Photo: Flag of the First East Turkestan Republic.  The First East Turkistan Republic (ETR), officially the Islamic Republic of East Turkistan Uyghur: (شەرقىي تۈركىستان ئىسلام جۇمھۇرىيىتى‎,
Шәрқий Түркистан Ислам Җумхурийити, Sherqiy Türkistan Islam Jumhuriyiti), was a short-lived, breakaway, would-be Islamic republic founded on 12 November 1933. It was centerd on the city of Kashgar in what is today the Chinese-occupied Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Although primarily the product of an independence movement of the Uyghur population living there, the ETR was Turkish-ethnic in character, including Kyrgyz and other Turkic peoples in its government and its population.

With the sacking of Kashgar in 1934 by Hui warlords nominally allied with the Kuomintang government in Nanjing, the first ETR was effectively eliminated. Its example, however, served to some extent as inspiration for the founding of a Second East Turkistan Republic a decade later and continues to influence modern Uyghur nationalist support for the creation of an independent East Turkistan.  Isa Alptekin was the General Secretary of the First East Turkistan Republic. A Uyghur independence group currently based in Turkey has Alptekin family members among its leadership.
 
 
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Gordon Chang, Daily Beast
 
Hour One
Wednesday 31 October 2018/ Hour 1, Block A:  James Holmes, first holder of the Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College and blogger at The Naval Diplomat (https://navaldiplomat.com/), in re:  China's war threats. The Decatur, the Antietam; Chinese navy shadowed a ship and then spoke very badly of it.  Where are we such that the PLAN promotes war even as it’s weaker than the US Navy?
Hodges spoke of simultaneous conflict with China and Russia within fifteen years; and the US Navy, Air Force, and Army are not prepared for war on two fronts. Others predict within five years! Jim Holmes thinks soon; also that China isn’t really prepared for such a conflict, might be reaching its limits – which might send it into a now-or-never mentality.
Breaking the Mold conference at the Navy War College.  . ..  Europeans and Australians are starting to show up and participate.  US Navy has 290 ships (at most); China is bldg ships very rapidly. Pres Trump asks for a 355-ship Navy; others ask for 600 ships. . . . We could wring a lot more value out of existing vessels.
Defense industrial base has decayed badly over the decades.  If we can’t build maintain, upgrade, ships over time, [we can't succeed].
Wednesday 31 October 2018/ Hour 1, Block B: Nury Turkel, former president of the Uyghur American Association, now a lawyer in Washington, D.C., in re: Up to a million Uyghurs, of “Xinjiang” (East Turkestan), have been detained in Chinese [“Nazi-style”] concentration camps. Xi and crew denied it; now they rescind that and say something worse:  the UN called China out, but now China is trying to “normalize” and “legalize” the persecution on grounds that Uyghurs are . . . different from Han?   Goals: First to achieve “One Belt-One Road – the China dream.”  Second, to avoid any possibility that Uyghur nationality might one day become a threat to Beijing. Third, Beijing is extremely racist – calls   “cancerous tumor” and “mental disease.”  Cannot understand that Uyghur or Tibetan culture has any merit or that Han culture is the single most perfect in the world.  The concentration camps are all about Xi, about China’s goal to achieve world dominance. 
One million out: China locked up everyone born between 1980-1990 as well as all intellectuals; stole their homes and, One million in, sent in Han people to steal their homes. Uyghur businesses have gone bankrupt as the owners re locked up in camps.
This is a crime against humanity.   https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-45812419
Wednesday 31 October 2018/ Hour 1, Block C: Monica Crowley, London Center for Policy Research, in re:  . . . Pres Trump: wherever he goes, he rallies his base. There’s a dynamic here not being measured by polls.  
Wednesday 31 October 2018/ Hour 1, Block D: Bill McGurn, WSJ, in re:  Nancy Pelosi. Speaker of the House (the sequel). 
 
