There's been a sudden rush of attention lately given over to the situation of Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Recently, the United Nations Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination estimated that possibly as many as 1million Uyghurs have been detained and sent to "re-education" camps since the beginning of the CCP's crackdown in Xinjiang. The situation caught the attention of Vox media, who ran a detailed explainer on the subject on their website on August 15. In the US Congress, a few members, most notably Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) have begun to discuss Xinjiang in floor speeches and public appearances. This sudden outpouring of awareness has provided long-overdue exposure to a dilemma that grows more dire by the day. However, many who are just learning about Xinjiang may find this deluge of information difficult to sort through. Indeed, if you were, until recently, only vaguely aware of Uyghurs, and the politics surrounding ethnicity and Islam in northwest China, you may find it hard to figure out just how this situation emerged, or why it is relevant.
Luckily, there's a lot of good material in print about the current crisis. If you're looking for a starting point, I'd like to recommend one: Ethnic Conflict and Protest in Xinjiang and Tibet: Unrest in China's West edited by Ben Hillman and Gray Tuttle (2016, Columbia University Press).
If you want a longer preview, I recently reviewed the volume for the July issue of the journal Nations and Nationalism. This is a great place to start understanding the underlying issues driving the current tensions in Xinijiang, and gives some welcome background context to the situation. As news continues to pour in about Xinjiang, it's important to take the time to thoroughly understand how it fits into a larger picture. Hillman and Tuttle's volume is important for helping us achieve this kind of understanding.
More content is upcoming, so be sure to stay tuned!