ABSTRACT
The culture and identity of the Uyghur people of Xinjiang have been shaped by geographic, cultural, and historic interactions with China and surrounding civilizations since the seventh century CE. By the twentieth century, Uyghur identity had evolved in such a way that the Uyghurs can neither acculturate comfortably into China, as Beijing would like, nor effectively resist the Chinese state, as Uyghur nationalists and militants would like.
