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Uyghur Supression in Xinjiang, China
Zane Alvarez
Cultural Anthropology Fall 2018
Michael Ioannides

This research proposal examines the struggle on the Ethnic Uyghur minority group in
western China. It begins with China’s record on human rights, especially the rights of those in
members of ethnic groups other than the Han Chinese, throughout its communist history. From
there it moves to China’s newest strategies for surveillance and suppression, from communist
security forces facial recognition and the disappearances of countless young Uyghurs, it becomes
more clear that the state is making an effort to terrify these residents. My proposal is to do
participant observation work with a Uyghur family in the Xinjiang capital of Ürümqi, and to try
to see how much, if in fact at all as the CCP claims, their lives are impacted by this newfound
state interest in their lives and their routines. I hope that by gathering this information and
shedding light on an issue many developed countries turn a blind eye to in the name of
international politics, some real pressure can be applied and the situation of the Uyghur can be
improved at least in the slightest.

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 The history of China is perhaps one of the longest of any country in the world, though up

until less than a century ago, it would not have been recognizable as the China Americans know

today. Modern China is the product of 69 years of communist sculpture and aggregation, and the

Chinese Communist party is only just hitting its stride. The Chinese Communist Party, or CCP,

has more resources than ever before, and is starting to look westward to the Xinjiang province.

China is only ninety-two percent Han. The Han ethnicity group is what most people will

think when they think of China, the south asians that run the country and compose almost all of

the US’s population of Chinese immigrants. Only six percent of China’s population lives west of

the Heihe-Tengchong line, a geo-demographic demarcation line thought up in 1935 that divides

the country, land-wise, into two equally sized parts, setting the seat of power comfortably deep in

the west where the population, industry, and the economy have done nothing but grow.

As the vast majority in all of the country’s major metro and economic centers, the Han

are comfortably in control of the CCP. The party has historically forced China’s citizens to mold

to its way of life. For ten years, from 1966 to 1976, the CCP was at the height of this push for

conformity, the cultural revolution was in full swing as the government worked to eliminate

evidence of any China other than communist China and lock its citizens allegiances into their

new government, and putting strict regulations on religion, which they saw as a loyalty other

than to them. For the Han majority, at the time largely Buddhist, this wasn’t welcomed, but the

major metropolitan areas they lived in were firmly under CCP control so the spread of atheism

was fast. For the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, the opposite was true.

Uyghurs are an ethnic muslim group that compose point seven-two percent of China’s

total population. Living in Xinjiang, the Uyghurs dodged the fate of the Nepalese, who were
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themselves repressed and imprisoned as the government seized much of their land in the name of

national security against India, and in mostly rural areas with no industry, the CCP had their eyes

and indeed their resources pointed at bigger fish. Now, as Xi Jinping seeks to solidify his place

not just in the CCP but also in China through backchannel political military means¹, he’s turning

the state’s attention to Xinjiang and the Uyghurs.

The first move in China’s new surprise onslaught on the Uyghur people was banning the

Uyghur language in Xinjiang schools², a move which quickly evolved into an increased police

presence in Xinjiang, and, in a surprise to no one, what the economist called “a police state like

no other”³. China’s new stage on the international playing field that is technology was finally in

a place that it would be able to keep tabs on the Uyghurs on its terms.

The government enacted a previously unprecedented system of surveillance using brand

new facial recognition⁴ technology in the Xinjiang province that it claimed was a practice run,

but that had was out in full force identifying and leading to the arrest of ‘criminals’ across the

province. These so called criminals, as defined by the state, were, at the time of the technology’s

introduction in early 2018, mostly protestors.

These protestors were in the streets because of a phenomenon that began shortly after

XInjiang’s transformation into a police state: the unexplained disappearances of Uyghurs across

the province⁵. One unnamed mother said of her son after his seizure by police upon his return to

the country “[my son] joined thousands of others...in secretive detention camps for...having

extremist thoughts”⁵. China had begun abducting those who didn’t align closely enough with the

CCP’s doctrine without trial or letting their loved ones. International observers cast a blind eye

to all of this in the face of mounting Chinese military pressures in the south China sea.

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 To Americans this may seem heinous and evil, but, needless to say, it hits much

closer to home for the Xinjiang Uyghurs themselves. The CCP is closer than ever to being able

to accomplish something they’ve had in mind since their creation: policing thoughts. This

newfound communist interest in Xinjiang represented a large change in life for those Uyghurs

who did live in the few cities in the province.

With not just more security than ever before in Ürümqi, Xinjiang’s capital, but more

security than any other city in the country, practicing Islam openly became

dangerous. Outwardly, Uyghurs had to adhere more closely than ever to the CCP’s policy on

religion: state sponsored only. They were forced to become members of government run

mosques and have their religion monitored and controlled by the state. Those who didn’t take

too kindly to these new rules imposed on their daily rituals were in danger of being disappeared,

or at least that’s what many thought.

