ABSTRACT
The 1990s was a time of extreme change for most Uyghurs. China was opening up to the outside world, and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) of China, where the majority of Uyghurs live, was gradually being integrated into a new globalizing world order. Uyghurs from the XUAR were travelling to numerous places outside of their homeland, and the XUAR itself was increasingly becoming a destination for international tourists as well as for traders from the former Soviet Union and Pakistan. Across the border from the XUAR, the former Soviet Republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan, all of which also have large local Uyghur populations, were likewise becoming incorporated into a new world order of open borders and free trade. In short, after decades of isolation, the Uyghurs living in various locations throughout Central Asia had unprecedented access to the outside world in the 1990s. While the Uyghurs were certainly not the only people during the 1990s to face such a sudden re-opening to the rest of the world, as a relatively small minority in both the former USSR and China, they were among the most politically marginalized to be breathing the fresh air of open borders in the wake of the cold war’s end.
