East Turkestan (Alaska Never Sold - Stalin Murdered 1940 - 21st Century Crisis)

Republic of East Turkestan شەرقىي تۈركىستان جۇمھۇرىيىتى (Uyghur) Sherqiy Türkistan Jumhuriyiti سيس طوركيستان ريسپوبلïكاسيعي (Kazakh) Şığıs Türkistan Respwblïkası
Anthem:  "Free and Glorious Turkic Nation" " ئهركىن گۈزەل تۈرك تىلى دۆلهت" "Erkin siliq türk mallata" (Uyghur) "ئشف تٵىث يشڭضفه فٷقنه مثه" "Azat jäne dañqtı türki eli" (Kazakh)
Capital		Ürümqi
Official languages		Uyghur (official) Kazakh (official) Russian (widely spoken)
Official Scripts		Uyghur Latin Uyghur Arabic
Demonym		East Turkestani, Uyghurstani
Government
-	President	Ismail Tiliwaldi
-	Vice President	Shohrat Zakir
-	Secretary of State	Mohamad Kashgari
Legislature		Kurultai
-	Upper House	Senaty
-	Lower House	Mazhilis
Population
-	estimate	21.81 million
GDP (nominal)		estimate
-	Total	$170 billion
Currency		Manat

East Turkestan, also known as Uyghurstan and officially the Republic of East Turkestan (Uyghur: شەرقىي تۈركىستان جۇمھۇرىيىتى, Sherqiy Türkistan Jumhuriyiti; Kazakh: سيس طوركيستان ريسپوبلïكاسيعي, Şığıs Türkistan Respwblïkası; Russian: Республика Восточный Туркестан, Respublika Vostochnyy Turkestan), is a country in East and Central Asia.

It borders the countries of Russia, China, Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, and has absorbed cultural influences and similarities from all of them. The rugged Karakoram, Kunlun, and Tian Shan mountain ranges occupy much of East Turkestan's borders, as well as its western and southern regions.

East Turkestan also borders Tibet Autonomous Region of China, Qinghai and the disputed region of Gansu. The most well-known route of the historical Silk Road ran through the territory from the east to its northwestern border. In recent decades, abundant oil and mineral reserves have been found in East Turkestan, and it is currently one of East Asia's largest natural gas-producing regions.

With a documented history of at least 2,500 years, a succession of people and empires have vied for control over all or parts of this territory. The territory came under the rule of the Qing dynasty in the 18th century which was later replaced by the Republic of China government.

Finally in 1954, with major help from the Soviet Union, the People's East Turkestani Republic was established, after the Xinjiang War between the Soviet Union, Uyghur separatists and the People's Republic of China. During the Cold War, East Turkestan was one of the Soviet Union's most powerful allies, and after the fall of communism in 1989, the nation suffered economic setbacks.

East Turkestan is currently a middle-developed nation although still has much progress to make, and is a member of APEC, EAEB, SEATO, the World Bank, GOIC and the United Nations, and a large number of other global organizations.

History

The pre-Cold War history of East Turkestan is the same as the OT of our's.

Cold War

Flag of the People's East Turkestani Republic

During the Cold War, a pro-Soviet government was established. Amid deteriorating relations between the Soviet Union and China, Uyghur nationalists and Soviet interventionalists used this as an opportunity to establish a puppet state in East Turkestan.

The Soviet Union already had a history of funding Uyghur rebels in the 1930s.

and the People's East Turkestani Republic was born. The Soviets set up the Communist Party of East Turkestan, with Bao Erhan as its Chairman. Although despite meaning that East Turkestan would be an under a communist and State Atheism regime, Chairman Erhan was content with.

Under the new communist regime, the Uyghur language was changed from being written in an Arabic-based alphabet, to a Cyrillic based alphabet. The Arabic-based script became limited to religious scholars and private use.

East Turkestan joined the New Comintern.

