ABSTRACT
Challenges to state power arise when states appear vulnerable.1 In the early 1990s China found itself weak, its organs lacking, under threat from Xinjiang’s insurgency. At first China’s institutions were incapable of effectively responding; they had been infiltrated and were under siege. The Party-state was being severed from society. Military and paramilitary forces could crush unrest when people took to the streets or insurgents attacked; yet preventing the insurgency from developing a greater traction within society, greater political will, required new socio-political tools as well as adapting old tools for the evolving situation. In response to the insurgency beginning to take hold within society China rebuilt its Party, government, and security forces at the grass-roots level. This chapter analyzes China’s effort to reclaim Xinjiang from the insurgency through establishing an apparatus capable of policing society (including the state’s institutions) at the most local levels.2
