Counterterrorism and Preventive Repression

Counterterrorism and
Preventive Repression
China’s Changing Strategy in Xinjiang

Sheena Chestnut
Greitens,
Myunghee Lee, E
Emir Yazici

Over

the course of
2017–18, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) crackdown on Uyghur and
other Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR)
generated increasing international scrutiny.1 Reports of heightened repression
in Xinjiang prompted a formal expression of concern by the United Nations
(UN) Commission on Anti-Discrimination in August 2018 and several legisla-
tive hearings in the United States.2 U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense Randall
Schriver criticized China’s conduct as “unbecoming” a country of the stature
of the People’s Republic of China (PRC); a bipartisan group of legislators pro-
posed the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act; and in October 2019, the Donald
Trump administration placed visa restrictions on PRC ofªcials and put twenty-
eight companies and public security bureaus on a trade blacklist over complic-
ity in abuses in Xinjiang.3 The issue has also polarized the international com-

Sheena Chestnut Greitens is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Missouri.
Myunghee Lee is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at the University of Missouri. Emir Yazici is a post-
doctoral fellow in the Department of Political Science at the University of Missouri.

The authors thank Darren Byler, Alastair Iain Johnston, James Leibold, Bryce Reeder, and the
anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback.

1. Spelling and terminology in this ªeld often carry political connotations; we wish to clarify that
our choices here should not be interpreted to imply a particular political stance. We use the spell-
ing “Uyghur,” which is the predominant transliteration among Uyghurs. We primarily use the for-
mal names of the autonomous regions when we refer to developments in those polities, E
“Tibet” or “Xinjiang” to refer to the ethnic areas, Ma, in some cases, we use these terms inter-
changeably to avoid linguistic contortion.
2. Congressional-Executive Commission on China, “Surveillance, Suppression, and Mass Deten-
zione: Xinjiang’s Human Rights Crisis” (Washington, D.C.: Congressional-Executive Commission
on China, Luglio 26, 2018), https://www.cecc.gov/events/hearings/surveillance-suppression-and-
mass-detention-xinjiang%E2%80%99s-human-rights-crisis; China’s Repression and Internment of
Uyghurs: NOI. Policy Responses: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Asia and the Paciªc of the
Committee on Foreign Affairs, 115 Cong., 2d sess., settembre 26, 2018, https://www.govinfo.gov/
content/pkg/CHRG-115hhrg32303/pdf/CHRG-115hhrg32303.pdf; The China Challenge, Part 3:
Democracy, Human Rights, and the Rule of Law, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
Subcommittee on East Asia, the Paciªc, and International Cybersecurity Policy, 115th Cong.,
2d sess., Dicembre 4, 2018 (statement of Gloria Steele, Acting Assistant Administrator, Bureau for
Asia, United States Agency for International Development), https://www.foreign.senate.gov/
imo/media/doc/120418_Steele_Testimony.pdf; and UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination, Concluding Observations on the Combined Fourteenth to Seventeenth Periodic
Reports of China (including Hong Kong, China, and Macao, China), CERD/C/CHN/CO/14–17,
agosto 30, 2018, https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CERD/Shared%20Documents/CHN/CERD
_C_CHN_CO_14-17_32237_E.pdf.
3. Randall Schriver, keynote address at Asia Policy Assembly in Washington, D.C., Giugno 26, 2019,

International Security, Vol. 44, No. 3 (Inverno 2019/20), pag. 9–47, https://doi.org/10.1162/ISEC_a_00368
© 2020 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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International Security 44:3 10

munity: in the summer of 2019, a group of twenty-two countries sent a letter to
the UN Human Rights Council calling on China to end its use of arbitrary
mass detention, surveillance, and restrictions on freedom of movement—a
move countered by a letter from thirty-seven other countries in defense and
support of the PRC’s “counter-terrorism, deradicalization and vocational
training” policies.4

Reporting indicates that 1 A 3 million people—including Uyghur, Kazakh,
and Kyrgyz minorities—have been detained in a network of nearly 1,200 Rif-
cently constructed camps, where they are subject to forced re-education and
political indoctrination. PRC authorities have also increasingly sought the in-
voluntary repatriation of Uyghur migrants or asylum seekers in third coun-
tries, while placing diaspora networks under unprecedented pressure.5 What
explains recent changes to China’s domestic security strategy in Xinjiang?

Typical explanations in media and scholarly work highlight domestic fac-
tori: unrest among China’s Uyghur population that escalated in 2008–09; IL
CCP’s shift toward a more assimilationist minority policy; and the leadership
of Chen Quanguo, who became XUAR party secretary in 2016.6 These factors
for understanding the CCP’s recent security
provide important context
buildup and repression in Xinjiang. The strategy shift described above, how-
ever, may also have been catalyzed by the CCP’s changing perceptions of its
external security environment, a factor that is an important complement to do-
mestically focused explanations.

We argue that an overlooked and signiªcant factor that contributed to the
CCP’s change in internal security strategy in Xinjiang was its desire to prevent
terrorism from diffusing into China via radicalized transnational Uyghur net-
works, particularly those with links to terrorist groups in Southeast Asia,

National Bureau of Asian Research, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v(cid:2)Og16mgkCNQk;
Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2019, S. 178, 116th Cong., 1st sess., settembre 12, 2019,
https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/178/text?format(cid:2)txt; and Eric Beech
and David Shepardson, “U.S. Imposes Visa Restrictions on Chinese Ofªcials over Muslim Treat-
ment,” Reuters, ottobre 8, 2019, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-muslims/us-
imposes-visa-restrictions-on-chinese-ofªcials-over-muslim-treatment-idUSKBN1WN29H.
4. Catherine Putz, “Which Countries Are For or Against China’s Xinjiang Policies?” Diplomat, Luglio
15, 2019, https://thediplomat.com/2019/07/which-countries-are-for-or-against-chinas-xinjiang-
policies/.
5. Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, “Exposed: China’s Operating Manuals for Mass Internment and
Arrest by Algorithm,” International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, novembre 24, 2019;
and China’s Repression and Internment of Uyghurs hearing.
6. Adrian Zenz and James Leibold, “Chen Quanguo: The Strongman behind Beijing’s Secur-
itization Strategy in Tibet and Xinjiang,” China Brief, Vol. 17, No. 12 (settembre 2017), https://
jamestown.org/program/chen-quanguo-the-strongman-behind-beijings-securitization-strategy-
in-tibet-and-xinjiang/.

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Counterterrorism and Preventive Repression 11

Syria, and the broader Middle East. Until recently, studies of China’s approach
to counterterrorism have been relatively sparse within the literature on terror-
ism and political violence, as well as in scholarship on China’s security behav-
ior.7 A focus on terrorist threat, Tuttavia, is valuable for understanding PRC
security policy in Xinjiang—now described as the “main battleªeld” in China’s
ªght against terrorism.8 Over the course of 2014–16, the CCP appears to have
concluded that China’s Muslim population was broadly vulnerable to inªl-
tration and “infection” from transnational jihadist networks, and that the pri-
mary vector for potential infection was the Uyghur diaspora’s increasing
contact with militant groups in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Questo
heightening threat perception sheds light on some of the most distinctive, con-
sequential aspects of the CCP’s approach: the shift from individual to collec-
tive detention and re-education; why authorities focused so much on re-
formazione scolastica; why repressive policies were externalized to the diaspora; and why
these changes occurred in early 2017, rather than earlier.

Prima di procedere, we wish to address a concern raised in public discussion:
that taking the counterterrorism narrative seriously as an explanatory factor
somehow legitimates or concedes the morality of the CCP’s treatment of its
Uyghur population. One Human Rights Watch ofªcial, in objecting to a UN
counterterrorism ofªcial’s visit to Xinjiang in mid-2019, highlighted the “risks
[Di] conªrming China’s false narrative that this is a counterterrorism issue, non
a question of massive human rights abuses.”9 Scholars of political violence will
recognize the concern that explanation can feel uncomfortably close to
justiªcation, and will also know that this can produce an aversion to discuss-
ing perpetrators’ motivations at all—a dynamic that Holocaust scholars label a
“moral sensitivity exclusion.”10

7. A notable exception to this characterization is Michael Clarke, ed., Terrorism and Counter-
Terrorism in China: Domestic and Foreign Policy Dimensions (London: Hurst, 2018), P. 4. See also
Joshua Tschantret, “Repression, Opportunity, and Innovation: The Evolution of Terrorism in
Xinjiang, China,” Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol. 30, No. 4 (July–August 2018), pag. 569–588,
doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2016.1182911; Guiping Xie and Tianyang Liu, “Navigating Securities:
Rethinking (Counter-)Terrorism, Stability Maintenance, and Non-Violent Responses in the Chi-
nese Province of Xinjiang,” Terrorism and Political Violence, published ahead of print, April 15, 2019,
doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2019.1598386; and Murray Scot Tanner, “China’s Response to Terror-
ism” (Arlington, Va.: CNA, Giugno 2016), https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/ªles/Research/
Chinas%20Response%20to%20Terrorism_CNA061616.pdf.
8. “Xinjiang weiwuer zizhiqu dangwei nanjiang gongzuo huiyi jintian juxing” [Southern Xinjiang
work forum convened], Yangguangwang, novembre 3, 2015, http://m.cnr.cn/news/20151103/
t20151103_520382089.html.
9. “United Nations’ Counterterrorism Chief Vladimir Voronkov in China to Visit Xinjiang Intern-
ment Camps,” South China Morning Post, Giugno 14, 2019, https://www.scmp.com/news/china/
diplomacy/article/3014508/united-nations-counterterrorism-chief-vladimir-voronkov-china.
10. Inga Clendinnen, Reading the Holocaust (Melbourne: Text Publishing, 1998), P. 88.

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International Security 44:3 12

Our analysis does not allow us to deªnitively identify the CCP’s true under-
lying intentions in its policies toward Xinjiang. Inoltre, there is signiªcant
debate over the severity of the Uyghur threat, and the PRC may be using
a counterterrorism framework to deºect or reduce international pressure
and criticism.11 These are important empirical and ethical points. Invoking
counterterrorism, Tuttavia, does not provide the CCP with a moral “blank
check” for human rights abuses—and critics of China’s policies in Xinjiang are
more likely to succeed in changing those policies if their arguments are based
on a full understanding of the policies’ causes. The recent publication of leaked
internal documents on CCP actions in Xinjiang appears to conªrm the impor-
tance of terrorism in the minds of senior party leaders, including Xi Jinping.12
This article separates empirical explanation from moral justiªcation.

