ABSTRACT
The growing complexities in relationship between the party-state and society in China are a symptom of rapidly changing and modernising society as well as a product of state coercion. As a subsystem within the Han-dominated society, the Uyghur’s relations with the majoritarian state have become even more problematic, especially since the magnitude of violence has mounted in Xinjiang through the 1990s. The dual strategies of coercion in the form of strike hard measures and anti-terror struggles as well as rapid economic development strategies could not achieve the expected goal of resolving the problem. Some theoretical aspects pertaining to modernisation, social change, socio-political order, conflict, culture of protests and the Chinese idea of contradiction and social stability have been employed to understand Xinjiang’s problem. The central question here is as to why China is discomfited in dealing with social unrests, right movements across the country as well as problems in minority areas despite being able to achieve unprecedented success in terms of economic development and carry forward the modernisation process.
