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:
Xinjiang is ‘one of the most heavily policed regions in the world’: study
A new report from the Uyghur Human Rights Project points out that there are twice as many Armed Police mobile attachments in Xinjiang than in Beijing, despite having only a fraction of the capital’s population.
Policing East Turkistan: Mapping Police and Security Forces in the Uyghur Region
This report explores the institutions of policing in Xinjiang, helping to build a fuller picture of the systematic and Party-state-sponsored human rights atrocities perpetrated against Uyghurs and other Turkic people.
Some are just psychopaths': Chinese detective in exile reveals extent of torture against Uyghurs
"We took (them) all forcibly overnight," he said. "If there were hundreds of people in one county in this area, then you had to arrest these hundreds of people." The ex-detective turned whistle-blower asked to be identified only as Jiang, to protect his family members who remain in China. In a three-hour interview conducted in Europe where he is now in exile, Jiang revealed rare details on what he described as a systematic campaign of torture against ethnic Uyghurs in the region's detention camp system, claims China has denied for years.
The Experiment Podcast: A Uyghur Teen’s Life After Escaping Genocide
The Uyghur refugee Aséna Tahir Izgil escaped the genocide of her people in China. Now she’s trying to be a teenager in America.
Surviving the Crackdown in Xinjiang
As mass detentions and surveillance dominate the lives of China’s Uyghurs and Kazakhs, a woman struggles to free herself.
Why many in China support Beijing's policies in Xinjiang and Hong Kong
Over an uncountable number of official statements and state media news reports, Beijing has described both Uyghurs and the demonstrators in Hong Kong as "separatists", who are seeking to "undermine China's sovereignty". This has created a huge stir in mainland China, where people take the subject of the country's sovereignty very seriously. Many in China support human rights and democracy, however support for Beijing's often contradictory actions remains vast — so why is that the case?
Securitizing Xinjiang: Police Recruitment, Informal Policing and Ethnic Minority Co-optation
Following a series of high-profile attacks in Beijing, Kunming and Urumqi by Uyghur militants, the Chinese party-state declared a war on terror in 2014. Since then, China's Xinjiang region has witnessed an unprecedented build-up of what we describe as a multi-tiered police force, turning it into one of the most heavily policed regions in the world. This article investigates the securitization of Xinjiang through an analysis of official police recruitment documents.
China’s Protracted Securitization of Xinjiang: Origins of a Surveillance State
This article focuses on two key developments in the contemporary history of Xinjiang that help make sense of the ‘surveillance state’ as the culmination of a sustained security agenda aimed at tightening the grip of the Communist Party of China (CCP) on the region. The first is the abandonment of the moderate approach which characterized China’s ethnic minority policies in the early years of the ‘reform and opening up’ (1980s). A second key development is the issuing in 1996 of the directive ‘Chinese Communist Party Central Committee Document No. 7’. This set of instructions established a new security agenda for Xinjiang that defined the contours of much of the practices now observed in the region.
Why Didn’t Chinese Investment Ease Ethnic Tensions in Xinjiang?
The assumption that economic investment aimed at increasing modernization and raising standards of living will weaken ethnic identity and strengthen a minority’s sense of belonging has been disproven in the case of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region (XUAR) in western China. Uyghur nationalism is increasing despite significant economic investment by the Chinese government, raising questions about the effectiveness of economic development programs designed to close gaps and diminish polarization between different groups.
China testing facial-recognition surveillance system in Xinjiang
Chinese surveillance chiefs are testing a facial-recognition system that alerts authorities when targets stray more than 300 metres from their home or workplace, as part of a surveillance push that critics say has transformed the country’s western fringes into a high-tech police state. Authorities in Xinjiang have been experimenting with the “alert project” since early 2017, according to Bloomberg.
Chen Quanguo: The Strongman Behind Beijing’s Securitization Strategy in Tibet and Xinjiang
Over the last year, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) Party Secretary Chen Quanguo has dramatically increased the police presence in Xinjiang by advertising over 90,000 new police and security-related positions. This soldier-turned-politician is little known outside of China, but within China he has gained a reputation as an ethnic policy innovator, pioneering a range of new methods for securing Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rule over Uyghurs, Tibetans and other ethnic minorities in western China.