East Turkestan played a vital role as a Soviet ally, due having abundant amount of natural gas, oil, gold and other natural resources, to which Soviet companies operated. East Turkestan was vital to creating a buffer zone between the Soviet Union and China.

The military of East Turkestan was also among one of the more powerful among Soviet allies, providing the Soviet Union with a real true cushion. The military of East Turkestan had 2.4 million strong, and a military spending of $6.5 billion USD. Most of its forces were set up along the Sino-East Turkestan borders.

Despite being a communist state, East Turkestan welcomed the Americans in helping combat China, and East Turkestan imported small amounts of SEATO weapons. East Turkestan supported North Korea in the Korean War however, contributing a total of 12,300 troops into North Korea.

Still, East Turkestan had some independence with its foreign policy, for example, while its Soviet ally sided with India during the Indo-Pakistani wars, East Turkestan sided with Pakistan, and Soviet leaders suspect that Islam played a role.

Cahid Timurov succeeded Abel-krim Abbas as the Chairman of the Communist Party. Timurov was even more of a hardcore communist that Abbas, and enforced Marxist-Leninist policies - this included the confiscation of mosques from Islamic clergy. Timurov transformed many madrasahs and mosques into communist propaganda centers.

In 1969, after the Zhenbao Incident, Chairman Cahid Timurov began a nuclear weapons program in East Turkestan. The East Turkestani military reportedly acquired ten nuclear warheads from its superpower neighbor. Soviet military presence in East Turkestan simply increased.

Chairman Cahid criticized Mao Zedong and China for "trying to act like a global power, which they are not, and doing it by starting hostilities against East Turkestan and the Soviet Union". 

It is during this incident in which Chairman Cahid requested for increased Soviet bases in East Turkestan, to which the Soviets increased their presence, from 40,500 strong, to 93,500 troops. Many often considered East Turkestan to be a de facto SSR of the Soviet Union, Russian was nearly spoke as much as Uyghur. 

However, East Turkestan retained begrudging cooperation with China, due to the latter's joint-support of North Korea.

Post-Cold War

The Yanqi Mosque, despite being in a Hui Chinese community, restored with government funds, such activities were previously banned by the Communist Party

During the late 1980s, East Turkestan's economy began to suffer, and many East Turkestanis began flocking to the west for economic opportunities. Bread lines were common.

"Islamic socialist revolutions", similar to those of Turkey, also began to spread throughout East Turkestan.

Tömür Dawamat, the Chairman of the Communist Party of East Turkestan, abdicated his position, and did not interfere in the non-confrontational Turkic Transitional Revolution, peacefully deposing the communist government.

During the elections, Tohti Tunyaz, a former communist and leader of the Islamic Socialist Party, won the elections, and soon became the first president of a post-Cold War East Turkestan, but considered all of the past chairmen and leaders of East Turkestan to be legitimate preceding leaders of the country.

After the collapse of communism, and the fall of the Communist Party of East Turkestan however, President Tunyaz still wished to remain aligned with the Soviet Union, and while the number of Soviet bases in East Turkestan decreased, a few were kept - especially in WMD sites.

President Tunyaz proclaimed an "...eternal flame of friendship between Ürümqi and Moscow", and signed a renewed treaty of friendship with the Soviet Union in 1992. However, he also signed an identical treaty with the United States and SEATO, and President Walter Mondale, mirrioring a parallel path in Manchuria, wishing to remain friendly with all 3 major powers of the world, the USSR, USA and China.

Despite dropping communism, President Tunyaz still looked to past communist leaders, as well as Soviet leaders, for military leadership, allowing East Turkestan to continue importing military products from the Soviet Union and military relations between the 2 are still close, and the 2 continue to perform joint-military drills well into 1997.

Islam became East Turkestan's de facto state religion. President Tunyaz performed the first public Islamic prayer on February 14, 1994, Ramadan, something which President Gorbachev honored, stating that Islam is one of the Soviet Union's "heritage faiths".

