<\/a>K2, the Savaged Mountain - the world's second highest mountain peak and the most difficult to climb<\/p><\/div><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
Government Structure: <\/strong>Xinjiang has an unusual dual governance structure.\u00a0 There is the usual civilian government structure at the level of region (province), country, city.\u00a0 There is also the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), that has jurisdiction over several medium-sized cities, and many settlements and farms across Xinjiang, providing governmental functions such as healthcare, education, and law and order for areas under its jurisdiction.<\/p>\nIn many frontier regions, life was harsh, a good governance structure had not been established, and there was very little needed infrastructure.\u00a0 Often, it was the People’s Liberation Army who went to these regions and established order, stability, and built the necessary infrastructure such as roads, schools, hospitals, housing, and various kinds of utilities.\u00a0 The stated goals of XPCC is to develop frontier regions (then hand over governance to civilian government), promote economic development, and ensure social stability and ethnic harmony, and counter the East Turkestan independence movement.\u00a0 It was established in 1954, abolished\u00a0 in 1975-1981 during the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution, and reestablished in 1981 and continues to today.\u00a0 Eventually it should be phased out, but the end is not imminent.<\/p>\n
Similar dual structure had also existed in other places such as Heilongjiang, Inner Mongolia, but terminated after meeting its objective.<\/p>\n
Summary:<\/strong> Xinjiang is an important and interesting part of China, but very complex.\u00a0 It seems that there are two (at least initially) conflicting forces shaping Xinjiang.<\/p>\nOn the one hand, from a national perspective (i.e., the country as a whole), it makes perfect sense to move more people from densely populated parts of China into sparsely populated Xinjiang that has abundant natural resources and with strategic defense importance.\u00a0 Recall that the population density of Xinjiang is only 10% of the average population density of China, and Xinjiang borders eight countries, and is rich in natural resources.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, from the Uyghur minority perspective, it is natural to develop some resentment to see so many outsiders (mostly Han people) with different language, religion, and culture moving into their region, and often dominating politically and economically.<\/p>\n
It is inevitable that the above two forces will lead to conflicts.\u00a0 I think that at least two ingredients must be part of the necessary conditions in solving this dilemma:<\/p>\n
\n- The livelihood of the Xinjiang people, including the Uyghur and other ethnic groups, must be raised substantially and quickly<\/li>\n
- The system must allow the Uyghur and other ethnic minorities to reach the upper decision making positions in industries and government<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
A third ingredient is to have more interracial marriage between Uyghurs and Hans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In terms of size, location, and natural resources Xinjiang has strategic importance to China.\u00a0 In terms of history, people, and culture, Xinjiang is different from many parts of China. \u00a0 This article describes some of the opportunities and challenges facing China with respect to Xinjiang based on observations from a recent two-week visit to Xinjiang.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1241"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1241"}],"version-history":[{"count":144,"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1431,"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1241\/revisions\/1431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}