In the span of less than a decade, Uyghurs in Xinjiang went from having, at least

compared to their compatriots in Nepal, little influence from the CCP to having more influence

than in most other Chinese cities. Even outside of the province’s cities, police presence

skyrocketed as China set about ‘integrating’ Xinjiang into its central fold as it had previously

done with Nepal and Hong Kong, but with far less fanfare. Xinjiang’s residents would have to

get used to being watched at all times in the interest of preventing that which set them apart from

the rest of the nation, at least as far as the CCP was concerned. Xinjiang was, and indeed still is,

being subjected to something almost every developed nation views as abhorrent, but are too

concerned with politics to even comment on.

Research Proposal
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Statement of Purpose

I propose to spend time in Xinjiang to try to better understand what ethnic Uyghurs are

actually experiencing at the hands of the CCP. I hope that the struggle they face - or don’t,

according to the Chinese government - can be documented and brought to light. It is my belief

that the CCP has for far too long been able to subject its citizens to horrible atrocities with

minimal or nonexistent documentation because of their total control of all the news media in the

nation. As difficult as it may be for me to put my ethnocentric views on ‘disappearing’ one’s

own citizens aside, I’ll need to take a holistic approach, considering not just what Uyghurs have

to say, but also their fellow Xinjiang residents have to say. Perhaps they really do feel safer with

the increased security, as the CCP claims. I will become a participant observationalist and use

cross-cultural analysis as well as cultural relativism to try to improve and build on the currently

limited knowledge of state activities and the terror or lack thereof it may create. The main

motivation for this research is, for me, an ethical one: to try to use international pressure to

improve the situation of the Uyghur ethnic group in Xinjiang.

Methods and Data

As a participant observationalist, I would hope to stay in Xinjiang, in a bigger, more

policed city like Ürümqi for at least a 6 months, staying with a Uyghur family and going about

their business with them to see what they do in reaction to CCP security presence, if they alter

their routines, and if so, by how much. See how what they would like to be doing and what they

used to do stacks up to what they do now. This would require extensive interviews with the

family I stay with, but perhaps just as importantly, with other Xinjiang residents. For the sake of

understanding the impact on Uyghurs, I would interview as many of those as possible, but I

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would also try my best to interview, and perhaps even stay with, non-Uyghur families to

understand their perspective on the CCP’s new security. I would like to know if it affected their

routines, if they feel more or less safe, and if they sympathize with, or even believe in, the

current plight of the Uyghurs. I would compare Uyghur and non-Uyghur thoughts on the

communist party and its governance themselves, try to determine whether or not either group has

any allegiance to the party that I ethnocentrically believe has treated them so badly but, for lack

of a better word, brainwashed them so well.

Significance

The significance of this research is, again, something I believe can not be so easily

overlooked. On the surface it is interesting insight into an inward group that the CCP certainly

hasn’t taken much time to enhance the world’s anthropologist’s understanding of, and this is

important. But more importantly, it is information that will be important for more than just

anthropologists to view. People all around the world will gain a very important insight in the

CCP’s less ethical endeavors, endeavors which are often given a free pass by the world’s

governments because of China’s status as the world’s piggybank and the world’s

factory. Perhaps even more importantly than that, however, it will be the world’s first real

example of a true big-brother state that monitors its citizens with cameras and facial recognition,

tactics that have long been eyed by the security forces of more developed nations even such as

the UK or the US. If it can be observed that the negative human liberty implications of this

technology outweigh its benefits in catching actual criminals, maybe the world will turn its back

on catching criminals the easy way the way the CCP didn’t.
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References Cited

1.Miller, Alice. 2014. "How Strong Is Xi Jinping?". Hoover.Org.

https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/research/docs/clm43am.pdf.

2.Sulaiman, Eset. 2017. "China Bans Uyghur Language In Schools In Key Xinjiang Prefecture". Radio Free
Asia. https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/language-07282017143037.html.

3."China Has Turned Xinjiang Into A Police State Like No Other". 2018. The Economist. Accessed
November 30 2018. https://www.economist.com/briefing/2018/05/31/china-has-turned-xinjiang-into-
a-police-state-like-no-other.

4.Phillips, Tom. 2018. "China Testing Facial-Recognition Surveillance System In Xinjiang – Report". The
Guardian. Accessed November 30 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/18/china-
testing-facial-recognition-surveillance-system-in-xinjiang-report.

5."Chicago Tribune - We Are Currently Unavailable In Your Region". 2018. Chicagotribune.Com. Accessed
November 30 2018. https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-china-uighur-
disappearances-20171217-story.html.

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