101
China.
204
Furthermore, countries and communities on this
route were more scattered and had loose socio-cultural
structures compared to China. A dominant majority on this
route is Turks and communities that speak Altaic languages
against whom China had historically launched successful
diplomatic and military missions (by dividing, setting them
against each other and buying some off). Although
thousands of years passed, this situation has not changed
much to date.
China stands out among the countries that played
active commercial and political role in this region after the
dissolution of the USSR. China has begun to fill in the
authority gap created after the USSR through Shanghai
Cooperation Organization (SCO). Carrying out SCO
activities, China has built confidence and experience in order
to embark on larger projects.
A Market and Raw Material Resource
Low-cost labor and various incentive policies
managed to attract foreign investors and producers to China
and turned it into “the factory of the world” in 1990s. It has
been looking for new energy resources in the Persian Gulf,
the Arabian Sea as well as the Arab World, the Turkic
World and Africa in order to provide raw material and
energy required by the factory.
Energy resources and the raw material necessary to
keep Chinese industries going are abundant in the Islamic
geography. Thanks to close ties established with these
regions, China is directly connected to pipe and natural gas
lines. China aims to transfer energy from the Persian Gulf
and the Arabian Sea through pipe lines from Gwadar port
that was purchased from Pakistan to Kashgar without
cruising along Malacca and Southern China Sea which are
controlled by the USA and its Southern Eastern allies.
In the meantime, the aforementioned Islamic
geography is the most profitable region to where
204
In Chinese history, ‘Western World’ is called Xi yu/ 西 域 , which
extends from the Yellow River but it is not known where it ends. The
region which is called Şark-ı Türkistan (Eastern Turkistan) was attempted
to be converted to a Chinese land with the name Xinjiang-新疆-Şinciang
in 1884 and today the current political discourse defines the area as “a part
of Chinese lands from all eternity 自古以来中国不可分割的一部分”
102
miscellaneous products and production surplus produced by
Chinese industries are sold.
Countries without Strong State Tradition and
Communities with Elite Bureaucrats who can be Bought-
off
Many countries located on the route of the
anticipated New Silk Road share some common
characteristics: they lack a strong state tradition or their
identities have been shattered or ‘defined’ by imperialist
powers. These “tribal” and communal countries emerged as
a result of artificial maps created by imperialists and they
cannot stand on their own feet in the global competition.
Therefore former imperialist power continue to exploit these
countries particularly in culture. Turkic tribes with a history
of civilization were detached from their own cultures and
their identities as well as their perception of civilization
became problematic, which in the end helped external forces
to manipulate some of the elite and bureaucrats and even
buy them off in some cases.
Thanks to cooperation developed by China in the
framework of SCO, one of the strongest tools of China’s soft
power, Chinese language and culture, have spread quickly
and Chinese cultivators and farmers started “settling in”
many countries, particularly Tajikistan and Kazakhstan. On
the other hand, Confucius Institute is very active and
effective in countries such as Tajikistan as many students
study in many universities of China on scholarship.
Kazakhstan ranks as the 10
th
among foreign students in
China whose total number reached 460 thousand. In other
words, Kazakhstan is among top 10 countries that send the
highest number of foreign students to China (Karluk 2016:
167). Popularity of Chinese language is increasing
continuously in Turkic republics and it is more common than
Russian in some of them. It is also known that many
influential bureaucrats complete their education in China and
they keep close ties with China. For instance, Karim
Massimov, a high-level bureaucrat who served as the Prime
Minister of Kazakhstan in 2007-2012 and 2014-2016, has
been to China for graduate studies and stayed there for a
long period of time (Karluk, 2016: 168).
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“Xinjiang Production and Construction Corp
(XPCC/Bingtuan
205
)”, a semi-military institution which was
effective in Sinicization of Manchuria and Uyghur Turkic
region, purchased a 3 million hectare land in Ukraine. To be
Chinese company’s asset in a few years, the land constitutes
7% of the total arable land of Ukraine (Timofeev, 2015:
102).
205
It’s a semi-military and semi-civilian structure founded by Chinese
Liberation Army (CLA) in Eastern Turkistan in 1954. Responding directly
to the central government independently from the Xinjiang Uyghur
Autonomous Regional Government, Bingtuan is thus a unique initiative in
People’s Republic in China. Having expanded its lands since 1954,
Bingtuan’s total surface area by 2013 is 70,600 square kilometer. It
consists of 14 divisions and 176 regiments. After its bureaucratic mandate
has expanded, it has evolved into what can be called “a state within the
state”. According to official statistics, Bingtuan’s population, many of
whom are provided with employment, has reached 3 million, which was
only 175,000 in 1954. The Han Chinese make up for most of the labor.
See: www.china.org.cn/e-white/20030526/9.htm, access: 25.12.2016
Bingtuan served as a defense mechanism against Soviet invasion and
ethnic uprisings until the end of the 20
th
century. Since the 1990s when
China embarked on a financial opening, it has helped preserving socio-
economic dominance of Han Chinese population, encircling the local
communities and quelling rebellions swiftly and mercilessly. For more
detailed information, see: Donald Mcmillen, “Xinjiang And the
Produnction and Construction Corps: A Han Organızation in a Non Han
Region” The Australian Journal of Chinese affairs, 1981/6 P. 65-96;
James D Seymour, “Xinjiang’s Produnction and Construction Corps, and
the Snification of Eastern Turkestan”, İnner Aisa, 2000/2, P. 171-193.
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