The Utsuls ([]; ), are a Chamic languages, Chamic-speaking East Asian people, East Asian ethnic group which lives on the island of Hainan and are considered one of the People's Republic of China's Unrecognized ethnic groups in China, unrecognized ethnic groups. They are found on the southernmost tip of Hainan near the city of

Sanya Sanya (; also spelled Samah) is the southernmost city on Hainan Island, and one of the four prefecture-level cities of Hainan Province in South China. According to the 2020 census, the total population of Sanya was 1,031,396 inhabitants, li ...

History

The Utsuls are thought to be descendants of

Cham Cham or CHAM may refer to: Ethnicities and languages *Chams, people in Vietnam and Cambodia **Cham language, the language of the Cham people ***Cham script ***Cham (Unicode block), a block of Unicode characters of the Cham script *Cham Albanian ...

refugee A refugee, conventionally speaking, is a displaced person who has crossed national borders and who cannot or is unwilling to return home due to well-founded fear of persecution.

s who fled their homeland of

Champa Champa (Cham: ꨌꩌꨛꨩ; km, ចាម្ប៉ា; vi, Chiêm Thành or ) were a collection of independent Cham polities that extended across the coast of what is contemporary central and southern Vietnam from approximately the 2nd cen ...

in what is now modern Central

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

to escape the Vietnamese invasion. After the Vietnamese completed the conquest of Cham in 1471, sacking Vijaya, the last capital of the Cham kingdom, a Cham prince and about 1,000 followers moved to Hainan, where the

Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...

allowed them to stay. Several Chinese accounts record Cham arriving on Hainan even earlier, from 986, shortly after the Vietnamese captured the earlier Cham capital of Indrapura in 982, while other Cham refugees settled in

Guangzhou Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kon ...

. While most of the Chams who fled

Cambodia Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailand t ...

, a small business class fled northwards. How they came to acquire the name Utsul is unknown. Their population was greatly reduced during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

by the Japanese that more than 4,000 Chams were killed in Sanya as Chinese armies were hiding among them from the invading Japanese.

Discrimination

In 2020, it was reported that Beijing had started a religious crackdown aimed at the Utsul community as part of their political efforts. Restrictions included limiting the size of mosques, requiring a Communist Party member on mosque management committees, forbidding the use of Arabic words on food stalls (such as "

halal ''Halal'' (; ar, حلال, ) is an Arabic word that translates to "permissible" in English. In the Quran, the word ''halal'' is contrasted with ''haram'' (forbidden). This binary opposition was elaborated into a more complex classification kno ...

"), and forbidding the wearing of

hijab In modern usage, hijab ( ar, حجاب, translit=ḥijāb, ) generally refers to headcoverings worn by Muslim women. Many Muslims believe it is obligatory for every female Muslim who has reached the age of puberty to wear a head covering. While ...

Identity

Although they are culturally, ethnically and linguistically distinct from the Hui, the

Chinese government The Government of the People's Republic of China () is an authoritarian political system in the People's Republic of China under the exclusive political leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It consists of legislative, executive, mili ...

nevertheless classifies them as Hui due to their Islamic faith. From reports by Hans Stübel, the German ethnographer who made contact with them in the 1930s, however, their language is completely unrelated to any other language spoken in mainland China.

Genetics

A genetic study by Li et al. (2013) suggested that the surviving Utsat were genetically much closer to the indigenous Hlai than to the Cham and other mainland southeast Asian populations. The study suggests that there was high assimilation of the indigenous Hlai in the formation of the Utsat.

Family names

Some common Utsul family names include Chen, Ha, Hai, Jiang, Li, Liu and Pu.

Famous people

Abdullah Ahmad Badawi Tun Abdullah bin Ahmad Badawi ( Jawi: عبد الله بن احمد بدوي; born 26 November 1939) is a Malaysian politician who served as the 5th Prime Minister of Malaysia from October 2003 to April 2009. He was also the sixth president of ...

, 5^th

Prime Minister of Malaysia The prime minister of Malaysia ( ms, Perdana Menteri Malaysia; ms, ڤردان منتري مليسيا, label= Jawi, script=arab, italic=unset) is the head of government of Malaysia. The prime minister directs the executive branch of the fede ...

. His maternal grandfather is of Utsul descent.

References

{{Authority control Ethnic groups in China Hainan Cham Muslim communities of China