ABSTRACT
This chapter examines three quite different and to some extent mutually contradictory patterns of control that the Chinese state has applied to the region since the late 1970s. Each of these is rooted in China's past, but all of them differ dramatically from what occurred during the previous decades of Chinese Communist rule over Xinjiang. The three patterns can be described as 'ethnicization', 'integration', and 'transnationalization'. The fate of these three patterns of China's recent control in the region goes far toward defining the challenges facing China's Xinjiang policy today. Nevertheless, the official national minority identity of the present people known as 'Uyghur', which have tenuous links to an ancient Uyghur kingdom, is a more recent phenomenon related to 'Great Game' rivalries, Sino-Soviet geopolitical manoeuvrings, and Chinese nation-building. The background of Uyghur claims to the region and competing Chinese laws regarding autonomy have much to do with China's current policies in Xinjiang and local responses to them.