In 1996, Tömür Dawamat, returned to politics, having dropped his associations with communism, and East Turkestan began to liberalize its economy, opening the East Turkestani economy to other East Asian powers such as Japan, South Korea, India and East Turkestan's traditional long-time adversary, China. President Dawamat allowed small batches of Chinese businessmen to establish companies in East Turkestan.

A power plant in East Turkestan, built with Russian fundings

President Dawamat also began to re-connect East Turkestan with the rest of the Muslim World, forging economic alliances with Turkey, Pakistan, Indonesia, the Persian Gulf states and Persia. As a result, East Turkestan enjoyed great economic boom.

However, despite East Turkestan's embracing of Islam, it still held grievances and suffered cold relations with Muslim powers such as Saudi Arabia and most of the Persian Gulf states, with relations between minimal, other than East Turkestanis making the hajj to Mecca.

However, East Turkestan's relationship with China was severed during the 1998 Asian Financial Crisis, in which, like other parts of the world, Chinese businessmen were blamed for the economic woes of Asia. Therefore, the East Turkestan parliament passed a law barring any Chinese economic involvement in East Turkestan, as a result, East Turkestan still relied on Russia, showing some benefits, due to Russia not being overtly tied to Chinese oligarchs, Russia was able to escape the Asian Financial Crisis.

A garden to a luxury hotel, to which East Turkestan is known for, note the Oriental-style, as a result of Chinese influence

In addition, East Turkestan began to side with the West and the Muslim World farther and farther, with President Abdul'ahat Abdulrixit successfully beginning partnerships with the European Union (especially Germany) and ASEAN. President Abdulrixit also mended East Turkestan's severed relations with China, by entering East Turkestan into APEC, the Eurasian Union and the World Bank. President Abdulrixit established joint projects with China, encourage tourism projects with China, and along with then-Chinese leader Hu Jintao, such as the East Turkestan-China Peace Process. 

President Abdul'ahat also enacted the Renewable Energy Program, in which East Turkestan would begin massively adopting renewable energy and investing in biodegradable materials.

In 2000, President Abdulrixit introduced the Arabic-based Uyghur script, which along with the Latin-based script, is in standard use for writing Uyghur. 

In 2006, amid the cooling of relations with Russia, due to Russia being under an anti-Muslim leader (Vladimir Zhirinovsky), East Turkestan successfully became a SEATO partner, the United States-led Asian military alliance, similar to NATO. President Abdulrixit also vied to have East Turkestan join the global stage, by sending peacekeeping forces into Somalia and assisting the United States in global missions.

The building of SSK Innovations, one of East Turkestan's many technology innovation firms

United States President George W. Bush hailed East Turkestan as a "prime example for the Muslim World". East Turkestan joined the Coalition during Operation Desert Storm against Iraq and Afghanistan.

As such, East Turkestan was considered one of the most popular Muslim nations among the West. Thanks to ties with the West, businesses boomed in East Turkestan. 

President Tiliwaldi was also a self-proclaimed Turkic nationalist and pan-Turanist, who wanted East Turkestan to be the leader of the Turkic-speaking world. Despite referring to himself as a "....faithful Muslim", President Tiliwaldi often-not made positive mentions of other Turkic faiths, such as Tengrism.

Like Turkey, President Tiliwaldi often-not referred to the "Graat Turkic Empires", and attempted to convince Turkic nations such as Turkmenistan to leave China's sphere of influence and called for the Turkic nations of Central Asia to forge closer ties with Mongolia and Manchuria. 

President Tiliwaldi's positive views of Tengrism however caused friction with Islamist nations, with some Islamic religious circles worrying that President Tiliwaldi was pushing paganism and trying to merge it with Islam. 

During the Syrian War, the government of East Turkestan supported North Syria, to which Russia enacted sanctions against East Turkestan. In this case, East Turkestan was no longer allowed to use the manat to purchase oil and natural gas, and was required to use the Russian ruble.