Empirically, our ªndings parallel and contribute to existing scholarship on
transnational networks, terrorism, and domestic repression. A signiªcant body
of literature argues that transborder ethnic ties increase the risk of conºict dif-
fusion, especially if excluded or separatist ethnic groups are involved.13 It also
ªnds that transnational networks can mobilize or sustain terrorist activity and
make terrorist groups more resilient to counterterrorism pressure.14 Placing

11. Ana Bracic and Amanda Murdie, “Human Rights Abused? Terrorist Labeling and Individual
Reactions to Call to Action,” Political Research Quarterly, published ahead of print, Luglio 17, 2019,
doi.org/10.1177%2F1065912919861154.
12. Austin Ramzy and Chris Buckley, “’Absolutely No Mercy’: Leaked Files Expose How China
Organized Mass Detentions of Muslims,” New York Times, novembre 16, 2019, https://
www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/16/world/asia/china-xinjiang-documents.html.
13. Nils W. Metternich, Shahryar Minhas, and Michael D. Ward, “Firewall? Or Wall on Fire?
A Uniªed Framework of Conºict Contagion and the Role of Ethnic Exclusion,” Journal of Conºict
Resolution, Vol. 61, No. 6 (Luglio 2017), pag. 1151–1173, doi.org/10.1177%2F0022002715603452; Lars-
Erik Cederman et al., “Transborder Ethnic Kin and Civil War,” International Organization, Vol. 67,
No. 2 (April 2013), pag. 389–410, doi.org/10.1017/S0020818313000064; Nils B. Weidmann, “Com-
munication Networks and the Transnational Spread of Ethnic Conºict,” Journal of Peace Research,
Vol. 52, No. 3 (May 2015), pag. 285–296, doi.org/10.1177%2F0022343314554670; Gary LaFree, Min
Xie, and Aila M. Matanock, “The Contagious Diffusion of Worldwide Terrorism: Is It Less Com-
mon Than We Might Think?” Studies in Conºict and Terrorism, Vol. 41, No. 4 (April 2018), pag. 261–
280, doi.org/10.1080/1057610X.2017.1290428; and Nathan Danneman and Emily Hencken Ritter,
“Contagious Rebellion and Preemptive Repression,” Journal of Conºict Resolution, Vol. 58, No. 2
(Marzo 2014), pag. 254–279, doi.org/10.1177%2F0022002712468720. See also Kirstin J.H. Braith-
waite, “Repression and the Spread of Ethnic Conºict in Kurdistan,” Studies in Conºict and Terror-
ism, Vol. 37, No. 6 (2014), pag. 473–491, doi.org/10.1080/1057610X.2014.903451; Jonathan Fox, “Is
Ethnoreligious Conºict a Contagious Disease?” Studies in Conºict and Terrorism, Vol. 27, No. 2
(2004), pag. 89–106, doi.org/10.1080/10576100490275085; Erika Forsberg, “Transnational Transmit-
ters: Ethnic Kinship Ties and Conºict Contagion, 1946–2009,” International Interactions, Vol. 40.
No. 2 (2014), pag. 143–165, doi.org/10.1080/03050629.2014.880702; and Halvard Buhaug and
Kristian Skrede Gleditsch, “Contagion or Confusion? Why Conºicts Cluster in Space,” Interna-
tional Studies Quarterly, Vol. 52, No. 2 (Giugno 2008), pag. 215–233, doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2478.2008
.00499.X.
14. Gabriel Sheffer, “Diasporas and Terrorism,” in Louise Richardson, ed., The Roots of Terrorism

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Counterterrorism and Preventive Repression 13

Xinjiang in the context of this scholarship suggests that the CCP’s concern
about diasporic involvement in terrorist or ethno-separatist mobilization is not
particularly unique.

Situating Xinjiang in dialogue with broader comparative work on political
violence also illuminates, though does not deªnitively predict, the possible
results of the CCP’s escalated strategy of repression in Xinjiang. One set of
studies suggests that collective or indiscriminate repression can be effective,
particularly when employed against small, geographically concentrated mi-
nority groups in authoritarian regimes.15 Other studies, Tuttavia, argue that
the CCP has misperceived or inºated the security threat (a common problem
in information-poor authoritarian regimes, including China16), and that it may,
as a result, be applying a counterinsurgency approach to Xinjiang when such
an approach is unwarranted and inappropriate.17 Moreover, other scholarship
on collective repression suggests that it creates a high risk of backlash;18 schol-

(New York: Routledge, 2013), pag. 117–132; James A. Piazza, “Transnational Ethnic Diasporas and
the Survival of Terrorist Organizations,” Security Studies, Vol. 27, No. 4 (2018), pag. 607–632,
doi.org/10.1080/09636412.2018.1483615; Monica Duffy Toft and Yuri M. Zhukov, “Islamists and
Nationalists: Rebel Motivation and Counterinsurgency in Russia’s North Caucasus,” American Po-
litical Science Review, Vol. 109, No. 2 (May 2015), pag. 222–238, doi.org/10.1017/S000305541500012X;
Ken Menkhaus, “African Diasporas, Diasporas in Africa, and Terrorist Threats,” in Doron Zim-
mermann and William Rosenau, eds., The Radicalization of Diasporas and Terrorism (Zürich, Switzer-
land: Center for Security Studies, ETH Zürich, 2009), pag. 83–109; and Hamed el-Said and Richard
Barrett, “Enhancing the Understanding of the Foreign Terrorist Fighters Phenomenon in Syria”
(New York: United Nations Ofªce of Counter-Terrorism, Luglio 2017), http://www.un.org/en/
counterterrorism/assets/img/Report_Final_20170727.pdf.
15. Alexander B. Downes, “Draining the Sea by Filling the Graves: Investigating the Effectiveness
of Indiscriminate Violence as a Counterinsurgency Strategy,” Civil Wars, Vol. 9, No. 4 (Dicembre
2007), pag. 420–444, doi.org/10.1080/13698240701699631; Jason Lyall, “Does Indiscriminate Vio-
lence Incite Insurgent Attacks? Evidence from Chechnya,” Journal of Conºict Resolution, Vol. 53,
No. 3 (Giugno 2009), pag. 331–362, doi.org/10.1177%2F0022002708330881; Ursula E. Daxecker and Mi-
chael L. Hess, “Repression Hurts: Coercive Government Responses and the Demise of Terrorism
Campaigns,” British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 43, No. 3 (Luglio 2013), pag. 559–577, doi.org/
10.1017/S0007123412000452; and David H. Ucko, “‘The People are Revolting’: Anatomy of Au-
thoritarian Counterinsurgency,” Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 39, No. 1 (2016), pag. 29–61,
doi.org/10.1080/01402390.2015.1094390.
16. For a theoretical overview, see Sheena Chestnut Greitens, Dictators and Their Secret Police: Coer-
cive Institutions and State Violence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016). For speciªcs on
information problems in the Chinese political system, see Jeremy L. Wallace, “Juking the Stats?
Authoritarian Information Problems in China,” British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 46, No. 1
(Gennaio 2016), pag. 11–29, doi.org/10.1017/S0007123414000106.
17. We note that Beijing’s current policy would be a costly one to pursue without any genuine be-
lief in the presence of a security threat. Liselotte Odgaard and Thomas Galasz Nielsen, “China’s
Counterinsurgency Strategy in Tibet and Xinjiang,” Journal of Contemporary China, Vol. 23, No. 87
(2014), pag. 535–555, doi.org/10.1080/10670564.2013.843934.
18. James I. Walsh and James A. Piazza, “Why Respecting Physical Integrity Rights Reduces Ter-
rorism,” Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 43, No. 5 (May 2010), pag. 551–577, doi.org/10.1177%2F0
010414009356176; James A. Piazza, “Repression and Terrorism: A Cross-National Empirical Analy-
sis,” Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol. 29, No. 1 (2017), pag. 102–118, doi.org/10.1080/09546553

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International Security 44:3 14

arship on Xinjiang itself generally characterizes previous CCP repression as
counterproductive.19 Arguing that counterterrorism threat perceptions play an
important role in China’s choice of strategy, Perciò, does not imply that the
strategy chosen will be successful. Nothing that follows should be read as
moral approval of the policies described or prediction of their likely success.
The article proceeds as follows. In the ªrst section, we review recent devel-
opments in Xinjiang, focusing particularly on three aspects of China’s do-
mestic security strategy and repressive approach that changed in 2017–18:
initiation of mass detention; wide-scale use of re-education; and increased
pressure on the Uyghur diaspora. The second section reviews common, do-
mestically focused explanations. The third section documents increased con-
tacts between Uyghur expatriates/migrants and Islamic militant organizations
throughout 2014–16; the ªfth section traces PRC ofªcials’ heightening concern,
during the same period, that the Uyghur population had become susceptible
to inªltration by these networks. We conclude by discussing the theoretical im-
plications of our ªndings for the relationship between external threats and au-
thoritarian repression, as well as policy implications for counterterrorism and
security cooperation with the PRC.

China’s Changing Repressive Strategy

The CCP has long framed counterterrorism as a struggle against the “three evil
forces” of terrorism, separatism, and extremism, which PRC ofªcials say have
mired Xinjiang in violence, instability, and poverty since the early 1990s.20

.2014.994061; Joseph H. Felter and Jacob N. Shapiro, “Limiting Civilian Casualties as Part of a
Winning Strategy,” Daedalus, Vol. 146, No. 1 (Inverno 2017), pag. 44–58, doi.org/10.1162/DAED_a
_00421; Laura Dugan and Erica Chenoweth, “Moving Beyond Deterrence: The Effectiveness of
Raising the Expected Utility of Abstaining from Terrorism in Israel,” American Sociological Review,
Vol. 77, No. 4 (agosto 2012), pag. 597–624, doi.org/10.1177%2F0003122412450573; Witold Mucha,
“Does Counterinsurgency Fuel Civil War? Peru and Syria Compared,” Critical Studies on Terrorism,
Vol. 6, No. 1 (2013), pag. 140–166, doi.org/10.1080/17539153.2013.765704; Michael Stohl, “Counter-
terrorism and Repression,” in Richardson, The Roots of Terrorism, pag. 69–82; and Luke N. Condra
and Jacob N. Shapiro, “Who Takes the Blame? The Strategic Effects of Collateral Damage,” Ameri-
can Journal of Political Science, Vol. 56, No. 1 (Gennaio 2012), pag. 167–187, doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-
5907.2011.00542.X.
19. Tschantret, “Repression, Opportunity, and Innovation”; Sean Roberts, “The Narrative of
Uyghur Terrorism and the Self-Fulªlling Prophecy of Uyghur Militancy,” in Clarke, Terrorism and
Counter-Terrorism in China, pag. 99–128; Elena Pokalova, “Authoritarian Regimes against Terrorism:
Lessons from China,” Critical Studies on Terrorism, Vol. 6, No. 2 (2013), pag. 279–298, doi.org/
10.1080/17539153.2012.753202; and Marie Trédaniel and Pak K. Lee, “Explaining the Chinese
Framing of the ‘Terrorist’ Violence in Xinjiang: Insights from Securitization Theory,” Nationalities
Carte, Vol. 46, No. 1 (Gennaio 2017), pag. 177–195, doi.org/10.1080/00905992.2017.1351427.
20. “Xinjiang to Crack Down on ‘Three Evil Forces,’” Xinhua, Marzo 6, 2012, http://www
.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2012-03/06/content_14766900.htm.

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Counterterrorism and Preventive Repression 15

Securitization has been under way in the XUAR for some time: previous re-
gional leaders such as Song Hanlian and Wang Lequan emphasized the impor-
tance of social stability, and regional authorities mounted “Strike Hard”
campaigns in the early 1990s that involved temporary or cyclical escalations of
repression.21 Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s vision of “social stability and endur-
ing peace” in Xinjiang, outlined in 2014 and repeated again during his 2018
visit, stresses poverty alleviation and ethnic unity as preventive approaches
that will contribute to peace and stability in an important borderland defense
region.22 In 2017–18, Tuttavia, the CCP began to employ an internal security
strategy that had three notable features: escalated use of collective detention,
intensive ideological re-education, and the application of intensiªed coercion
to the Uyghur diaspora.

Some elements of this approach began to appear on a comparatively small
scale around 2013–14. Immediately after the July 2009 crisis in Urumqi, IL
XUAR capital, the CCP focused on aggressively recruiting security personnel
and on embedding security ofªcials and grassroots party personnel in local
Uyghur communities.23 At a December 2013 Politburo meeting, Xi discussed a
new strategic plan (zhanlue bushu) for Xinjiang,24 and in 2014, regional authori-
ties announced the “Strike Hard against Violent Terrorist Activity” campaign.
This campaign included a small re-education (or “transformation through ed-
ucation,” jiaoyu zhuanhua) component: it targeted only about 1 percent of vari-
ous cities’ Uyghur populations, with totals in the low thousands.25 Moreover,
detentions were relatively short term, lasting from one to three weeks; one
county termed it “drip-feed-style concentrated educational training.”26

21. Susan Trevaskes, Policing Serious Crime in China: From “Strike Hard” to “Kill Fewer” (London:
Routledge, 2010), pag. 86–87.
22. Zhao Yinping, “Xi Jinping zhushu ‘zongmubiao’ xia de Xinjiang fazhan” [Xi Jinping reveals a
“comprehensive agenda” for Xinjiang’s development], Xinhua, Marzo 11, 2017, http://news
.xinhuanet.com/politics/2017–03/11/c_1120611290.htm.
23. James Leibold, “Xinjiang Work Forum Marks New Policy of ‘Ethnic Mingling,’” China Brief,
Vol. 14, No. 12 (Giugno 2014), https://jamestown.org/program/xinjiang-work-forum-marks-new-
policy-of-ethnic-mingling/; and Adrian Zenz and James Leibold, “Xinjiang’s Rapidly Evolving Se-
curity State,” China Brief, Vol. 17, No. 4 (Marzo 2017), https://jamestown.org/program/xinjiangs-
rapidly-evolving-security-state/.
24. Yang Jingjie, “Xinjiang to See ‘Major Strategy Shift,’” Global Times, Gennaio 9, 2014, http://
www.globaltimes.cn/content/836495.shtml#.UtS1ivaFZ0Q.
25. Work reports noted, Per esempio, the successful transformation-through-education of 3,087
“focal persons” (zhongdianren) in Turpan (out of a total of 3,152 O 0.7 percent of the city’s Uyghur
population) and approximately 2,400 out of 2,435 in Yining later that year (1.23 percent of the
Uyghur population). James Leibold, “The Spectre of Insecurity: The CCP’s Mass Internment Strat-
egy in Xinjiang,” China Leadership Monitor, Vol. 59 (Primavera 2019), https://www.prcleader.org/
leibold.
26. “Xinjiang Yiningxian yingzao ‘qujiduanhua’ xuanchuan jiaoyu wei meng shengshi” [Yining
County creates ‘deradicalization’ propaganda and education], Yaxinwang, Gennaio 14, 2015, http://
xj.people.com.cn/n/2015/0114/c188514-23545423.html.

