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This paper examines the inter-group difference in social leverage ties between Uyghurs and Han Chinese in Ürümchi, China. Social leverage ties refer to high-status ties such as professionals and managers who can provide egos with information or access to education, training, employment, etc. Existing studies have suggested three hypotheses (i.e. retention of culture, homophily and neighbourhood poverty) for the mechanisms of ethnic differences in network composition. Based on the survey data the author collected in 2005, this paper suggests another main mechanism – state policies – in explaining the ethnic variations. State policies have led to in-group association and ethnic inequalities, which have limited Uyghur access to high-status individuals. Data analysis shows the Uyghur–Han difference in social leverage ties controlling for key background characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The 5 July event in Urumqi inspired rethinking about Beijing's policy towards Xinjiang. This paper will examine Beijing's interests in Xinjiang from historical, political, economic and security perspectives, and the challenges Beijing faces in pursuing and protecting its interests. By examining the tensions between the Han and ethnic minorities, especially the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, the paper argues that the Xinjiang issue involves China's core interests and the most serious challenge Beijing faces is how to cope with ethnic tension in a highly sensitive region surrounded by big powers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tumultuous events of summer 2009 have brought Uighur protests and minority mobilization in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) to the forefront. But this focus overlooks similar protests organized by various groups of Han Chinese settlers over the years. This paper contributes to the body of literature on minority mobilization and ethnic relations in Xinjiang by illustrating how the political mobilization of a group that is simultaneously a national majority and a regional minority differs substantially from ‘traditional’ minority mobilization. Reviewing the main instances of Han Chinese political mobilization since the XUAR was created in 1955, I argue that two factors are particularly important in enabling their mobilization: the Han Chinese's subjective perception of discrimination and their close ethnic ties to the state. This paper concludes with a discussion on the presence of a cycle of protests between Han settlers and the Uighurs in Xinjiang. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While the topic of Xinjiang has received considerable attention from scholars in the recent years, there has been a lack of scholarship on policy proposals for what should be done there to improve the situation for the Uyghurs. Moreover, and even though the literature on democratization in China is plentiful, Xinjiang scholars have not fully engaged that literature in their writings. Likewise, scholars on the topic of democratization in China have not devoted adequate attention to Xinjiang, focusing instead on China overall. His paper argues that the best approach for the Chinese government in bringing about lasting and sustainable peace in Xinjiang is through adopting a combination of competitive democratic elections to be held throughout Xinjiang and fostering political openness through participatory democracy in Xinjiang, the People's Republic of China (PRC). However, with the massive influx of Han into Xinjiang following the founding of the PRC, tensions between the Uyghurs and the Han have exacerbated significantly. Denying Uyghurs basic freedoms such as speaking their own language and going to the mosque further adds to the tensions and is not a viable policy. Thus, in order to improve the situation in Xinjiang, it is essential that Uyghurs are engaged in the democratic process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To provide background for the four papers on Xinjiang and the Uyghurs in this special issue, this introduction discusses developments in the region since 1991, then outlines the events of June and July 2009 in Shaoguan, Guangdong, and Urumchi, Xinjiang, as best can be pieced together from available information. It concludes with brief introductions to the four articles on Xinjiang that follow in this special issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a paper which explores on Han-Uyghur inequality through the comparison of Han and Uyghur migrants at Urumqi, Xinjiang in China. It says that base on a survey of 30 sites conducted in 2008, it is crucial to consider the role of self-initiated migration. It states that through the analyses of migration characteristics, findings show that Uyghur migrants do not seem disfavored compared to Han migrants. Moreover, heterogeneity of Urumqi's labor market is also investigated.

