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This article argues that China's campaign of reeducation and forced labor in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region through so-called Vocational Skills Education and Training Centers (VSETCs) represents a significant conceptual innovation over prior labor reform. Beijing's erstwhile penal labor systems treated labor as an integral part of reeducation but suffered from limited reeducation results, low work productivity, and poor resocialization outcomes. In contrast, the VSETC system pragmatically eschews Maoist tenets of labor's transformational power: its internment camps prioritize intensive reeducation, followed by a process of gradual release into potentially more efficient nonprison enterprises. The resulting potential profitability gains translate into higher economic sustainability—an essential prerequisite for the system's primary goal of long-term assimilation and coercive integration of resistant ethnic groups into Beijing's social order. However, VSETC's and the region's focus on control and disintegrating ethnic social capital undermines its integrative efforts, replicating a long-standing weakness of prior labor reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mel Gurtov is concerned about increasing tension between China and the United States. In chapter 2, Gurtov warns about conflating China's capabilities with its intentions (12) and also warns about demonizing China in the United States for partisan gains (20). [Extracted from the article]

"Language Rights in a Changing China: A National Overview and Zhuang Case Study" by Alexandra Grey explores the implementation and interpretation of language rights in China. The book focuses on the Zhuang people, China's largest minority, and their experiences with language rights. Grey argues that China's discourse on language is influenced by the imperative of national unity and the ideology of developmentalism, which prioritize Mandarin and marginalize minority languages. She also analyzes the linguistic landscape in Guangxi, showing the dominance of Chinese and the limited presence of Zhuang. While the language rights regime in China symbolically values minority languages, it does not empower speakers or promote linguistic justice. The book provides a comprehensive analysis of language rights in China and is a valuable contribution to the literature on minority languages. [Extracted from the article]

In I Terror Capitalism: Uyghur Dispossession and Masculinity in a Chinese City i , Darren Byler follows the political-economic attributes of China's massive, technologically advanced surveillance apparatus in the Uyghur homeland of Xinjiang to demonstrate how these feed into global systems of counterterrorism, settler colonialism, and capital accumulation. It is strongly recommended for Xinjiang/Uyghur specialists, contemporary China scholars, policy makers, and those whose work engages settler colonialism and state surveillance. It is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the confluence of capitalism, dispossession, and state surveillance in the Uyghur homeland. [Extracted from the article]

This article examines a paradigm shift in the PRC that has occurred over the past two decades which has transformed the meaning of "minority nationality" (shaoshu minzu). Today, the very concept of minority nationalities is perceived by Beijing as entailing a threat to the Chinese state and the Chinese nation. The shift underlies a change of China's institutional form from a "multinational state" to a "unified community of the Chinese nation." The result is the current heavy-handed approach toward China's minority peoples, especially in borderlands such as Xinjiang, Tibet, and Inner Mongolia. The article suggests that these minority nationalities are now understood by the Chinese leadership to constitute veritable Frankenstein's monsters that were created by the Party's minority-nationality classification system and have now grown strong enough to attack their creator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Islamic veil is arguably the most politicized piece of fabric in the world, eliciting heated debate over its significance and complex meanings. The over 10 million Muslim women in China have their own histories and cultures of veiling. This article explores the ongoing struggle between the Chinese Communist Party and Xinjiang's Uyghur Muslim minority over the right to define what is "appropriate" and "normal" female adornment. New styles of veiling have entered China from abroad, intensifying the controversy over the scope of Uyghur ethnic attire. We contrast the party-state's antiveiling campaign to eliminate popular styles in Xinjiang, with the diverse reasons and meanings Uyghur women and men attach to them. While the party-state strives to control and standardize Uyghur dress, the community itself responds, sometimes defiantly, with a complex registry of veiling practices that reflect everything from ethnonational resistance, increased religious faith, and global Islamic haute couture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most analyses of central government policy in Xinjiang focus on "the Uyghur problem". This article demonstrates the coexistence of a significant "Han problem" in Xinjiang, and thereby throws a different light on relations between center and periphery in China. Central government reactions to the Úrúmqi riots in July 2009 suggest that stability among the Han population of Xinjiang is the center's primary objective, and that this stability is seen to be facilitated by a particular style of development. Furthermore, state--society interactions in the immediate aftermath of the 2009 riots show that Han in Xinjiang perceive themselves to possess collective--if limited and contingent--influence. This perception is the product of the mass frame through which, I argue, the Han mainstream view their relationship with the central government. I call this mass frame "the partnership of stability". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses income inequality between the Han Chinese and Uyghur ethnic groups of Urumqi, China, which is thought to be one of the factors which led to violent ethnic conflict in the region during 2009. The question of how to quantify the income disparity, in the absence of any recognition by the country's Communist rulers that it even exists, is addressed. Whether inequalities can be attributed to discrimination or to differing educational patterns between ethnic groups is also discussed.

This article examines attitudes of Uyghurs toward popular music in Xinjiang, China. The launch of the Great Development of the West program has included a major effort to develop the economy of Xinjiang. As a complex expressive form, popular music combines sound, lyrics and visual elements and it can communicate rich messages. This article also described the creative work of two famous Uyghur popular musicians and their reception by Uyghur university students and urban youth. Significant efforts have been made by the Chinese government to influence popular music in Xinjiang, China.