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International Security 44:3 16

In December 2015, the PRC passed a new national counterterrorism law.27
XUAR authorities subsequently announced regional implementation regula-
tions that were substantially more stringent than the national legislation, E
they signiªcantly revised Xinjiang’s Religious Affairs Regulations.28 Chen
Quanguo, who assumed leadership of the XUAR in mid-2016, called social sta-
bility the CCP’s “primary objective” (yige mubiao).29 Domestic security spend-
ing increased almost exponentially—from 5.45 billion renminbi in 2007 A
57.95 billion renminbi in 2017, two to three times the national average.30 Police
recruitment also rose sharply: in a yearlong period in 2016–17, Xinjiang adver-
tised twelve times the number of security-related positions (90,000) available
In 2009, and security-sector employment growth outpaced the private sector.31
Authorities adopted grid-style social management, a technology-intensive ap-
proach to urban governance and “intelligence-led policing” employed in
China’s eastern cities since the mid-to-late 2000s, and established thousands of
“convenience police stations” to embed police ofªcers more deeply in local
communities.32 These tools formed the backbone of a surveillance state that
journalists describe as formidable in its intensity.33 Until late 2016, how-

Vedere

27. Ben Blanchard, “China Passes Controversial Counter-Terrorism Law,” Reuters, Dicembre 27,
2015, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-security-idUSKBN0UA07220151228.
an
unofªcial translation of the law at “Counter-Terrorism Law” (Nuovo paradiso, Conn.: China Law
Translate, Dicembre 27, 2015), https://www.chinalawtranslate.com/en/%e5%8f%8d%e6%81
%90%e6%80%96%e4%b8%bb%e4%b9%89%e6%b3%95-%ef%bc%882015%ef%bc%89/.
28. See an unofªcial translation at “Xinjiang Implementing Measures for the P.R.C. Counter-
Terrorism Law” (Nuovo paradiso, Conn.: China Law Translate, agosto 1, 2016), https://www
.chinalawtranslate.com/en/xjcounter-terror/.
29. “Xinjiang zhaokai wending gongzuo dianshi dianhua huiyi jinjin weirao shehui wending he
changzhijiu’an qianghua” [Xinjiang holds a televised conference on stability work: Tightly focus
on social stability and strengthening long-term peace], Zhongyang tongzhanbu, settembre 2, 2016,
http://www.zytzb.gov.cn/tzb2010/s1345/201609/0f55d4c3daa3412fb3c6c58843de5b65.shtml.
30. Adrian Zenz, “China’s Domestic Security Spending: An Analysis of Available Data,” China
Brief, Vol. 18, No. 4 (Marzo 2018), https://jamestown.org/program/chinas-domestic-security-
spending-analysis-available-data/; and Sheena Chestnut Greitens, “Rethinking China’s Coercive
Capacity: An Examination of PRC Domestic Security Spending, 1992–2012,” China Quarterly,
Vol. 232 (Dicembre 2017), pag. 1002–1025, doi.org/10.1017/S0305741017001023.
31. Most of the positions were contract based and outside the formal civil service, making them a
cheaper, faster, more ºexible way to augment the CCP’s coercive capacity in the region. Zenz and
Leibold, “Chen Quanguo.”
32. Sheena Chestnut Greitens, “Domestic Security in China under Xi Jinping,” China Leadership
Monitor, Vol. 59 (Primavera 2019), www.prcleader.org/greitens; and Chinese Academy of Social Sci-
enze, “Guonei shequ wanggehua guanli yanjiu zongshu” [Summary of research on internal com-
munity grid management], ottobre 28, 2013, http://www.cssn.cn/sf/bwsf_gl/201312/t20131205
_895684.shtml.
33. Media coverage on the surveillance is extensive. Vedere, Per esempio, Chris Buckley, Paul
Mozur, and Austin Ramzy, “How China Turned a City Into a Prison,” New York Times, April 4,
2019, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/04/world/asia/xinjiang-china-surveillance-
prison.html.

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Counterterrorism and Preventive Repression 17

ever, the CCP’s policy focused on building coercive capacity through techno-
logical and human surveillance; detention and re-education remained targeted
and selective.

In 2017–18, Tuttavia, the CCP took steps that differentiated its internal
security strategy in Xinjiang from both past approaches and other areas of
the country (including Han-majority areas and minority regions such as the
Tibetan Autonomous Region). The ªrst characteristic of the new strategy
that we seek to explain is a shift from individualized to collective repres-
sion. In February 2017, Chen Quanguo attended a Central National Security
Commission symposium in Beijing; shortly after, XUAR ofªcials held a series
of massive security rallies throughout the region, and its Justice Department
ordered the creation of “concentrated transformation-through-education” cen-
ters.34 In March, new regional “Regulations on De-extremiªcation” called for
transformation-through-education via both individual and centralized mea-
sures.35 Over the next few months, XUAR authorities began to apply involun-
tary detention and re-education on a mass scale; they also began to discuss a
re-education-based ªve-year strategy designed to produce “comprehensive
stability” (quanmian wending) in the region.36

These steps, in practice, meant the establishment of a wide-scale extra-
judicial detention and internment system, aimed at mass indoctrination and
political-ideological re-education. Human rights groups estimate that 30 per-
cent of southern Xinjiang’s Uyghur population has been detained for re-
formazione scolastica, as have smaller numbers of the region’s Kazakh and Kyrgyz
minorities.37 Although the exact scale of imprisonment is unknown, scholars
Adrian Zenz and Rian Thum arrive at ªgures of around 1.5 million people, be-

34. Leibold, “Spectre of Insecurity”; “Xi Jinping zhuchi zaokai guojia anquan gongzuo zuotanhui”
[Xi Jinping presides over a national security work symposium],” Xinhua, Febbraio 17, 2017, http://
www.xinhuanet.com/politics/2017–02/17/c_1120486809.htm; and “Xinjiang juxing fankong wei-
wen shishi dahui: Wang Ning, Chen Quanguo jianghua” [Xinjiang holds a counterterrorism and
stability meeting: Wang Ning, Chen Quanquo speak], Tianshanwang, Febbraio 28, 2017, https://
www.guancha.cn/local/2017_02_28_396305.shtml.
35. “Xinjiang Weiwu’er ziziqu qu jiduan hua tiaoli” [XUAR de-extremiªcation regulations]
(Xinjiang, China: Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region [XUAR] Government, Marzo 30, 2017),
http://www.xinjiang.gov.cn/2017/03/30/128831.htm. For an unofªcial translation, see “Xinjiang
Autonomous Region Regulations on De-Extremiªcation” (Nuovo paradiso, Conn.: China Law Trans-
late, Marzo 30, 2017).
36. Wang Mingshan, “Kaichuang weihu shehui wending he changzhijiu’an xin jumian” [Create a
new situation of social stability maintenance and long-term peace and stability], Renmin gong’an,
novembre 7, 2017, http://www.mps.gov.cn/n2255079/n5590589/n5822616/n5822768/c5860294/
content.html.
37. This estimate includes nonresidential re-education: 20 percent are in “noncustodial” classes,
E 10 percent are in a network of mass internment camps. See “China: Massive Numbers of
Uyghurs and Other Ethnic Minorities Forced into Re-education Programs,” Chinese Human

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International Security 44:3 18

tween 5 E 10 percent of China’s Uyghur population; NOI. government esti-
mates have ranged over time between 800,000 E 3 million.38 Formal arrests
in Xinjiang, which are separate from “transformation-through-education,” also
rose: In 2017, Xinjiang had 1.5 percent of the PRC’s population, Ma 21 per cento
of its recorded arrests.39 In a publicly released letter to U.S. Ambassador
to China Terry Branstad in early 2018, the bipartisan chairs of the U.S.
Congressional-Executive Commission on China referred to events in Xinjiang
as “the largest mass incarceration of an ethnic minority in the world today.”40
This broadening of repression shifted the CCP from selective repression (tar-
geting individuals because of what they do) toward collective repression
(targeting people because of “who they are, where they live, and to which
identity group they belong”).41

The second notable feature of the CCP’s approach to domestic security in
Xinjiang in 2017–18 is its emphasis on ideological and political re-education.
Consistent with revised regulations, re-education programs in Xinjiang are
heavily aimed at curtailing religious practice and bringing it under the party-
state’s discipline.42 Much of the curriculum in detention facilities is patriotic
education aimed at instilling ethnic unity and nationalist loyalty to the CCP,
accomplished by replacing Uyghur language with Mandarin Chinese (Quale
ofªcials call “the country’s common language”) and substituting secular cul-
tural habits for Muslim religious practice. Re-education also places a strong
emphasis on indoctrination against the “three evils,” since Chinese thinking

Rights Defenders, agosto 3, 2018, https://www.nchrd.org/2018/08/china-massive-numbers-of-
uyghurs-other-ethnic-minorities-forced-into-re-education-programs/.
38. Zenz argues that this total exceeds the size of the “reeducation through labor” system that
China formally abolished in 2013. Adrian Zenz, “‘Thoroughly Reforming Them To a Healthy
Heart Attitude’: China’s Political Re-education Campaign in Xinjiang,” Central Asian Survey,
Vol. 38, No. 1 (2019), pag. 102–128, doi.org/10.1080/02634937.2018.1507997; Testimony of Deputy
Assistant Secretary Scott Busby, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Subcommittee on East Asia,
the Paciªc, and International Cybersecurity Policy, 115th Cong. 2d sess., Dicembre 4, 2018, https://
www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/120418_Busby_Testimony.pdf.
39. Josh Rudolph, “Xinjiang Arrests Account for 21% of Total in China in 2017,” China Digital
Times,
Luglio 25, 2018, https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2018/07/xinjiang-arrests-account-for-21-of-
total-in-china-in-2017/.
40. “[CECC] Chairs Urge Ambassador Branstad to Prioritize Mass Detention of Uighurs, Includ-
ing Family Members of Radio Free Asia Employees” (Washington, D.C.: Congressional-Executive
Commission on China, April 3, 2018), https://www.cecc.gov/media-center/press-releases/chairs-
urge-ambassador-branstad-to-prioritize-mass-detention-of-uyghurs.
41. Some authors call this “indiscriminate” repression. Evgeny Finkel, “The Phoenix Effect of
State Repression: Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust,” American Political Science Review,
Vol. 109, No. 2 (May 2015), pag. 339–353, doi.org/10.1017/S000305541500009X; and Matthew Adam
Kocher, Thomas B. Pepinsky, and Stathis N. Kalyvas, “Aerial Bombing and Counterinsurgency in
Vietnam,” American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 55, No. 2 (April 2011), pag. 201–218, doi.org/
10.1111/j.1540-5907.2010.00498.x.
42. On the CCP’s approach to religion generally, see Karrie J. Koesel, Religion and Authoritarianism:
Cooperation, Conºict, and the Consequences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).

