ABSTRACT
This book began with a brief account of the inter-ethnic unrest that erupted in Xinjiang’s capital, Ürümqi, in July 2009. The July unrest and some of the Chinese government’s rhetoric surrounding it, particularly claims relating to the Uyghur’s alleged desire to ‘split’ China, were then juxtaposed against the fact that China’s sovereignty in the region is not disputed by any state in the international system. The apparent disjuncture between the strength of China’s contemporary position inXinjiang and the anxiety expressed regarding ‘nationalities unity’ in the aftermath of the unrest, pointed toward a number of questions that have been the core focus of the book. These questions concerned the ‘what’, ‘who’ and ‘how’ of the process of Xinjiang’s enmeshment into the contemporary Chinese state: what was defined and claimed as constituting ‘China’s Xinjiang’, who was deemed to constitute the population of the region, and thus became Chinese citizens, and finally, how, through what strategies, techniques or policies, has the Chinese state sought to make good on these claims?
