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The prophecy: ‘Palestinization’ in and the consequences of Chinese state securitization of religion

Joanne Smith Finley1 East Asian Studies, School of Modern Languages, Newcastle University

Abstract

In Your Western Regions, My (2007), Chinese dissident Wang Lixiong warned of the ‘Palestinization’ of the Xinjiang question, defined as reaching ‘a critical point in time’ where and enter an interminable ‘ethnic war’. Following the knife attack on Han civilians in Kunming (2014), seen by many as an act of Uyghur terror, Wang reminded us that he had foreseen this trajectory seven years earlier. This article outlines Wang’s six interpretations of ‘Palestinization’ in the Xinjiang context, then shows how tightened regulations on religion and intrusive religious policing was the main catalyst for local retaliatory violence in 2012-2015. I contend that state securitization of religion was counter-productive, heightening societal insecurity, and promoting inter-ethnic conflict between Uyghur and Han communities. In Chen Quanguo’s era of ‘de-extremification’, the state’s purported attempt to ‘purify’ Islamic practice continues to be experienced on the ground as violation of pure, halal space.

Keywords

Xinjiang; Uyghur; Palestinization; inter-ethnic conflict; securitization of religion; violation

Introduction In Ni de Xiyu, wo de Dongtu (Your Western Regions, My East Turkestan, Locus Publishing,

2007), Chinese dissident writer Wang Lixiong prophesied the ‘Palestinization’ of the

Xinjiang question, warning that the region might soon reach ‘a critical point in time’ where

Uyghurs and Han Chinese enter an ‘interminable ethnic war’ like that seen in Israel-Palestine.

At the root of this transition, he argued, lay Han in-migration, increased competition for local

resources and jobs, religious restrictions, and a state securitization strategy that addresses

symptoms rather than root causes. This book represents a rare example of a Han intellectual

conducting research from the Uyghurs’ viewpoint. Wang’s year spent in a Xinjiang prison

with Uyghur detainee Mukhtar ‘opened a window onto the Uyghurs’ inside world’ (Wang

and Yang 2007).2 Following the knife attack by eight Uyghurs on Han civilians at Kunming 2 train station (2014), which the Chinese state – and eventually outside observers – acknowledged as an act of terror, Wang noted that he had foreseen this trajectory seven years earlier (Wang 2014). There are various parallels between Israel-Palestine and -

Xinjiang: occupation of contested territory; state-endorsed demographic transfer; dominant group expropriation of resources; inter-ethnic inequalities and discrimination; state practices of securitization; and state restrictions on religion. This article does not compare the two conflicts;3 rather, it uses Wang’s six interpretations of ‘Palestinization’ in the Xinjiang context as a conceptual framework and departure point from which to consider the links between securitization and insecurity, and the consequences of intrusive religious policing since the 2009 Ürümchi riots. I contend that the state’s securitization of religion was counter- productive: heightening societal insecurity and promoting inter-ethnic conflict between

Uyghur and Han communities. I show that what the state views as ‘purification’ of Islamic practice (‘de-extremification’) is experienced by local Uyghurs as humiliation and violation: violation of the female modesty code (Uy. namähräm) at the micro-level and of pure, halal spaces at the macro-level.

The term ‘Palestinization’ was originally deployed in the context of the Israel–

Palestine conflict, where it describes resistance against ‘Israelization’ – the refusal by

Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel to adopt the lifestyle, language, culture and politics of dominant Israeli-born secular Jews (Rekhess 2007). The term recently assumed a different meaning in another context. Syrian dissident Yassin al-Haj Saleh describes the

‘Palestinization’ of the Syrian people, arguing that the Assad state has been ‘Israelized’ in the sense that, like Israel in the West Bank and Gaza, it can freely colonize and massacre the

Syrians while enjoying international protection: ‘The local Israel – the Assad state […] dehumanizes Syrian protestors and resisters and accuses them of being terrorists, with the tacit cooperation of the international community’ (Saleh 2015). But what did Wang Lixiong 3 mean when he spoke of ‘Palestinization’ of Xinjiang? I identify six facets of this concept, elaborated in Wang’s book, before focusing on the last: religious restrictions. I highlight religious policing because this was the most reliable catalyst for spontaneous local violence in 2012-15. I draw on Chinese state discourses of ‘de-extremification’, on representative incidents of violence occurring between 2012 and 2015, on interviews conducted with

Uyghur respondents in Ürümchi in September 2016,4 and on recent scholarly and media reportage on surveillance and extra-judicial internment in Xinjiang. I show that earlier religious repression led to religious revival, and that subsequent state violence in the form of intrusive religious policing procured localised ethnic violence: in sum, securitization of religion led to increased insecurity, which was met by the current state programme of pre- emptive incarceration (extra-judicial internment) of Uyghurs in ‘political re-education centres’.

The concept of Palestinization in Your Western Regions, My East Turkestan

Wang Lixiong (b. 1953) spent the 1990s and 2000s researching the place of ethnic minorities in China’s political system, publishing two books on : Tianzang: Xizang de mingyun

[Sky Burial: The Fate of Tibet, 1998] and Yu Dalai Lama duihua [Dialogue with the Dalai

Lama, 2002]. To research Ni de Xiyu, wo de Dongtu [Your Western Regions, My East

Turkestan, 2007], Wang first travelled to Xinjiang in 1999. Incarcerated in a high-security prison in Miquan, he shared a cell with Uyghur prisoner, Mukhtar. Wang’s discussions with

Mukhtar form the substance of the book, which contains four sections: Introduction;

Travelogue (four trips to Xinjiang, 2003–2006); Dialogue with Mukhtar; and Letters to

Mukhtar. Drawing on local conversations, he discusses deepening urban segregation, growing Han nepotism and corruption, the colonial economy and Han control of resources, the education system, and the politics of cultural uniformization (). While Wang 4 does not advocate independence for Xinjiang, he does suggest alternatives, including guaranteeing genuine religious freedom and controlling Han labour migration to Xinjiang and

Tibet, treated as ‘cultural protection zones’ (Veg 2008). Below, I consider the six facets of

‘Palestinization’, as Wang applies them to Xinjiang .

1. Full mobilisation of ethno-nationalism and ethnic hatred; Intractable inter-ethnic

conflict

The most explicit application of the ‘Palestinization’ concept found in Wang’s book concerns the comprehensive embrace of ethno-national sentiment and ethnic hatred in the Uyghur community, including by children:

Something a foreign reporter once wrote […] I find hard to forget: a 7-year-old Uyghur child,

when obliged to raise the China flag every evening, would always stamp on it first. […] Truly, the

level of ethnic hatred is most visible on the face of a child. And if even children feel that hatred,

then you know that this hatred is shared by the entire . This is reflected in the fact that

you always see children at scenes of violence in Palestine. (Wang 2007: 41)5

The conflict carries a further sense of ‘Palestinization’ when it reaches a tipping point:

Once you have exceeded [the critical point], you will find yourself in an ethnic war such as that

between Palestine and Israel, where there is no way out and you have no sense when it will end.