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Counterterrorism and Preventive Repression 19

generally treats them as interrelated: religious extremism is the root cause of
both separatist inclinations and terrorist tactics.43 One CCP ofªcial in Ili, UN
Kazakh autonomous prefecture in Xinjiang, characterized re-education’s pur-
pose as “eliminat[ing] the hidden dangers affecting stability in society [A] put
people whom we do not trust into a trusted place . . . to make them into people
who are politically qualiªed.”44

The third element of the CCP’s strategic shift is a campaign to clamp down
on the movement of China’s Uyghur citizens, both domestically and interna-
tionally, and to pressure the Uyghur diaspora and its transnational social
and mobilizational networks.45 In 2016, XUAR authorities required residents
to turn in their passports to the police and apply to get them back.46 Reli-
gious regulations require citizens to conduct pilgrimages through the state-
organized China Islamic Association;
In 2018, travellers to Mecca began
carrying smart cards embedded with their personal data and a GPS locator.47
Foreign connections are increasingly scrutinized; individuals who “maintain
ties” with any of twenty-six countries (such as visiting, having family, or com-
municating frequently with individuals abroad) are ºagged for scrutiny; inter-
views with former detainees suggest that simply having friends or neighbors
who go abroad was enough to target someone for detention and re-education,
especially in places where quotas were imposed on local authorities.48

CCP ofªcials have also placed pressure on Uyghurs studying or working
abroad to return to China—and on various governments to return them, invol-
untarily if necessary49—and have required Uyghur expatriates to provide de-

43. See transcript of an interview with XUAR Governor Shohrat Zakir, “Full Transcript: Interview
with Xinjiang Government Chief on Counterterrorism, Vocational Education, and Training in
Xinjiang,” Xinhua, ottobre 16, 2018, http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/16/c_1375
35821.htm; Zunyou Zhou, “‘Fighting Terrorism According to Law’: China’s Legal Efforts against
Terrorism,” in Clarke, Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism in China, P. 75; and Fu Hualing, “Responses
to Terrorism in China,” in Victor V. Ramraj et al., eds., Global Anti-Terrorism Law and Policy, 2nd ed.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), pag. 344–345.
44. Maya Wang, “‘Eradicating Ideological Viruses’: China’s Campaign of Repression against
Xinjiang’s Muslims” (New York: Human Rights Watch [HRW], settembre 9, 2018), P. 35.
45. The PRC has always applied controls to internal and international travel, but these controls
have intensiªed in both number and usage.
46. Edward Wong, “Police Conªscate Passports in Parts of Xinjiang, in Western China,” New
York Times, Dicembre 1, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/01/world/asia/passports-
conªscated-xinjiang-china-uighur.html.
47. Eva Dou, “Chinese Surveillance Expands to Muslims Making Mecca Pilgrimage,” Wall Street
Journal, Luglio 31, 2018, https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-surveillance-expands-to-muslims-
making-mecca-pilgrimage-1533045703; and Rian Thum, “The Ethnicization of Discontent in
Xinjiang,” China Beat, ottobre 2, 2009.
48. Wang, “‘Eradicating Ideological Viruses,’” p. 32.
49. Martin de Bourmont, “China’s Campaign against the Uighur Diaspora Ramps Up,” Foreign
Policy, April 3, 2018, https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/04/03/chinas-campaign-against-uighur-
diaspora-ramps-up/; and Shohret Hoshur, Gulchehra Hoja, and Eset Sulaiman, “Uyghurs

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International Security 44:3 20

tailed personal information on those who remain abroad.50 A 2017 report by
the Uyghur Human Rights Project describes attempted recruitment of infor-
mants among the diaspora by threatening family members who remain in
China; efforts to monitor email/phone communications; and efforts to exert
pressure via student organizations.51 The objectives appear to be multipur-
pose: to persuade citizens to return to China for re-education; to create mis-
trust among diaspora members and thereby limit collective mobilization; E
to discourage Uyghurs from making appeals for host-country support or
engaging in public advocacy.52 The PRC has also convinced ofªcials in the
Middle East and Southeast Asia to repatriate Uyghurs who sought asylum or
were transiting (most often to Turkey); Per esempio, the repatriation of more
di 100 Uyghurs from Thailand in 2015 drew attention among activists and
media outlets and caused protests in Turkey after photos surfaced of detainees
on a plane with black hoods over their heads.53

CCP ofªcials are sometimes described as replicating their treatment of Tibet
in Xinjiang, but close analysis of the two regions shows signiªcant differences.
Both underwent a clear tightening of political control and overall securitiza-
tion following unrest in 2008–09, and both saw major increases in security
spending and police recruitment, with central authorities’ ªnancial support.54
Tibet did lead Xinjiang in some areas of domestic security innovation: its pub-
lic security expenditure began to rise before 2008–09, while Xinjiang’s lagged
behind by several years.55 The Tibetan Autonomous Region implemented con-
venience police stations and grid management in 2011, several years before

Studying Abroad Ordered Back to Xinjiang Under Threat to Families,” Radio Free Asia, May 9,
2019, https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/ordered-05092017155554.html.
50. Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, “Chinese Cops Now Spying on American Soil,” Daily Beast, Au-
gust 18, 2018, https://www.thedailybeast.com/chinese-police-are-spying-on-uighurson-american-
soil.
51. Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP), “The Fifth Poison: The Harassment of Uyghurs Over-
seas” (Washington, D.C.: UHRP, 2017), https://uhrp.org/docs/The-Fifth-Poison-The-Harrassment-
of-Uyghurs-Overseas.pdf. See also Wang, “‘Eradicating Ideological Viruses,’” pp. 83–93.
52. This also suggests that not all diaspora members are targeted, because they themselves are
seen as potential terrorists. Megha Rajagopalan, “They Thought They’d Left the Surveillance State
Behind. They Were Wrong,” Buzzfeed, Luglio 9, 2018, https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/
meghara/china-uighur-spies-surveillance.
53. “Turkish Police Hit Pro-Uighur Protestors with Pepper Spray,” BBC News, Luglio 9, 2015, https://
www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-33457401; and “China Is Trying to Prevent the Formation of a
Vocal Uighur Diaspora,” Economist, Marzo 28, 2018, https://www.economist.com/china/2018/
03/28/china-is-trying-to-prevent-the-formation-of-a-vocal-uighur-diaspora.
54. Greitens, “Rethinking China’s Coercive Capacity.”
55. Police recruitment in the Tibetan Autonomous Region increased from 260 advertised positions
In 2007 (the year before the unrest) to an average of 866 in 2008–09, to almost 2,500 positions per
year in the 2011–16 period. Zenz and Leibold, “Chen Quanguo.”

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Counterterrorism and Preventive Repression 21

Xinjiang. Other policy changes, such as the embedding of party cadres in local
communities and small-scale re-education, appear to have been implemented
in both regions around the same time.56 Tibetan areas, Tuttavia, do not seem to
have experienced the dramatic expansion of detention and re-education that
marked the 2017–18 policy turn in Xinjiang.

We therefore characterize the shift in China’s repressive strategy since early
2017 as one that moved from selective to collective repression and targeted an
increasingly broad swath of Xinjiang’s Muslim population for detention; In-
vested heavily not just in punitive detention, but in mass ideological and polit-
ical re-education; and increased surveillance and coercion toward Uyghur
diaspora networks. Although elements of these policies were present in lim-
ited fashion previously, early 2017 marks a qualitative shift in the scale and in-
tensity of their application to Xinjiang’s population.

Several aspects of China’s shift in Xinjiang are puzzling given contemporary
theories on political violence. Indiscriminate violence is often thought to occur
because the information needed to engage in discriminate violence is costly;57
yet the CCP is pursuing collective repression after implementing a resource-
intensive, surveillance-based system that should provide the regime with high
informational capacity. Visible, broad-scale repression is often thought to be
more costly and less preferable, because it risks domestic and international
backlash;58 yet, as we show below, the CCP escalated precisely when public se-
curity authorities were saying that the existing strategy had been relatively
successful. Che cosa, Poi, explains this shift in repressive strategy by the PRC?

56. Beginning in 2011, the CCP sent an estimated 22,000 “village-resident cadre teams” (zhucun
gongzuodui) to reside in Tibetan villages, E 7,000 temple-resident cadres (zhusi) were stationed in
monasteries throughout the TAR and Tibetan areas of Sichuan. Reports emerged in 2012 of a chain
of unmarked detention centers aimed at the estimated 6,000 A 7,000 Tibetans who had attended
teachings by the Dalai Lama. “China: New Controls on Tibetan Monastery” (New York: HRW, Jan-
uary 24, 2018), https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/01/24/china-new-controls-tibetan-monastery;
“22,000 Chinese Cadres to Breathe Down on Rural Tibetans’ Necks in Sixth Year of Sur-
veillance Campaign,” Tibetan Review, Dicembre 3, 2016, http://www.tibetanreview.net/22000-
chinese-cadres-to-breathe-down-on-rural-tibetans-necks-in-sixth-year-of-surveillance-campaign/;
and “China: No End to Tibet Surveillance Program” (New York: HRW, Gennaio 18, 2016), https://
www.hrw.org/news/2016/01/18/china-no-end-tibet-surveillance-program.
57. Stathis N. Kalyvas, “The Paradox of Terrorism in Civil War,” Journal of Ethics, Vol. 8, No. 1
(Marzo 2004), pag. 97–137, doi.org/10.1023/B:JOET.0000012254.69088.41; Stathis N. Kalyvas, IL
Logic of Violence in Civil War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); and Eli Berman, Jo-
seph H. Felter, and Jacob N. Shapiro, Small Wars, Big Data: The Information Revolution in Modern
Conºict (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2018).
58. Minxin Pei, “China and East Asian Democracy: Is CCP Rule Fragile or Resilient?"Giornale di
Democracy, Vol. 23, No. 1 (Gennaio 2012), pag. 27–41, doi.org/10.1353/jod.2012.0008; Kocher,
Pepinksy, and Kalyvas, “Aerial Bombing and Counterinsurgency in Vietnam,” p. 426; E
Greitens, Dictators and Their Secret Police, pag. 42–45. See also, by way of comparison, Lyall, “Does
Indiscriminate Violence Incite Insurgent Attacks?"

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International Security 44:3 22

Assessing Common Explanations for Repression in Xinjiang

Three common explanations for increased repression in Xinjiang appear in
scholarly literature and policy analysis: (1) increased levels of contention
in Xinjiang beginning around 2009; (2) resulting shifts in the CCP’s ethnic mi-
nority policies; E (3) the individual leadership of Xinjiang Party Secretary
Chen Quanguo. These domestic factors are important but incomplete comple-
ments to our international, security-focused argument.

increased contention in xinjiang

It seems intuitive that increased dissent can result in increased state repres-
sion. Infatti, the idea that as observable threats from society rise, repression
rises to subdue them has been termed the “law of coercive responsive-
ness” or “threat-response theory.”59 It suggests a positive correlation between
contention/threat and repression; applied to China and Xinjiang, it implies
that increased repression has occurred in response to the increased contention
in the region that began in 2008–09.60

In the spring of 2008, PRC authorities announced that they had prevented a
suicide bombing by a Uyghur woman; attacks on police in Kashgar, a city in
the XUAR, followed later that year. In July 2009, violent clashes between
Uyghurs and Han and an ensuing police crackdown in Urumqi killed an esti-
mated 200 people and injured 1,700. Other terrorist incidents or clashes be-
tween police and protestors, each resulting in fatalities, occurred in Xinjiang
throughout 2010–14. In later incidents, contention and violence spread beyond
XUAR borders, and violence targeted Han civilians as well as security forces.
In October 2013, a car driven by a Uyghur man ploughed into a stone pedestal
in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, killing two tourists and the four people in the
car, and injuring another twenty bystanders. In March 2014, eight people at-

59. Christian Davenport, “State Repression and Political Order,” Annual Review of Political Science,
Vol. 10 (2007), pag. 1–23, doi.org/10.1146/annurev.polisci.10.101405.143216; Jennifer Earl, Sarah A.
Soule, and John D. McCarthy, “Protest Under Fire? Explaining the Policing of Protest,” American
Sociological Review, Vol. 68, No. 4 (agosto 2003), pag. 581–606, doi.org/10.2307/1519740; Sabine C.
Carey, “The Use of Repression as a Response to Domestic Dissent,” Political Studies, Vol. 58, No. 1
(Febbraio 2010), pag. 167–186, doi.org/10.1111%2Fj.1467-9248.2008.00771.x; Will H. Moore, "IL
Repression of Dissent: A Substitution Model of Government Coercion,” Journal of Conºict Resolu-
zione, Vol. 44, No. 1 (Febbraio 2000), pag. 107–127, doi.org/10.1177%2F0022002700044001006; E
Christian Davenport, “Multi-Dimensional Threat Perception and State Repression: An Inquiry
into Why States Apply Negative Sanctions,” American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 39, No. 3 (Au-
gust 1995), pag. 683–713, doi.org/10.2307/2111650.
60. Ben Hillman and Gray Tuttle, eds., Ethnic Conºict and Protest in Tibet and Xinjiang: Unrest in
China’s West (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016), pag. 1–17. Much of the following para-
graph draws on their account.