This article adopts a post-Copenhagen approach to securitization theory in order to critically analyze the security policies developed by the People's Republic of China (PRC) that have targeted the Uyghur community in Xinjiang province. The article explores the relationship between the language of security and threat, which has been invoked by the PRC leadership, and its role in justifying every-day and exceptional security practices that have been enacted against the Uyghurs since the start of the 1990s. The article makes two important claims. First, the article argues that the securitization of the Uyghur has proved counter-productive, potentially creating the very security threat that the securitization of an issue is supposed to prevent. Second, the article suggests that the role of various audiences, both domestic and international, even in an authoritarian or illiberal state like China, play a key role in the securitization process and the legitimization of the security measures that have been enacted against the Uyghur community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on Uyghur communities in China often focuses on the power and oppression of the Chinese state, neglecting the power situated in the domestic sphere and women's bodies. My research addresses how younger Uyghur women (aged 18–35 years old) feel suffocated by the expectations of their ethnocultural identity, and how those women both conform to and reject social norms. The themes of marriage and clothing illustrate how representations and discourses of the female body reinforce the boundaries of the Uyghur community. The pleasure and pain of Uyghur identity manifests in women's bodies during territorial insecurity of fading nationalist space. Multiple scales of identity in the body and household disrupt the imaginary cohesiveness and boundedness of territory. While the Chinese state polices Uyghur bodies, so too does Uyghur society police the bodies of other Uyghurs – especially women – as a security strategy of bordering the nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decade, the Chinese Communist Party has built an unprecedented surveillant assemblage in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) with the region's Uyghur Muslim minority as the chief target of augmented Party-state controls. This article interrogates the mechanics, logic and implications of Xinjiang's surveillance society. It demonstrates how Party-state monitoring comes not only in the form of physical monitoring and forced kinship but also automated, technology-driven tools such as GPS tracking, voice and facial recognition technologies, machine learning algorithms, and other software and hardware. The Chinese Party-state employs surveillance to delineate 'correct' thought and behaviour among its citizens, and then persuade (through coercion and inducement) self-alignment with Party and Han-defined norms. The results are fewer spaces for autonomous, bottom-up social mobilization by the Uyghurs and other minorities, the abolition of non-Han cultural, linguistic and religious practices, and the erosion of social trust in Xinjiang society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Negotiations of collective subjectivities among the Han living in ethnic minority areas of the People's Republic of China have so far received little attention. This article explores one such process among the ‘Uyghurized Han’ living in southern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, an area in which Han make up less than one-fourth of the population. Based on research material collected during long-term ethnographic fieldwork, this article suggests that Uyghurized Han creatively construct a sense of belonging in Xinjiang by positioning themselves at the interface of Han-ness and Uyghur-ness. They do so by engaging in contradictory but nonetheless simultaneous processes of blurring and fixing boundaries of identity vis-à-vis both Uyghur and other Han. The aim of the present article is to discuss the ways in which their collective subjectivities are produced in the process of boundary negotiation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The fear of a burgeoning Salafi-jihadism in Xinjiang has been a public driving factor in Chinese policies in the region. This menace is exaggerated. Though there may be Salafi-jihadist elements among the larger, discontented Uyghur population, it is not a mass movement posing an existential threat to the Chinese political order in Xinjiang. Nationalism fuels this Sino-Uyghur conflict while Islam functions as a pragmatic weapon. Uyghur Islam, Uyghur identity, and the history of Uyghur rebellions in the twentieth century, all undergird this conclusion. The form of Islam—Hanafi, Sufi, and indigenous customs—commonly practiced by Uyghurs is antithetical to Salafism and the state imposes constraints on religious praxis. A Muslim identity is only one among several competing identities that comprise the ethnic idea of a Uyghur. The character of Uyghur rebellions, even ones that blatantly declare jihad, demonstrates the primacy of nationalism, the absence of Salafi-jihadism, and the malleability of Uyghur identity. These three evidences bolster the case to revisit the question of Salafi-jihadism in Xinjiang and find a more complex socio-religious perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents findings of a narrative analysis of the lateral use of models by Chinese public opinion generators to shape the behaviours of the people. It begins with lexical, sociological and narratological explanations of the meaning of a Chinese model, before presenting a general introduction of Chinese models as a phenomenon, including the hype usually involved in their making and propagating. It then proceeds to a narrative analysis of the singular good-sounding story usually told by Chinese models. The focus of the article, though, is a narrative case study based on a prolonged search for a model named Cadeer, an ethnic Uyghur from Xinjiang Autonomous Region and on his deferred final discovery. From this, the author presents several arguments. First, Cadeer does not tell a typical good-sounding story. Second, not retelling the good-sounding story deferred his final discovery. Third, his deferred but eventual rise to modeldom is an indication of the continued obsession with the use of models for mass persuasion in China, a sign of changing times and of the changing media environment in the country, as well as a reflection of its ever-intensifying interethnic tension. