While Xinjiang’s culture undergoes modernization along with improvements in living standards, the most important cultural elements have been retained, renowned Sinologist Colin Mackerras said. During his keynote speech at the International Forum on the History and Future of Xinjiang, China in Kashi, also known as Kashgar, in June 2024, Mackerras, professor emeritus at Griffith University in Australia and a fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities, shared his observations on Xinjiang’s development over recent decades.
Mackerras has spent more than 60 years conducting research on China. Specializing in Chinese history, art and ethnic minorities, he has authored more than 200 publications on China, including many books.
The following is an edited excerpt of Mackerras’ speech:
I first came to Xinjiang in 1992. I’ve been here several times since then. My impression is that the standard of living has risen enormously, but the poverty has gone down.
Xinjiang is modernizing quickly while keeping its ethnic traditional culture, and the region will embrace a hopeful future. Despite spurious reports spread by some Western media that China is trying to eradicate the local culture, factual data and my experience show otherwise.
What I see in Xinjiang is attempts to preserve culture, arts, the historical relics and languages, and there are more mosques in Xinjiang per capita than anywhere else in the world.
The ethnic culture is surviving quite well here in Xinjiang. The ethnic music and dance is continually performed both by professionals and by ordinary people. The Uygur language seems to me to be used very widely, much more widely than the use of indigenous languages in Australia or the United States.
During my stay in Shache (a county in Kashi Prefecture) in 2018, I visited a school that trains performers in Uygur dance and the Twelve Muqam (a Uygur musical tradition). All these efforts reflect Xinjiang local authorities’ emphasis on the protection of traditional ethnic minority cultures.
From any angle of economic development, Xinjiang has performed excellently in recent years. There is a modernization process and modernization processes affect how people think. It affects what people wear. It affects all kinds of things. But there is also retention of culture—the retention of the most important pictures of culture, which include things like languages, art, architecture and food. Those things matter to people. And I think the idea that it’s being eradicated is just nonsense. That’s not what I see.
Xinjiang has a diverse and integrated culture, and multiculturalism is indeed an important part of the great Chinese civilization. The West knows so little about how much support the Chinese Government gets from its people.
Further people-to-people exchanges are the key to deepening mutual understanding. Tourism would be a good option to facilitate exchanges. More Australians should visit China and see China with their own eyes, so that they can better understand the country.
One of the things that worries me in Australia at the moment is that the China studies in universities are not doing particularly well. In fact, it’s gone down. I think that’s a great shame because we should be understanding China more and we should be training people who can understand China more. I think that there’s a lot of work to do in that regard.
Reality Check
Some Western media outlets have been persistently spreading misleading narratives about Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, such as “human rights abuses” and “genocide.” In June 2022, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs published a document titled Reality Check: Falsehoods in U.S. Perceptions of China. One of the falsehoods it exposed was about these narratives. Edited excerpts of the document follow:
The human rights of the people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang are fully protected. There is no “genocide” or “crimes against humanity” in Xinjiang. The U.S. has been spreading disinformation about Xinjiang simply to create an excuse for discrediting and attacking China.
Xinjiang-related issues are not about human rights, but about fighting violence, terrorism and separatism. According to figures available, between 1990 and the end of 2016, there were several thousand incidents of violent and terrorist attacks in Xinjiang, killing large numbers of innocent people and hundreds of police officers, and causing immeasurable property damage.
In response to such real threats, Xinjiang has acted resolutely to fight terrorism and extremism in accordance with law. At the same time, a series of supporting measures have been taken, like improving people’s living standards, raising public awareness about law, and offering help through vocational education and training centers. The trend of frequent terrorist activities has thus been effectively curbed. There has been no violent act of terrorism in Xinjiang since the end of 2016. The region has enjoyed security, social stability and good development. The safety and security of people of all ethnic groups have been effectively protected.
“Genocide” in Xinjiang is a complete “lie of the century.” Over the past 60 years and more, the Uygur population has increased from 2.2 million to about 12 million, and their average life expectancy has grown from 30 to 75 years.
With stability prevailing in Xinjiang, local people live and work in peace and happiness. The region has made unprecedented progress in delivering economic and social development and in bettering people’s lives. Remarkable achievements have been made in eliminating extreme poverty. All 3.09 million impoverished people by current standards have been lifted out of poverty, making absolute poverty a thing of the past in Xinjiang.
The lawful rights and interests of the people of all ethnicities in Xinjiang have been protected effectively. All ethnic groups, regardless of their populations, have equal legal status and enjoy freedom of religious belief and various rights in accordance with law, including participating in the management of state affairs, receiving education, using their own languages, and preserving their traditional culture.
In July 2019, permanent representatives of more than 50 countries in Geneva sent a joint letter to the President of the UN Human Rights Council and the High Commissioner for Human Rights, praising China’s achievements in fighting terrorism, deradicalization and human rights protection.
The so-called “genocide” in Xinjiang is a lie cooked up by anti-China forces represented by the anti-China German scholar Adrian Zenz. He is a member of the far-right group “Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation” sponsored by the U.S. Government, and a key figure in an anti-China organization set up by U.S. intelligence agencies. He is also a racist. His “research” is full of inconsistencies, fabrications and data manipulation. It does not have any academic credibility and cannot be cleared for academic publication. For example, a chart in Zenz’s “paper” claims that new intra-uterine device placements in Xinjiang average between 800 and 1,400 per person each year, which means each woman in the region would have to undergo four to eight such insertion surgeries every day.
The false claim about “millions of Uyghurs detained” in education and training centers was initiated and spread by “Chinese Human Rights Defenders,” an NGO supported by the U.S. Government. Based on interviews with eight Uygurs and rough estimation, the organization came to the preposterous conclusion that at least 10 percent of the 20 million people in Xinjiang were detained in “reeducation camps.”
The education and training centers in question are no different in nature from deradicalization centers or community correction and desistance and disengagement programs in many other countries. It has been proven to be a successful exploration in preventative counter-terrorism and deradicalization, consistent with the principle and spirit of counter-terrorism resolutions including the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy and the UN Plan of Action to Prevent Violent Extremism. At the centers, trainees acquire greater proficiency in standard spoken and written Chinese language and gain greater employability and a stronger sense of national identity, citizenship and rule of law. By October 2019, all trainees had graduated from the centers. Most of them have steady employment after finding jobs by themselves or with the help of the government, or starting up their own businesses. –The Daily Mail-Beijing Review news exchange item
