Berkley Center

"The People'’s Republic of China is officially a society without religion." As with most of the Chinese Communist Party'’s official positions, this one is far from the truth about Chinese society. It does, however, pose an interesting question: what place can religion have in this “socialist” society, and are “"socialism with Chinese characteristics,"” as Chairman Mao said, and religion mutually exclusive?

I spent a week and a half in Xinjiang Autonomous Region—, the predominantly Muslim province found in the most western part of China. This is a region ripe with opposition to the Chinese government. Most people in Xinjiang are Uighur or Kazakh, by ethnicity; most government officials, especially in Xinjiang, are Han Chinese. The people live their daily lives according the Qur'an; the government officials are often required to know Chairman Mao’'s quotations by heart. The Uighur capital city is Kashgar; the official capital city is Urumqi. Xinjiang’'s people clearly have some problems with the government, but these differences are reconcilable specifically because of the Muslim faith'’s widespread popularity in Xinjiang, not in spite of it.

I spoke with a Kazakh Muslim during dinner one night in small town near the Chinese border with Russia; he was the head master at the town’'s school. He relayed that one major piece of Islamic philosophy stated that concern for the needy, to help those less fortunate, was extremely important. This was what he did in his town on a daily basis: his students would help the town’'s sick and poor, numerous as they were, at least twice a week, helping to serve them food among other things. Why did they do this? The answer was simply because their faith dictated that it was right.

The Chinese government has been criticized, not for its handling of the situation in Xinjiang, but rather for the simple fact that conflict exists there. In reality, the Chinese government has used much the money received via the sale of Xinjiang’'s natural resources to build new schools and colleges in Xinjiang, as well as build significantly better infrastructure. Moreover, during my time in Urumqi, I did not see a single homeless person, in stark contrast to the situation in parts of Beijing. During lunch one day in a Muslim restaurant in Urumqi, I asked our server why there were no homeless people. Her response was simply that the government cares for them. After further investigation, I discovered that in Urumqi, the homeless are often employed by the government on these infrastructure projects. Of course, ethnic Han migrant workers could be hired from other provinces, but this is a policy by China'’s government directed toward helping those without money or shelter in Urumqi, who are more often than not Uighur Muslims.

Perhaps these policies are simply a ploy by the Chinese government to make Xinjiang appear to be a part of the “harmonious society,” a phrase uttered all to often in nearly every government advertisement or publication. But, perhaps this idea that it is right to help those who are less fortunate is also a goal of the Chinese Communist Party. Isn'’t communism, after all, about helping those held down by the system to achieve a means to fairness? Perhaps Xinjiang’'s Muslims, those who are often poor and hurt by the system, have much more in common with the Chinese government than they once thought.