ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how expanding South-South cooperation is bringing changes to global development which include new forms of violence against ethnic minority communities. Noting that no country has been more influential in reworking global development norms, ontologies and practices than China, the authors explore the violent ties between the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) political oppression and human rights abuses in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) and the CCP’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Due to its geographic location in China’s north-western border region, XUAR is widely perceived as of critical importance to the BRI, and thus offers a useful case study for examining how the CCP has wedded development to state-expansionism and efforts to erase cultural diversity. The chapter details some of the violence unfolding in XUAR and argues that such violence is directly linked to the development goals of the BRI, and the CCP’s attempts to bring modernization and security to ethnic minority Uyghur populations. It calls for new empirical research and new (and increased) engagement with ‘Southern’ actors to better understand how shifts in the global development arena are producing new forms of violence, as well as reiterating the longstanding need to take culture more seriously when thinking about development and its effects.