(Wang 2007: 47)6

I suggest there have been two tipping points since Wang made this prophecy. The first came during the 2009 Ürümchi riots, which witnessed a complete breakdown of trust, with Uyghur households refusing safe haven to Han neighbours, Han doctors refusing to treat Uyghur patients, etc. (Smith Finley 2011: 83–84; 89). Stories of Uyghurs being shot and their bodies burned by Chinese authorities became ‘powerful discursive artefacts’ that continued to 5 influence relationships between Uyghurs, Han and the state (Millward 2009: 354). The second came in 2012, when spontaneous local violence erupted in response to intrusive religious policing and state penetration of private (halal) Uyghur spaces.

My 2016 interviews confirmed that the impact of the 5 July 2009 riots (known in

Chinese as ‘7.5’) had been deep. In Uyghur eyes, the state and its representatives treated the

‘7.5’ violence as a one-sided affair instigated by Uyghur perpetrators, ignored the injustice of the Shaoguan factory murders that precipitated it, and sided with its majority Han citizens

(Smith Finley 2011).7 Local perceptions of bias were further encouraged when 24 of 26 death sentences handed out following the violence went to Uyghurs, while only two went to Han

(Uyghur Human Rights Project, cited in Roberts 2012: 15). Consequently, both well- and less well-integrated Uyghur citizens lost confidence in the Chinese government, which appeared to them to represent only the dominant Han Chinese. In a conversation about the selective securitization of the BRT express bus routes (which mainly serve Han areas of Ürümchi), a former state employee R2 reflected: ‘[W]e all know that the government is working only for them [Hans] – that was made very clear during and after 7.5’. Several respondents confirmed reports of a rush among Uyghurs to move out of Han districts, and vice versa, after the riots.

R2 observed that the local government had to take measures to prevent self-segregation, describing how authorities refused transfer of Uyghur children from schools in the (Han- dominated) north to schools in the (Uyghur-dominated) south-east, forcing families to postpone relocation.8 Z, who successfully moved south-east after 2009, had previously figured among my most integrated respondents, residing in a Han neighbourhood and enjoying reasonable relationships with Han co-workers (while conscious of employment inequalities). However, in 2016, when hailing a taxi, Z always sought a Uyghur driver.

Another indicator of broken relations is the relative failure of government material incentives to encourage Uyghur–Han marriages since 2014. When this policy was introduced in 6

Cherchen county, officials counted just 57 mixed-race couples among a population of around

60,000 (Kaiman 2014). According to R2, only impoverished rural Uyghurs, with few prospects and resources, responded to the programme. She described them as ‘opportunists’ with whom other Uyghurs refuse to socialize (Uy. arlashmaydu).

In addition to ethnic segregation and inter-ethnic violence between adults during and since 2009, violence has occurred among children of the two groups, lending credence to

Wang’s diagnosis. Already in the mid-1990s, sentiments among Uyghur adults of cultural antipathy, moral disapprobation and anger towards the Xinjiang Han, expressed as negative stereotypes, had reproduced in the youth a swell of negative feeling towards Han people. This is exemplified in an incident from that time where a small Uyghur child appearing on live television refused to speak to a Han person introduced as ‘Uncle’, rejecting him using the derogatory term Khitay (Smith Finley 2013: 11). After the 2009 riots, there was a marked increase in clashes between children. In 2011, a teenaged Uyghur asylum seeker in the UK attested that he had experienced ethnicized pupil-on-pupil violence at his school in Qaramay.

In 2012, violent clashes between Uyghur and Han male pupils were reported at a high school in Ghulja, during which a Han student drowned. Four Uyghur boys aged around 15 received administrative sentences, but no Han boy was punished (Qiao, Hai and Musha 2013).

There have also been disturbing reports of inter-ethnic violence visited upon children by adults, suggesting that children from the other ethnic group have come to be equally perceived as the ‘enemy’. In 2012, police raids on ‘unsanctioned’ religious schools in

Khotän involving the use of tear gas resulted in the death of an 11-year-old Uyghur boy and the hospitalization of 12 other children (Musha and Gao 2012); in 2013, a seven-year-old

Uyghur boy was hacked to death by a Han male in Pichan county, Turpan prefecture.

Enkerjan Ariz had been playing with two other Uyghur children near a brick kiln run by Han residents. One Han worker thought the children had come to steal, caught Enkerjan and took 7 him into his home, where he killed him. One hundred and fifty relatives of the boy later tried to attack Han homes around the kiln in revenge (Hoshur and Vandebrink 2013).

The region has also seen peaceful protests by Uyghur school pupils in recent years, suggesting cross-generational communal dissatisfaction with state policies. In 2013, nearly

100 pupils from the Qizilsu No.1 High School marched onto the streets in Atush when the school banned headscarves, while those at another high school near Khotän walked out of class in protest at the lack of Uyghur-language signage (Qiao and Keyum 2013). Taken together, these examples suggest that children are increasingly drawn into the conflict.

2. Resource competition

A second facet of Palestinization discernible in Wang’s book is increased competition over land, water, food and jobs in Xinjiang, resulting from Han in-migration:

As the number of Han people grows, Han Chinese come directly face to face with local groups in

myriad ways in everyday life. They compete for local resources, and snatch portions of the

market. Inter-ethnic conflict is thus no longer metaphysical but is intimately connected to each

person’s material interests and everyday experiences (Wang 2007: 47).

Uyghur resentment over Han in-migration, unequal employment opportunities, and state/Han expropriation of oil and natural gas is of long standing.9 What changed after 2010 (the year of the first Xinjiang Work Forum and the launch of the National Partner Assistance Programme, an initiative ostensibly intended to redistribute wealth from East to West) is that the state began to aggressively encourage Han migration to south Xinjiang. Until then, Han settlers were relatively few in the south; now, Uyghurs faced competition for land and resources in their demographic heartland. One of the first things R said to me in 2016 was: ‘The insects

(chongzi) are here in much greater numbers now.’ This indicated the persistence and 8 aggravation of the acrimony that had characterized the mid-1990s, when Han in-migrants were routinely labelled ‘ants’, ‘locusts’ and ‘bedbugs’ (Smith Finley 2013: 118–129). One incident of premeditated violence in southern Aqsu prefecture demonstrates local feeling toward the accelerated appropriation of local resources by Han in-migrants. In September

2015, a group of Uyghur men attacked the Sogan Colliery in Bay county, targeting security guards, the mine owner’s residence and a dormitory housing 300–400 mostly Han workers.

At least 50 were killed and 50 injured, and most casualties were Han workers (Hoshur and

Lipes 2015b). The suspects, who came from neighboring farms, took control of the dynamite at the colliery, called the local police station to report the incident, then used coal-filled trucks to ram police vans, before attacking injured officers with knives (Hoshur and Lipes

2015a). Elsewhere, a local resident of Pichan, Turpan prefecture, observed that the killing of a local Uyghur boy (see above) had ‘stirred up Uyghur residents’ anger over Han Chinese migration to the area and pollution and destruction of land from the brick kilns run by Han

Chinese’ (Hoshur and Vandenbrink 2013). Such incidents demonstrate how increased Han settler activity in the south has sparked conflicts, particularly where that activity has affected control over local resources.

