ABSTRACT
The long-standing conflict in Xinjiang between the Chinese state and groups of ethnic Uyghurs struggling for independence is central to the understanding of the development of Chinese attitudes towards, and policy on, terrorism. Resistance by Eastern Turkestan loyalists continued well into the 1950s, especially in southern Xinjiang. Small activist units launched attacks on police and military barracks to obtain weapons and conducted armed robberies to obtain funds. These groups were associated with Sufi orders, and this religious connection was important in their attempts to win popular support and convert small-scale insurgencies into large-scale resistance. Throughout the 1990s, political violence gradually spread throughout the region, emerging partly from the internal dynamics of Xinjiang's political, social and ethnic mix, and partly in response to the breakup of the Soviet Union and the formation of new states by the predominantly Turkic-speaking communities that lived across the border from Xinjiang.
