History of Xinjiang

[12] The earliest Tarim Basin people of southern and western Xinjiang appear to have arisen from a mixture between locals of Ancient North Eurasian and Northeast Asians descent.

Mallory and Mair associate this later (700 BCE – 200 CE) Caucasian physical type with the populations who introduced the Iranian Saka language to the western part of the Tarim basin.

[note 3] According to Han accounts, the Yuezhi "were flourishing" during the time of the first great Chinese Qin emperor, but were regularly in conflict with the neighboring Xiongnu tribe to the northeast.

Their relations with adjacent Chinese dynasties to the south east were complex, with repeated periods of conflict and intrigue, alternating with exchanges of tribute, trade, and marriage treaties (heqin).

[51] These point to the influence of Chinese culture and Han settlements in the region, and the exchange of luxury items between China, India, and the west lends credence to the view that Xinjiang was the center of Silk Road trade.

[53] In 60 BC Han China established the Protectorate of the Western Regions at Wulei (烏壘; near modern Luntai) to oversee the Tarim Basin as far west as the Pamir.

Within a century they had defeated the Rouran and established a vast Turkic Khaganate (552–581), stretching over most of Central Asia past both the Aral Sea in the west and Lake Baikal in the east.

They unified parts of Inner Asia for the first time in history, developed the southern route of the Silk Road, and promoted cultural exchange between the eastern and western territories, dominating the northwest for more than three and half centuries until it was destroyed by the Tibetan Empire.

[67] The expansion into Central Asia continued under Taizong's successor, Emperor Gaozong, who dispatched an army in 657 led by Su Dingfang against the Western Turk qaghan Ashina Helu.

Due to the Imam's death in battle and burial in Khotan, Altishahr, and despite their foreign origins, the Kara-khanids are viewed as local saints by the current Hui people in the region.

In 1271 the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368) was founded by Kublai Khan and based in modern-day Beijing, but lost control of the Tarim Basin and Zungharia to Ariq Böke, ruler of Mongolia.

Dughlat amirs had ruled the country that lay south of the Tarim Basin from the middle of the thirteenth century, on behalf of Chagatai Khan and his descendants, as their satellites.

Although the emirate, representing the settled lands of Eastern Turkestan, was formally under the rule of the Moghul khans, the Dughlat amirs often tried to put an end to that dependence, and raised frequent rebellions, one of which resulted in the separation of Kashgar from Moghulistan for almost 15 years (1416–1435).

Before dealing with Amursana, the majority of Qianlong's forces were reassigned to ensure stability in Khalka until Chingünjav's army was crushed by the Qing in a ferocious battle near Lake Khövsgöl in January, 1757.

The Qing put the whole region under the military rule of a General of Ili, headquartered at the fort of Huiyuan (the so-called "Manchu Kuldja", or Yili), 30 km (19 mi)west of Ghulja (Yining).

[162] The Uyghur Muslim Sayyid and Naqshbandi Sufi rebel of the Afaqi suborder, Jahangir Khoja was sliced to death (Lingchi) in 1828 by the Manchus for leading a rebellion against the Qing.

The two previously separate regions, were combined into a single province called Xinjiang in 1884, after Russia recognized Qing China's western borders with the Treaty of Saint Petersburg.

[177] Both Han and Tang models for ruling Xinjiang provided some precedence for the Qing, but their style of governance mostly resembled that of nomadic powers like the Qara Khitay, and the centralized European and Russian empires.

[235] Ja Lama returned in 1918 to Mongolia and resumed his activities and supported himself by extorting passing caravans,[236][237][238] but was assassinated in 1922 on the orders of the new Communist Mongolian authorities under Damdin Sükhbaatar.

[246] In the name of Islam, the Uyghur leader Abdullah Bughra violently physically assaulted the Yarkand-based Swedish missionaries and would have executed them, except they were only banished due to the British Aqsaqal's intercession in their favor.

The ETR claimed authority around the Tarim Basin from Aksu in the north to Khotan in the south, and was suppressed by the armies of the Chinese Muslim warlord Ma Zhongying in 1934.

The Republic of China Armed Forces commanders in Xinjiang, Tao Zhiyue and provincial governor Burhan Shahidis surrendered to the People's Liberation Army (PLA) in September.

In 1949 when the Communists took over, the Uyghur population branded such women as milliy munapiq (ethnic scum), threatening and coercing them in accompanying their Han partners in moving to Taiwan and "China proper."

[264] Nonetheless, in 1985 Uyghurs in Ürümqi, Beijing, and Shanghai took advantage of a political thaw under Deng Xiaoping's Four Modernizations to stage mass anti-nuclear protests against continued Chinese nuclear tests in Lop Nur.

[266][267] Beginning with the proclamation of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the CCP began deporting tens of thousands of Han Chinese petty thieves, beggars, vagrants, prostitutes, and soldiers who had fought with the Kuomintang to Xinjiang.

[268] Although the Chinese government also tried to encourage voluntary migration to the region with promises of improved living standards, most of the initial migrants were political prisoners who were forced to relocate and conduct laogai projects.

In recent years, government policy has been marked by mass surveillance, increased arrests, and a system of internment camps, estimated to hold hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs and members of other Muslim minority groups.

[294] In 1968 the Soviet Union was involved in funding and supporting the East Turkestan People's Revolutionary Party (ETPRP), the largest militant Uyghur separatist organization in its time, to start a violent uprising against China.

[311] China opened up camps to train the Afghan Mujahideen near Kashgar and Khotan and supplied them with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of small arms, rockets, mines, and anti-tank weapons.

Writing in the Journal of Political Risk in July 2019, independent researcher Adrian Zenz estimated an upper speculative limit to the number of people detained in Xinjiang internment camps at 1.5 million.