P rimer - The ‘People’s War on Terror’ in Xinjiang: A model for China?

This Primer is i ntended to give a brief, i ntroductory overview t o the c ontours o f what has h appened a nd what is c ontinuing to h appen in X UAR, particularly i n relation to ethnic policy and its e volution in the PRC; XUAR; the ‘People’s W ar on Terror’ from 2014-2021; and t he ‘standardisation’ of c ounterterrorism a nd future of the region under M a Xingrui, the n ew Communist Party Secr. [...] 3 20th century Chinese history can b e read a s the h istory of t hat l ong t ransition from empire to nation, and the c ontemporary PRC r emains c oncerned deeply w ith t he question of w hat i t means to b e a (Chinese) communist state which has retained the borders o f a multi-ethnic e mpire. [...] 10 Xi’s nationalist turn and the emergence of the ‘Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation’ a s a key slogan have seen the adoption of a spects of the assimilationist approach championed b y these thinkers, where assimilation always means towards an implicitly Han norm. [...] GPP05 October 2023 Drivers of r epression in Xinjiang XUAR, located in the far n orthwest of the PRC, covers a vast and e cologically diverse terrain, r anging from the d eserts and oasis towns of the Tarim Basin to high grasslands in the north. [...] 39 The detention of cultural elites a nd intellectuals i ndicates the extent to which t he s tate has c ome t o consider U yghur identity itself a s a threat in need of r ectification.