The Uyghurs’ China Problem, or How We Got to the Political Re-Education Camps of Xinjiang

The current campaign of mass incarceration in Xinjiang is the latest twist in the long conflict between the Uyghurs and the Chinese state over the past, present, and the future. In this talk, Adeeb Khalid will attempt to place the current situation in its Central Asian context by tracing the emergence of national discourses among the Uyghurs. These discourses had little to do with China but were a part of broader development of Turkic modernities from the late nineteenth century on. Tracing these discourses takes us to the many ties that link the Uyghur sense of self to the Ottoman and the Russian empires and to Turkey and the Soviet Union. A comparison of Soviet and Chinese practices for managing national difference will round out the presentation.

Adeeb Khalid is Jane and Raphael Bernstein Professor of Asian Studies and History at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, where he has taught since 1993. He works on Central Asia in the period after the imperial conquests of the 19th century, with thematic interests in religion and cultural change, nationalism, empires and colonialism. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation, and the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress. He is the author of The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform: Jadidism in Central Asia (University of California Press, 1998), Islam after Communism: Religion and Politics in Central Asia (University of California Press, 2007), and Making Uzbekistan: Nation, Empire, and Revolution in the Early USSR (Cornell University Press, 2015). He is currently working on a history of modern Central Asia for a general audience.

In collaboration with the Watson Institute's China Initiative

[VL-inquisitor]

As someone said in this thread, China has been criticized for what it did to de-radicalize the Islamic extremist. In Xinjaing, they are given a second opportunity to learn law and order, to learn Mandarin as a working-place language, and to acquire other skills so that they can have a chance for better employment, better income, and better livelihood. Their fellow Muslims elsewhere may not be that fortunate and they may not have that second chance. Coz, they were killed, displaced, locked up or hunted down, as we have seen in Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya. That's the wayl the West has been doing to tackle the same issue.

Time is the best, impartial judge. In time, we will see which way is more successful, more democratic, and more humane.

[Rakkasan]

So how do you de-radicalize Islamic extremist without violating their civil liberty? These Re-Education Camps is not unique to China; France, Indonesia, U.S, Turkey, etc. all have them. Instead of criticize China how about offer a solution with their problem.

[viracocha]

Why focus on the brutality of the CCP, when modern Muslims have religious conflicts with: Hindus in Kashmir; Christians in Nigeria, Egypt, and Bosnia; atheists in Chechnya and China; Baha'is in Iran; Animists in Darfur; Buddhists in Thailand; each other in Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen; Jews in Israel; Why is Islam involved in more sectarian and religious conflicts than any other religion today? In fact, why is Islam the only religion in conflict with every single one of today's major world religions?

[paulonutini]

Too many talks, not making any better, otherwise the expansion transitioning to Central Asia

[GustavMahlerHorn]

Very disingeneous to say 'there has never been something like East-Turkestan' when the Chinese document says Xinjiang has never been East-Turkestan, which is correct. It was a short (4-5year) uprising during the second world war in a tiny part of Xinjiang province.


The speaker does not understand the difference between Xinjiang and Kashgar/Dzungharia region?