Earthquake safety versus human rights: China invokes "redevelopment measures" to destroy Uighurs' cultural identity.

The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) has accused the government of China of purposefully moving to destroy unique ethnic cultural treasures on the pretext of earthquake-proofing measures. "Since February 2009 China has been tearing down the centuries-old center of Kashgar in the province of Xinjiang, purportedly to make way for the construction of earthquake-safe apartment blocks," reported Ulrich Delius of the STP's Asia section on Monday in Göttingen. "The goal of the bulldozer-driven "redevelopment" scheme is to destroy the cultural identity of the Uighurs who live there. Furthermore, this is intended to strengthen the control over this ethnic minority, as the Uighurs have repeatedly questioned Chinese rule in the northwestern region of the People's Republic."

Some 70 percent of the several hundred years old town center in Kashgar, known as "The Cairo of the East" and as a unique cultural treasure in Central Asia, has been torn down since February 2009 in the course of the "redevelopment." The European Parliament passed a resolution on Thursday last week demanding an immediate stop to the destruction. China should agree to the appointment of a commission of experts to investigate the possibilities for preservation and restoration of the unique old-town area, as recommended by the European parliamentarians. In addition they demand an end to the forced relocation of Uighurs as well as adequate compensation for all victims of the reconstruction efforts to date.

In February 2009 the Chinese authorities announced that 200,000 inhabitants of Kashgar's old town would be relocated within the subsequent 5 years to "earthquake-safe" apartment blocks. Where previously the old town was inhabited almost entirely by Uighurs, the new apartment blocks are intended to house both Uighurs and Han Chinese. This is part of China's long-term plan to alter the ethnic make-up of a city up to now has been the most strongly characterized by Uighur culture in the northwestern part of the country. Only 15 percent of the 400 to 500 year old houses are slated to be preserved, and these in a form of open-air museum to promote tourism. "But the unique cityscape is being high-handedly destroyed. The character of this city is formed not by individual houses, but rather by the overall effect of hundreds of old buildings all together in one place," said Delius.

Chinese authorities cite the risk of earthquakes in the outer northwestern region of the republic as a justification for the forced relocations. The STP declares to be a questionable basis at best, since the historical buildings, made of wood and mud, have survived dozens of earthquakes already with no damage sustained. Chinese structural engineers have pronounced the old houses in Kashgar to be extremely earthquake-safe, because the wooden girders buffer seismic shocks. The same cannot be said of the new apartment buildings. Their design is so deficient that, in just the most recent incident, in an earthquake in May 2008 in the Sichuan province, 90,000 people were killed due to collapsing buildings.