3. Disproportionate/indiscriminate state response; pre-emptive strike

A third parallel Wang drew with Israel-Palestine concerns the Chinese state’s use of disproportionate, indiscriminate and pre-emptive force:

Currently, the authorities in Xinjiang follow the policy of ‘Attack first; strike those who stick their

heads out of the nest […]’ The enhanced phase of this is: ‘Strike even when they don’t stick their

heads out; chase them and strike’. (Wang 2007: 48)

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Before 2001, the Chinese state had twice reacted with disproportionate force to local unrest it perceived as threatening. Vicziany points to around 1600 Uyghurs killed by anti-riot troops, tanks and fighter planes during the 1990 Baren insurrection, and approximately 400 Uyghur deaths during the suppression of the 1997 Ghulja disturbances, which had begun as a peaceful protest about the arrest of religious students (2003: 249–251). Following the Ghulja event, Chinese police pre-emptively rounded up Uyghur youths in the city every year on its anniversary to prevent recurrence (Vicziany 2003: 252). After 2001, when China opted to join the US-led Global War on Terror (GWOT), the state increasingly adopted preventative and pre-emptive methods, while continuing to use disproportionate force against those it now called ‘terrorists’ (formerly, ‘splittists’) (Clarke 2010: 547–550). Following 9/11, as many as

3000 Uyghurs were detained on separatism charges, although no violent incidents had occurred before or after (Vicziany 2003: 255);10 pre-emptive policing thus treated all separatists as potential terrorists. This trend towards over-reaction has continued, so that the

Chinese state:

tends to overreact and to see terrorism even where it does not exist […] if the police or other state

organs see manifestations of Uighur culture and Islam that look as if they could be potentially

terrorist, they are apt [to] tread on them unnecessarily. (Mackerras 2014: 248)

Chinese state behaviour since 2001 suggests an insecure response to expressions of Uyghur culture (especially religious culture), representing, perceiving and securitizing them as an existential threat to China’s national unification and the majority Han society.11 Here we find a direct parallel with Israel-Palestine: the Israeli state’s deployment of the police Anti-Terror unit and live ammunition to suppress solidarity protests by Israeli Palestinians during the second intifada reflects state perceptions of that group as an existential threat to national security and the majority Jewish society (Olesker 2014: 372; 376). 10

Pre-emptive policing since 2001 has become increasingly indiscriminate. All

Uyghur and Tibetan residents of Beijing and Shanghai were rounded up and relocated prior to the 2008 Olympics. This act of ethnic profiling implied that no Uyghur/Tibetan could be trusted (Millward 2009: 349; Roberts 2018: 10), vilifying and excluding the entire Uyghur population, regardless of individuals’ political views or level of linguistic/social integration.

The 2009 Ürümchi riots, which began as a peaceful protest about the murders of two Uyghur factory workers, were experienced by the Chinese state as affecting its ‘core national security interests’; it reacted by introducing reforms allowing unrestricted local use of force without central permission (Odgaard and Nielsen 2014: 542–543; 545). Simultaneously, the government began to adopt securitization and surveillance measures that resulted in systematic discrimination against, and exclusion of, all Uyghurs.

The state’s failure to distinguish between individuals in its securitization of the

Uyghur population was underlined in my 2016 interviews: even khizmätchilär (relatively integrated Uyghurs, employed in state work units) complained of being tarred with the same brush as alleged ‘extremists’. Respondents appeared wracked with anxiety concerning the state’s surveillance tools (‘There are eyes and ears everywhere’). Even those who now worked in security – an increasingly likely profession for previously unemployed Uyghurs – were fatigued by the securitization regime. Z, a security guard, would say: ‘Please forgive me’ (Uy. Khapa bolmang) to Uyghur residents as he conducted bag or body checks. R, a policeman, joked grimly that there was only one kind of police in Xinjiang – political police

(Uy. siyasiy saqchi). He observed that his job was ‘exhausting since the 7.5 incident, with everything checked (Uy. täkshürüsh), everywhere, all the time’. Indeed, the police role is itself securitized: R was not permitted to travel abroad because of government fears that he might pass sensitive information to foreigners.

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4. ‘Pressure cooker’ effect

The fourth facet of Palestinization explored by Wang is the removal of channels of dialogue between Uyghurs and the state, creating a ‘pressure cooker’ effect:

when people make pleas, protest and even cause trouble, this shows that those people still hold out

hope for a solution. When they stop speaking or acting […] this is not stability; it only

demonstrates that they have lost that hope […] By ‘nipping all contradictions in the bud’, you

won’t actually remove the contradictions. Rather, you are putting pressure on them, and

deepening them. These contradictions accumulate, and, triggered by some unforeseen event,

emerge from the silence as a clap of thunder. (Wang 2007: 48)

Hassid, discussing the role of political blogs in China, writes that they can either act as

‘safety valve’, reducing and channelling social tensions (when free comment is allowed on issues introduced by the state-controlled media), or ‘pressure cooker’ (when censorship causes frustration and increased social tensions) (2012: 225–226). Wang’s description resembles this analogy, suggesting that the state’s unwillingness to allow Uyghurs a voice will lead eventually to an explosion.

The placing of the lid on the pressure cooker can be traced to the aftermath of the

1990 Baren insurrection in southern Xinjiang, when stifling controls on Islam were re- introduced after a decade of comparative religious freedom in the eighties (Castets 2015b:

109). When ethno-political aspirations grew in Xinjiang across the first half of the nineties in response to the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, the Chinese state became more determined to silence Uyghur voices. Thus, when Uyghurs marched in Ghulja to protest local arrests of religious students in 1997, and rioted in Ürümchi after the Shaoguan factory murders in 2009, the state read both events as ‘separatist’, and the latter as ‘terrorist’, though local aspirations to independence had subsided (most Uyghurs recognised there was no possibility). Dialogue 12 channels were progressively foreclosed during this period, leaving Uyghurs little to no political space in which to engage with the state (Clarke 2015). After the 2009 riots, Uyghur economist Ilham Tokhti accused the CCP of applying policies that fanned discord, describing the situation in the following terms: ‘Every time something happens, the government responds with one word: pressure. High pressure, high pressure, and even greater pressure.

This leads to greater resistance and more conflict’ (in Meyer 2016b). Tokhti had been perhaps the sole remaining communication channel between the Chinese government and the

Uyghur community, and certainly the most likely source of conflict resolution. The state responded by sentencing him to life imprisonment for ‘separatism’ (Meyer 2016b).

From 2012, state pressure manifested in increasingly restrictive religious regulations and highly intrusive religious policing, leading to frequent, spontaneous incidents of local violence, themselves a reaction to state violence and perceived violation of halal spaces. The Chinese government responded by investing in a multi-tiered security state in

Xinjiang, enabling Orwellian levels of surveillance. Its securitizing activities have exacerbated Uyghurs’ sense of physical insecurity, placing them increasingly under siege

(Zenz and Leibold 2017). Thus, while the pattern is of local violence increasing in relation to rising levels of repression and securitization, each time a blow-up occurs the state response is to further increase the pressure.

