China Uses Muslims to Woo Partners

The estimated 10 million Hui Muslims are increasingly enjoying religious freedom in China.

"When I graduated from high school, in 1986, the situation was very difficult," a woman running an Islamic girls school in Tongxin, a Hui Muslim-majority county in Ningxia, told Reuters.

"Now the religious policies are more relaxed. We can go ahead without fear," she added, refusing to be named.

Hui Muslims are estimated at nearly 10 million of China's sizable Muslim minority of 20 millions.

With a heritage traced back to the Middle East and Central Asia, Hui Muslims are enjoying more religious freedom in the atheist country.

Mosques devastated in the frenzy of the Cultural Revolution in Tongxin have been rebuilt with surprising splendor for one of the country's poorest regions.

More Chinese Muslims are fulfilling their dreams of learning about their faith as the government relaxes controls over Islam.

Hai, a 25-year-old Hui Muslim, goes to the mosque in Beijing every day to pray as he did growing up in the northwestern Chinese region of Ningxia.

"Not everyone was like that but my family was, and now more and more people are. Our religion is developing very quickly," said Hai, who declined to give his full name.

According to official data, China has 20 million Muslims, most of them are concentrated in Xinjiang, Ningxia, Gansu, and Qinghai regions and provinces.

Smaller Muslim communities can also be found throughout interior China.

Islam came to China via Muslim businessman during the era of the Tang Dynasty.

There have also been reports of companions of the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) coming to China.

Official Leniency 

"The relationship with the Muslim Hui has always been a stake of international diplomacy, part of a charm offensive by China," said Bequelin.

Hui Muslims are also allowed to building schools in their inhabited areas.

"The national policies are opening up and as long as you don't go against the country's religious policies and regulations, you can freely progress," said the Muslim woman who has 68 students in her school.

Most of her students wear hijab, although it is rare to see women wearing the Islamic headdress in the area.

Official leniency vis-à-vis Hui Muslims is seen as a gesture for the community in return for shying away from any political engagement.

"They're banking on the fact that China's Muslims are aware of the limits and the rules and they know how to play the game," said Dru Gladney, an expert at Pomona College in California.

For now, it's a compromise that seems to be working.

This official stance contradicts the crackdown on Muslim Uighurs, who live mainly in the northwestern region of Xinjiang.

International human rights organizations have chided the Chinese government in several reports for its poor human rights record in predominantly Muslim regions, particularly Xinjiang.

Human Rights Watch has said in a recent report that Chinese policy in Xinjiang "denies Uighurs religious freedom, and by extension freedom of association, assembly, and expression."

Win Hearts

Easing restrictions on the Hui Muslim community is seen as part of efforts by Beijing to win hearts of Muslim Mideast oil-rich countries.

"The relationship with the Muslim Hui has always been a stake of international diplomacy, part of a charm offensive by China," said Nicholas Bequelin, a researcher for Human Rights Watch and a specialist on China's Muslims.

"This to a certain extent explains why the authorities have been more lenient."

The Asian economic giant has been quietly moving onto traditional US turf in the Middle East.

Its trade ties with Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, is expected to hit $20 billion for 2006, a 30 percent rise from the previous year.

Beijing has also boosted ties with other Gulf Cooperation Council members, including oil producers Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

China National Offshore Oil Co. (CNOOC) is in talks with Qatar for liquefied natural gas supplies.

PetroChina is also studying plans with Kuwait to build a refinery and petrochemical complex in South China, and the state oil firm Saudi Aramco is negotiating refinery joint ventures in China.

"Trade relations between China and the GCC countries are expected to grow and go beyond the current $32 billion dollar estimate that they reached in 2005 in various commodities and services," said Rochdi Younsi, Middle East and Africa analyst of the Eurasia Group in London.