How China's 'Xinjiang Mode' draws from US, British, and Israeli counterinsurgency strategy

China's Han settler colonial model has turned Uyghur and Kazakh communities into open-air prisons

The following article, which was first published in Made in China Journal in October 2019, focuses on the mass detention experienced by Turkic Muslims. However, the CCP's tactics of mass detention and surveillance affect many communities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR, also known as "Xinjiang," "Northwest China," "East Turkestan," "Uighuria," "Ghulja," "Tarbagai," "Altay," "Dzungarstan and Altishahr," and/or "Dzungaria and the Tarim Basin Region," and which will henceforth be referred to as "Xinjiang"), most visibly Uyghurs but no less significantly other indigenous and minority ethnic groups. As such, we have amended the original reference from "Uyghurs and Turkic Muslims" to "Uyghurs, indigenous peoples, and ethnic minority groups."

A highly contested term, the proper name Xinjiang (新疆) was first used by the 18th century emperor Qianlong, and conferred on the XUAR upon Zuo Zongtang's reoccupation of the region in the late 19th century. In Mandarin Chinese, it means "new territory," "new border," or "new frontier."