“ We have to conquer our own country and purify it of all infidels . Then , we should conquer the infidels ’ countries and spread Islam . The infidels who are usurping our countries have announced war against Islam and Muslims , forcing Muslims to abandon Islam and change their beliefs . ” - Abdullah Mansour , leader of the Uyghur separatist movement Turkistan Islamic Party ( East Turkestan Islamic Movement ) , from “ The Duty of Faith and Support , ” Voice of Islam/al-Fajr Media Center , August 26 , 2009 . At the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949 , with Xinjiang divided between Kuomintang forces and ETR secessionists , the Communist leadership persuaded both governments to surrender and accept the succession of the People 's Republic of China government , and negotiated the establishment of Communist provincial governments in Yining ( Ghulja ) and Dihua . On October 1 , 1955 , PRC leader Mao Zedong designated Xinjiang a " Uyghur Autonomous Region " , creating a regionwide Uyghur identity which overtook Uyghurs ' traditionally local and oasis-based identities . Although the Soviet Union initially suppressed the publications of its past Uyghur studies programs , after the Sino-Soviet split in the 1960s , it revived its Uyghur studies program as part of an " ideological war " against China . The term " East Turkestan " was popularized in academic works , but inconsistently : at times , the term East Turkestan only referred to area in Xinjiang south of the Tian Shan mountains , corresponding to the Tarim Basin ; the areas north of the Tian Shan mountains were called Dzungaria or Zungaria . Tursun Rakhimov , a Uyghur historian for the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during the Sino-Soviet split , argued in his 1981 book " Fate of the Non-Han Peoples of the PRC " that " both " East Turkestan and Dzungaria were conquered by China and " renamed " Xinjiang . Occasionally , he used East Turkestan and Xinjiang interchangeably . Concurrently during the Cultural Revolution and the Revolution 's campaigns against " local nationalism " , the government had come to associate the term East Turkestan with Uyghur separatism and " foreign hostile forces " and forbade its usage . Uyghur nationalist historian Turghun Almas and his book Uyghurlar ( The Uyghurs ) and Uyghur nationalist accounts of history were galvanized by Soviet stances on history , " firmly grounded " in Soviet Turcological works , and both heavily influenced and partially created by Soviet historians and Soviet works on Turkic peoples . Soviet historiography spawned the rendering of Uyghur history found in Uyghurlar . Almas claimed that Central Asia was " the motherland of the Uyghurs " and also the " ancient golden cradle of world culture " . The global trends set by the Dissolution of the Soviet Union in the 1990s , and the rise of global Islamism and pan-Turkism revived separatist sentiments in Xinjiang and led to a wave of political violence that killed 162 people between 1990 and 2001 . In 2001 , the government of China lifted its ban on state media 's using the terms " Uyghurstan " or " East Turkestan " , as part of a general opening up after the September 11 attacks to the world about political violence in Xinjiang and a plea for international help to suppress East Turkestan terrorists
September 11 attacks
September 11 attacks
East Turkestan