"The April 1990 armed uprising in Baren marked an increase in Uyghur Muslim violence in Xinjiang, China. Two justifications ethnic separatism and religious rhetoric are given. The Uyghurs, who reside throughout the immediate region, are the largest Turkic ethnic group living in Xinjiang as well as being overwhelmingly Muslim. This combination of ethnicity and religion also involves the movement of religious and political ideologies, weapons, and people. The desired outcome by groups that use violence is, broadly speaking, a separate Uyghur state, called either Uyghuristan or Eastern Turkistan, which lays claim to a large part of China. While some Uyghurs want a separate state, others want to maintain cultural distinction within an autonomous relationship with China, and others are integrating into the Chinese system. There is no single Uyghur agenda. The violent outbreaks in Xinjiang occur sporadically, and the groups that claim responsibility are frequently splintering, merging, and collapsing. Some of the Uyghur groups make claims that are difficult to substantiate. Nonetheless, the Uyghur grievances against the Chinese government have old roots. Some of the newer elements include Turkey's unofficial support and Muslim funding and training from abroad. The heavy-handedness of the multiple "strike hard" campaigns by the central Chinese government in Xinjiang simultaneously tamps down violence in the short-run but fuels a sense of injustice and mistnist among the Uyghurs in the long-run. Beginning in 1996, regular "strike hard" campaigns were used to fight crime and threats to order by mobilizing police, but are used in this decade to deal increasingly with "separatism, extremism and terrorism." A heavy police presence is a constant in Xinjiang."--Abstract from DTIC web site.

'Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) on the North Western Border of China is one of the most important regions of China. In terms of area, XUAR is the largest province of China with Uyghur Muslims as the majority. Uyghur Separatists have been demanding an independent state out of China.' (Publisher)

This unique book provides an encyclopedic overview of all aspects of the Uyghur population and the Chinese Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, protests and alleged terrorism by Muslim Uyghurs, Chinese government policies toward the Uyghurs, oppression, history, Chinese human rights, U.S. policy issues, and much more. This massive compendium includes government reports, federal material, military information, and Congressional hearing transcripts. Because of the enormous size of this material, for reproduction in paperback format it has been divided into two volumes.Contents:VOLUME 1 - Uyghurs in Xinjiang: United or Divided Against the PRC? * State Department Material * Human Rights in Xinjiang: Recent Developments * Xinjiang * The Islamic Republic of Eastern Turkestan and the Formation of Modern Uyghur Identity in Xinjiang * Uyghur Muslim Ethnic Separatism in Xinjiang, China * Xinjiang and China's National Security: Counter-Terrorism or Counter-Separatism? * Nationalism and Islamic Identity in Xinjiang * The Fracturing of China? Ethnic Separatism and Political Violence in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region * Freedom Fighters or Terrorists? Exploring the Case of the Uighur People * Uyghurs Without Borders? The Economic and Social Status of Uyghurs in Kazakhstan and Its Impact on Interethnic Conflict and Transnational Threats * Protracted Counterinsurgency Chinese COIN Strategy in Xinjiang * Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) Xinjiang and Uyghur Coverage * Congressional-Executive Commission on China - Annual Report 2012VOLUME 2Congressional-Executive Commission on China - Annual Report 2012 (Conclusion) * Human Rights in China and U.S. Policy: Issues for the 113th Congress * Investigating the Chinese Threat, Part II: Human Rights Abuses, Torture and Disappearances * The Internet in China: A Tool for Freedom or Suppression? * Political Prisoners in China: Trends and Implications for U.S. PolicyIn the past decade, Chinese authorities have carried out especially harsh religious and ethnic policies against Uighurs, a predominantly Muslim Turkic ethnic group living primarily in China's far northwestern Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR). Once the predominant ethnic group in the region, Xinjiang's 8.5 million Uighurs now constitute an estimated 40% of the population as many Han have migrated there, particularly to the regional capital, Urumqi. The PRC government asserts that many Muslims in China, including Uighurs, receive preferential treatment due to special policies toward minority groups, that PRC economic policies have benefitted Uighurs, and that firm religious and ethnic policies are necessary to prevent terrorism. In 2010, China's top leadership held the first "work forum" focused on the XUAR. The forum produced an ambitious economic development plan for the region, but did not address longstanding Uighur political and religious grievances.The PRC government has often conflated the religious and cultural practices of Uighurs in Xinjiang with subversive activities or the "three evils of religious extremism, splittism, and terrorism." It claims that the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a Uighur organization that advocates the creation of an independent Uighur Islamic state, was responsible for terrorist attacks in China and has ties to Al Qaeda. In 2011, Xinjiang courts tried 414 cases of endangering state security, up 10% over the previous year. In June 2012, the official press announced that police had arrested six Uighurs in connection with an attempted hijacking aboard a plane travelling from Hotan, Xinjiang to Urumqi. Representatives of the World Uyghur Congress countered that the onboard disturbance was not a hijacking attempt but rather a "brawl over a seat dispute."

This study surveys the evidence for organized, violent separatist resistance to Chinese rule in Xinjiang, a region three times the size of France located in the northwestern corner of the PRC. Since several major violent events in the 1990s, concern has risen over the possibility that a violent separatist or terrorist movement may be emerging among the Turkic Muslim population of this region. Stories in the international media have sounded this warning steadily if sporadically over the past decade, and in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, the PRC government has publicly linked groups comprised of Uyghurs from Xinjiang to al Qaeda and other international terrorist organizations. The United States and the United Nations have agreed to some extent with China?s assessment and designated one of the groups on China?s terrorist list, ETIM, as an international terrorist organization.After summarizing the 250-year history of various kinds of resistance in Xinjiang, this study catalogs major violent incidents since the 1990s in Xinjiang and in the Central Asian republics. It then discusses the Uyghur groups and individuals listed as separatists or terrorists. On the basis of a critical analysis of international press reports and PRC government materials, the study concludes that while ethnic tensions in Xinjiang are indeed serious, the sense of imminent crisis commonly conveyed by these reports is exaggerated. In particular, the study notes that the frequency and severity of violence have in fact declined since the late 1990s, perhaps due to Chinese efforts at interdiction.This is the sixth publication in Policy Studies, a peer-reviewed East-West Center Washington series that presents scholarly analysis of key contemporary domestic and international political, economic, and strategic issues affecting Asia in a policy relevant manner.

