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Updated Sunday, September 27, 2009 11:09 am TWN, The China Post news staff

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Is the DPP at its wit's end?

But it certainly wants Xinjiang's independence, just as the organizations that have invited her - and the DPP which will finance her Taiwan junket - would like Taiwan to be an independent, sovereign state like the People's Republic. Inasmuch as President Ma is concerned, the Quisling turned rebel's proposed visit to Taiwan isn't a hot potato like the Dalai Lama's prayer tour last month. What the Ministry of Foreign Affairs can do is to say her WUC is suspected of a link with the ETIM, the U.N.-sanctioned terrorist group, and turn down her request for an entry visa. China has condemned Kadeer for instigating a bloody riot in Urumuqi on last July 5.

Few in Taiwan have any interest in Xinjiang, an autonomous region in the People's Republic with a multiethnic population. Some 45.2 percent of the people in Xinjiang are Moslem Uighurs. Another 41 percent are ethnic Han Chinese, most of them Moslem Hui. The rest of the people are Tatars, Kazakhs, Kyrgyzs, Uzbeks and Iranian Pamiris, all of them followers of Islam.

Xinjiang is too far away from Taiwan. Most of the people here, who are by and large Buddhist, may have some interest in Tibet, where Lamaist Buddhism is practiced, which is why the Dalai Lama has a Taiwanese following. Ask the average man in the street about Xinjiang, however, and he will answer he doesn't care whatever happens there.

Let's take a quick look at the history of Xinjiang, which used to be called Chinese Turkistan. The Uighurs, a Turkish-speaking nomadic people, were conquered by the Han Chinese in the second century B.C. A Uighur kingdom came into being after the second century A.D. Then the Tatars, the Mongols, the Manchu Jurchens and even the Arabs ruled the territory, but in the end the Uighurs, the majority of the people, were able to rule until Zuo Zongtang or General Tso re-conquered the territory for Qing China, that signed a Treaty of St. Petersburg with Tsarist Russia in 1881 to reclaim sovereignty over it, and the province of Xinjiang was proclaimed in 1884.

　　Xinjiang, incidentally, means New Territory. It remained semi-autonomous under Han Chinese governors after the Kuomintang toppled the Qing Dynasty and proclaimed the Republic of China in Nanjing in 1912. The People's Liberation Army freed Xinjiang in 1949 and turned it into the autonomous region in 1955. A subsequent massive migration of Han Chinese has threatened the Uighur plurality, the root cause of new Xinjiang nationalism. Premier Wu told the Legislative Yuan no visa would be granted to Kadeer. But Taiwan simply cannot let her come to Taiwan, where the government has a Cabinet-level Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission but no separate agency in charge of Xinjiang (which is a province, according to the Constitution of the Republic of China). Kadeer is regarded either as a citizen of the People's Republic or a stateless person, who may be allowed to come as such, if her organization has nothing to do with the ETIM. In other words, she is a persona non grata. Taipei has every right to deny such a person a visa and should not have to explain why.

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Comments

September 28, 2009 cia_yes@

I advise the DPP to better declare Taiwan independence right now if they really mean it. Otherwise, they are just deceiving and playing the public for sake of election. The proof is that Taiwan's position is no nearer to independence than before after 8 years of DPP rule. Regrettably, the people of Taiwan and even the KMT seem to not know their real intention. KMT should challenge the DPP by asking them to declare independence immediately. If DPP cannot follow, then the game is over once and for all. I believe DPP surely would back out, because even Chen couldn't do it (or no intention to do so because he was busying these 8 years for a retirement plan), then who can do this.