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East Turkestan or East Turkistan (, : Sherqiy Türkistan, : Шәрқий Туркистан), is a loosely-defined geographical region in the northwestern part of the China, on the cross roads of East Asia and Central Asia. The term was coined in the 19th century by Russian Empire Turkology, including Nikita Bichurin, who intended the name to replace the common Western term for the region, "Chinese Turkestan", which referred to the Tarim Basin in Southern Xinjiang or Xinjiang as a whole during the Qing dynasty. Beginning in the 17th century, Altishahr, which means "Six Cities" in Uyghur, became the Uyghur name for the Tarim Basin. Uyghurs also called the Tarim Basin "Yettishar," which means "Seven Cities," and even "Sekkizshahr", which means "Eight Cities" in Uyghur. Chinese dynasties from the Han dynasty to the Tang dynasty had called an overlapping area the "Western Regions".
Starting in the 20th century, Uyghurs separatists and their supporters used East Turkestan as an appellation for the whole of Xinjiang (the Tarim Basin and Dzungaria) or for a future independent state in present-day Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. They reject the name Xinjiang (meaning "New Frontier" in Chinese) because of the Chinese perspective reflected in the name, and prefer East Turkestan to emphasize the connection to other, western Turkic peoples groups.
The First East Turkestan Republic existed from November 12, 1933, to April 16, 1934, and the Second East Turkestan Republic existed between November 12, 1944, and June 27, 1946. East Turkestan is a founding member of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) formed in 1991, where it was represented initially by the East Turkistan National Congress and later by the World Uyghur Congress post 2004. In September 2004, the East Turkistan Government in Exile was established in Washington, D.C.
The Gökturks, known in ancient Chinese with pronunciation as Tutkyud as well as modern Chinese pronunciation as Tujue (Tu-chueh; ), united the Turkic peoples and created a large empire, which broke into various Khanates or Khaganates; the Western Turkic Khaganate inherited Xinjiang, but West Tujue became part of China's Tang dynasty until the ninth century. However, the terms for West Tujue and East Tujue do not have any relation with the terms West and East Turkestan. "Turkestan", which means "region of the Turks", was defined by Arabs geographers in the ninth and tenth centuries as the areas northeast of the Sir River. For those Arab writers, the Turks were Turkic languages-speaking and not the sedentary Persian language-speaking oasis dwellers. With the various migrations and political upheavals following the collapse of the Gökturk confederation and the Mongol invasions, "Turkestan", according to the official Chinese position, gradually ceased to be a useful geographic descriptor and was not used.
During the sixteenth century, the Chagatai Khanate completed the Islamization and Turkification of western Xinjiang and the surrounding region, known then as Moghulistan, while China's Ming dynasty held the Eastern Areas. After the Fall of the Ming dynasty, a western Mongol group established a polity in "Chinese Tartary", as it was sometimes known, or in eastern Xinjiang, expanding southward into southern Xinjiang. In 1755, the Qing dynasty defeated the Mongol Dzungar Khanate and captured two territories in Xinjiang. The northern territory, where the Dzungars lived, was called Dzungaria, while the southern areas, which the Dzungars controlled and mined, were called Huijiang (Hui-chiang; ) or Altishahr. The term "Xinjiang", which, up until that time, simply meant all territories new to the Qing, gradually shifted in meaning for the Qing court to exclusively mean Dzungaria and Altishahr taken together. In 1764, the Qianlong Emperor made this use of Xinjiang as a proper name official and issued an imperial order defining Xinjiang as a "provincial administrative area". After Zuo Zongtang (Tso Ts'ung T'ang) suppressed the Dungan revolt in 1882, Xinjiang was officially reorganized into a province and the name Xinjiang was popularized, superseding "Xiyu" in writing.
At the same time as the Chinese consolidation of control in Xinjiang, explorers from the British Empire and explored, mapped, and delineated Central Asia in a competition of colonial expansion. Several influential Russians would propose new terms for the territories, as in 1805 when the Russian explorer Timovski revived the use of "Turkestan" to refer to Middle Asia and "East Turkestan" to refer to the Tarim Basin east of Middle Asia in southern Xinjiang or, in 1829, when the Russian sinologist Nikita Bichurin proposed the use of "East Turkestan" to replace "Chinese Turkestan" for the Chinese territory east of Bukhara. The Russian Empire mused expansion into Xinjiang, which it informally called "Little Bukhara". Between 1851 and 1881, Russia occupied the Ili valley in Xinjiang and continued to negotiate with the Qing for trading and settlement rights for Russians. Regardless of the new Russian appellations, the original inhabitants of Central Asia generally continued not to use the word "Turkestan" to refer to their own territories.
