In reversal, China now wants to preserve Kashgar’s Old City

April 28, 2024 | Radio Free Asia | By Erkin for RFA Uyghur

But starting in 2008, China has already demolished 85% of Kashgar’s ancient quarter and relocated thousands of residents to newer “earthquake-resistant houses,” according to a June 2020 report by the Uyghur Human Rights Project, or UHRP, on the destruction of the Old City.

“Above their doors are wooden signs saying ‘Minority Folk Art’ or ‘Traditional Ethnic Crafts’ in English and Chinese,” he was quoted as saying in the UHRP report.

China’s past actions appeared to be motivated by a “campaign to stamp out tangible aspects of Uyghur culture,” the UHRP report said.

The new regulation will benefit Chinese investors involved in tourism in the city, said Henryk Szadziewski a senior researcher at the Uyghur Human Rights Project.

For example, Beijing-based tourism and property developer Zhongkun Investment Group Ltd. is involved in restoration efforts and tourism initiatives in the Old City, he said.

Following earlier reconstruction work, the Old City’s neighborhood Communist Party committee leased the reassembled quarter to Zhongkun, which began marketing the area as a “living Uyghur folk museum” and established a “near monopoly” over Kashgar’s tourism, the UHRP report said.

“The new Kashgar Old City has a different set of people who occupy that space — people who have interests in tourism and people who have interests in the exploitation of that,” Szadziewski told RFA.

“To come up with this and to try to portray it as something genuine is quite a cruel irony for the Uyghur people,” he added.

Read the full article: https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/kashgar-old-city-04262024170850.html