China's Kashmir

Known_Unknown

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China’s Kashmir

In an opinion piece titled “How does China handle its Kashmir?” in the latest issue of Organiser, S Gurumurthy writes: “That China too has its Kashmir and problem with Islamist separatists identical to India’s Kashmir is not widely known. Xinjiang is China’s Kashmir. Xinjiang actually shares borders with Ladakh in India’s Kashmir. China’s Kashmir is physically 100 times bigger than India’s and therefore its problem too is that bigger. Yet many do not know about it. The reason is that China prevented Xinjiang, its Kashmir, from becoming an international issue like India’s Kashmir. Xinjiang, which had a majority Turkish Mulims [known as Uyghurs] in 1949, had a short lived state of East Turkestan. China invaded it, crushed it, won back its territory. The name Xinjiang literally means ‘old frontier returns to China’! See the contrast. A year earlier, in 1948, India almost won back most of the Kashmir from Pakistan which had invaded it, but, voluntarily offered and turned it into an international issue. It was India, not Pakistan, which went to the United Nations; made it an international issue. It is struggling to say it is a bilateral one! Now, on to how China handled Xinjiang, its Kashmir, and integrated it with mainland China.”

He adds: “Xinjiang has a population of 20 million plus. The Uyghur Muslims constitute 45 per cent; other Muslims 12 per cent and Hans 41 per cent. What was the population of Han Chinese in Xinjiang in 1949? Just 6 per cent; in six decades it has risen by seven times. This change did not occur on its own. China did not just trust army or administrative control of its territory in Xinjiang. It trusted only its people. It ensured that the Han Chinese slowly began populating Xinjiang. The result is self-evident. But the 41 per cent Han Chinese population does not include Chinese defence personnel and families, and unregistered migrant Chinese workers”.

He concludes: “Yes China do have problem with Islamist separatists, extremists and terrorists. But it has, by diplomacy and action, kept that an internal problem of China unlike India which has on its own made the Kashmir an international issue. China has changed the religious and political demography of Xinjiang by ensuring that 41 per cent of the province’s population is non-Muslim. Instead of working to change the demography in favour of India like China has done, the Indian government, in contrast, could not even prevent the expulsion of the Hindus from the Valley. While Xinjiang is half filled by Han Chinese, Kashmir is cleansed of the Hindus. With the result, India has to defend Kashmir by the army instead of by the people. Had India followed the policy which Chinese had adopted in Xinjiang, conquering back Kashmir instead of contracting under Article 370 which prevented rest of Indians from migrating to Kashmir, today Kashmir would have demographically integrated with India. India would be dealing with internal riots occasionally like China does; and not face or fight wars with Pakistan and with terrorists everyday. The lesson for India is: demography — religious demographic balance that is in tune with the national mainstream — is the guarantee for the nation”.

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Should India adopt the Chinese strategy in Kashmir? Have we been shooting ourselves in the foot and limited our policy options due to a misplaced sense of morality leading to Article 370?
 

Jarnee

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very true, also Article 370, is a bad face of Indian politics the Kashmiri politicians till today do not want to abolish it for simple reason of Vote bank..Religion politics, Also this provision never helped Kashmiri Muslims either, even though in Kashmir was the hot tourist destination of India till early 90's..any of the Private sector could not invest in Kashmir for Hotel resorts etc..Kashmiri Hindu's were forced out.. can you imagine how impotent our Army was then that it let those JKLF Pakistani supporters force us out of our houses and occupy them.. The reason is for India Kashmiri Pandits and Hindus did not matter as they were not vote bank them. Shame on such democracy.. that is why this could not happen in China.
I dont know ..but history tells us that to stop violence overwhelming violence is required. eg. Japanese in 1945 did not stop war till US had to do Hiroshima.. that also did not deter Japanese .. so on 9th they had to do Nagasaki. then World had peace for next 50 years. Mainlands of Europe did not had war ever since. Look at India ..we have fought so many wars and are bleeding since the day Kashmir was part to India. I hope today ..had Raja Hari singh been a chinese rather than Hindu should have gone to China to seek help atleast there would not have been a Issue of Kashmir. which torments our lives, our soldiers have to sacrifice their lives
 

amoy

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known_unknown said:
Xinjiang, which had a majority Turkish Mulims [known as Uyghurs] in 1949, had a short lived state of East Turkestan. China invaded it, crushed it, won back its territory. The name Xinjiang literally means ?old frontier returns to China?!
Man, actually u try to make a point about Indian policy over Kashmir... such as changing demography of Kashmire blah blah. For that purpose the example of China's Xinjiang policy is put up as a 'role model' or contrast

But the problem is that above quotation is a wrong record of Xinjiang history.

Take the name Xinjiang for example -- it came into use in 1884
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Xinjiang

In 1884, Qing China renamed the conquered region, established Xinjiang ("new frontier") as a province, formally applying onto it the political system of China proper. For the 1st time the name "Xinjiang" replaced old historical names such as "Western Regions", "Chinese Turkestan", "Eastern Turkestan", "Uyghuristan", "Kashgaria", "Uyghuria" , "Alter Sheher" and "Yetti Sheher".
and China's rule over Xinjiang (West-Region as its historical name) dated back far earlier than India's rule over Kashmir (note: India was independent in 1947?)

Traversed by the Northern Silk Road,[12] Western Regions is the Chinese name for the Tarim and Dzungaria regions of what is now northwest China. At the beginning of the Han Dynasty (206 BC - AD 220), the region was subservient to the Xiongnu, a powerful nomadic people based in modern Mongolia. In the 2nd century BC, Han China sent Zhang Qian as an envoy to the states in the region, beginning several decades of struggle between the Xiongnu and Han China over dominance of the region, eventually ending in Chinese success.
of course the competition for that part of territory had never ceased with fall and rise of different empires or dynasties in East Asia.


Don't see how Xinjiang example supports your point regarding Kashmir politics. Han have been there for hundreds if not thousands of years!
 
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