Demolition of Kashgar’s Khan Bazaar creates uncertain future for Uyghur shop owners

Qasimjan Abdurehim remembers Kashgar’s centuries-old Khan Bazaar as a thriving market where Uyghur merchants traded in cloth and modern tourists strolled the pedestrian street that ran through the center.

Last month, Chinese workers began demolishing the bazaar for “optimization” purposes: renovations to improve the area and replace what they said were dilapidated structures with modern ones.

Uyghurs like Abdurehim believe the move is another move by the Chinese government to force the largely Muslim ethnic group to assimilate into the mainstream and wipe out their culture and heritage.

A short video posted on the TikTok app showed that most of the store’s stairwells, windows and doors had been destroyed. Market supervision officials confirmed that demolition and reconstruction efforts were underway.

“They tore down the old structures and built new ones, which they claimed were earthquake resistant,” said Abdurehim, who is 40 and now works as a real estate agent in Virginia.

This is not the first case. When Chinese authorities razed iconic Kashgar grand bazaarthe largest international trade market in all of Xinjiang, in 2022, they retained none of the distinctive cultural traits of the market.

three detainees

Fearing they would lose their businesses forever, some Uyghur shopkeepers in Khan Bazaar quarreled with government workers when demolition began, a member of the neighborhood committee said.

Police arrested three people, including Bahtiyar, a 16-year-old whose father was jailed after 2017, when Chinese authorities began detaining Uyghurs in “re-education” camps and prisons and subjecting them to serious rights abuses. that the United States and some Western parliaments have said amount to genocide and crimes against humanity. The teen helped his mother run the store on weekends, the member said.

The ongoing demolition and construction of Uyghur structures in the Xinjiang region of northwest China has deprived some families of their homes, businesses and arable land. Some communities have lost their old mosques and bazaars due to modernization efforts by the authorities.

Claims by the Chinese authorities that they are now demolishing the Khan Bazaar to renovate the old buildings “do not square with reality.” abdurhim he said when he heard about the recent demolition.

He said authorities had renovated the bazaar several times since the 1980s, including another “optimization” campaign that took place sometime between 2000 and 2010 to improve the quality and safety of the buildings.

But each renovation project deprived some Uyghurs of their homes and shops because they couldn’t afford the renovation fees, he added.

Chinese businessmen with extensive financial means and political backing stepped in and bought the property at below-market prices, thereby gaining stakes in Khan Bazaar, he said.

“That was, I think, a deliberate ploy devised by the government,” he told Radio Free Asia.

Comments from neighbors drew attention

The bazaar is located in front of 15he19th-century Id Kah Mosque, which has been largely closed to worship since 2016 amid a severe crackdown by Chinese authorities against the religion and culture of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang.

“Standing in front of the famous Kashgar Id Kah gate and looking through it, one could see a bustling street bazaar on the left side,” recalled Abdurehim, who last saw the place in 2017, when the former teacher and The school’s principal went to the United States on a business trip and did not return.

The remaining Uyghur families, especially those whose heads had been detained in camps or prisons in recent years, feared losing their houses and shops in the bazaar because they would not be able to pay the renovation fees, said a person familiar with the situation. The source declined to be identified for security reasons.

Due to the crackdown on the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, the families carefully shared their concerns with local cadres, who issued and distributed demolition notices to area residents. But instead, his comments caught the attention of local political and legal organizations, the source said.

As a result, police officers, political and legal cadres, and members of neighborhood committees flocked to the scene to monitor shop and homeowners during the destruction in March, he said.

A policeman told RFA by phone that the officers were present, along with the political and legal committee, market supervision and members of the neighborhood committee. They all reminded residents and shop owners to pay attention to social stability, he said.

An employee of the Kashgar-Central Asia International Travel Agency said authorities were demolishing the bazaar because the buildings were old and the renovation work would be finished by May 1.

“The shops and buildings were in bad shape and the government wants to improve its image by renovating this place,” he said.

Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.