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Counterterrorism and Preventive Repression 23

tacked the railway station in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province, con
knives and machetes, killing 29 and injuring 143. Media accounts commonly
situate stories about CCP repression in the context of Uyghur-related conten-
tion since 2009.

Patterns of contention do appear to explain Xinjiang’s overall securitization
since 2009. If coercive capacity is deªned as a regime’s ability to handle
whatever security challenges are present on the ground,61 then the XUAR
authorities in 2009 fell short. That year, Xinjiang’s level of domestic security
expenditure was around the national average, but only because of higher-
than-average assistance from the central government. Police presence per ca-
pita was also comparatively low. When unrest broke out, approximately
14,000 paramilitary personnel (People’s Armed Police and Special Police
Units) had to be ºown in from thirty-one provinces to assist Xinjiang-based
forces with stabilization operations.62 Subsequently, regional leaders focused
on building up coercive capacity—but did so primarily by applying tools that
had already been implemented in other, wealthier (Han-majority) provinces.
In addition to grid management, Per esempio, ofªcials began in 2012 to apply
the “one village one policeman” standard used in eastern China from the early
2000S; it assigned one trained policeman, assisted by several staff, to their
home village, to take advantage of their familiarity with local social net-
works and issues.63 The CCP’s response to contention in Xinjiang, in other
parole, was undeniably to build police presence and coercive capacity, Ma
this was done in an attempt both to catch up with the challenges in Xinjiang
and to bring Xinjiang up to a level comparable to much of the rest of China.
Rising contention is, Tuttavia, an incomplete explanation for the speciªc
changes in CCP strategy that occurred in early 2017. Primo, the timing of
the change in repressive strategy is somewhat puzzling. Contention in
Xinjiang was high throughout 2009–14, but by 2015–16, the CCP judged that its
coercive buildup had been relatively successful in quelling terrorist attacks.64
At a 2015 work conference on terrorism, Per esempio, the head of the Central
Political-Legal Affairs Commission (China’s top domestic security body),

61. Greitens, “Rethinking China’s Coercive Capacity.”
62. Xiao Qiang, “Map of People’s Armed Police Troops Dispatched to Xinjiang,” China Digital
Times, Luglio 10, 2009, https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2009/07/map-of-peoples-armed-police-troops-
dispatched-to-xinjiang/.
63. Zi Yang, “Rural China’s Public Security Vacuum,” China Brief, Vol. 15, No. 17 (settembre
2015), https://jamestown.org/program/rural-chinas-public-security-vacuum/.
64. Cai Changchun, “Meng Jianzhu: Ba fan kongbu gongzuo fang zai gengjia tuchu weizhi”
[Meng Jianzhu: Focus on counterterrorism activities], China News, Dicembre 11, 2015, http://
www.chinanews.com/gn/2015/12-11/7667800.shtml.

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International Security 44:3 24

Meng Jianzhu, said that authorities had prevented 98 percent of terrorist at-
tacks.65 The pattern of publicly documented violence also suggests that the
CCP’s approach had reduced (though not eradicated) Uyghur-related violence
by 2016–17.66 This gap in timing, Poi, suggests a need for additional explana-
tory factors.

The data also present three other puzzles. Primo, both Tibet and Xinjiang ex-
perienced unusually high levels of unrest and mobilization in 2008–09.67 Both
also subsequently experienced securitization (increased security spending and
police presence). Only Xinjiang, Tuttavia, experienced a dramatic escalation in
the scope and intensity of detention and re-education.68 Second, contention
does not explain why the CCP decided to pursue mass re-education, UN
resource-intensive strategy (in terms of both physical infrastructure and per-
sonnel) compared to simple detention. Third, domestic contention alone does
not shed much light on why Uyghur diaspora networks have been so heavily
pressured, especially relative to the diasporas of other minority groups
in China.

assimilationist minority policies

A second explanation for the CCP’s increasing repression in Xinjiang situates
its approach in the context of China’s broader ethnic-minority policies. These
arguments suggest that the 2007–14 period of unrest and violence in Tibet and
Xinjiang emboldened assimilationist voices and prompted a shift in the PRC’s
approach to minority issues, reducing space for ethnic autonomy and pushing
for assimilation and Sinicization. These efforts aligned with Xi’s broader ideo-
logical reorientation toward CCP-led nationalism, which has reduced space for

65. Yao Tong and Sui Yunyan, “Xinjiang fankong biaozhang ji dong’yuan bushu hui’yi zhokai
Zhang Chunxian, Meng Jianzhu chuxi bing jianghua” [Zhang Chunxian and Meng Jianzhu speak
at the XUAR counterterrorism meeting], CPC News, Dicembre 13, 2015, http://cpc.people.com.cn/
n1/2015/1213/c64094-27922213.html.
66. Hillman and Tuttle, Ethnic Conºict and Protest in Tibet and Xinjiang, pag. 1–17.
67. Protests erupted across the Tibetan plateau in March 2008, consuming not just the Tibetan
Autonomous Region but also Tibetan areas of Sichuan, Qinghai, and Gansu Provinces. That vio-
lence resulted in the deaths of an estimated 200 Tibetans, ten times as many arrests, and a
string of subsequent suicides by self-immolation that led to more than 150 deaths by March
2018. “Self-Immolations by Tibetans” (Washington, D.C.: International Campaign for Tibet, last
updated December 27, 2017), https://www.savetibet.org/resources/fact-sheets/self-immolations-
by-tibetans/map-tibetan-self-immolations-from-2009-2013/; and Antonio Terrone, “Suicide Pro-
testors in Eastern Tibet: The Shifting Story of a People’s Tragedy,” Asia-Paciªc Memo No. 302
(Vancouver, Canada: Institute of Asian Research, Giugno 6, 2014), https://apm.iar.ubc.ca/suicide-
protesters-eastern-tibet/.
68. The explanation may be, in parte, that Xinjiang’s contention was more violent; we address this
point in our explanation on how China frames terrorism threats.

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Counterterrorism and Preventive Repression 25

religious life and civil-society activity across China.69 Although these argu-
ments are speciªc to China, they parallel broader scholarly work that ªnds a
correlation between increased ethnonationalism and minority repression,
heightening their plausibility.70

Like securitization, China’s shifts in minority policy had roots in the 2008–09
unrest. Inspection teams sent to Tibet after 2008 produced a work report that,
In 2011, offered a revised interpretation of China’s ethnic challenges. It pro-
posed that fundamental contradictions (“vestiges of feudalism”) remained
in Tibetan mentality; re-education was necessary to resolve these contradic-
tions.71 Ofªcial speeches and party documents on Xinjiang ran in close parallel
with this interpretation; In 2011, CCP rhetoric began to emphasize “new condi-
tions” that called for revised approaches to ethnic unrest and conºict.72

Around that time, scholars with strong ofªcial ties (and sometimes formal
party or government positions)—such as Ma Rong, Hu Angang, and Hu
Lianhe—began to call for a “second-generation minority policy” that would
weaken recognition and acceptance of distinctive ethnic identity in favor of a
stronger national identity developed through party-led patriotism and inter-
ethnic “contact, exchange, and fusion.”73 Because they de-emphasized tradi-

69. Anna Fiªeld, “With Wider Crackdowns on Religion, Xi’s China Seeks to Put State Stamp on
Faith,” Washington Post, settembre 16, 2018; Leibold, “The Spectre of Insecurity”; Mark Elliott,
“The Case of the Missing Indigene: Debate over a ‘Second-Generation’ Ethnic Policy,” China Jour-
nal, Vol. 73 (Gennaio 2015), pag. 186–213; and James A. Millward, “Introduction: Does the 2009
Urumchi Violence Mark a Turning Point?” Central Asian Survey, Vol. 28, No. 4 (Dicembre
2009), pag. 347–360, doi.org/10.1080/02634930903577128.
70. Emir Yazici, “Nationalism and Human Rights,” Political Research Quarterly, Vol. 72, No. 1
(Marzo 2019), pag. 147–161, doi.org/10.1177%2F1065912918781187; Oktay Tanrisever, “Russian Na-
tionalism and Moscow’s Violations of Human Rights in the Second Chechen War,” Human Rights
Review, Vol. 2, No. 3 (April 2001), pag. 117–127, doi.org/10.1007/BF02912020; and Thomas W.
Smith, “Civic Nationalism and Ethnocultural Justice in Turkey,” Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 27,
No. 2 (May 2005), pag. 436–470, doi.org/10.1353/hrq.2005.0027.
71. See comments made online by Tibet scholar Robert Barnett (@RobbieBarnett), Twitter, agosto
6, 2018, 2:57 p.m., https://twitter.com/RobbieBarnett/status/1026588170056622080.
72. Documents continued to state that “the Party’s strategy on Xinjiang has been proven correct,"
but the introduction of “new conditions” was an important shift. See the discussion of XUAR
Party Secretary Zhang Chunxian’s 2011 speech in Antonio Terrone, “Propaganda in the Public
Square: Communicating State Directives on Religion and Ethnicity to Uyghurs and Tibetans in
Western China,” in Hillman and Tuttle, Ethnic Conºict and Protest in Tibet and Xinjiang, P. 49; E
Leibold, “Xinjiang Work Forum Marks New Policy of ‘Ethnic Mingling.’”
73. James Leibold, “Toward a Second Generation of Ethnic Policies?” China Brief, Vol. 12, No. 3
(Luglio 2014), https://jamestown.org/program/toward-a-second-generation-of-ethnic-policies/; Mamma
Rong, “21 shiji de Zhongguo shifou cunzai guojia fenlie de fengxian?" [Is there a risk that China
could fracture in the 21st century?], Aishixiang, Marzo 26, 2013, http://www.aisixiang.com/data/
62466.html; Hu Angang and Hu Lianhe, “Dierdai Minzu zhengce: Cuijin Minzu jiaorong yiti he
fanrong” [Second-generation Minzu policies: Promoting organic ethnic blending and prosperity],
Xinjiang Shifan Daxue Xuebao (Zhexue Shehui Kexue Bao), Vol. 32, No. 5 (2011), pag. 1–13.

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International Security 44:3 26

tional notions of ethnic autonomy, these proposals received pushback from
within China’s ethnic establishment.74 However, UN 2012 speech by Zhu
Weiqun, director of the party’s United Front Work Department (UFWD) and a
leading voice on ethnic policy, adopted parts of the proposed wording.75 The
2014 Central Work Forum on Xinjiang called for “inter-ethnic mingling”
(among other things) to combat the “three evil forces,” signaling approval of
this policy line by Xi and the CCP leadership.76 In August 2018, Hu Lianhe,
one of the concept’s intellectual pioneers, appeared in his UFWD capacity at
the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination to answer
questions about discrimination, indicating the extent to which this new think-
ing had been integrated into the party-state’s ethnic affairs apparatus.77

Changes to the CCP’s thinking about minority policy have clearly shaped its
behavior in both Tibet and Xinjiang.78 In particular, unless the CCP had (infor-
mally) revised the commitment to autonomy that has long governed its man-
agement of ethnic difference, it is hard to imagine large-scale adoption of
re-education programs that seek to overwrite ethnic and cultural autonomy (In
this case, Uyghur/Turkic language and culture) with Mandarin Chinese and
pro-CCP patriotism. Shifting minority policy, Poi, appears to be an underly-
ing permissive condition that helps explain some facets of China’s approach.

