China’s plans behind the Xinjiang tragedy

An interesting perspective by Wei Jingsheng, the Chinese dissident who wrote about the Fifth Modernization on the Great Wall of Democracy in 1979 in Beijing. Wei is probably right about the power struggle within the CCP.


China’s plans behind the Xinjiang tragedy
by Wei Jingsheng
As Beijing launches a ‘Xinjiang’s charm’ campaign to draw tourists back to the region and its old ‘Silk Road’, the father of China’s pro-democracy movement, currently living in exile, says the killing in Xinjiang earlier this month was planned to turn public opinion away from infighting in the Communist Party and China’s campaign to extend its control over petroleum-producing nations in Central Asia and the Middle East.
Washington (AsiaNews/WJSF) – They all say it is a season of great events in China. Indeed, it is. What has happened in Shaoguan (Guangdong) and Urumqi (Xinjiang) has already resulted in continued condemnation from the international community.
Meanwhile, there is news that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has quarrelled with the Australian government and arrested the China chief of a big Australian company. The Chinese government has neither put him on trial or sentenced him, nor provided detailed information to the Australian government even when the Australian Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister made inquiries. This kind of conduct that violates international conventions will surely generate anger in Australia, and will surely make foreign business people in China more nervous. Who knows whether China’s secrecy laws will apply to them as well? Since the Yan‘an period in Mao Zedong’s rule, these secrecy laws have been 100 per cent effective. However, since the Xinjiang issue is more important for the average Chinese, and has had new developments, let us put aside the matter of Australian business involvement with the corrupt CCP.
There are two issues that did not receive enough attention lately. According to a report by BoXun, the most reputable overseas Chinese website, an old party official who retired from the party during the CCP's 17th Congress revealed that the reason for the explosive situation in Xinjiang was a struggle within the CCP.
From the jailing of Shanghai Mayor Chen LiangYu to last month's detention of Shenzhen Mayor Xu Zongheng, Hu Jintao joined forces with Wen Jiabao to beat the leading members of the Jiang Zemin faction. Thus the Jiang faction had to find an opportunity to fight back. They did so by fuelling tensions which led to the Shaoguan incident, and by demobilising police during the Urumqi riots, thus enabling Uyghur terrorists to use a peaceful demonstration to murder Han Chinese to the extent that Hu Jintao lost face at the G8 meeting in Italy. Hu had to return to China to secure his own backyard and prevent the situation from getting out of control at his expense.
A lot of information has been recently leaked that proves that the CCP government is guilty of doing nothing, thus allowing thugs to cause large scale murder. This tragedy had nothing to do with the World Uyghur Congress which supported the peaceful demonstration. The CCP Xinjiang government had reliable intelligence and enough power to start police action. But since the Jiang faction controls China's legal system and courts, they chose the strategy of doing nothing before and during the tragedy. They enabled Uyghur terrorists to do whatever they wanted and allowed the situation to get out of control. Indeed, through skilful cooperation the CCP's Xinjiang government and Uyghur terrorist group are responsible for such a horrifying tragedy.
Some friends are still not willing to believe that it was the CCP that took the initiative in this tragedy. They do not believe that the CCP was trying to cause hateful ethnic killing in an effort to shift political attention.
If anyone thinks this way, they might want to consider the second piece of news. During a review of the Sino-Russian joint military exercise, the CCP military Chief of General Staff, Admiral Chen Bingde, talked a lot about “anti-terrorism”, pointing the finger at Uyghurs. He claimed that China would cooperate with the four Central Asian members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and send troops outside of China to attack Uyghur terrorist organisations. He skilfully played on ordinary people’s desire for security whilst increasing their sense of hostility. At the same time he was able to extend China's military forces to the edges of the Mideast petroleum-producing region in order to thwart Western goal of controlling it. Trying to kill two birds with two stones is no coincidence but a long term strategy.
Some people wonder whether the Xinjiang tragedy was meant to make trouble for Hu Jintao. Why does he have to swallow this bitter fruit? Why did he not try to stop it or even counterattack? They are too anxious. Counterattacking does not have to happen today. “For a gentleman to take his revenge, ten years is not too late” says an old Chinese saying. Not counterattacking today does not mean never counterattacking.
What is more, the plan to cause the tragedy was perfectly executed. The underlying reasons were sufficient; the choice of timing was just right. So Zhou Yongkang, the CCP's official in charge of security, could say that without the order from Hu Jintao, he could not order his troops to open fire to stop the escalation, which gave the thugs several hours to murder. As for why not letting the military police move into Urumqi, there is the simplest excuse of underestimating the problem which is not enough to condemn anyone to death.
The most important thing is that there is sufficient reason to do something after the tragedy. These conspirators did not just shift people’s attention away from opposition [to the regime], they also might have obtained a frontier base to move west into the petroleum producing areas. What reason could Hu Jintao use to go against this? This is exactly what he wanted to do, but did not dare to do. He had no reason to oppose this even if he has to carry a knife in his back.
This situation is similar to when Hu Jintao murdered the 10th Panchen Lama, something which scared Deng Xiao Ping[2] even though it was one of his goals. In fact Deng wanted to do this but did not dare to do it.
In addition, they dealt with the aftermath skilfully by not allowing Western media to find something to protest against. So Deng happily welcomed this unexpected surprise and saw Hu in a new light.
This time, dealing of the aftermath was more difficult but the outcome was good as well. Even some anti-CCP patriotic youths turned around to help the CCP attack Uyghur opposition forces.
Some Western media, who can’t see the forest for the trees, unwittingly became accomplices in this evil. This goes to show that the CCP conspiracy was successful, something that is bound to increase.
By contrast, we must try instead to clearly distinguish between good from evil so as not to fall for the conspiracy of the Chinese Communist Party.

[1] The author here refers to the arrest of four employees of the British-Australian company Rio Tinto on charges of corrupting Chinese officials in charge of a steel mill before a contract involving an iron mine was signed. One of the four employees holds Australian passport. All four are accused of stealing a “state secret”.
[2] The 10th Panchen Lama died unexpectedly in 1989 after criticising China’s Tibet policy in a speech. For years Beijing had tried to subjugate him by different means, including prison, house arrests and forcing him to marry a Han Chinese woman.