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EWC Insights: China Seminar featuring Dr. Dru C. Gladney

Global Islam and China's Muslim Problem: From Confrontation to Sinicization in Xinjiang

This talk examines the rise of the “Xinjiang Problem” in Sino-US relations and the recent events involving the Uyghur in China’s Northwest Region.  Some have suggested that China has already engaged in a “genocide” in Xinjiang as early as the July 5, 2009 riots in Urumqi.  While the state media attribute the Uyghur activism to radical Islam and separatism, none of the protestors have called for jihad or an independent “Eastern Turkistan,” and the former US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo on his last day in office formally listed the treatment of the Uyghur as “genocide.” President Biden’s administration has not backed away from this designation. Internationally, the Uyghur diaspora helped to call global attention to the “education camps” that Chinese media initially denied, then attempted to re-shape as “vocational centers” through carefully edited reporting and selective coverage.  This talk suggests that President Xi Jinping’s “Belt and Road Initiative” lies behind China’s increasingly severe treatment of the Uyghur, and sets the harsh policy shift in the context of rising co-dependency between China and the Middle East due to heightened energy and security concerns.

Mar 11, 2021 12:00 PM in Hawaii