Again, Tuttavia, important speciªc aspects of the strategy shift in Xinjiang
bear further explanation. Ethnic assimilationist policies have been in ascen-

74. Liu Ling, “Jianchi jiben zhengzhi zhidu—zai fazhan zhong jieyue minzu wenti” [Persist with
the fundamental political system; resolve ethnic issues via development] (Beijing: Institute of Eth-
nology and Anthropology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 2012).
75. Zhu Weiqun, “Dui dangqian minzu lingyu wenti de jidian sikao” [Some thoughts on issues of
contemporary ethnic problems], Xuexi Shibao, Febbraio 13, 2012.
76. Leibold, “Xinjiang Work Forum Marks New Policy of ‘Ethnic Mingling.’”
77. James Leibold, “Hu the Uniter: Hu Lianhe and the Radical Turn in China’s Xinjiang Policy,"
China Brief, Vol. 18, No. 16 (ottobre 2018), https://jamestown.org/program/hu-the-uniter-hu-
lianhe-and-the-radical-turn-in-chinas-xinjiang-policy. For Hu’s prepared statement, see James
Leibold (@jleibold), “Hu Lianhe’s Statement before CERB, Aug 2018,” Twitter, agosto 29, 2018,
https://twitter.com/i/moments/1034983653267230720.
78. This is also not new; the CCP’s framing of minorities in Xinjiang as “backwards” led to partic-
ular developmental approaches to ethnic policy in the past, whereas Uyghurs have been associ-
ated with violence and instability since at least the early 2000s. Li Dezhu, “Vigorously Developing
Ethnic Minority Culture—Actively Promoting the Building of a Harmonious Society,” Seeking
Truth, Vol. 446 (Gennaio 2007), http://www.qstheory.cn/zxdk/2007/200701/200907/t20090707
_6289.htm; V. Elena Barabantseva, “Development as Localization: Ethnic Minorities in China’s
Ofªcial Discourse on the Western Development Project,” Critical Asian Studies, Vol. 41, No. 2
(2009), pag. 225–254, doi.org/10.1080/14672710902809393; Sean R. Roberts, “The Biopolitics of
China’s ‘War on Terror’ and the Exclusion of the Uyghurs,” Critical Asian Studies, Vol. 50, No. 2
(2018), pag. 232–258, doi.org/10.1080/14672715.2018.1454111; and David Brophy, “Good and Bad
Muslims in Xinjiang,” Made in China, April/June 2019, https://madeinchinajournal.com/2019/07/
09/good-and-bad-muslims-in-xinjiang/.

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Counterterrorism and Preventive Repression 27

dance since 2009 and were publicly approved by CCP leaders for Xinjiang in
2014; yet detention and re-education did not expand until almost three years
Dopo. Inoltre, this underlying shift applies to all ªfty-ªve of China’s ethnic
minorities; yet only Muslim minorities in Xinjiang (mostly Uyghurs, but also
Kazakh and Kyrgyz) have been subjected to mass detention, intensive indoc-
trination, and diasporic coercion.79 The timing of the strategy change and rela-
tively unique treatment of Xinjiang’s Muslims, Perciò, suggest a role for
other explanations.

the leadership explanation: chen quanguo

The third factor in CCP policy toward Xinjiang emphasized by scholars is the
role of Chen Quanguo, who became party secretary in Tibet in mid-2011 and
party secretary in Xinjiang in 2016 (the only ofªcial to have held that title in
both regions). Chen replaced Zhang Chunxian, a protégé of purged internal se-
curity chief Zhou Yongkang (Meng Jianzhu’s predecessor) who was Xinjiang’s
party secretary from 2010–16.80 Chen’s work in Tibet was praised as a national
model in 2015 by Meng Jianzhu; in the fall of 2017, Chen was promoted to the
twenty-ªve-person Politburo.81 He has been characterized as a “rising [politi-
cal] star” with “a reputation as an ethnic policy innovator” and “a pioneer
of aggressive policing techniques.”82 His role is, according to James Leibold,
“the leading theory at present” for China’s crackdown,83 and his assumption
of leadership in 2016 coincides with the early 2017 shift in strategy.

Adjudicating the importance of Chen’s personal leadership to CCP policy in
Xinjiang confronts a fundamental empirical challenge: ultimately, we do not
have the information necessary to pinpoint the locus of decisionmaking, IL
set of policy options considered, the process by which the decision was made,
or the underlying motivations of the actors whose preferences were decisive.
We cannot know for sure whether Chen is a policy entrepreneur, an imple-

79. Enze Han, “From Domestic to International: The Politics of Ethnic Identity in Xinjiang and In-
ner Mongolia,” Nationalities Papers, Vol. 39, No. 6 (novembre 2011), pag. 941–962, doi.org/10.1080/
00905992.2011.614226.
80. Before Zhang, Wang Lequan served as party secretary for ªfteen years, from 1994 A 2010.
81. “Xizang shehui wending gongzuo zou zai quanguo qianlie” [Tibet’s social stability work is at
the forefront of the whole country], Xizang Ribao [Tibet Daily], Luglio 25, 2015, http://theory.peo-
ple.com.cn/n/2015/0725/c49150-27360149.html.
82. Zenz and Leibold, “Chen Quanguo”; Chun Han Wong, “China’s Hard Edge: The Leader of
Beijing’s Muslim Crackdown Gains Inºuence," Giornale di Wall Street, April 7, 2019; and Peter
Martin, “The Architect of China’s Muslim Camps Is a Rising Star under Xi,” Bloomberg News, Sep-
tember 27, 2018, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-27/the-architect-of-china-s-
muslim-camps-is-a-rising-star-under-xi.
83. See comments made online by James Leibold (@jleibold), Twitter, settembre 9, 2018, 5:36 p.m.,
https://twitter.com/jleibold/status/1038949240695750656.

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International Security 44:3 28

inºuence, Tuttavia,

menter of central policy, or something in between. Placing too heavy an em-
is inconsistent with the
phasis on Chen’s personal
(limited) data available about the PRC’s policy process. Primo, although cover-
age of Xinjiang commonly characterizes Chen as “replicating” his Tibet strat-
egy in Xinjiang, the CCP has treated the two regions differently: the scale of
intensity of re-education, and clampdown on the
detention in Xinjiang,
Uyghur diaspora appear to be qualitatively more than what occurred in Tibet,
under Chen or afterward. Secondo, explanations emphasizing Chen’s entrepre-
neurship often overlook the fact that he observed certain governance tech-
niques in eastern China before he brought them to Tibet and Xinjiang. Third,
both historical evidence about the importance of party unity in enabling major
changes to CCP strategy and the high level of consistency between Chen’s pol-
icies and those supported by Xi and other CCP leaders in the recently leaked
documents suggest that the CCP is likely uniªed in its implementation of
Xinjiang’s new domestic security strategy, and that the motivating force of the
shift lies beyond Chen’s individual preferences or leadership.84

The Changing Threat: Uyghurs and Transnational Terrorism

The above explanations, all grounded in domestic political developments in
China, are important contributing factors to CCP policy toward Xinjiang. As
we show below, Tuttavia, full understanding of the CCP’s changing strategy
in Xinjiang requires attention to international developments that affected
China’s perceptions of its own security. A factor that has received com-
the evolving internal-
paratively little attention—China’s perceptions of
external security environment and counterterrorism threat—can explain im-
portant aspects of the CCP’s domestic security strategy in Xinjiang since 2017.

This section provides evidence that the CCP’s shift in repressive strategy in
Xinjiang was motivated by fear of emerging contacts between Uyghurs and
Islamic militant organizations in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. In cont-
trast to domestic contention, which peaked in 2009–11, the threat of Uyghur
alignment with external jihadist groups coalesced in 2014–16, making it a
likely factor in precipitating policy shifts in early 2017. This increase in exter-
nal terror threat also applies primarily to Xinjiang—less to Tibet or any other

84. Ramzy and Buckley, “’Absolutely No Mercy.’” Although it is accurate that different levels of
the party-state system may have different motivations or priorities, our view on strategy in
Xinjiang is consistent with that of M. Taylor Fravel, who ªnds that shifts in external military strat-
egy occur only when the party is united. Fravel, Active Defense: China’s Military Strategy since 1949
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2019).

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Counterterrorism and Preventive Repression 29

ethnic minority population—which helps explain why China’s response to
Xinjiang has differed from other minority regions.

The argument that follows does not suggest that the developments de-
scribed pose a serious threat to the CCP at present. Even the most generous
estimates of Uyghur militant capability, discussed below, do not imply that in-
surgency is either present or imminent. Piuttosto, in the last several years,
the threat shifted from theoretical to operational, and precipitated action
by the CCP to ensure that it would not escalate beyond a low level—hence the
term “preventive repression.”

The CCP has always blamed ethnic unrest in China’s western regions at
least partly on foreign inªltration, typically a handful of “separatists” or
“splittists” who were usually upper-class intelligentsia with Western connec-
tions.85 This framing was especially notable in the 1990s, as newly independ-
ent Central Asian states prompted heightened CCP vigilance against ethnic
separatism.86 The separatism narrative exists today: when Uyghur scholar
Ilham Tohti was sentenced to life imprisonment on grounds of separatism for
questioning CCP policy toward the Uyghurs, state media described his “close
links” to the West, then suggested that he had promoted ethnic violence and
provided a “moral excuse” for and the “brains behind” terrorism.87 In the
main, Tuttavia, China’s concerns since the end of the Cold War have typically
been focused on Uyghur diasporas in Central Asia, especially Kazakhstan and
Kyrgyzstan, and their potential contribution to separatist sentiment
In
Xinjiang. PRC authorities attributed intermittent violence in the XUAR in the
1990s to “pan-Turkic splittists” in Central Asia, but these groups’ operational
links to events in China were murky at best. Diasporic activism was generally
nonviolent, and the PRC found it relatively easy to pursue counterterrorism
security cooperation with its neighbors in the region, who were usually secular
and somewhat authoritarian.88

85. David Shambaugh, China’s Communist Party: Atrophy and Adaptation (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2008); Zhou Minglang, “The Fate of the Soviet Model of Multinational State-
Building in the People’s Republic of China,” in Thomas P. Bernstein and Hua-yu Li, eds., China
Learns from the Soviet Union, 1949–Present (Lanham, Md.: Lexington, 2010), pag. 477–504.
86. Nicolas Becquelin, “Staged Development in Xinjiang,” China Quarterly, Vol. 178 (Giugno 2004),
doi.org/10.1017/S0305741004000219.
87. “Leave No Chance for Malicious Preaching,” Global Times, Gennaio 18, 2014, http://www
.globaltimes.cn/content/838112.shtml; originally cited in Michael Clarke, “Ilham Tohti’s Arrest
Demonstrates China’s Renewed Hard Line on Xinjiang,” Interpreter, Gennaio 24, 2014, https://
www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/ilham-tohtis-arrest-demonstrates-chinas-renewed-hard-
line-xinjiang. For similar rhetoric about Tibet, see Yeshi Dorje, “The Self-Immolation Plot: IL
Dalai Clique Is Doomed to Failure,” China’s Tibet, Vol. 24, pag. 22–25.
88. Michael Clarke and Colin Mackerras, eds., China, Xinjiang, and Central Asia: History, Transition,
and Cross-Border Interaction into the 20th Century (London: Routledge, 2009), especially pp. 117–121;

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International Security 44:3 30

China’s rhetoric about Central Asia’s Uyghur diaspora began to shift during
the “war on terror” that followed the attacks of September 11, 2001. Invece di
emphasizing pan-Turkic separatism, the CCP drew connections between
Uyghur organizations and jihadist groups, especially those in Afghanistan and
Pakistan. In 2002, the PRC attributed responsibility for past attacks in Xinjiang
to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a previously unknown orga-
nization that it claimed was funded and supported by al-Qaida.89 In 2003, IL
PRC Ministry of Public Security issued a list of terrorist organizations; all were
Uyghur diaspora organizations, and many were Europe-based nongovern-
mental advocacy organizations that prominent terrorism experts said were in-
correctly labeled.90 ETIM and its successor organization, the Turkestan Islamic
Party (TIP), which emerged sometime between 2006 E 2008, operated ªrst in
Afghanistan and then in the Afghanistan-Pakistan tribal areas.