The build-up of pressure was evident from my interactions with Uyghur respondents in 2016. As R2 observed: ‘No-one trusts anyone. Everyone is scared and looking out for their families. No-one wants any trouble. It is always better to have one less issue than one more (Ch. Duo yishi bu ru shao yishi) [where each new ‘issue’ may become a political problem].’ At our first meeting in public, R2 and S were visibly nervous, approaching me cautiously one by one, then keeping a watchful eye on the vicinity. Periodically, they abandoned a hushed conversation about politics, and launched into an unrelated, innocent 13 topic. R2 expressed relief at having retired from her state work unit: ‘I never have to worry about politics again.’ Most striking were my interactions with A. We met first in a restaurant, then moved to her home. Throughout our conversation, she baffled me by repeatedly declaring, straight-faced, how ‘safe’ she felt at security checkpoints. Knowing her previous political position, I wondered whether her statements were genuine. On another day, H drove

A and me out of Ürümchi. A walked me up a deserted mountain track and then spoke directly:

I have much in my heart I want to say, but I can’t say any of it. Well, I can say it, but no-one must

hear it. If the [government’s] policies are fine, then why am I afraid of speaking? The policies are

formed with no prior consultation, implemented without warning, and without helping people

understand how those policies can be used to their advantage.

Evidently, A’s words during our first meeting had been uttered in anxiety. H admitted he was afraid of speaking in his own home (in case of audio surveillance), while A confided that she feared the police could listen to private conversations through people’s mobile phones.12

They coped with paranoia through humour. In the mountains, A, H and I joked about how

‘unsafe’ we felt in the absence of security forces, with A pointing to two golden inflatable lions before a real estate office: ‘We have these to protect us here, and I like these better!’

Later, A told of local authorities’ plans to install CCTV cameras above the entrance of every home, then defused the tension by reporting her friend’s comic response: ‘Well, they’d better not put one in the bedroom!’ Alternatively, tensions erupted in anger, as when I told Q of how U had counselled me to visit the south alone, warning: ‘Look at everything, say nothing, speak to no-one.’ At this, Q (a retired state employee) became rebellious, exclaiming: ‘Why on earth shouldn’t we show the south to our English friend? What’s wrong with that? We won’t hurt anyone! And if anyone says we can’t, then damn his mother! [Ch. Qu ta ma de].’ 14

Some Xinjiang Han are also troubled by ever-increasing state pressure, questioning its purported aim of social stability. Following a knife attack in Qarghiliq in 2012, a Han doctor at Bo-Ai Hospital observed:

I think the sense of dissatisfaction and resistance is a direct result of the government enforcing a

high-pressure policy on Uyghur people […] I have a very good relationship with my Uyghur

colleagues at the hospital […] I don’t want to see this kind [of] thing happen, but I also don’t want

to see excessive controls on the local Uyghur people […] If the [harsh] policy continues, there

will be more of this kind of thing in the future (Hoshur and Abdilim 2012).

5. Radicalisation

The fifth parallel Wang draws with Palestine is the potential for state religious repression to lead to Uyghur radicalization:

If it is not permitted to open religious schools in Xinjiang, then those students will just go to

Pakistan, , or the Central Asian […] Not only will they study the Quran, but

they’ll also be taught the concept of holy war and be trained in terrorism. Then they’ll return to

Xinjiang and initiate terrorist activities in a bid to secure the freedom to propagate religion (Wang

2007: 48).

As Davis (2004) notes in her study of suicide martyrs, placing extreme pressure on a group’s existence and identity can produce a moral narrative of oppression, justice and liberation.

Some scholars believe that fusion of national aspirations with religious quests for purity and redemption is recently discernible in Xinjiang. For Clarke (2015), attacks in 2013–2014 suggest that some Uyghur militants began to adopt the tactics of regional and global Islamist organisations; he cites the 2013 Tian’anmen crash incident, the 2014 Kunming rail station attack, and the 2014 Ürümchi suicide bombing as examples of indiscriminate violence against civilians. Kanat (2016) writes that disproportionate state force has caused some 15

Uyghurs to themselves consider resolving the conflict through force, triggering new acts of local violence. Castets (2015b) suggests that while a few incidents occurring in 2011–2014 may have been guided/inspired by the Turkestan Islamic Party based in , most were perpetrated by local youths radicalized by resentment towards the Chinese state.13

Others contend that Uyghur militants remain mostly located outside Xinjiang, and question how far they have embraced global jihadist ideologies. Roberts sees no conclusive evidence that militant organisations named by the Chinese government (the East Turkestan

Islamic Movement ETIM, the Turkestan Islamic Party TIP) have ever established sophisticated operations in Xinjiang, showing how ‘sloppy research and unreliable sources’ underpin an ‘unsubstantiated narrative about Uyghur terrorism’ (Roberts 2012: 2–6). His interviews with former Uyghur detainees at Guantanamo Bay and analysis of the

Guantanamo hearings reveal that Uyghur ‘training camps’ in Afghanistan, intended to prepare Uyghurs to fight the Chinese state, were far from professional, organized and well- resourced venues. Interviewees described a one-off opportunity to handle a single

Kalashnikov rifle, and described their sojourn in the camp as a stop-over on the way to refuge in Turkey (Roberts 2012: 6–7). In a 2004 interview, the deputy chairman of ETIM, Abudula

Kariaji, noted that while the organisation had permission from the Taliban and Al-Qaeda to establish camps in Afghanistan, it received no financing from either and suffered tense relations with both due to Uyghurs’ focus on China and disinterest in global jihad (Roberts

2012: 10). Castets writes that many young Uyghurs aligned to the Turkestan Islamic Party in

Central Asia or Pakistan are seeking sanctuary from potential extradition to China, and do not subscribe to ideologies of global jihad (2015b: 108). Both Roberts (2012) and Castets

(2015b) suggest that while the Turkestan Islamic Party has released online videos claiming responsibility for attacks in Xinjiang, these often contradict local facts: they show only that

TIP is capable of posting videos to create fear among Chinese citizens, not that they are 16 capable of organising acts of violence inside China. Roberts recently put the number of

Uyghurs currently in Syria in the low thousands (includes militants’ families). He notes that while most left Xinjiang after the post-2009 crackdown with no intention of joining a militant group, they also left ‘with a sense that their identity and religion was under siege,’ thus are vulnerable to recruitment by militant groups claiming to fight the enemies of Islam (2018:

21–22).

Certainly, some of the incidents occurring in Xinjiang in 2012–2015 fall under the category of terrorism, defined as ‘premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets […], usually intended to influence an audience’ (United States

Code, in Roberts 2012: 12). A representative example is the Maralbeshi incident in 2014.

