Ningxia

In a country as large as China, even a province that would be considered significant by international standards appears to be little more than a small backwater. This is the fate that the northwestern province of Ningxia seemed to be suffering for many years. However, since the opening of China and the effort to promote economic development throughout the country, greater access to provinces such as Ningxia has become possible. And one fact in particular has brought much enhanced attention to the province: since especially the time of the Mongol conquest and the subsequent Yuan Dynasty, many thousands of Muslim people have come to settle in the area. Attention on Ningxia, therefore, centres on possible oppression of the human rights of the Muslim peoples and, alternatively, the possibility that those same people might become embroiled in international terrorism.

Geography

Ningxia is located the south of Inner Mongolia, with borders also on the provinces of Shaanxi and Gansu. It is much longer from nort to south than from east to west and covers an area of some 64,400 square kilometres. There is a northern plain, a central sandy belt susceptible to drought and a much more fertile southern loess wold. The Yellow River passes through Ningxia and this is important in providing irrigation and transportation.

The population of Ningxia totals approximately five and a half million and, of these, nearly two million belong to the Muslim Hui ethnic minority, which is around one fifth of the total number of Hui people in China. The presence of the Huis (among a total of 35 recognised ethnic minorities in Ningxia) has resulted in the creation of one of only five autonomous areas in the province.

History

Ningxia has been part of the unified Chinese state since the victories of the state of Qin. Then, troops were stationed there to provide security against the horse borne nomads of Inner Asia and also to help to build what is known as the Great Wall of China. These troops replaced in part the Qiang, Rong and Xiongnu peoples who had ruled the area and about which little definite is now known.

The area was developed as part of the Silk Road linking China with the west. People from Arabia and Persia (Iran) were attracted to come to live there to benefit from the trade and they established villages that were later to become the homes of the Huis. After the Mongol conquest in the C13th, when the existing state of Western Xia based on the capital city of Yinchuan (it is still the capital) was defeated, large numbers of Muslim peoples were brought to the area by the conquerors. This was a policy they also pursued in, for example, Yunnan, which explains the large numbers of Muslim people in some Chinese provinces.

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