China’s Dystopian Push to Revolutionize Surveillance
As part of a new multimillion-dollar project in Xinjiang, the Chinese government is attempting to “build a fortress city with technologies.” If this sounds Orwellian, that’s because it is. According to the Sina online news portal, the project is supposed to strengthen the authorities’ hands against unexpected social unrest. Using “big data” from various sources, including the railway system and visitors’ systems in private residential compounds, its ultimate aim is to “predict … individuals and vehicles posing heightened risks” to public safety.
China is Creating an Unprecedented 'Security State' in Xinjiang
Beijing is busily building a “security state” in Xinjiang, according to one scholar on Uyghur affairs. This month, amid reports of heightened violence in Xinjiang, China’s push has seen tightened controls on movement and prompted a large, showy state-sponsored police demonstration against terror in Xinjiang’s regional capital.
The extraordinary ways in which China humiliates Muslims - Bans on “abnormal” beards and even the name “Muhammad”
Chinese officials describe the far western province of Xinjiang as a “core area” in the vast swathe of territory covered by the country’s grandiose “Belt and Road Initiative” to boost economic ties with Central Asia and regions beyond. They hope that wealth generated by the scheme will help to make Xinjiang more stable—for years it has been plagued by separatist violence which China says is being fed by global jihadism. But the authorities are not waiting. In recent months they have intensified their efforts to stifle the Islamic identity of Xinjiang’s ethnic Uighurs, fearful that any public display of their religious belief could morph into militancy.
Terror threats transform China's Uighur heartland into security state
Three times a day, alarms ring out through the streets of China’s ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar, and shopkeepers rush out of their stores swinging government-issued wooden clubs. In mandatory anti-terror drills conducted under police supervision and witnessed by Reuters on a recent visit, they fight off imaginary knife-wielding assailants. Armored paramilitary and police vehicles circle with sirens blaring.
Xinjiang’s Rapidly Evolving Security State
Since the July 5, 2009 riots in the regional capital of Urumqi, thousands have died in violent clashes between the Muslim Uyghur minority and the Han-dominated Party-state. In response, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has built a multi-tiered security state with, among other components, the recruitment of nearly 90,000 new police officers and a 356 percent increase in the public security budget. According to Chinese President Xi Jinping, Xinjiang is now the “frontline” in China’s battle against “terrorism,” and consequently a testing ground for new policing and surveillance methods.
China believes domestic tourism can promote “ethnic unity” - In Tibet and Xinjiang, its hopes are being dashed
Yaks graze on grassland near the turquoise waters of Karakul, a lake in the far western region of Xinjiang. Further south, towards the border with Pakistan, the imposing walls of a ruined hilltop fort at Tashkurgan mark a stop on the ancient Silk Road. With such a rich landscape and history this region should be a magnet for Chinese tourists. Instead the area that accounts for more than one-sixth of China’s land mass is better known for violent unrest. The picturesque charms of the lake and fort can be enjoyed in near solitude.
Beijing’s Eyes and Ears Grow Sharper in Xinjiang - The 24-7 Patrols of China’s “Convenience Police”
The troubled region of Xinjiang, in China’s northwest, has undergone a dramatic transformation over the last couple of months. Thousands of local police stations have cropped up across the region and tens of thousands of policemen have been recruited to man them around the clock.
The race card - The leader of a troubled western province has been replaced. He will not be missed by its ethnic Uighurs
When he took over in 2010 as the Communist Party chief of the western province of Xinjiang, Zhang Chunxian was portrayed by state media as a young, media-savvy official with a mission: to crack down hard on its separatists but also to foster “brotherly affection” between ethnic groups in the poor, violence-torn region. On August 29th Mr Zhang was moved to a new, as yet undisclosed, job, having claimed some success in his fight against Islamist “extremism”. The region’s ethnic divide, however, remains bitter.
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.