60,000 people would be trained in 80 new training centres. banks were also encouraged to set up in rural locations and to lend to rural enterprises (China Daily 2010). Urban residents were also set to benefit from increased access to business loans, especially in Urumchi (Xinjiang government 2010). with regard to education, the government promised an intensification of the existing bilingual education initiative. bilingual education in the region, despite its name, is an initiative to use Mandarin Chinese as the language of instruction in all schools, irrespective of the ethnicity of the student body. an unpopular policy among many Uyghurs (abdilim 2010), the government argues that bilingual education will give Uyghurs the language skills they need to succeed in the Mandarin Chinese-dominated job market. bilingual education is promised to be in all schools by 2015 and by 2020 all students will be able to speak fluent Mandarin (wong 2010b). The nearly Cn¥1.5 billion (US$224 million) to be invested by central and local governments in bilingual education underscores the importance attached to the initiative by Chinese authorities to solve economic and ethnic tensions (People’s Daily 2010e). in Xinjiang, increased investment has appeared as a recurring theme in CCP approaches to resolving ethnic discontent. Xinjiang work Forum policies do not veer from this approach to stabilising the region; in addition, the resolution of instability in the region is also being approached with an increase in state security measures. The role of the military in development was made unequivocal by Guo boxiong, vice chairman of China’s Central Military Commission, who stated ‘[i]t is an important task for soldiers and armed police to ensure the overall social stability of Xinjiang and promote leapfrog development and long-term stability’ (People’s Daily 2010f). Moreover, the appearance of 40,000 security cameras in Urumchi and cameras in other cities, as well as the 5,000 police recruited region wide in 2010, is testament to an enlarged security presence (The Australian 2010). The security cameras in Urumchi were installed on 3,400 buses, 200 bus stops, 4,400 streets, 270 schools and 100 shopping malls (Global Times 2010), and an elite anti-terror squad was also formed in Urumchi, called the ‘Flying Tigers’, with the aim of combating terrorism, especially hostage and explosive attacks. according to the director of the Urumchi Municipal Public Security bureau, wang Mingshan, ‘[t]he squad members are all experienced. we have equipped them with the best vehicles and weapons’ (Xinhua 2010b).



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COnCLUSiOn anD PROSPECTS FOR XinJianG wORk FORUM POLiCiES The policies emerging from the May 2010 Xinjiang work Forum aim to solve the problems of economic inequity and inter-ethnic tensions through increased investment. as a bid to revive the GwDD as a campaign affecting the grassroots, it appears that Xinjiang work Forum policies have taken on a slightly different emphasis to those of the GwDD. The slight shift has been towards human development and more spatially dispersed investments from the GwDD trickle-down approach of large-scale investment in natural resources predominantly located in the north of the region. nevertheless, this does not mean that the emphasis is one of balance between local and national interests; from what can be understood, greater investment in construction and natural-resource extraction is slated for the Xinjiang economy that duplicates the GwDD areas of priority identified by Holbig. although policy formation and implementation lack true grassroots stakeholder participation, the shift in emphasis in Xinjiang work Forum policies appears to be a tacit acknowledgement of inequitable outcomes in GwDD policies. Observers such as Xu Jianying at the Chinese academy of Social Sciences have openly stated that the government should be doing more for marginalised groups in Xinjiang (Li & Cao 2010). The Xinjiang work Forum policies also represent another throw of the dice for the central government, which is under pressure to produce results for residents in a region weary of government intervention. This weariness comes not only from the Uyghur, but also the Han Chinese community, as was clearly demonstrated in the Han Chinese demands for changes in the regional government leadership during the September 2009 unrest in Urumchi. The work Forum’s focus on economic development and stability appears to respond to the concerns of these communities, but if there is no improvement in Uyghur standards of living, and if the Han Chinese population perceives further security threats, then the central authorities will face similar accumulations of frustration as witnessed prior to July 2009. a disconcerting aspect of the Xinjiang work Forum policies is the serious imbalance between non-indigenous and indigenous industry. while some tax concessions and encouragement for banks to loan to small rural enterprises are evident in Xinjiang work Forum policies, the scale of investment in natural resource industries (a sector of the economy that has largely bypassed Uyghurs) overshadows such initiatives. There is no policy that increases the ratio of Uyghurs employed in the natural-resources extraction sector, which would amount to an admission of open discrimination in hiring practices. with the direction of the Xinjiang economy skewed toward natural resources, it will be difficult for the central government to shake the impression that the benefits of reinvigorated investment align with state-owned enterprises and party-controlled institutions. The approach of Xinjiang work Forum policy formation and implementation


