Since spring 2017, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China has witnessed the emergence of an unprecedented reeducation campaign. According to media and informant reports, untold thousands of Uyghurs and other Muslims have been and are being detained in clandestine political re-education facilities, with major implications for society, local economies and ethnic relations. Considering that the Chinese state is currently denying the very existence of these facilities, this paper investigates publicly available evidence from official sources, including government websites, media reports and other Chinese internet sources. First, it briefly charts the history and present context of political re-education. Second, it looks at the recent evolution of re-education in Xinjiang in the context of 'de-extremification' work. Finally, it evaluates detailed empirical evidence pertaining to the present re-education drive. With Xinjiang as the 'core hub' of the Belt and Road Initiative, Beijing appears determined to pursue a definitive solution to the Uyghur question. Since summer 2017, troubling reports emerged about large-scale internments of Muslims (Uyghurs, Kazakhs and Kyrgyz) in China's northwest Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). By the end of the year, reports emerged that some ethnic minority townships had detained up to 10 percent of the entire population, and that in the Uyghur-dominated Kashgar Prefecture alone, numbers of interned persons had

AbstractFollowing a series of high-profile attacks in Beijing, Kunming and Urumqi by Uyghur militants, the Chinese party-state declared a “war on terror” in 2014. Since then, China's Xinjiang region has witnessed an unprecedented build-up of what we describe as a multi-tiered police force, turning it into one of the most heavily policed regions in the world. This article investigates the securitization of Xinjiang through an analysis of official police recruitment documents. Informal police jobs, which represent the backbone of recent recruitment drives, have historically carried inferior pay levels. Yet, advertised assistant police positions in Xinjiang now offer high salaries despite low educational requirements, thereby attracting lesser-educated applicants, many of whom are ethnic minorities. Besides co-opting Uyghurs into policing their own people, the resulting employment is in itself a significant stability maintenance strategy. While the known numbers of violent attacks have subsided, China's heavy-handed securitization approach risks alienating both minority and Han populations.

China's minority education in general – and Tibetan education in particular – is often viewed as a hegemonic tool designed to assimilate minorities, seeking to integrate them into Han culture and society, while at the same time marginalising them through discourses of cultural inferiority and backwardness. The aim of this article is to go beyond seemingly straightforward portrayals of minority education (and especially of Tibetan education) as a device for sinicisation by analysing the historically situated, complex and often contradictory dynamics of how it has facilitated the simultaneous expression and suppression of different aspects of Tibetan 'culture' and language. Through an evaluation of the development of Tibetan-medium education in Qinghai province, it is demonstrated that minorities are not just passive victims at the hand of a dominant state, but strategising agents who can creatively explore and expand the political and cultural space within which they operate.

Chinese academics and politicians in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region have argued that the region’s “terrorism” problem can only be solved by “optimizing” southern Xinjiang’s ethnic population structure. High Uyghur population concentrations are deemed a national security threat. “Optimizing” such concentrations is achieved by embedding substantial Han populations. Scenarios that do not overburden the region’s population carrying capacity entail drastic reductions in ethnic minority natural population growth. The intent to “optimize” the population serves as a basis to assess the intent to destroy an ethnic minority population in part, as outlined in the 1948 U.N. Genocide Convention. The “destruction in part” is assessed as the difference between projected natural population growth without substantial government interference, and reduced growth scenarios in line with population “optimization” requirements. Based on population projections conducted by Chinese researchers, this difference could range between 2.6 and 4.5 million persons by the year 2040.

Chinese academics and politicians argue that Xinjiang's 'terrorism' problem can only be solved by 'optimizing' its ethnic population structure. High ethnic minority population concentrations are considered a national security threat. 'Optimizing' such concentrations requires 'embedding' substantial Han populations, whose 'positive culture' can mitigate the Uyghur 'human problem'. Scenarios that do not overburden the region's ecological carrying capacity entail drastic reductions in ethnic minority natural population growth, potentially decreasing their populations. Population 'optimization' discourses and related policies provide a basis to assess Beijing's 'intent' to destroy an ethnic minority population in part through birth prevention per the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention. The 'destruction in part' can be assessed as the difference between projected natural population growth without substantial government interference and reduced growth scenarios in line with population 'optimization' requirements. Based on population projections by Chinese researchers, this difference could range between 2.6 and 4.5 million lives by 2040.