Han Communists developed Xinjiang as a penal colony, as a nuclear testing ground and dumping ground for radioactive wastes (that is responsible for unusually high birth defects and mortality rate amongst the inhabitants) and as a buffer zone against invasion, and as a supplier of raw materials and living space for an overpopulated country. [Note: In this respect Hanification has some resemblance to the Soviet experiment in the Muslim-majority Central Asia.]
Determined to end the push and pull of centuries, Mao’s successors resorted to Hanification of Xinjiang, which is primarily carried out in two folds: settlements and language or culture. They have had changed the demography of the region by settling the Han Chinese from other parts of the PRC and conducted forced abortion on Uighur women. Arienne M. Dwyer notes in an article – The Xinjiang Conflict: Uyghur Identity, Language Policy, and Political Discourse – the Han population “increased from nearly 300,000 in 1953 to nearly 6 million in 1990, in addition to more than one-half million demobilized soldiers in the Production and Construction Corps.” This increase in Xinjiang was made possible “as a result of state-sponsored population transfers from other parts of China.”
A second massive Hanification in the form of systematic colonization took place in the 1990s soon after the collapse of the Soviet Empire. Mindful of the emergence of the Central Asian republics (that are culturally, mostly Turkish), the CCP offered an attractive economic incentive program called the “Big Development of the Northwest” to the poor Han-Chinese to transfer them from the underdeveloped areas of the country to the Muslim-majority territories. The CCP’s calculated attempts brought success. It brought between one and two million new Han-Chinese settlers to Xinjiang alone. Today, the Han–Chinese population makes up more than 40 percent of Xinjiang’s total population of 22 million, from what was only 6 percent in the early 1950s….
In January 2019 Beijing passed a new Draconian law that seeks to “Sinicize” Islam. The campaign to “Sinicize religion” – the third form of Hanification – actually began in 2015 when President Xi Jinping passed a policy to bring religions in line with Chinese culture and the CCP. The law criminalized any expression of dissent or religious belief on behalf of Uyghurs alongside with branding their cultural traditions as signs of radicalization and terrorism. In October 2016 the government declared that all Xinjiang residents need to submit their documents for review to the Public Security Bureau (PSB), with the intention of limiting their travel outside the country. As a result of that, many students who pursued education abroad were forcefully returned and disappeared upon arrival at the Chinese border since their loyalty to the People’s Party was questioned. https://www.eurasiareview.com/13102019-uighurs-the-victims-of-hanification-oped/
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