Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang (review)

The problems of writing a history of China's arid westernmost (and largest) province begin with what to what to call it. The People's Republic of China insists on "Xinjiang," the Chinese name the Manchu Qing dynasty imposed in the mid-eighteenth century when it conquered the region. Variously glossed as "new province," "new dominion," or even "new frontier," such labels never found favor with its Turkish-speaking Muslim inhabitants (nomadic Kazaks in the north, Uighur oasis-dwellers in the south). For them the region was not a new anything since it had its own distinct history that spanned four millennia despite previous periods of direct Chinese rule during the Han and Tang dynasties. But since their political identity was historically set by local oasis origin or tribal nomadic confederation, only in the early twentieth century did ethnic nationalists see the need to create their own overarching designation, "East Turkestan." This label emphasized the region's shared heritage and deep connections with co-ethnic Turkish populations to the west that always lay beyond China's sphere of influence. It was also similar to "Chinese Turkestan," the most common nineteenth-century Western designation, a seemingly amiable (if somewhat colonial) compromise that recognized both the region's ethnic Turkish character and Chinese political control in ways similar to "Russian Turkestan" or "Afghan Turkestan."

The naming problem is more than academic because the Chinese government still takes umbrage at usages (particularly any variation of "Turkestan") that imply the region is not, or was not always, an integral and indivisible part of China. It has been known to deny visas to foreign scholars who use terminology of which they disapprove, and internal ethnic nationalists face far worse consequences. Well aware of this controversy, Millward chooses "Xinjiang" for the title, but as his comprehensive account makes clear, the region's connections with China have been far from continuous. Indeed, there is a strong argument that its relationship to China better resembled Tibet or Mongolia than it did to any of China's more interior provinces. Similarly, perhaps discomforting ethnic nationalists, readers are made aware that Turkish and Islamic identities are only the most recent in a long history that included many different language speakers and religious traditions.

As befits a key link in the international Silk Route in premodern times, the region's people proved historically open to new ideas and opportunities. Some of these opportunities were thrust upon them. The territory constituting today's Xinjiang appears never to have been unified politically except under the rule of outsiders. These outsiders were strikingly diverse, coming as they did at different times from every surrounding territory. From the east, the Han and Tang dynasties vied with the northern Mongolian steppe-based Xiongnu, Turk, and Uighur nomad empires for influence and political control. The Tibetan Empire on its southern flank also extended its rule over the region at various times during the seventh through the ninth centuries. The west was not entirely absent in these struggles either. The Sogdian city-states of Central Asia had great influence over their eastern cousins in the Tang dynasty, and during the eleventh century the Turkish Qara Khanids, based in Bukhara, became the dominant regional power. They were displaced at the beginning of the twelfth century by royal Manchurian refugees of the Liao dynasty from North China who reestablished themselves there as the Qara Khitai. Although neither Turks nor Muslims, the Qara Khitai proved successful rulers until they were finally ousted by the Mongols in 1218. Chinese influence (even if by way of a Manchurian people) was then notably absent from the region for the next five hundred years. The oases and neighboring steppe zones fell under different post-Mongol successor states until the Qing dynasty captured the area in 1757.

This quick summary does little justice to Millward's more detailed description, which makes up the first quarter of the book, beginning even earlier with the Bronze Age...