Four Uyghur men armed with knives and explosives attacked a farmers’ market, leaving 22 dead. They arrived on motorcycles at 10:30 a.m., following which two attacked police patrol officers and two attacked Han Chinese stall owners. The attack was carefully planned to ensure that no Uyghur customers were in the market. A retired government employee observed that the assailants may have been frustrated by the jailing of over 1000 Uyghur youths in the county since May 2014, under the state’s anti-terror campaign (Hoshur 2014).

Local descriptions illustrate that the attack was premeditated and intended to cause harm to

Han Chinese non-combatants. It was clearly intended to create fear in the Han community and to influence government policy regarding Han in-migration and securitization practices that exclusively target Uyghurs. What is not clear is how far the attackers were influenced by global jihadist ideology, if at all.

In my 2016 interviews, respondents acknowledged that ‘wrong-headed forms of

Islam’ had entered the region from Saudi Arabia. A and H, modern professionals originally from south Xinjiang, worried that some southerners had lately adopted ‘extreme behaviours’, e.g. refusing to walk on asphalt roads built by ‘unclean’ Han labourers. Yet they stressed that 17 such behaviour did not necessarily make those people terrorists. It is important to note that piousness does not automatically lead to hatred and violence. U, a keenly observant Muslim originally from , remarked that, in the end, human beings are all just one people (Uy. bir millät). This move in the direction of mutual human tolerance constituted his personal reaction, as a genuinely pious Muslim, to the horror of the 2009 Ürümchi riots. R2 and S, who might be described as secular nationalists, said they supported state efforts to stamp out extremism. Nonetheless, R2 added – sympathetically – that ‘some Uyghur sheep have been forced by circumstance to turn into tigers’, suggesting that violence is a new response to intolerable pressure. R, a policeman, confirmed that ‘a small number of Uyghurs’ are training alongside jihadis in Syria. However, he emphasized that this reflects not an ideological commitment to global jihad but a practical means to a local, political end – they would return to free Xinjiang from repression. This matches Wang’s description above, and the experience of a Uyghur refugee in Turkey who had previously fought in Syria, interviewed by Roberts

(2018: 22).

6. State restrictions on religion

The sixth facet of Palestinization outlined in Wang’s book concerns state restrictions on the right to conduct everyday Islamic practices within a pure, halal space (the Uyghur body; the

Uyghur home; the Uyghur-run business):

Muhtar: There is a real possibility that people could choose this road [extremist violence]. Mainly

very religious people, because their goal is to protect their own space. There are now too many

state restrictions on religion. If you grow a beard, they will force you to shave it off and fine you

20 yuan. When a mature, earnest Muslim is humiliated in this way, what can he do? How can he

express his resistance? It’s even worth dying to do so. (Interview transcript in Wang 2007: 224)

18

I contend that tightened religious restrictions and intrusive religious policing provoked most of the violent incidents occurring in 2012-2015. The causal relationship between China’s accelerated anti-terror policies since 2009 and increased terrorist activities was earlier highlighted by Roberts: ‘The targets chosen suggest that local security organs in the XUAR are helping to cultivate a self-fulfilling prophecy, creating “terrorists” through their vigorous attempts to prevent “terrorism”’ (2012: 13). This dynamic is also observable in local reactions to state religious policies, such that repression leads to revival leads to increased repression leads to resistance: ‘The Chinese state […] has stimulated an Islamic renewal where there wouldn’t necessarily have been one’ (Smith Finley, cited in Denyer 2014).14

While the context of religious repression in Xinjiang is not new, the repression has steadily intensified over nearly three decades. After the 1990 Baren insurrection, heavy restrictions were imposed on religion, including closing mosques and requiring imams to pledge loyalty to the Chinese government (Steele and Kuo 2007: 6). These restrictions were accelerated across the 1990s, particularly following separatists’ assassination of a Uyghur official in Kucha in 1996.15 In response, the CCP issued Document No.7, urgently recommending that Han Chinese be moved in to stabilize unrest, and that Uyghurs lose the right to study religion abroad.16 This crackdown is widely believed to have catalysed the

1997 Ghulja demonstrations. Suggested triggers include arrests of taliplar (religious students) who opposed state appointments of ‘politically loyal’ mullahs, disruptions of mosque gatherings during , and arrests of Uyghur women praying in a private house

(Vicziany 2003: 250–251); the forcible dispersal by Chinese police of women praying at a mosque (Steele and Kuo 2007: 8); and a ban on mäshräp (then an all-male moral/religious gathering) (Gladney 2002: 267).

By the late 1990s/early 2000s, state repression was impacting negatively on Uyghur attitudes: 19

Anti-Han sentiment is far stronger in Kashgar than elsewhere, mainly in response to the

government’s own efforts to curtail Islamic practices there. Instead of seeing Islam as a channel

through which local Uyghurs are able to express social and political frustrations […] the

government chooses to perceive it as the cause of those frustrations, which in turn gives rise to

actions that further exacerbate the situation. (Rudelson and Jankowiak 2004: 316)

Local frustrations were compounded from 2004, when the state launched a new assault on the

Uyghur language, moving to phase out Uyghur-medium education (Schluessel 2007). The government hoped to reduce inter-ethnic tension by isolating Uyghurs from their cultural heritage, thus weakening their national identity (Meyer 2016a). To bypass constitutional protections for minority religions and languages and justify its securitization of religious practice, Beijing turned Uyghur Islam and the into national security threats.

By 2010, ‘almost any attempt by Uyghurs to preserve their ethnic identity and religious practices was seen by Beijing as “unpatriotic” and a threat to the motherland’s territorial integrity’ (Meyer 2016a: 4–5; see also Clarke 2010: 545, 551, and Human Rights Watch

2018).

After 2009, state securitization of religion moved to a new level, as ‘attacks directed against the politicization of Islam […] gave way to the critique of Islam itself’ (Castets

2015a: 230; see also Clarke 2010: 551–552). Everyday practices followed by peaceful, moderate Muslims elsewhere were outlawed in Xinjiang, including wearing full veils or robes (hijab; niqab; burqa; jilbab); the growing of beards by all but elderly men; holding wedding ceremonies without singing and dancing, or funerals without feasts (music and banqueting are proscribed by conservative clerics) (Denyer 2014); giving children Islamic names (Human Rights Watch 2018); unauthorized study of religion abroad (Castets 2015a); praying in non-designated places; reading the Qur’an; learning or teaching about Islam in public or at home; performing the Hajj; and refusing to drink alcohol (Meyer 2016a). 20

This crackdown included from 2012 a highly intrusive strategy of religious policing known as ‘One village, one police station; one household, one police officer’. Under this, a single police officer leads up to three assistant police staff in each village, forming a garrison of informal, low-skilled security staff in contract-based positions who do not – in theory – possess enforcement rights (Zenz and Leibold 2017). Assistant police have routinely been used in sweep-and-search operations in rural homes, experienced locally as highly invasive.

Ilham Tokhti had this to say on the strategy, prior to his incarceration:

Personnel making visits to the villages and households include cadres, unemployed people whom

the government hires, even some young ruffians, people on government subsidies, police officers,

special weapons and tactics (SWAT) officers, and so on. I absolutely could not put up with people

like this randomly breaking into my house. (Tokhti 2014)

Plentiful evidence supports a hypothesis that increased religious repression is linked with increased levels of violence in Xinjiang. In my 2016 interviews, long-term Uyghur respondents from all backgrounds deplored the indiscriminate restrictions imposed on everyday religious practices and the state’s blanket association of moderate Islam with terror.