The capabilities of both groups, and their actual connection to terrorist inci-
dents in Xinjiang, are debated; Western scholars are largely skeptical. Sean
Roberts, Per esempio, argues that before 2001, “ETIM was not an active mili-
tant organization which had the capacity to carry out attacks. Piuttosto, it was at
least initially created as a training organization that could give aspiring
Uyghur militants experience with weapons . . . mostly informal, highly disor-
ganized, and deprived of both weapons and ªnancial resources.” He describes
being told by interviewees that a “training camp” in Jalalabad, Afghanistan,
had access to a single automatic riºe; one of the group’s leaders admitted that
none of the Uyghurs who had come to the camp had carried out attacks in
China.91 Similarly, despite glossy recruitment videos that attempt to portray a
well-organized militant organization, Roberts ªnds little evidence that TIP in
Pakistan post-2003 “was capable of carrying out either militant or terrorist at-
tacks” or that any signiªcant number of Uyghurs from China joined the orga-
nization. Only in 2014 did TIP videos surface showing Uyghurs who had
recently arrived in Afghanistan.92 Thus, until 2014, CCP perceptions and

and Stephen Aris, “The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation: ‘Tackling the Three Evils.’ A Regional
Response to Non-traditional Security Challenges or an Anti-Western Bloc?” Europe-Asia Studies,
Vol. 61, No. 3 (May 2009), pag. 4457–4482, doi.org/10.1080/09668130902753309.
89. PRC State Council Information Ofªce, “‘East Turkistan’ Terrorist Forces Cannot Get Away
with Impunity” (Beijing: China Internet Information Center, Gennaio 21, 2002), http://www
.china.org.cn/english/2002/Jan/25582.htm.
90. Clarke, Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism in China, P. 25 N. 42.
91. Roberts, “The Narrative of Uyghur Terrorism and the Self-Fulªlling Prophecy of Uyghur Mili-
tancy,” pp. 113–115; and David S. Cloud and Ian Johnson, “In Post-9/11 World, Chinese Dissidents
Pose U.S. Dilemma," Giornale di Wall Street, agosto 3, 2004, https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1091
49176842581209.
92. See Roberts, “The Narrative of Uyghur Terrorism and the Self-Fulªlling Prophecy of Uyghur

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Counterterrorism and Preventive Repression 31

fears of the links among Uyghurs in China, the Uyghur diaspora, and jihad-
ist militant groups remained a theoretical possibility rather than an opera-
tional reality.93

In 2014, Tuttavia, developments in Southeast Asia and the Middle East
began to change these perceptions. Uyghurs had sought to enter or transit
Southeast Asia from 2009 onward, but mid-2014 marked the ªrst reports of ac-
tual contact between Uyghurs and jihadist militant groups in the region. In
Giugno 2014, ªve Uyghurs were arrested in the Philippines after meeting with
members of the Abu Sayyaf Group and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom
Fighters;94 nel mese di settembre, four were arrested in Indonesia attempting to train
with Islamic State–afªliated militant group the Mujahideen Indonesia Timur.95
PRC authorities saw these contacts in light of the recent expansion of Uyghur-
involved attacks beyond the XUAR: the Tiananmen car attack, violence at
Urumqi’s rail station, and the March 2014 knife attack in Kunming (Quale
China blamed on militants attempting to ºee to Southeast Asia).96 Inoltre,
Xi’s new “comprehensive national security” framework, proposed in 2014, ex-
plicitly warned of the need to be on guard for these types of interlocking
(external-internal) security threats.97 On the heels of these domestic develop-
menti, the CCP now observed the ªrst known cases of Uyghur militants con-
necting with jihadist groups in Southeast Asia.

These linkages accumulated in 2015 E 2016. In August 2015, an attack on
Thailand’s Erawan Shrine, thought to be in retaliation for Bangkok repatriat-
ing Uyghurs to China, resulted in twenty deaths.98 Uyghurs were shot and ar-
rested in Indonesia in November and December 2015; the December incident
involved someone training to be a suicide bomber.99 Some Uyghurs were

Militancy,” pp. 117–118. See also a video online at the Internet Archive, https://archive.org/
details/jennet_ashikliri_10.
93. Raffaello Pantucci, “Uyghur Terrorism in a Fractured Middle East,” in Clarke, Terrorism and
Counter-Terrorism in China, P. 162.
94. Rommel C. Banlaoi, “Uyghur Militants in Southeast Asia: Should PH Be Worried?” Rappler,
Gennaio 7, 2016, https://www.rappler.com/thought-leaders/118137-uyghur-militants-southeast-
asia-philippines.
95. Richard C. Paddock and Ben Otto, “Indonesia: Detainees Likely Uighurs Who Planned to
Meet with Militant," Giornale di Wall Street, settembre 15, 2014, https://www.wsj.com/articles/
indonesia-says-detainees-are-likely-uighurs-who-sought-meeting-with-militant-1410810096.
96. Jeremy Page and Emre Peker, “As Muslim Uighurs Flee, China Sees Jihad Risk," Parete
Giornale di strada, Febbraio 1, 2015, https://www.wsj.com/articles/as-muslim-uighurs-ºee-china-
sees-jihad-risk-1422666280.
97. See “Safeguard National Security and Social Stability,” in Xi Jinping, The Governance of China
(Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 2014), P. 234.
98. “Bangkok Bomb: Thai Court Charges Two over Erawan Blast,” BBC News, novembre 24, 2015,
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-34907670.
99. Wahyudi Soeriaatmadja, “Nabbed Indonesian Militants ‘Groomed Suicide Bombers,’” Straits

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International Security 44:3 32

killed ªghting with the Mujahideen Indonesia Timur in March/April 2016,
and others were arrested elsewhere in Indonesia in February 2017.100 In
short, over the course of 2014–16, the CCP observed growing involve-
ment by Uyghurs in radical Islamist militant groups in Southeast Asia, COME
well as expressions of sympathy for the Uyghur cause from some of those
groups.101 At the foreign policy level, the Chinese government responded by
pressing for extradition of arrestees and other Uyghur asylum seekers, E
by increasing intelligence-sharing and law enforcement cooperation in the re-
gion.102 Internally, Meng Jianzhu warned the domestic security apparatus that
global terrorist activity was intensifying, implying a corresponding need for
domestic vigilance.103

During a similar period, mounting evidence of Uyghur participation in mili-
tant groups in Syria heightened China’s concern. The CCP saw developments
in Southeast Asia and the Middle East as connected; a PRC vice minister of
public security told Malaysia’s foreign minister in 2015 that PRC citizens
ªghting with Islamic State had transited through Malaysia.104 In 2015, TIP
began to post videos of Uyghurs ªghting in northern Syria; by mid-2016,
media outlets reported that a group formerly composed of a few hundred
people had swelled to thousands of ªghters operating in cooperation with
al-Qaida-afªliated Jabhat al-Nusra (Jabhat Fatah al-Sham).105 Di conseguenza,

Times, Dicembre 25, 2015, https://www.straitstimes.com/world/nabbed-indonesian-militants-
groomed-suicide-bombers; and Yenni Kwok, “Is There a Uighur Terrorist Buildup Taking Place in
Southeast Asia?” Time, Dicembre 28, 2015, http://time.com/4161906/uighur-terrorism-indonesia-
thailand-islam-isis/.
100. Ruslan Sangadji, “Uighur Militants Inªltrating Indonesia,” Jakarta Post, Marzo 18, 2016, https://
www.thejakartapost.com/news/2016/03/18/uighur-militants-inªltrating-indonesia.html;
E
Zachary Abuza, “The Uighurs and China’s Regional Counter-Terrorism Efforts,” China Brief,
Vol. 15, No. 16 (agosto 2017), https://jamestown.org/program/the-uighurs-and-chinas-regional-
counter-terrorism-efforts/.
101. Stephanie Kam Li Yee, “Uyghur Cross-Border Movement into Southeast Asia,” in Clarke, Ter-
rorism and Counter-Terrorism in China, pag. 173–185; and Banlaoi, “Uyghur Militants in Southeast
Asia.”
102. Abuza, “The Uighurs and China’s Regional Counter-Terrorism Efforts”; and Mathieu
Duchâtel, “China’s Foreign Fighters Problem,” War on the Rocks blog, Gennaio 25, 2019, https://
warontherocks.com/2019/01/chinas-foreign-ªghters-problem/.
103. Around the same period, the CCP was emphasizing its success in limiting attacks within the
XUAR. Cai, “Meng Jianzhu.”
104. Page and Peker, “As Muslim Uighurs Flee, China Sees Jihad Risk.”
105. Mohanad Hage Ali, “China’s Proxy War in Syria: Revealing the Role of Uighur Fighters,” Al-
Arabiya, Marzo 2, 2016, https://english.alarabiya.net/en/perspective/analysis/2016/03/02/
China-s-proxy-war-in-Syria-Revealing-the-role-of-Uighur-ªghters-.html; Jacob Zenn, “Al-Qaeda-
Aligned Central Asian Militants in Syria Separate from Islamic State-Aligned IMU in Afghani-
stan,” Terrorism Monitor, Vol. 13, No. 11 (May 2015), https://jamestown.org/program/al-qaeda-
aligned-central-asian-militants-in-syria-separate-from-islamic-state-aligned-imu-in-afghanistan/;
and Caleb Weiss, “Turkistan Islamic Party Had Signiªcant Role in Recent Idlib Offensive,” Long

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Counterterrorism and Preventive Repression 33

Roberts notes, the Syria-based “TIP today reºects an active Uyghur mili-
tant movement, the likes of which has not existed since the establishment of
the PRC.”106

Inoltre, members of that movement have emphasized a long-term plan to
ªght in Xinjiang. While some Uyghur militants have indicated that they might
settle in Syria, others have explicitly said that they seek to take their combat
experience back to China. One stated, “My goal was to return to China with
knowledge of how to wage war; I came not to stay in Istanbul, not to stay in
Syria, but to learn weaponry and return to ªght for Eastern Turkistan.”107 TIP
videos praised the attacks in Beijing in October 2013 and Urumqi in April 2014
as a sign of Uyghur willingness to take up arms against the CCP (though it is
unclear that the group actually bears responsibility for executing the inci-
dents).108 TIP leader Abdul Haq al-Turkistani said in 2016, “The soldiers of
Islam must be willing to return to China to emancipate the Western prov-
ince of Xinjiang from the communist invaders.”109 Developments in Syria,
Perciò, represented not just a newly active Uyghur militant movement,
but one that encouraged and praised attacks in the Chinese homeland,
one that expressed an intent to return and ªght there, and one for which
global jihadist networks, previously unconcerned with China, expressed in-
creasing support.110

TIP’s afªliation with al-Qaida is also not the only concern that the CCP has
about Uyghur involvement in jihadist militancy in the Middle East. Nel
summer of 2017, reports surfaced of a new group, Katibat al Ghuraba al
Turkistan, operating in northern Syria alongside other al-Qaida-afªliated

War Journal, April 30, 2015, https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2015/04/turkistan-
islamic-party-had-signiªcant-role-recent-idlib-offensive.php.
106. Roberts, “The Narrative of Uyghur Terrorism and the Self-Fulªlling Prophecy of Uyghur Mil-
itancy,” p. 124.
107. Xinjiang is also known as East Turkestan, particularly among those who want it to exist as an
independent state. Quoted in ibid., P. 122. See also similar comments by Turkestan Islamic Party
ofªcial Ibrahim Mansour that the group ªghts in Syria both to help Syrian brethren and to gain ex-
perience to ªght in Xinjiang. Weiss, “Turkistan Islamic Party Had Signiªcant Role in Recent Idlib
Offensive.”
108. Raffaello Pantucci, “Tiananmen Attack: Islamist Terror or Chinese Protest?” China Brief,
Vol. 14, No. 1 (Gennaio 2014), https://jamestown.org/program/tiananmen-attack-islamist-terror-
or-chinese-protest/; and “Militant Islamist Group Says Deadly Xinjiang Bomb Attack ‘Good
News,’” Radio Free Asia, May 15, 2014, https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/attack-
05152014171933.html.
109. Uran Botobekov, “China’s Nightmare: Xinjiang’s Jihadists Go Global,” Diplomat, agosto 17,
2016, https://thediplomat.com/2016/08/chinas-nightmare-xinjiang-jihadists-go-global/.
110. Brian Fishman, “Al-Qaeda and the Rise of China: Jihadi Geopolitics in a Post-Hegemonic
World,” Washington Quarterly, Vol. 34, No. 3 (Estate 2011), pag. 47–62, doi.org/10.1080/0163660X
.2011.588091.