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Focusing on representations of the Muslim dynasty that exercised power locally under the Qing dynasty until 1930 in the oasis of Qumul in eastern Xinjiang, this article challenges the binary notions of ‘official’ versus ‘unofficial’ discourse by looking at the production of historical knowledge on the ground. Versions of local histories are communicated both in censored publications and in informally transmitted oral narratives, which are not independent realms but in constant dialogue with each other. Produced at the interface of the oral and the written, these representations are laden with contradictions and ambiguities, portraying the Muslim dynasty sometimes as feudal exploiters, at other times as models of good governance. It will be shown how historical knowledge is produced at the junctures of the oral and the written, and of official and unofficial discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the political, military, and economic influence of China and how its alliances with countries like Pakistan, thought of as corrupt by jihadist terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda, will shift the sole propaganda and military targets of militant groups away from the U.S. The article also examines how China's increased power will change its traditional non-intervention following terrorism in other countries. Domestic Muslim militant groups such as the Uighurs in China's Xinjiang province are explored, particularly the Uighur affiliation with the Afghanistan-based terrorist network the Taliban, and its ban on attacking Chinese interests directly. The author argues that jihad movements will confront China based on its economic alliances.

An ethnic identity is not simply a catalyst for collective action; rather, it is an idea, a social variable shaped by its own intellectual history and by the historical consciousness of those who, wittingly or otherwise, engage with and articulate it. As one example, modern Uyghur identity, as it is most widely understood today, is the product, in part, of the action of a series of educational institutions operating in the years before 1949. Intellectuals and activists, beginning in the 1880s, formed networks of schools that provided an organizational basis for social and political movements, as well as a site for the negotiation of the ideas of those movements. Uyghur identity, along with a broader scheme of ethno-national classification, gained currency among a particular sector of Xinjiang society through participation in a set of broader organizations in the Sheng Shicai era. This history is reflected today in the actions and attitudes of contemporary Uyghur intellectuals, who react to encroachment on mother-tongue education with ideas and organizations informed by historical knowledge of this earlier period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work examines the labour export programme of south-west Xinjiang that brought Uyghur migrant workers to the Early Light Toy Factory in Shaoguan, Guangdong and places it in the context of capitalist-working class divisions emerging in contemporary China, where clashes between managers and workers have become frequent occurrences, and increasing worker solidarity and growing labour activism have become a leading concern of the Communist Party of China and an increasingly influential business class. The author suggests that labour export is primarily utilized not as a means to alleviate poverty and reduce minority-Han income gaps, as claimed by official sources, but as an instrument of business-class interests for dividing and conquering the shop floor through the ethnic diversification of the workforce, an age-old tactic of factory bosses harkening back to the manipulation of foreign-born workers in late-nineteenth-century industrial America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the reasons why the politicization of language has not been translated into disruptive forms of ethnic mobilization as opposed to the political salience of religion among the Uyghurs in Xinjiang throughout the 1990s and the Sikhs before and after the creation of Punjab in 1966. The article argues, from a structural-rationalist perspective, that language-based claims in Xinjiang and in Punjab have been accommodated by the respective central governments to a larger extent than religious claims have. Accommodation has taken the form of particular policies as well as greater incorporation of minority elites on the basis of language, which have in turn significantly reduced the possibilities of anti-regime sentiments and the incentives for disruptive forms of pressure on the basis of linguistic claims among the minority group. Religious claims have, however, not been accommodated in a similar way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the internal and external challenges of Uyghur separatism and Islamic radicalism to Chinese rule om Xinjiang, China. Commonly held perceptions on the situation in Xinjiang; Historical background of Uyghur separatism; Real separatist conflicts; Role played by communications media in the Xinjiang situation.