Some declared that people ‘should have the freedom to dress how they like’; others condemned the assumption that all Uyghurs are Islamist terrorists, observing that those southerners who did resort to violence were motivated by politics, not religion. Still others suggested that recent violence had resulted directly from repressive religious policies. First- time respondents in 2016 spoke of fleeing to Ürümchi from Kashgar, Aqsu and Khotän because ‘there is no religious freedom down south’. They ridiculed prohibitions on male facial hair, the niqab and the burqa, and asserted that the restrictions had ‘caused violence and chaos in the south’. They described how under-age Uyghur boys in Ürümchi would borrow 21 and pass around older peers’ identity cards to circumvent the state-imposed age requirement at the mosque (18) and allow each in turn to enter and pray.17

One striking local statement against state controls on religion took a musical form.

Walking into a music dukan in Döngköwrük in September 2016, I watched the video then playing on the TV screen. In it, a Uyghur man wearing a doppa walks along the street, periodically bumping into other Uyghurs. Each time, they stop to advise him on how to

(re-)angle his headgear. As this pattern repeated multiple times, my suspicion grew that this was a satire of state restrictions on religious dress. Initially circumspect, the young woman working there shortly confirmed this with a smile and fetched the DVD box. The song, by

Muhämmätjan Abduqadir, was the album’s title track ‘Others Will Say How’ (Khäq nimä däp qalal, 2016). She told me: ‘Everyone is listening to this CD now.’

A catalogue of events in 2012-2015 equally illustrate how the government’s repression of everyday religious practices led to state violence against Uyghur individuals and households, producing in turn a violent, retaliatory response from Uyghur communities.

In 2013, at least 46 people were killed during an attack on police and government establishments in Lukqun, Turpan prefecture, in an event triggered directly by religious repression. A week earlier, 19 local Uyghurs had received prison sentences for alleged crimes of ‘religious extremism’ (Hoshur 2013a). Furthermore, the incident occurred around the start of Ramadan, when Xinjiang authorities have in recent years attempted to prevent Uyghurs from fasting (Agence France Presse 2013). Following the incident, Abdurehim Damolla, imam at the Kazihan Mosque and Deputy Chairman of Turpan city’s Islamic Association, further angered the local community by referring to the Lukqun attackers as ‘terrorists’

(rather than acknowledging their frustrations at unfounded allegations of ‘religious extremism’), and was stabbed to death. Two weeks earlier, he had publicly advocated the government policy discouraging ‘religious beards’ and headscarves as he conducted a funeral 22 ceremony. According to one local official, ‘the youths’ anger was only stopped [from boiling over] that day because of the police’s warnings and intervention’ (Hoshur 2013b).

While these incidents involved intentional – albeit retaliatory – attacks on state organs and personnel, many others have occurred impromptu. Often, they were local protests at police detentions perceived as unjust, as in 2013 when a crowd tried to de-arrest Uyghurs outside a mosque in Ayköl, Aqsu prefecture, on the eve of Eid al-Fitr (the end of Ramadan).

Security forces responded by opening fire on the crowd (Hoshur 2013b). Other incidents were impassioned reactions to state intrusions into Uyghurs’ private homes, which had led inevitably to violation of the Islamic female modesty code (Uy. namähräm).18 Violence was triggered in Seriqbuya in 2013 when Chinese ‘community workers’ and police broke in to

Uyghur houses, forcing women to unveil and demanding that men shave their beards. One man protested and was shot dead. This precipitated retaliatory violence against police officials, resulting in several deaths and the torching of the house. While the state’s report described a less-than-credible scenario in which community workers had stumbled across terrorists making explosives and ‘lethal weapons’, earlier Chinese media accounts (now deleted) stated that the occupants had simply been taking lessons in the reading of the Qur’an

(Grammaticas 2013; Hoshur, Qiao and Hai, 2013). In another event, hundreds of Uyghur villagers marched down the Hanerik-Khotän highway on 28 June 2013, angered by the detention of Mettursun Metseydi, a popular young imam from an unauthorized mosque on the rural edge of Hanerik. Metseydi had drawn crowds by condemning state religious restrictions as ‘a humiliation’ (compare Muhtar’s description above), especially those that fined taxi drivers who carried veiled women, prohibited doctors from treating veiled women, or required women to unveil during police checks (note that each scenario violates the female modesty code in a public place). After forcing entry to the mosque (now sealed by the authorities) to pray, congregants then proceeded down the highway to Khotän. Shouting 23

Allahu akbar (God is great) and clutching simple farm implements and lengths of wood, they were confronted by paramilitary police on a pedestrian bridge, who then became nervous and opened fire. The Morning Post placed the death toll at 60. Meanwhile, county hospital staff were warned by state officials not to treat patients with gunshot wounds. The impact on public opinion of this event cannot be underestimated. One Uyghur professor told reporters: ‘People here are just boiling over with anger’, while a young taxi driver declared:

‘The Chinese killed our brothers in the street like they were dogs’, adding ‘we will have our revenge’ (Jacobs 2013). It is not difficult to see how what Chinese officials later categorized as a ‘crackdown on terrorist and extremist organizations’ could lead to retaliatory local violence in a vicious cycle.

In 2014, 200,000 Communist Party cadres were dispatched to rural Xinjiang to ‘listen to Uyghurs’ concerns’, a development experienced locally as an intrusive attempt to surveil

Uyghurs’ private lives. The state spent US$2 million establishing a network of informers and surveillance cameras in Yäkän to enable house-to-house inspections that would identify

‘separatists, terrorists and religious extremists’ –now including women who wore veils or burqas and young men with long beards (Denyer 2014). During 2014, house-to-house searches for books or clothing that betrayed ‘conservative’ religious beliefs, carried out during Ramadan, led to deadly protests. Women wearing veils were detained and young men arrested on flimsy pretexts, while students and civil servants were forced to break their fast.

On 18 July, hundreds of Uyghurs gathered outside a government building in Alaqagha,

Kucha county, angered by the arrest of two dozen girls and women who had refused to remove their headscarves. When protesters threw stones, bottles and bricks, police opened fire, killing at least two (Denyer 2014). Then, on 28 July, police shot dead 59 Uyghurs in

Elishku, Yäkän county, after more than 300 attacked a police station with knives, axes and sticks. Protestors were enraged by restrictions during Ramadan and the extra-judicial killing 24 of a Uyghur family of five in Beshkent village (Denyer 2014; Hoshur 2014). A scuffle had broken out following forced police entry into the family’s home and an attempt to remove the women’s veils. Victims included a seven-year-old boy and his 72-year-old grandfather.

Consequently, riots took place in three other villages in Elishku, where government offices,

Uyghur officials and Han civilians were targeted (Hoshur, Sulaiman and Yang 2014).