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illustrates the fundamental problem with the policies that preceded it, such as the GwDD. Participatory mechanisms are absent, and for a participatory approach to be possible, government needs to loosen political restrictions – an unlikely scenario, given the extreme sensitivity with which officials receive criticism, especially from Uyghurs. in this regard, the Xinjiang work Forum policies follow an established pattern of central government formation and local government implementation without the input of a significant proportion of the grassroots stakeholders. in another old pattern, local government implementation of central policies tends to be more conservative in an attempt to ‘not cross the line’, which inevitably leads to watered-down versions of beijing directives (Cai 2008). Such patterns as detailed above do not bode well for an understanding of local conditions, especially when one considers the recruitment of 3,749 cadres from other regions to assist with policy implementation. Cadres may be moved around China as a general rule, but the linguistic and customary dimensions to work with Uyghurs at grassroots levels make it important to have officials who understand local conditions (aDb 2002: 275). as Toops (2010: 10) says in relation to the regional pairing scheme: ‘[t]he coordination of all these projects will be quite difficult particularly since the experts from the east coast may not be very familiar with local conditions in Xinjiang’. The difficulties of implementing the work Forum policies in Xinjiang can be arguably symptomatic of the Chinese government’s non-participatory development model as a whole, but measures to bring in outside expertise is symptomatic of the Chinese government’s desire to integrate Xinjiang into the Chinese heartland and to dominate the development discourse of ethnic minorities. a similar analysis can be made of civil society oversight mechanisms. The Xinjiang work Forum’s lack of interim targets and an independent monitoring body is consistent with the previous outline of GwDD policies. The lack of monitoring procedures ensures that grassroots stakeholder input on policy performance is absent and any consequent reassessment and realignment of policy in their interests is unlikely (Stratfor 2010). Even though there are generally no civil society oversight mechanisms in state interventions in China as a whole, in the case of the minority regions, [d]evelopment cannot be successful and sustainable if minorities are not taken into account, because economic growth cannot guarantee vulnerable populations the freedom to exploit their abilities, or to achieve social and political rights regardless of their identity or place in society. The inclusion of minorities becomes more and more important for sustainable development as the income gap increases between minority and majority populations. (Cao 2010)

This study has focused on the experience of the Uyghur under centrally driven economic campaigns. The region as stated in the background section of the paper hosts a number of non-Uyghur and non-Han residents, some of whom, for example the Tajik, have arguably experienced the slowest rates of economic



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growth during the GwDD (bachman 2004). although out of the scope of this study, the interface of these peoples with the state most likely suffers from a pattern similar to that experienced by Uyghurs. Research that focuses on the specific challenges faced by non-Uyghur ethnic minorities under state economic interventions, but particularly under the Xinjiang work Forum, would be a welcome addition to the literature. in due course, there will be much speculation over the success of Xinjiang work Forum policies, and China’s success in poverty reduction since the reform period, albeit imbalanced, is undeniable. There is the high probability that the Chinese government will produce a set of figures that will detail the success of Xinjiang work Forum policies, much as it did for the first 10 years of the GwDD, but granular details on participatory measures and distribution will likely once more be absent. However, the out-dated and unsuccessful pattern of Han Chinese management over ethnic minority development makes a compelling case for participatory mechanisms to utilise local expertise. The continuing marginalisation from economic opportunity and slow rates of growth among Uyghurs under Xinjiang work Forum policies will mostly serve to rebuild resentment, yet the loosening of restrictions that provides an alternative approach to planning for economic equity appears distant in the minds of central planners, especially when considering the intensified security measures in the region. Ten years separated the formation of the GwDD and the July 2009 unrest. with the implementation of the 2010 Xinjiang work Forum policies under way, 2020 will be an interesting year to reflect upon beijing’s and the Xinjiang work Forum’s distributive economic achievements in the region. nOTES Variants include: East Turkestan, Uyghurstan, Sinkiang. Variants in English of the Chinese (Xībù Dàkāifā) include: Developing the western Region, Go west, Open up the west, west Region Development, western Development Program and western Development Strategy. 3 Five autonomous regions: Guangxi zhuang autonomous Region, The inner Mongolia autonomous Region, ningxia Hui autonomous Region, Tibet autonomous Region and Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous Region. Six provinces: Gansu Province, Guizhou Province, Qinghai Province, Shaanxi Province, Sichuan Province and yunnan Province. One municipality: The Municipality of Chongqing. 4 Variants include: Uygur, Uigur, Uighur and Wéiwú’ěr. The spelling used in this work, Uyghur, is based on Hahn (1991). 1 2

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