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China has more than 17 million Muslims[18] but this figure is believed to understate the actual numbers by as much as 50 percent. The Hui are the largest officially recognized Muslim group at about 8.6 million and are ethnically and linguistically Chinese. Hui minority populations are found throughout China and they do not have a traditional territorial homeland.

The Uyghurs are the most important Muslims of Turkic origin and are the dominant ethnic group in Xinjiang, numbering about 7.2 million out of a total population of some 15 million. The Hui and the Turkic Muslims have different relationships with the Han Chinese and the two groups are not natural allies. The former are frequently referred to as "Chinese Muslims" and are culturally closer to the mainstream Chinese community. The Hui have no inherent connection with the Turkic-origin Islamic groups but have often served as a bridge between them and Beijing. Even so, the Hui have also suffered discrimination at the hands of the Chinese and have demonstrated their desire for greater cultural and religious freedom on numerous occasions.

In Xinjiang, because Islam is essentially indistinguishable from local cultural and national identity, Beijing perceives it to be a particular threat to its rule. As a result, mosques and religious schools in Xinjiang, which are regarded as hot-beds of anti-régime sentiment, have periodically been closed and religious activists arrested and harassed.

During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) in Xinjiang and throughout China, mosques were destroyed or closed, ancient religious sites desecrated and religious leaders imprisoned and executed. The situation improved in the eighties. According to Dr. Paul George, a Canadian researcher on international security and development, "Mosques were rebuilt or reopened and greater interaction between China's Muslims and the wider Islamic community was permitted. Chinese Muslim participation in the annual Haj pilgrimage to Mecca grew steadily from the mid-1980s, exposing many ordinary people to international Islamic thought and political developments. Similarly, foreign Muslims were allowed to visit Islamic sites in China, creating a greater awareness of the wider Muslim community."[19]

But by the early 1990s, mosque construction and renovation was severely curtailed, public broadcasting of sermons outside mosques was banned, religious education was proscribed, only religious material published by the state Religious Affairs Bureau was allowed, religious activists were purged from state positions and Haj pilgrimages were tightly controlled and limited to participants over 50 years of age.[20]

Furthermore, the traditional Arabic script that had been used in the region for more than a thousand years is now being superseded by Chinese, and thousands of traditional historical books have been destroyed. The Uyghur language itself has been banned in Xinjiang University according to the testimony of members of the Uyghur American Association to a U.S. Congressional Commission on China.[21]

The first serious outbreaks of violence directed at the Chinese authorities occurred in response to the imposition of these restrictive measures and reflected the local communities' anger and frustration at Beijing's about-turn on greater religious freedom.

"Whereas there has clearly been heightened awareness of their ethno-religious roots amongst the Muslims of Xinjiang in recent years, it is not apparent that this can be equated with the beginning of an Islamic fundamentalist movement," Dr. Paul George claims. "In fact, with some exceptions, Uyghurs are not generally considered to be fundamentalists and the organized lethal combination of religion and violence seen in the Islamic world from Algeria to Afghanistan is so far missing in Xinjiang."[22]

Still a small number of Xinjiang Muslims are known to have fought alongside the Mujahideen in Afghanistan and were also later connected to the Taliban. But Uyghur leaders-in-exile maintain that the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, which the United States recently included in its list of Foreign Terrorist organizations, is an obscure group that most Uyghurs know nothing about and that the political implication of this decision would be disastrous for the Uyghur freedom movement worldwide, and to the ever-deteriorating human rights situation in East Turkistan. The editor of the Uyghur Information Agency in Washington, D.C., declared that America's action would "legitimize China's aggressive clampdown on any form of Uyghur dissent, no matter how nonviolent and peaceful they may be."[23]