All Reading
This section contains a curated list of useful articles, investigations, books and other reading materials. The list is updated on a weekly basis and suggestions for additions are welcome.
Starting Points:
Muslim China and “de-extremification” campaign: Interview with Darren Byler, Living Otherwise
The Living Otherwise project, founded by a group of young experts, is actively engaged in covering what is happening with Uyghurs in China. Dr. Darren Byler, who runs the platform, offers some insight into Islamophobia in China.
Spirit Breaking: Uyghur Dispossession, Culture Work and Terror Capitalism in a Chinese Global City
This study argues that Uyghurs and the city of Urumqi have become the object of the violence of state-directed capitalist dispossession intended to break the spirit and vitality of Uyghur sociality.
Xinjiang Unsettled
When you travel in Xinjiang, you see two communities living side-by-side but rarely interacting. Relations between Uighurs and Han Chinese have soured to the point where little dialogue seems possible. The 2009 Urumqi riots, in which a Uighur mob went on a killing spree that ultimately resulted in at least 194, mainly Han, deaths, was a turning point. Beijng’s “strike hard” policy in the aftermath of the riots, which continues to this day, has only created more resentment, hatred, and misunderstanding. On top of economic alienation, Uighurs feel culturally threatened. The shutdown of Uighur language schools and websites and the new rules curtailing the practice of Islam have only reinforced the sense of a Uighur identity, which wasn’t as strong a few decades ago.
Ethnic Policy in China: Is Reform Inevitable
Following significant interethnic violence beginning in 2008, Chinese intellectuals and policymakers are now engaged in unprecedented debate over the future direction of their country's ethnic policies. This study attempts to gauge current Chinese opinion on this once-secretive and still highly sensitive area of national policy. Leading public intellectuals, as well as some party officials, now openly call for new measures strengthening national integration at the expense of minority rights and autonomy. Adjustments in rhetoric and policy emphasis are expected as the party-state attempts to strengthen interethnic cohesiveness as a part of its larger agenda of stability maintenance.
Social Cohesion and Islamic Radicalization: Implications from the Uyghur Insurgency
This article explores the structural changes in the Uighur community over the past decades and the importance of social cohesion on national security and stability.
Migration, Modernisation and Ethnic Estrangement: Uyghur Migration to Urumqi
This article explores how the modernisation project in Xinjiang is taking precedence over ethnic harmony, as the ethnic division of labour exacerbates tensions between Han and Uyghur people.
China: Minority Exclusion, Marginalization and Rising Tensions
This report demonstrates how China’s overarching agenda for ‘unity’, under the guise of ‘development’ and ‘security’, is having a particularly grave impact on its minority communities, including the Uyghurs in Xinjiang.
Demographics and Development in Xinjiang After 1949
This report discusses Xinjiang’s place in China’s geography and considers the roles development and demographic change play in the internal conflicts in the region since 1949.
Autonomy in Xinjiang: Han Nationalist Imperatives and Uyghur Discontent
This paper analyzes the sources of Uyghur discontent and ethnonational conflict in Xinjiang since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.