Page 118 - Communist Chinas Policy of Oppression in East Turkestan

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thor of the Diwan Lughat at-Turk, Yusuf Khass Khadjib, author of the
Kutadgu Bilig, and Ahmad Yuknaki, the writer of the great Atabet'ul
Haqayiq, also lived in Turkestan, the cradle of Turkish-Islamic civiliza-
tion. Scholars such as these, of whom we have cited only a few, are suf-
ficient to demonstrate the importance of East Turkestan to the Turkish
and Islamic worlds.

EAST TURKESTAN IS NOT PART OF CHINA
One of the claims made by China in order to conceal its human
rights violations and repression in East Turkestan is that the area "forms
part of Chinese territory," for which reason events in East Turkestan
"need to be considered a domestic Chinese affair." However, historical
sources disprove that claim. First and foremost is the Great Wall of
China, built by the Chinese to prevent attacks on them by other nations.
This was the first time that China had put up an official border between
itself and the peoples living around it. East Turkestan falls outside that
5
border. Moreover, many sources describe the Jade Gate (so called be-
cause of the many jade stones found there), as being at China's western-
most border. One of these sources that describes the gate as opening
into East Turkestan is actually a Chinese book, the New China Atlas,
published in Shanghai in 1939. 6
The region between the Great Wall of China and the Caspian Sea,
Siberia and Iran, and the borders of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir
and Tibet has been known as Turkestan in not only the earliest Islamic
records, but also in old Iranian and Indian accounts. This is also ac-
cepted by a great many Western historians. Nikita Bichurin, one of the
earliest known Turcologists, has supported that historical truth in these
terms: "A nation lives between the Caspian Sea and the Koh-i Nur Moun-
tains. They speak Turkish and believe in Islam. They introduce themselves as
7
Turkish and describe their country as Turkestan." Because these lands
were given the name of "Xinjiang" or "Sinkiang" (meaning "new bor-

Communist China’s Policy
of Oppression in East Turkestan