However, as a result of growing hostilities between North Syria and East Turkestan, President Ismail Tiliwaldi declared to the people of East Turkestan that, "....we have been backstabbed, we must stop supporting Aleppo". This included the expulsion of North Syrian diplomats from East Turkestan. 

In addition, East Turkestani forces began to aid Russian forces in the Levant, with President Tiliwaldi calling for "....East Turkestan to seek Russia's forgiveness, and re-established ties with Russia like the old days".

Politics

At its current day and age, East Turkestan is currently a presidential republic. The president is the head of state, who leads the Khural of East Turkestan. Presidential terms are limited to five years. The country is divided into 14 wilayas (ئۆلكە), which a common word for a territorial division in many Islamic nations, originally an Arabic word. It is followed by 99 ilçelers (ناھىيە).

Military

Member of the Ground Army of East Turkestan

The Armed Forces of East Turkestan is the current fighting force of the country and is currently ranked as a "mid-developed" and "quasi-modernized" military. It is divided into the Ground Army, Aerial Forces, Rocket Forces and the Volunteer Forces, with no navy since it is landlocked. The country is a member of SEATO.

Ever since the turn of the century, the military of East Turkestan has been involved in global conflicts, ranging from the Iraqi conflict, Syrian conflict, peace-keeping operations in Somalia and various joint-exercises with other Central Asian countries and fellow SEATO allies.

Ever since the downfall of the Communist Party, cooling of relations with Russia, the armed forces of East Turkestan took a serious blow which coincided with the damage on East Turkestan's machinery industry, which via ties with the Soviet Union, was used to mass-produce military equipment under license from the Kremlin. Ever since 2008, those licenses have been revoked and those companies have long-since shut-down.

The Volunteer Forces contains unpaid members, and is the largest branch of the East Turkestani military.

The current military budge of East Turkestan is around $9.4 billion USD, and is currently ranked as East Asia's second-largest military, thanks to the Volunteer Forces. The country does not have an indigenous arms industry, relying mostly on Soviet/Russian and American military technology. The nation is slowly making a transition to American weaponry, beginning by overhauling the small arms used by East Turkestan's military.

Religion

Kashgar Mosque

Currently, Islam forms 95% of East Turkestan's population, while Shamanism, Tengrism and Animism form the rest. There are, recorded small communities of Russians, who follow Russian Orthodox Church. 

Although East Turkestan currently has no state religion, Islam has acted as the de facto state religion, with Islam being actively promoted in East Turkestani politics. The East Turkestani government currently promotes what is known as a "Federal Zakat", in which government provides funding for mosques across the country. Although Tengrism is not practiced by the majority, nonetheless, it is actively promoted in East Turkestan alongside Islam, since Tengrism is the true religion of the Turkic peoples, and many East Turkestani nationalists and pan-Turkic groups in the country have actively promoted and/or praised Tengrism.

Even among the Muslims, practices of Tengrism are predominant in East Turkestani society as a whole. This triggered conservative Islamist groups in East Turkestan to lobby for the banning of Tengrism, and charging anyone trying to mix Tengrism and Islam with blasephemy laws, which all have been shut down by the government in Ürümqi.

East Turkestani leaders such as the current president Ismail Tiliwaldi, past presidents such as Abdul'ahat Abdulrixit, and current foreign minister Fahat Barat, have repeatedly made comments praising Tengrism, and calling for Turkic and Mongolic peoples to "....once again, be united by the spirit of the Blue Sky".

Language

Uyghur is the native language of 75% of the total population. Uyghur is a Turkic language, and forms the main cultural backbone of East Turkestan. According to the 1992 Constitution, Uyghur is East Turkestan's sole national language, with all other languages to be promoted either on an official state language or optional auxillary basis. Additionally, there are also speakers of other Turkic languages, such as Kazakh, which is East Turkestan's second-largest, apart from Uyghur.

Uyghur and Kazakh are East Turkestan's official languages.