From securitization to insecurity: ethnicized policies, violation of halal spaces and cycles of violence

Before 2009, Uyghur violence had been directed at the state and its representatives (Thum

2009; Smith Finley 2011), including ‘collaborating’ Uyghur officials (Smith 2007). By 2009, the situation had changed; the Ürümchi riots involved harrowing scenes of angry young

Uyghur men attacking Han civilians, including men, children and even pregnant women

(Palmer 2013). Such violence flagged a re-orientation along ethnic lines, in response to ethnically differentiated policies (Thum 2009). Particularly since 2001, a stream of state policies had discriminated directly against Uyghurs. These included the requirement from

2004 that Uyghurs study in Chinese, while Han need not learn minority languages

(Schluessel 2007), and the confiscation of Uyghur passports in 2007 (Clarke 2010), not to mention employment discrimination against Uyghurs. Meanwhile, Uyghur religious practices had been increasingly circumscribed since the 1990 Baren insurrection, even as religious policies for the Hui remained relaxed (Thum 2009). The authorities’ response to the 2009

Shaoguan murders and demonstration-turned-riot in Ürümchi provided final evidence – in

Uyghur eyes – of state protection of Xinjiang Han at the expense of local others. As Wang

Lixiong later wrote, state campaigns against separatism and illegal religion that exclusively targeted Uyghurs had served to ‘pit the Han and local people in Xinjiang against one another’

(2014). When Hans are rendered the ‘reliable force’ in the region, while minorities are 25 increasingly surveilled, he argued, it causes Uyghurs to hate the Xinjiang Han (Wang and

Yang 2007). This hatred was manifested during the 2009 Ürümchi riots, when Uyghur rioters hauled Han residents from their cars in the mixed Han-Uyghur area southeast of Yan’an Road and beat them (Millward 2009: 352).

The local equation of Xinjiang Han with adverse state policies deepened after 2009.

In 2012, following a knife attack by Uyghurs on Han civilians in Qarghiliq, a Uyghur teacher complained that there was ‘no difference between Xinjiang Han and the army’, with nearly all Han settlers supporting the state on ethnic issues: ‘They never ask the government to end religious pressure on the local [Uyghur] people, to stop arrests and executions, or call for equal job opportunities’ (Hoshur and Abdilim, 2012). Marginalized Uyghurs increasingly targeted Han civilians because of their close association with the state, especially since the state endorsed Han settlement in the Uyghurs’ southern heartland. Ethnic relations in

Xinjiang have thus been increasingly shaped by the Chinese state’s discriminatory securitizing policies, a process also observed in Israel. There, relations between Palestinian

Arabs and Jews have been influenced by the Israeli government’s understanding of national security as pertaining to the security of the Jewish people, not of all its citizens (Olesker

2014: 379). Olesker notes that, to achieve successful securitization, the state needs a

‘permissive audience’, as when majority Israeli opposition to Palestinian Arab participation in national decision-making processes allowed the Israeli state to introduce discriminatory laws against Arabs (2014: 378; 385). Following the 2009 Ürümchi riots, the Xinjiang Han community was not merely permissive; it actively demanded securitization (Moore 2009).

Thus, a CCP Party leadership representing the majority Han population has acted aggressively to protect majority Han privilege in Xinjiang, in return for Han loyalty in times of regional instability. 26

Beyond ethnicised, discriminatory securitization practices in Xinjiang, it is local experiences of humiliation and violation that provoked the recent cycle of violence. As

Meyer (2016a) notes, the problem with the state’s label of ‘religious extremism’ is that it securitizes all religious behaviours, not just violent ones. This has led to extreme forms of religious policing in rural Xinjiang, violating private Uyghur spaces and humiliating ‘earnest

Muslim men and women’ (see Muhtar’s description above). Sweep-and-search operations in

Uyghur homes, attempts by non-relatives to snatch women’s veils, invasion and closure of unauthorized mosques, and harassment of respected local clerics repeatedly provoked ugly scenes of state violence and retaliatory local violence between 2012 and 2015 because they embodied violation of pure Uyghur spaces by a Han state perceived as haram (unclean).

Conclusions

How far has Xinjiang been ‘Palestinized’, in the senses outlined by Wang Lixiong? First, the conflict became more ethnicized during and following the 2009 Ürümchi riots; with Han civilians in Xinjiang now viewed as synonymous with the Chinese state. Since then, children are increasingly drawn into the conflict, a conclusion apparently also drawn by the local government, which recently stated: ‘Parents shall influence their children with positive conduct, and educate their children to respect science, pursue civility, preserve ethnic unity, and resist and oppose extremification’ (Article 44, XUAR Regulations on De-extremification,

2017). Second, increased Han settler activity in the south sparked conflict in 2012–2015, directly relating to control over local resources. Yet socio-economic competition and inequality are long-standing regional features, while local violence increased mainly after

2012; I therefore concur with Hafez that while socio-economic factors invariably provide the structural conditions for Muslim rebellion, they alone are insufficient to engender militant action (2003: 9–19). Third, indiscriminate securitization of the Uyghur people since 2001 and 27 especially since 2009 triggered retaliatory incidents of local violence – some planned, others spontaneous. Simultaneously, it ensured that the Chinese government lost the goodwill of secular, integrated Uyghurs. As a retired state employee exclaimed with passion in 2016:

Fine! Take the bad ones [Uy. äskilär] away, we agree with that! But we are not all bad. Every

people has good and bad individuals. Why can’t they just treat the bad ones with suspicion and

leave the rest of us alone?

With reference to the ‘pressure cooker’ effect, zealous state securitization (particularly of

Uyghur Islam) led to communal tensions repeatedly erupting as ‘a clap of thunder’ in 2012-

2015. Thus, Muslim peoples across national contexts may become violently militant when met with two circumstances: denial of meaningful access to state political institutions, and indiscriminate repressive state policies (Hafez 2003: 9–19). As dialogue channels evaporate and religious discrimination increases, society is destabilized as victims opt for violent rather than peaceful protest (Akbaba and Taydas 2011: 283–288). Yet not all of those ‘claps of thunder’ were pre-meditated and planned; many were spontaneous and retaliatory.

Furthermore, there is little evidence that proponents were ideologically oriented to pursuit of global jihad. Available data suggests that even those Uyghurs taking refuge with militant organisations beyond China’s borders have declined to embrace such ideology.

Among Wang’s six elaborations of ‘Palestinization’ in the Xinjiang context, state religious restrictions most often engendered local violence in 2012–2015. The criminalization of everyday religious practice, intrusive religious policing, and state penetration of pure halal spaces led to the most intense spate of retaliatory attacks on the state and state agents

(including Han civilians, as a proxy for the state) seen in Xinjiang since 1949. As Akbaba and

Taydas demonstrate, religious minorities experience discrimination by the majority as a threat to their moral framework, and respond by forming movements of religious defence (2011: 28

274–277). In contemporary Xinjiang, Uyghurs are witnessing intense state repression of their mother tongue and of Uyghur Islam, experienced as a direct threat to their ‘societal security’ and survival as a community (Wæver et al. 1993). In this way, in intensifying restrictions on

Islam and language use, ‘Beijing neglected the existential threat its own policies posed towards the preservation of an acceptable level of Uighur self-identification’ (2007: 14). A similar dynamic is observable in Tibet, where China’s policies have generated ‘bitterness and insecurity’ in the Tibetan psyche, and protests in defence of Tibetan identity (Topgyal 2011:

186, 195). It is also visible in Israel, where state securitization has made Palestinian Arabs feel less secure and more determined to cling to cultural values like language and religion

(Olesker 2014: 387).

