Wild West China: The Taming of Xinjiang - Hardcover

Tyler, Christian

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0813535336 ISBN 13: 9780813535333

Publisher: Rutgers University Press, 2004

Synopsis

Closed to the world for half a century, like a black hole in the Asian landmass, the wilderness of Xinjiang in northwest China is returning to the light. The picture it presents is both fascinating and disturbing.

Despite a savage landscape and climate, Xinjiang has a rich past: sand-buried cities, painted cave shrines, rare creatures, and wonderfully preserved mummies of European appearance. Their descendants, the Uighurs, still farm the tranquil oases that ring the dreaded Taklamakan, the world’s second largest sand desert, and the Kazakh and Kirghiz herdsmen still roam the mountains. The region’s history, however, has been punctuated by violence, usually provoked by ambitious outsiders—nomad chieftains from the north, Muslim emirs from Central Asia, Russian generals, or warlords from inner China.

The Chinese regard the far west as a barbarian land. Only in the 1760s did they subdue it, and even then their rule was repeatedly broken. Compared with the Russians’ conquest of Siberia, or the Americans’ trek west, China’s colonization of Xinjiang has been late and difficult. The Communists have done most to develop it, as a penal colony, as a buffer against invasion, and as a supplier of raw materials and living space for an overpopulated country. But what China sees as its property, the Uighurs regard as theft by an alien occupier. Tension has led to violence and savage reprisals.

This portrait of Xinjiang should be essential reading for travelers and for anyone interested in today’s China and the fate of minority peoples.

About this title

About the Author:

Christian Tyler is a former staff writer for the Financial Times of London. He has reported on industry, politics and international trade, and has traveled widely in China.

Review:

..".[Tyler] has assembled a detailed and forceful narrative whose span is enormous--and ultimately damning to Beijing. Inevitably he leaves open the question as to whether there is any future for the Uighur in their homeland, and whether this book will rank as a watershed, or a requiem."

About this edition

• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0813535336
• ISBN 13: 9780813535333
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336