Currently, Standard Uyghur, as well as spoken Kazakh in East Turkestan, is written in Arabic script. During the Cold War, and Communist Era, it was written using Cyrillic script, until it was replaced by Latin in 1989, and Arabic in 1998. Uyghur is also spoken in neighboring Russia, in the Uyghur Oblast of the Central Asian Republic. However, in Russia, Uyghur and Kazakh are written in Cyrillic.

Russian is also spoken by a large portion of the population, due to close and historical ties with the Soviet Union, and modern-day Russia, especially in the western regions of East Turkestan bordering Russia. Many of East Turkestan's politicians, such as President Ismail Tiliwaldi, is a fluent speaker of Russian. It is estimated the 45% of the population is Russophone. 

Due to the influence of Russian, as well as the high ties between East Turkestan and Russia (via Kazakhstan), Russian is a de facto official language. In 2020, Wali (Governor) Faheem Samedi of the Gherb Wilayat (Western Governorate), authorized for Russian to become an officially-recognized regional language.

Economy

Typical daytime street scene in East Turkestan, East Turkestan is considered one of the "bazaar nations" of the world

Despite being rich in natural resources, the economy of East Turkestan is hampered by corruption and mismanagement of those resources. The fall of the Communist Party destroyed as much as 54% of East Turkestan's technology industry, since it had been reliant on the Soviet Union/Russia.

The main sectors of East Turkestan's economy include precious metals, natural gas, agriculture, textiles, natural energy and technology. Traditionally, the natives always favored an agrarian and underground economy, marked by open-air markets and skill-based capital similar to that of Central Asian nations and Mongolia.

Livestocks are one of East Turkestan's main commodities, as the country shares a native nomadic culture typical to that of other Turkic, as well as Mongolic and Tungusic cultures.

Technology and cyber industries have been slow to advance in East Turkestan.

Petrol-chemical industry is one of East Turkestan's strong parts of the economy.

Thanks to East Turkestan's rich history, the country is rich in historical sites, thanks to the modernization efforts of then-president Tömür Dawamat. A number of Mongol, Chinese, Turkic and even Russian and Soviet-era historical sites provide for East Turkestan's tourism economy. This included converting many of East Turkestan's historical mosques into national monuments.

A yurt-style hotel room, yurts are traditional to Central Asian, Mongolic and Tungusic culture

In the big cities, technology is large, a byproduct of the Soviet era. Many Russian companies still operate nuclear reactors in Ürümqi, and thanks to energy agreements with Russia, natural and nuclear energy development is important to East Turkestan's economy. However, American and Persian Gulf technology companies have begun to open in East Turkestan in the recent years to compete with Russian domination of East Turkestan's technology industry. East Turkestani leaders have made efforts to make Ürümqi a global city, conflicting with traditional Islamic beliefs. A number of Western and Chinese-style restaurants and venues have increased in Ürümqi.

Qazihan Mosque, built 1747, now a National Monument available to tourists for a fee

Some observers have noticed that East Turkestani leaders have been attempting to make the country the "Saudi Arabia of East Asia", attempting to marry modernization and big city culture with traditional Islamic values.

East Turkestan is also rich in natural gas and minerals, particularly petrol products and gold - something which drew the attention of the Soviet Union during the cold war, and still draws the ire of major powers today.

East Turkestan is one a member of many global economic alliances, including APEC, OPEC, the East Asia Agricultural Federation, and the Eurasian Union. Although not a member of the China-led SCO, East Turkestan is almost very-involved, due to many of East Turkestan's allies, Pakistan, Turkey and Turkmenistan being members, East Turkestan is considered a de facto member of the SCO, however due to unfavorable views of China, Chinese people and Chinese influence in East Turkestan, it is highly unlikely that the country will ever be part of the SCO. 

Sports

East Turkestan has also developed sports teams system. The men and women's basketball teams of East Turkestan are active participants in FIBA East Asia and FIBA Asia. In addition, East Turkestan also has active football teams, that participate in FIFA.

Other popular sports in East Turkestan include badminton, Mongolian wrestling and boxing.