After a spate of annexations in Middle Asia, Russia consolidated its holdings west of the Pamir Mountains as the Turkestan Governorate or "Russian Turkestan" in 1867. It is at this time that Western writers began to divide Turkestan into a Russian and a Chinese part. Although foreigners acknowledged that Xinjiang was a Chinese polity, and that there were Chinese names for the region, some travelers preferred to use "names that emphasized Turkic, Islamic, or Central Asian, i.e., non-Chinese characteristics". For contemporary British travelers and English-language material, there was no consensus on a designation for Xinjiang, with "Chinese Turkestan", "East Turkestan", "Chinese Central Asia", "Serindia", and "Sinkiang" being used interchangeably to describe the region of Xinjiang. Until the 20th century, locals used the names of cities or oases in their "territorial self-perception", which expanded or contracted as needed, such as Kashgaria out of Kashgar to refer to southwestern Xinjiang. Altishahr, or "six cities", collectively referred to six vaguely defined cities south of the Tian Shan.
In the Kashgar region on November 12, 1933, Uyghur separatists declared the short-lived and self-proclaimed East Turkestan Republic (ETR), using the term "East Turkestan" to emphasize the state's break from China and new anti-China orientation. Influenced by pan-Islamism and pan-Turkism, these separatists established a constitution which mandated Sharia law in the short-lived Islamic republic.
The First ETR gave political meaning to the erstwhile geographical term of East Turkestan. It was not recognized by any country, however. Chinese warlord Sheng Shicai (盛世才) quickly defeated the ETR and ruled Xinjiang for the decade after 1934 with close support from the Soviet Union.
Eventually, the Soviet Union exploited the change in power from Sheng to Kuomintang officials to create the puppet Second East Turkestan Republic (1944–1946) in present-day Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture to exploit its minerals, later justifying it as a national liberation movement against the "reactionary" Kuomintang regime. Amid the anti-Han programs and policies and exclusion of "Paganism", or Kafir, from the separatist government, Kuomintang leaders based in Dihua (Ürümqi) appealed to the long Chinese history in the region to justify its sovereignty over Xinjiang. In response, Soviet historians produced revisionist histories to help the ETR justify its own claims to sovereignty, with statements such as that the Uyghurs were the "most ancient Turkic people" that had contributed to world civilization. In June 1946, the Soviet Union withdrew its support for the ETR.
Traditionally, scholars had thought of Xinjiang as a "cultural backwater" compared to the other Central Asian states during the Islamic Golden Age. Local British and US consuls, also intrigued by the separatist government, published their own histories of the region. The Soviet Uyghur histories produced during its support of the ETR remain the basis of Uyghur nationalist publications today.
On February 28, 2017, it was announced by the Qira County government in Hotan Prefecture that those who reported others for stitching the 'star and crescent moon' insignia on their clothing or personal items or having the words 'East Turkestan' on their mobile phone case, purse, or other jewelry, would be eligible for cash payments.
In modern separatist usage, "Uyghuristan", which means "land of the Uyghurs", is a synonym for Xinjiang or a potential state in Xinjiang, like "East Turkestan". There is no consensus among separatists about whether to use "East Turkestan" or "Uyghurstan". "East Turkestan" has the advantage of also being the name of two historic political entities in the region, while Uyghurstan appeals to modern ideas of ethnic self-determination. East Turkistan was also used in the context of Yaqub Beg's Kashgaria in the mid-1800s. Uyghurstan is also a difference in emphasis in that it excludes more peoples in Xinjiang than just the Han Chinese, but the "East Turkestan" movement is still a Uyghurs phenomenon. Kazakhs and Hui people Muslims are largely alienated from the movement, as are Uyghurs who live closer to the eastern provinces of China. Separatist sentiment is strongest among the Uyghur diaspora, who practice what has been called "cyber-separatism", encouraging the use of "East Turkestan" on their websites and literature. Historically, "Uyghurstan" referred to the northeastern oasis region of "Hami-Turpan". "Chinese Turkestan", while synonymous with East Turkestan in historical terms, is not used today, rejected by Uyghur separatists for the "Chinese" part of the name and by China for the "Turkestan" part. In China, the terms "East Turkestan", "Uyghurstan", and even "Turkestan" alone connote old Western imperialism and the past East Turkestan republics and modern militant groups, such as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM). The government of China conflates the violence of differing separatist groups, such as the ETIM and the East Turkestan Liberation Organization, as coming simply from "East Turkestan forces". Chinese diplomatic missions have objected to foreigners' use of "East Turkestan". They argue that the term is political and no longer geographical or historical and that its use represents "a provocation" to the sovereignty of China. The historical definitions for "East Turkestan" are multifarious and ambiguous, reflecting that, outside of Chinese administration, the area now called "Xinjiang" was not geographically or demographically a single region.
The territorial definition, as claimed by the East Turkistan Government in Exile and International Support for Uyghurs, includes the bulk of Xinjiang (excluding the disputed territory of Aksai Chin), as well as parts of western Gansu (including Subei Mongol Autonomous County, Aksay Kazakh Autonomous County, Dunhuang city, and Guazhou County) and Qinghai (Lenghu and Mangnai). The World Uyghur Congress considers East Turkestan to be the area of Xinjiang along with territory claimed to be annexed by a "neighboring Chinese province" in 1949.
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