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:
Cultivating friendly forces: The Chinese Communist Party’s influence operations in the Xinjiang Diaspora
This report explores how the CCP’s united front system is used to monitor the Uyghur diaspora and counter criticism of its policies in Xinjiang.
New report details China’s efforts to control Uyghurs beyond its borders
The CCP uses deceptive and coercive influence operations around the globe to undermine Uyghurs living outside China, often through the United Front Work Department (UFWD), say researchers in a new policy paper.
The architecture of repression: Unpacking Xinjiang’s governance
This report is a part of a larger online project which can be found on the Xinjiang Data Project website. The project maps and analyses the governance mechanisms employed by the Chinese party-state in Xinjiang from 2014 to 2021 within the context of the region’s ongoing human rights crisis. The authors have located and scrutinised thousands of Chinese-language sources, including leaked police records and government budget documents never before published. For policymakers, this report will provide an evidence base to inform policy responses including possible sanctions. For the general public and anyone whose interests are linked to Xinjiang and China more broadly, this project can inform risk analysis and ethical considerations.
No Space Left to Run: China’s Transnational Repression of Uyghurs
This report is the product of an effort to understand the means by which China targets Uyghurs beyond its borders to silence dissent, gathering cases of China’s transnational repression of Uyghurs from public sources, including government documents, human rights reports, and reporting by credible news agencies to establish a detailed analysis of how the scale and scope of China’s global repression are expanding.
“The Happiest Muslims in the World”: Disinformation, Propaganda and the Uyghur Crisis
This report analyses English-language Chinese media sources aimed at foreign audiences to examine CCP messaging strategies on the Uyghur human rights crisis.
Xi Jinping’s Quotes Replace the Ten Commandments in Churches
The Ten Commandments are the basis of Christian moral code, an essential part of believers’ life throughout the world. But in atheist China, they have become an eyesore for the country’s dictator, and are eliminated from places of worship.
“United Front.” Afterlives of Chinese Communism: Political Concepts from Mao to Xi
The notion of 'united front' was first adopted by the Chinese Communist Party in the early 1920s, and was originally connected to the tactic of cross-class mobilisation. In time, the original concept took on a broader meaning, coming to refer to the CCP's ability to work with, unite under its guidance, and manipulate other political parties and social forces, eliminating possible sources of opposition by means of cooptation and control.
Hu the Uniter: Hu Lianhe and the Radical Turn in China’s Xinjiang Policy
One of the leading figures of a new generation of PRC ethnic policymakers, Hu Lianhe’s public defense of Xinjiang’s “anti-extremism” strategy suggests his close involvement in the policy’s design and implementation.
The Historical Foundations of Religious Restrictions in Contemporary China
The ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) abolished its total ban on religious activities in 1982. However, the distrust that the CCP feels for religions remains obvious today, and the religious restrictions in contemporary China remain tight. Conventional wisdom tells us that the official atheist ideology of Marxism-Leninism is the main reason behind the CCP’s distrust for, and restriction of, religion. However, taking a historical institutionalist perspective, this paper argues that the religious restrictions in contemporary China are in fact rooted in the fierce political struggles of the country’s two major revolutions in the first half of the twentieth century.
Religious minorities and China
The treatment of religious minorities lies behind many of the headlines from China in recent years. China’s treatment of the Falungong and its policies in Tibet receive regular comment in the West, but rarely is this commentary informed by an understanding of how China’s policies towards religious minorities as a whole have developed. This report fills that gap and provides an authoritative overview of the major world religions in a country that is as diverse as it is vast.
Islam in China: An update
This article updates the situation of Muslims in China following the publication of results from the 1982 census. According to the census, there are nearly 15 million Muslims in the People's Republic of China.
Religious policy in China and its implementation in the light of document no. 19
The key to understanding CCP religious policy is a clear understanding of CCP "united front" work, as well as Document 19, an internal CCP document that provides the ideological foundation for current CCP religious policy as well as detailed instructions for its implementation.