102 Part II: Outsiders
Square in 2013 that left five dead to a coordinated knife attack that left 35 dead
in 2014 in southern Kunming, both of which, according to official accounts,
involved perpetrators with ties to separatists from the region. Yet, from the per-
spective of Beijing and many Han Chinese people, this violence, separatism,
and anti-Han sentiment is inexplicable, because in their view, the Chinese gov-
ernment has worked to modernize and enrich the region.
Xinjiang’s history is one of fluid cultural and political identity that has
shifted and adapted throughout two millennia from the flourishing of first Bud-
dhism, then Islam; Turkic culture mixed with Mongolian and Chinese cul-
tures; and finally absorption into China. Today the culture of Xinjiang is in
flux with challenges to its Islamic roots presented by Beijing policies that pro-
fess to counter extremism and separatism but often affect daily cultural prac-
tices from naming children, to dress, to facial hair, and to forms of worship.“Western Treasure-House”
Xinjiang’s neighbor to the south is Tibet (Xizang), and this region has a lon-
ger history in the Western consciousness, due in large part to the global promi-
nence of the fourteenth Dalai Lama who fled China during the Tibetan Uprising
of 1958–1959 to live a life of exile and advocacy. In 2015, the Dalai Lama, leader
of the Tibetan Buddhist faith, had a new disagreement with the PRC govern-
ment in Beijing. The Dalai Lama proclaimed that he might not reincarnate. The
belief, according to centuries of ritual, holds that the dying Lama provides some
indication as to where his followers should find his successor reincarnated and
where a series of ritual tests would confirm the boy’s identity as the new Lama.
But the Dalai Lama suggested publicly that he may not take this traditional
course. This declaration left many confused, and it seemed to have left the
authorities in Beijing apoplectic as well. An official statement from the Chinese
government declared that the Dalai Lama would indeed reincarnate and that he
would do so within the 66-year-old boundaries of the People’s Republic of
China. The Dalai Lama was wary of Beijing’s assertion of control not only over
the region of Tibet but also over the institution of Tibetan Buddhism and the
succession and reincarnation of the next Dalai Lama (Osnos 2015).
Tibetan Buddhism has a long and complex history with China and with the
peoples of Central Asia. The Mongols, for example, engaged in a reciprocal rela-
tionship of recognition and respect, as did the Manchus who ruled China from
1644 until 1911. Kublai Khan rewarded Tibetan Buddhist leaders with official
recognition, patronage, and even high political office, and in exchange, the lead-
ers of the Tibetan Buddhist faith declared the Mongol emperor to be a bodhisat-
tva (Rossabi 2011:144). Later, the Manchus constructed a replica of Lhasa’s
Potala Palace, the traditional home of the Dalai Lama from the middle of the
seventeenth century until the Dalai Lama’s flight from China in 1959. The Man-
chus built the replica palace in Chengde, north of Beijing, as a symbol of the
closeness of Beijing and Lhasa, where Tibetan Buddhist officials and lamas
would witness their cultural imprint on the Manchu Qing dynasty when their