Postscript

House searches have been joined by still more intrusive forms of religious securitization since the arrival in October 2016 of new Party Secretary Chen Quanguo. These include mandatory checks on mobile phones for illegal religious content (Rajagopalan 2017), the

‘Becoming Family’ policy involving visits to Uyghur homes by Han officials (‘relatives’)

(Sulaiman and Niyaz 2017), and the ‘disappearance’ of hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs into ‘political re-education centres’ (Roberts 2018; Zenz 2018), referred to obliquely as mäktäp – ‘school’ – by frightened locals. These measures respond to the state’s goal of halting the ‘penetration’ of extremism, as outlined in the XUAR Regulations on De- extremification (2017). That goal includes ‘making religion more Chinese’ (Article 4); prohibiting the rejection or refusal of public goods (Article 9); prohibiting ‘generalization of the concept of halal into areas beyond halal foods’ (Article 9); leading believers to ‘establish correct beliefs’ (Article 13); and guiding believers to ‘correctly handle the relationship between law and religion’ whilst confirming ‘correct faith’ (Article 35). 29

In 2018, the ‘Becoming Family’ programme was expanded to require between five and fourteen ‘home stays’ by Chinese officials in Uyghur households every 1–2 months, during which families must provide information about their personal lives and political views. Officials, tasked to warn families against ‘pan-Islamism,’ report back on ‘problems’ – e.g. extent of religious beliefs – and act to ‘rectify’ them. As one researcher observed:

‘Muslim families across Xinjiang are now literally eating and sleeping under the watchful eye of the state in their own homes’ (Human Rights Watch 2018). State agencies post videos and images online of non-Muslim Han officials sharing intimate aspects of Uyghur domestic life, including sharing meals, sleeping in the same bed, and feeding the family’s children (Human

Rights Watch 2018). In the context of Uyghurs’ adherence to a halal mode of living, which extends beyond dietary prescriptions, this constitutes a clear violation of pure, halal space.

Other such violations include the punishment of a Khotanese official for refusing to smoke before male elders (Roberts 2018: 19) (thus ‘refusing public goods,’ ‘extending the concept of halal beyond halal foods’); making Uyghurs wrap Chinese New Year dumplings with Han

‘older brothers and sisters’ (Byler 2018) (in a context where to ask if the dumplings contained pork would constitute ‘extremification’); and coercion of Khotänese villagers into conducting a Han foot-washing tradition (to express respect for elders) using bowls rather than clean, running water.19 While the 2017 ‘de-extremification’ document repeatedly calls on state organs and citizens to combat ‘penetration’ by extremists, intrusive state controls on moderate religious practice are experienced by Uyghur locals equally as ‘penetration’, indeed, as violation by a violent and coercive state.

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1 Email: [email protected] 2 Wang (the sole Han detainee accused of ‘damaging state security’) notes that mutual honesty and trust is so limited that prison is the only place where a Han might win a Uyghur’s trust (Wang and Yang 2007). 3 For a book-length comparison, see Schuster (2017). 4 Interviews were conducted in Uyghur, Chinese, or both, reflecting ‘societal bilingualism’ in Ürümchi. One respondent code-switched between Chinese, Uyghur and English. Owing to increased surveillance, respondents advised against conducting interviews in south Xinjiang, where I might have encountered Uyghur-speaking monolinguals. 5 Translations are the author’s own. 6 For Kanat, state incitement of against the internal Uyghur threat after 2001 created a ‘fear factor’, damaging Uyghur–state and Uyghur–Han relations. He highlights a ‘total elimination of inter-group 38

trust’ in recent years, with groups previously willing to ‘set symbolic lines’ now confronting each other (Kanat 2016; see also Palmer 2013 and Clarke 2015 on the ‘hardening of boundaries’). 7 The 2009 Ürümchi riots began as a peaceful protest on 5 July calling for an investigation into the Shaoguan factory incident in Guangdong province, in which two Uyghurs were killed by Han co-workers. This later escalated into anti-Han violence. The People’s Armed Police (PAP) and military were deployed, and on 7 July Han vigilantes launched a revenge assault on Uyghurs. According to state statistics, 197 people died, mostly Han; eye-witnesses and Uyghur exile groups place the Uyghur death toll higher (Millward 2009; Smith Finley 2011). 8 In July 2017, local authorities announced the ‘Integrated Residency’ programme, offering financial subsidies to Uyghur families who buy a home in Han residential districts of Ürümchi (Sulaiman and Niyaz 2017). 9 For ethnographic data and a summary of secondary literature on Han in-migration and resultant socio- economic inequalities, see Smith Finley 2013, Chapter 1. Kanat links the recent surge in anti-Han violence to state ‘population engineering’, which increased Uyghur unemployment in Xinjiang, marginalising the youth (2016: 196; 206). 10 See Millward (2009: 348) on the relative calm in Xinjiang between 1997 and 2008. 11 Kanat critiques the Chinese state’s pre-emptive implementation of ‘micro-control policies’, which securitize the Uyghur question without opening a dialogue. He suggests this reflects ‘division anxiety’ (2016). See also Topgyal (2011) on the China–Tibet ‘insecurity dilemma’. 12 She mentioned GPRS (General Packet Radio Service), a packet-oriented mobile data service which allows live online tracking via a personal/vehicle GPS tracking device. From July 2017, Xinjiang authorities required Ürümchi citizens to install a ‘surveillance app’ on their phones, which would ‘automatically detect terrorist and illegal religious videos, images, e-books and electronic documents’ (Ng 2017). 13 Castets (2015b) dates local attempts to ‘Palestinize’ Xinjiang back further to the 1990s, when a few ‘Islamo- nationalists’ turned to terrorist attacks following the failed 1990 Baren insurrection. 14 Ilham Tokhti concurred, writing: ‘The more the authorities suppress religion, the more the Uighur people embrace religion’ (2014). 15 The official was considered a ‘collaborator’, who had failed to be the voice of the Uyghur people. Personal communication with local Party official, May 1996; see Beckley (1997) and Bellér-Hann (2002: 78). 16Sing tao jih pao, , 5 March 1997 in Summary of World Broadcasts (Asia Pacific), 6 March 1997, FE/2860 G/3. 17 This resourceful approach recalls the secret lunchtime mosque visits of high-school students I recorded during the 2000s (Smith Finley 2013: 243). 18 On this concept, see Bellér-Hann 1998. 19 Image posted on Twitter, 16 May 2018. See Smith Finley (2013: 105–107) on halal rituals of washing in Uyghur society.