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:

Eyewitness Accounts

Overview Reports

Lists / Databases of Victims

Satellite Imagery of Camps, Prisons & Cultural Destruction

The architecture of repression: Unpacking Xinjiang’s governance
ASPI Lina K ASPI Lina K

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.

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No Space Left to Run: China’s Transnational Repression of Uyghurs
Uyghur Human Rights Project Lina K Uyghur Human Rights Project Lina K

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.

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“United Front.” Afterlives of Chinese Communism: Political Concepts from Mao to Xi
ANU Press Lina K ANU Press Lina K

“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.

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Lina K Lina K

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.

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Religious minorities and China
Minority Rights Group Lina K Minority Rights Group Lina K

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.

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