Since the tragic events of September 11, Central Asia has been drawn into the intense struggle of the international community against the forces of religious extremism and transnational crime. The great powers were able to put aside their geopolitical differences in order to crush al-Qaeda and the Taliban. With the marginalization of the Taliban and the eviction of al-Qaeda from Afghanistan, however, the tension between the great powers is notably increasing, as is the discomfort of Central Asian states who find themselves, their political development, and their oil reserves in the middle of a renewed Great Game. Islam, Oil, and Geopolitics is a truly international volume, including chapters written by senior scholars, upcoming students in the field, prominent diplomats, and renowned academics from Russia, China, the United States, and the Central Asian republics. They collaborate to focus on three important issues that are usually--and unfortunately--analyzed separately: Islamic political issues, energy security, and geopolitical maneuvering. Once an obscure and little-known region, Central Asia has become an important test of America's ability to consistently promote global liberal change, of Russia's true foreign policy agenda, and of China's readiness to translate economic power into political influence. Terrorism, economics, and politics all converge in this strategic region, with important implications for Asia and the world. This significant and timely volume helps readers understand current events in Central Asia and how those events affect the rest of the world. Contributions by: Kamoludin Abdullaev, Rouben Azizian, Gaye Christoffersen, Elizabeth Van Wie Davis, Feng Shaolei, Pan Guang, Shireen Hunter, Alisher Khamidov, Mikhail A. Konarovsky, Najibullah Lafraie, Murat Laumulin, Sergey I. Lounev, Aleksei V. Malashenko, Orhon Myadar, Manabu Shimizu, Thomas W. Simons Jr., Robert Smith, Sergei Troush, Kang Wu, and Shi Yinhong.

This unique book provides an encyclopedic overview of all aspects of the Uyghur population and the Chinese Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, protests and alleged terrorism by Muslim Uyghurs, Chinese government policies toward the Uyghurs, oppression, history, Chinese human rights, U.S. policy issues, and much more. This massive compendium includes government reports, federal material, military information, and Congressional hearing transcripts. Because of the enormous size of this material, for reproduction in paperback format it has been divided into two volumes.Contents:VOLUME 1 - Uyghurs in Xinjiang: United or Divided Against the PRC? * State Department Material * Human Rights in Xinjiang: Recent Developments * Xinjiang * The Islamic Republic of Eastern Turkestan and the Formation of Modern Uyghur Identity in Xinjiang * Uyghur Muslim Ethnic Separatism in Xinjiang, China * Xinjiang and China's National Security: Counter-Terrorism or Counter-Separatism? * Nationalism and Islamic Identity in Xinjiang * The Fracturing of China? Ethnic Separatism and Political Violence in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region * Freedom Fighters or Terrorists? Exploring the Case of the Uighur People * Uyghurs Without Borders? The Economic and Social Status of Uyghurs in Kazakhstan and Its Impact on Interethnic Conflict and Transnational Threats * Protracted Counterinsurgency Chinese COIN Strategy in Xinjiang * Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) Xinjiang and Uyghur Coverage * Congressional-Executive Commission on China - Annual Report 2012VOLUME 2 - Congressional-Executive Commission on China - Annual Report 2012 (Conclusion) * Human Rights in China and U.S. Policy: Issues for the 113th Congress * Investigating the Chinese Threat, Part II: Human Rights Abuses, Torture and Disappearances * The Internet in China: A Tool for Freedom or Suppression? * Political Prisoners in China: Trends and Implications for U.S. Policy

The first memoir about the "reeducation" camps by a Uyghur woman, describing the insidious nature of oppression, the dehumanizing effects of torture and brainwashing, and the human drive to survive—and resist—under even the most horrific circumstances. This new paperback edition features a new introduction by the author. “I have written what I lived. The atrocious reality.” — Gulbahar Haitiwaji to Paris Match For three years Gulbahar Haitiwaji was held in Chinese detention centers and “reeducation” camps, enduring interrogations, torture, hunger, police violence, brainwashing, forced sterilization, freezing cold, rats, and nights under the blinding fluorescent lights of her prison cell. Her only crime? Being a Uyghur. China’s brutal repression of Uyghurs, a Turkish-speaking Muslim ethnic group, has been denounced as genocide and reported widely in media around the world. In 2019, the New York Times published the “Xinjiang Papers,” leaked documents exposing the forced detention of more than one million Uyghurs in Chinese “reeducation” camps. The Chinese government denies that these camps are concentration camps, seeking to legitimize their existence in the name of the “total fight against Islamic terrorism, infiltration and separatism” and calling them “schools.” But none of this is true. Gulbahar only escaped thanks to the relentless efforts of her daughter, with the help of the French diplomatic corps. Others have not been so fortunate. In How I Survived a Chinese “Reeducation” Camp, Gulbahar tells her story, describing the insidious nature of oppression, the dehumanizing effects of torture and brainwashing, and the human drive to survive—and resist—under even the most horrific circumstances. This new paperback edition includes a new introduction by the author.