4 - Securitization and Repression in Xinjiang

Summary

Chapter 4 documents and analyzes China’s domestic policies aimed at countering Uyghur violence. We discuss the broad securitization of Xinjiang, including budgets and the forces involved. Drawing on the best available data on Uyghur-related political violence and China’s public security expenditure in Xinjiang, we present the first rigorous assessment of the feedback loop of violence and repression in Xinjiang. We demonstrate that government repression is not systematically followed by increased Uyghur violence and that increased security expenditures are excessive and inefficient, especially in the long run. This chapter also traces the recent strategic shift in China’s policies from postattack securitization toward actively and forcibly promoting ethnic mingling and “de-extremification.” While this policy reorientation has been attributed to Beijing’s intolerance of instability, our analysis shows that it is a result of a more complex set of competing priorities within the Chinese government.