ABSTRACT
Documenting the ever-escalating war of words through documentaries and reports, this chapter seeks to examine the politicization of the Uyghur issue, which has been pushed to the centre of attention in the confrontations between the United States and China. This chapter argues that the effectiveness of the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts in countering violent extremism, which already suffered from existing structural problems, has been further impeded by the politicization of the Uyghur issue and the consequent shift of the focus from its mobilization campaigns targeting domestic audiences to Western audiences in the context of intensified US-Chinese rivalries. The difficulties in persuading international audiences of the legitimacy of its counter-radicalization programmes in Xinjiang expose the widening gap in China’s communication with the world in the context of intensified ideological confrontation between China and the West. In the field of counter-terrorism strategy, there remains a long way to go to “tell China’s stories” to the world effectively.