Hour Two
Wednesday 31 October 2018/ Hour 2, Block A:  Andrew Collier, managing director of Orient Capital Research in Hong Kong and author of, Shadow Banking and the Rise of Capitalism in China, in re: Chinese have a complex system of bargaining among themselves.  PMI (purchasing managers’s index) is at 52.6, ’way down from recently. Metric says the Chinese economy is weakening – will buy less from US, and at some point the Chinese leaders will be tempted to step in with a lot of cash to re-infuse the economy. This morning, Bloomberg reported they're looking at stimulus measures.  Cold flood the economy w more money, but risk more capital outflow, weakening of the currency, wall of which cd generate untoward events.  Shadow banks had gone to being almost half the banks in China, but govt throttled them back — esp out of fear of collapse.  They were attractive and successful; “at some point, capital will be like water in the Sahara.”   . . . RMB is testing the 7 to a dollar limit; will it breach it?  Rumor of offers of 8 right now, with a 3.5% commission!  China just spent $4 bil to support the renminbi.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/31/chinese-pmi-china-reports-official-manufacturing-purchasing-managers-index-for-october.html
Wednesday 31 October 2018/ Hour 2, Block B:  Scott Harold, full political scientist and deputy director, Center for Asia-Pacific Policy at The Rand Corporation on Abe summits with Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi; in re: Cordial relations not entirely in a personal basis, but between two independent democracies with a confluence of interests; a great sense of optimism that the direction is the right one. By contrast, Japan sees that China is [in a difficult position].  China’s outreach right now is almost entirely tactical to alleviate pressure on Beijing. Indo-Pacific Quad: India, Japan, Australia and the US. Two-plus-two dialogue; dual use, co-developing AI and robotics, and mil-mil exchanges. . . . Policy that rests on independence, not reliance on any other nation . . . Allies encouraging Indians to work within their system.  Gai-atsu = useful foreign pressure. India: the largest and most successful democracy on the planet.
Wednesday 31 October 2018/ Hour 2, Block C:  Thomas B. Modly, Under Secretary of the Navy; in re: The Secretary’s trip to Oceania, and the decaying state of the American defense-industrial base.
Wednesday 31 October 2018/ Hour 2, Block D:  Thomas B. Modly, Under Secretary of the Navy; in re: The Secretary’s trip to Oceania, and the decaying state of the American defense-industrial base.
 
Hour Three
Wednesday 31 October 2018/ Hour 3, Block A:  Brenda Shaffer, visiting researcher & adjunct professor at Georgetown University, Fellow with the Atlantic Council; in re:  Pipeline politics – under the Adriatic to Italy.
Wednesday 31 October 2018/ Hour 3, Block B:  Lara M Brown, director of the Graduate School of Political Management at the George Washington University: Pennsylvania’s First Congressional District
Wednesday 31 October 2018/ Hour 3, Block C:  Richard Epstein (@RichardAEpstein), Chicago Law, NUY Law, and Hoover Institution, in re:
Wednesday 31 October 2018/ Hour 3, Block D:  Richard Epstein (@RichardAEpstein), Chicago Law, NUY Law, and Hoover Institution, in re:
 
Hour Four
Wednesday 31 October 2018/ Hour 4, Block A: Josh Rogin, Washington Post, in re: Michael Avenatti campaigning for president with the Moslems..
Wednesday 31 October 2018/ Hour 4, Block B: Hajjar Gibran, Domegaia, in re:  Dome homes:  architecture, utility, social benefits. 
Wednesday 31 October 2018/ Hour 4, Block C:  Hellfire Boys: The Birth of the U.S. Chemical Warfare Service and the Race for the World’s Deadliest Weapons, by Theo Emery
Wednesday 31 October 2018/ Hour 4, Block D:  Hellfire Boys: The Birth of the U.S. Chemical Warfare Service and the Race for the World’s Deadliest Weapons, by Theo Emery