the region, China knows very well that the 7,500,000 Chinese citizens of Han ethnicity have been forced or tricked into immigrating into the region, rewarded with certain privileges. During the processes that followed the establishment of the Communist government under the leadership of Mao Tsetung in 1949, with a decree issued in August 19, 1952 these migrations began, transforming the region into an autonomous region in name only. This book describes Eastern Turkistan as the Xingjian Region or the Uyghur Autonomous Region. Yet, after the annexation of the region by China, the forced immigration in the late 19th century made no difference to the population structure of the region. On the contrary, the total number of ethnic groups, made up of Chinese, Mongols and Manchurians during this period were no greater than 600,000. The same groups made up only 6%5 of the population of the region, with more than 90% consisting of Muslim Uyghur.

2. Economic ventures and the logic of “No turning back”

In contrast to the Soviet Union, under Communism, China tried to form a global economy that would be able to sustain the needs of the poorer classes, which formed the vast majority of the population. It can be said that China, which attained great success in the open market, was ready to accept a global economy at a much earlier period. Immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union, marking the end of the Cold War, China made it public that it was now a part of the global economy with its “Capitalist Socialism” formula. Thanks to this formula, China has reclaimed Hong Kong from England in 1997, with the condition that it would preserve the existing economic system for another fifty years. It transformed the Fujian canton into a region where European and American corporations can invest and carried out some large investments in the USA. Therefore, while China continues to remain a Communist state, with a controlled economy, at the same time it has become a capitalist state involved in global competition in an open market economy. This also indicates that China is using Communism as a conservative and strict system of government that shores up its domination over hundreds of million people. That is, China does not see Communism as an ideological or economic system. As far as market competition is concerned, this unique system, mentioned above, makes it possible for China to dominate the global economy and world politics.6

Since the 1980’s and the death of the Chinese leader Mao Tse-Tung, China has adopted a policy of opening onto the world. After this, signs of the Chinese policy towards Eastern Turkistan began to surface with great economic demands and competition; these had a very deceptive effect over the events that happened in the region. As a result, ethnic and systematic forced immigration to Eastern Turkistan began to be mentioned officially; the official reason was the development of this region at the beginning of the 21st century. The Chinese prime minister, Zhao Ziyang, and the former general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Hu Yao Bang, who visited Eastern Turkistan in 1983, stated this point very clearly. Since this plan required a vast amount of money, as well as