Xinjiang and Kashmir: Two Parallel Cases?

Photo by Jeevan Singla is available for use in the public domain.

At first, the list of similarities between China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang province and India’s treatment of Kashmiri Muslims can be arresting. Both are cases of Asian superpowers suppressing historically Muslim majority regions at a time when these countries are seeing rising nationalism and centralization of power. China and India both desire to integrate these regions into their mainland, and Xinjiang and Kashmir are of great strategic importance. Both are heavily militarized. Both are shuttered from the world due to the threat of terrorism. The princely state of Jammu and Kashmir even shares a border with a disputed region that is administered by the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

Yet there is little commentary in the media about these two cases being analogous. While the media may not regard these cases together, policymakers in India and China are - each country is taking note of which tactics implemented by the other are effective. All the while, the international community has struggled to address the human rights situation in both regions due to the strength of the economic influence exerted by the two most populous countries in the world. Therefore, a transnational perspective that encompasses both the similarities and divergences in the Kashmir and the Xinjiang case is imperative when analyzing any developments in the India-China region and in their spheres of influence.

After the 2009 riots in Xinjiang’s capital, Urumqi, Chinese officials suspended all communication in and out of the province for 10 months. Under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, Kashmir actually retained a certain amount of autonomy, including the right to create its own separate constitution. But in 2019, after the abrogation of Article 370 and the resulting bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) also shut down all communications and internet in Kashmir. Some academics have suggested that such policies in India were inspired by the situation in Xinjiang. In what would become “the world’s longest internet shutdown,” these measures not only failed to prevent militant terrorist activity but may have instead radicalized segments of the general public faced with such restrictions. 

Both Beijing and New Delhi claim to have legitimate security concerns about independence movements in Xinjiang and Kashmir and have used these concerns as a pretext to crack down on their minority populations. China blames the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a militant Uyghur separatist group, for about two hundred terrorist incidents from 1990 to 2001. Kashmir is also home to a tradition of separatist movements, and many of their members have been detained under the Public Safety Act. Authorities also have recently taken to arresting non-violent activists and locked down the region again after Kashmir’s most influential separatists died. 

Across Xinjiang, China’s dystopian surveillance state monitors Uyghurs using artificial intelligence, facial and iris-recognition, and phone tapping in an alleged attempt to curb militantism and separatism. Those who run afoul of the police state are sent to notorious “re-education” camps, where up to 3 million Uyghurs are detained. Experts suspect that similar, albeit more crude, surveillance instruments built by the same Chinese security firms may have been imported into India. 

Demographic change is also a point of contention. In Xinjiang, Han Chinese settlers now make up 40 percent of the population in the region and have overseen massive, often illegal, investment in the region's natural energy resources and other sectors. Kashmir’s new status as a union territory means that any Indian citizens can now buy and own land, leading some to accuse Modi’s government of trying to change the current ethnic mix and exploit Kashmir’s natural resources. However, such accusations do not neatly line up with the Xinjiang case. In the 1990s, almost all of the Hindu Kashmiri Pandits were forced out as a result of Islamic militants, and the issue went on to be a major political reason to rally support for ending Article 370. 

Despite the crackdowns on the press and speech, Kashmir is still many stages away from the totalitarian conditions in Xinjiang. But as the security situation in Kashmir vis-à-vis Pakistan deteriorates, it is likely that the government will maintain its grip on the region, no doubt looking to beyond the Himalayas for a successful model.

One very real difference that perhaps precludes others from seeing Kashmir and Xinjiang side-by-side is the role that each region plays in the public imagination. China’s designs in Xinjiang originate from its historical role as hegemon in its known world. Anyone seeking to invade the homeland of the Han Chinese would have to make their way across the deserts and steppes of Xinjiang before reaching the Yellow River Basin. Today, the province stands to become a central logistical hub for China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This history and strategic location means that to Beijing, Xinjiang is a frontier (Xinjiang literally meaning “new frontier”) that must be folded into its political and cultural grips by any means necessary. Like Tibet and Hong Kong, Xinjiang’s case is consistent with the Chinese Communist Party’s modus operandi towards territories it considers to be a part of China’s sovereign territory.

In India’s rivalry with Pakistan, Kashmir is the main battleground upon which the two rivals process intractable issues. To Pakistan, the accession of a Muslim majority region into India invalidates the entire Pakistani project as a nation for and of Muslims. Thus, public sentiment around Kashmir is forever framed by the threat that disruption in Kashmir poses to India’s territorial sovereignty and the Indian experiment itself. And as sectarian divisions in India rise, many also bemoan the disappearance of “Kashmiriyat,” or the notion that Kashmir’s unique history and cultural eclecticism gave it special status as a paradise where religious harmony flourished. Often referred to as a “heaven on earth” and the “crown of India,” Kashmir in the imagination of Indians is much more than a distant frontier to be conquered. 

While Xinjiang may be a natural frontier to China, Kashmir has not traditionally been treated as peripheral territory. However, under Prime Minister Modi, Kashmir seems more like occupied territory to many of its residents. The BJP’s rhetoric othering Kashmiri Muslims has gotten more and more vulgar, and as a result, the Hindu majority in India has become increasingly polarized on the issue of Kashmir. If the BJP goal here is to “frontierize” Kashmir for political purposes, a transnational approach shows us not only the perils of such a strategy for minority communities, but also its effectiveness. For in the heavily frontierized Xinjiang, the plight of Uyghurs is not only exceedingly dire, but also nearly impossible to alleviate by outside actors. As the frontierization of Kashmir progresses, Kashmiris may find their grievances handled increasingly harshly by the central government.

All this takes place within the context of a global rise in authoritarianism, strategic rivalry between China and the United States, as well as the increasing economic might of India and China. Muslim countries with trade agreements in India have stayed silent on Kashmir, and ones who have benefited from Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) investment raise no public objections over China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims. Recently, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan received some attention in the Western media for his refusal to criticize China over their treatment of the Uyghurs. Those who criticize Khan for being much more vocal when it comes to the state of Muslims in Kashmir, however, miss out on his need to balance Pakistan’s strategic interests. Khan, while privately sympathetic to the Uyghurs, recognizes that any intervention in Xinjiang is not feasible. He also needs to assure the Chinese of his commitment to the BRI, a solution that has not been as elegant in practice as it in theory, all the while hedging his bets by pocketing American foreign aid. Other nations that would be concerned about repression in Xinjiang and Kashmir must also balance their interests in confronting either China or India.

To the Western world, India’s democratic status makes it an appealing foil to China. As such, it is highly unlikely that Modi will face any ramifications for his crackdown in Kashmir. There is more appetite in the international community for addressing the atrocities in Xinjiang. The United States can certainly take stronger measures against imports made by Uyghur labor and along with its NATO allies, ramp up diplomatic pressure on China. That the United States engineered little change in Kashmir does not bode well for any attempts to deal with Xinjiang. But as developments in the two regions proceed in somewhat of a parallel fashion, it would be remiss to regard Xinjiang as an anomalous case without considering developments in Kashmir as well. As such, any serious frameworks about China’s intentions in Xinjiang or India’s intentions in Kashmir must fully take into account the situation across the Himalayas.