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International Security 44:3 34

groups; its relationship to TIP is unclear, but it claims to be made up primarily
of Uyghurs, and has focused some messaging on China and Xinjiang.111
Smaller numbers of Uyghurs are also said to be ªghting alongside Islamic
State, which has been less hesitant than al-Qaida about its desire to target
China, and which has incorporated Xinjiang into its transnational jihadist ide-
ology. In July 2014, Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi listed China ªrst
in his litany of places where “Muslims’ rights are forcibly seized,” and ex-
horted his followers to take up arms on behalf of their brethren around the
world and “take revenge.”112 In late 2015, Islamic State killed Chinese hostage
Fan Jinghui, sparking strong statements from ofªcials and netizens in China.113
Presto 2017, a purported Islamic State video referred to “evil Chinese com-
munist lackeys” and promised, “in retaliation for the tears that ºow from the
eyes of the oppressed, we will make your blood ºow in rivers.”114 Ofªcials
have expressed concern that the number of PRC nationals joining Islamic State
could increase, as the organization has shown an ability to recruit non-Uyghur
Muslims from China; analyst Mordechai Chaziza deems China “one of the top
recruitment pools for [both Islamic State] and al-Qaeda.”115

Estimates on how many Uyghurs have traveled to the Middle East to ªght
vary. A Chinese-language journal article by public security researchers referred
A 300 East Turkestan separatists ªghting with Islamic State speciªcally;
similar ªgures have appeared in Chinese media.116 Western analysts have ex-
pressed skepticism at these numbers, but a 2016 analysis of Islamic State ªles
found a record of 114 Chinese Uyghurs joining the organization between mid-

111. Caleb Weiss, “New Uighur Jihadist Group Emerges in Syria,” Long War Journal, Gennaio 18,
2018, https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2018/01/new-uighur-jihadist-group-emerges-in-
syria.php.
112. Alexa Olesen, “China Sees Islamic State Inching Closer to Home,” Foreign Policy, agosto 11,
2014, https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/08/11/china-sees-islamic-state-inching-closer-to-home/. For
a copy of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s comments, see https://scholarship.tricolib.brynmawr.edu/
bitstream/handle/10066/14241/ABB20140701.pdf.
113. These included one from Xi Jinping. See Yuwen Wu, “IS Killing of Chinese Hostage: A Game
Changer?” BBC News, novembre 19, 2015, https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-3486
5696.
114. Michael Martina and Ben Blanchard, “Uighur IS Fighters Vow Blood Will ‘Flow in Rivers’ in
China,” Reuters, Marzo 1, 2017, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-china/
uighur-is-ªghters-vow-blood-will-ºow-in-rivers-in-china-idUSKBN16848H.
115. Mordechai Chaziza, “China’s Counter-Terrorism Policy in the Middle East,” in Clarke, Terror-
ism and Counter-Terrorism in China, P. 141.
116. Li Benxian, Mei Jianming and Ling Yunxiang, “The Establishment of the National Security
Council-Led China Anti-Terrorism Mechanism,” Guoji Zhanwan [Global Review], Autumn 2015,
pag. 70–84; and Michael Martina, “About 300 Chinese Said Fighting Alongside Islamic State in
Middle East,” Reuters, Dicembre 15, 2014, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-
china-idUSKBN0JT0UX20141215.

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Counterterrorism and Preventive Repression 35

2013 and mid-2014.117 Moreover, the majority of Uyghurs, including those with
TIP, ªght not with Islamic State but as part of the al-Nusra front.118 In March
2017, Israeli intelligence estimated that there were 3,000 Uyghur ªghters;119 In
May, Syria’s ambassador to China, Imad Moustapha, placed this ªgure at
5,000—not including accompanying family members, who could bring the to-
tal to three or four times that many.120 The Chinese special envoy for Syria, Xie
Xiaoyan, said in August 2018 that there is no accurate ªgure, but conceded that
areas in Syria and Iraq have “rather a concentration of ETIM terrorists.”121

These developments pose several threats to Chinese security interests. IL
most obvious is the potential for Uyghur militants to return and launch new
attacks or otherwise escalate violence in Xinjiang. As early as 2012, PRC Maj.
Gen. Jin Yinan warned that TIP could take advantage of the conºict in Syria to
gain experience and reinvigorate the group’s proªle; In 2014, PRC Special
Envoy Wu Sike warned that “after being immersed in extremist ideas, Quando
they return to their home country [foreign ªghters] will pose a severe chal-
lenge and security risk to those countries.”122 Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan also
have citizens ªghting with some of the same groups in the Middle East, mean-
ing that Uyghurs do not have to return to PRC territory to pose a threat; sim-
ply returning to Central Asia heightens the risk of cross-border collaboration
that could diffuse conºict into Xinjiang and provide terrorist networks with a

117. For a skeptical analysis, see Andrew Mumford, “Theory-Testing Uyghur Terrorism in China,"
Perspectives on Terrorism, Vol. 12, No. 5 (ottobre 2018), pag. 18–26; Justine Drennan, “Is
China Making Its Own Terrorism Problem Worse?” Foreign Policy, Febbraio 9, 2015, https://
foreignpolicy.com/2015/02/09/is-china-making-its-own-terrorism-problem-worse-uighurs-is-
lamic-state/; and Nate Rosenblatt, “All Jihad Is Local: What ISIS’ Files Tell Us about Its Fighters”
(Washington, D.C.: New America, Luglio 2016).
118. Gerry Shih, “China’s Uighurs Grapple with Pull of Extremism,” Associated Press, Decem-
ber 28, 2017, https://apnews.com/360a77319815495a842befe1fcd7f5c9.
119. Itamar Eichner, “Israeli Report: Thousands of Chinese Jihadists Are Fighting in Syria,” Ynet
News, Marzo 27, 2017, https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4941411,00.html.
120. Ben Blanchard, “Syria Says up to 5,000 Chinese Uighurs Fighting in Militant Groups,"
Reuters, May 11, 2017, https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-mideast-crisis-syria-china/syria-
says-up-to-5000-chinese-uighurs-ªghting-in-militant-groups-idUSKBN1840UP. See also Colin P.
Clarke and Paul Rexton Kan, “Uighur Foreign Fighters: An Underexamined Jihadist Challenge,"
ICCT Policy Brief (L'Aia: International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, novembre 2017),
https://icct.nl/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/ClarkeKan-Uighur-Foreign-Fighters-An-
Underexamined-Jihadist-Challenge-Nov-2017-1.pdf.
121. Ben Blanchard, “China Envoy Says No Accurate Figure on Uighurs Fighting in Syria,"
Reuters, agosto 19, 2018, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-china/china-
envoy-says-no-accurate-ªgure-on-uighurs-ªghting-in-syria-idUSKCN1L508G.
122. Teddy Ng, “Xinjiang Militants Being Trained in Syria and Iraq, Says Special Chinese Envoy,"
South China Morning Post, Luglio 29, 2014, https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1561136/
china-says-xinjiang-extremists-may-be-ªghting-middle-east; and “Mei xiang tuifan Bashaer
zhengquan” [Jin Yinan: America wants to overthrow Bashar’s regime], CNR, novembre 1, 2012,
http://mil.cnr.cn/jmhdd/gfsk/wgf/201211/t20121101_511278541.html.

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International Security 44:3 36

support base in neighboring countries. The experiences that Uyghurs gain
alongside militants in Southeast Asia and the Middle East could also create
more deadly tactical innovations, such as increased use of suicide bombing.123
Xi Jinping referenced these concerns in internal speeches, saying, “After the
United States pulls troops out of Afghanistan, terrorist organizations posi-
tioned on the frontiers of Afghanistan and Pakistan may quickly inªltrate
into Central Asia . . . East Turkestan’s terrorists who have received real-war
training in Syria and Afghanistan could at any time launch terrorist attacks
in Xinjiang.”124

The second security threat is to Chinese personnel, facilities, and interests
overseas. Uyghur involvement with transnational jihadist militancy is not a
threat simply because people could return to ªght in Xinjiang or conduct at-
tacks inside China; China increasingly projects itself into other countries
around the world in ways that signiªcantly increase the country’s attack sur-
face. Forty PRC nationals were killed in eighteen terrorist incidents world-
wide from 2004 A 2016; Chinese scholars who study terrorism found nearly
4,000 Chinese companies operating in the “arc of instability” from Central Asia
to the Middle East and North Africa—areas that the PRC perceives as espe-
cially vulnerable to terrorism and militancy, but that are also key to advancing
PRC economic goals, such as Xi’s signature Belt and Road Initiative.125 Thus,
China’s expanding overseas activities and population provide a longer list of
potential targets and more ways for militant groups to hold Chinese interests
at risk in the future. The August 2016 car suicide bombing of the PRC embassy
in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, reportedly undertaken by Uyghurs who had connec-
tions to TIP in Syria, exempliªes this risk.126

123. Terrone, “Propaganda in the Public Square,” p. 47; and Tschantret, “Repression, Opportunity,
and Innovation.”
124. Ramzy and Buckley, “’Absolutely No Mercy.’”
125. The Belt and Road Initiative is a global geopolitical strategy centered around Chinese invest-
ment and infrastructure development. Li, Mei, and Ling, “The Establishment of the National Secu-
rity Council-Led China Anti-Terrorism Mechanism”; Liu Qingtian and Fang Jincheng, “The New
Development of Terrorism and Its Inºuence on China,” Guoji wenti yanjiu [Journal of International
Studi], Autumn 2015; and Mathieu Duchâtel, “Terror Overseas: Understanding China’s
Evolving Counter-Terrorism Strategy,” ECFR Policy Brief (London: European Council on Foreign
Relations, ottobre 2016).
126. Catherine Putz, “3 Convicted for Chinese Embassy Attack in Bishkek,” Diplomat, Giugno 30,
2017, https://thediplomat.com/2017/06/3-convicted-for-chinese-embassy-attack-in-bishkek/. IL
Islamic State also claimed responsibility for kidnapping and killing two Chinese citizens in south-
western Pakistan in May/June 2017, though there is no evidence to date that Uyghurs were in-
volved in this incident. Salman Masood, “Chinese Couple Abducted in Pakistan Have Been Killed,
Ofªcials Say,” New York Times, Giugno 12, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/12/world/
asia/pakistan-chinese-couple-killed.html.

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Counterterrorism and Preventive Repression 37

In short, in 2014–16, coalescence of operational ties between Uyghurs and
jihadist groups in Southeast Asia and the Middle East produced what one ex-
pert called “the most signiªcant set of shifts in China’s external terrorist threat
environment since 9/11.”127 These developments occurred just as Xi’s national
security strategy directed the CCP to pay special attention to the interrelation-
ship between external and internal security, and when his Belt and Road Initia-
tive elevated the importance of stability in China’s western regions, making
Xinjiang critical for achieving not just the CCP’s domestic stability objectives,
but foreign policy priorities.128

Not surprisingly, Poi, these developments prompted changes in China’s for-
eign policy and security behavior abroad. The PRC increased counterterrorism-
focused law enforcement cooperation; passed a counterterrorism law authoriz-
ing the People’s Liberation Army to conduct missions abroad; and increased
security cooperation in the Middle East and North Africa, from counter-
terrorism drills with Saudi Arabia in late 2016 to senior Chinese military visits
to Syria in summer 2018.129 Given that the security threat that China perceived
was as much internal as external, Tuttavia, the CCP also pursued major
changes to domestic security strategy in Xinjiang. The following section ex-
plores how threat perceptions produced the internal security strategy de-
scribed above.

Domestic Vulnerability and Repressive Strategy

The CCP’s shifting perceptions of threat from Uyghur participation in jihadist
organizations abroad during 2014–16 led to an inºection point in the regime’s
domestic security strategy in Xinjiang in early 2017. Scholarly work indicates
that international developments as well as domestic threats can threaten au-

127. Andrew Small, “China and Counter-Terrorism: Beyond Pakistan?” in Clarke, Terrorism and
Counter-Terrorism in China, P. 130.
128. Faisal Kidwai, “Xinjiang Rides High on Belt and Road Initiative,” ChinaDaily, agosto 8, 2018,
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201808/08/WS5b6a649ba310add14f384a0c.html; and Yong Wang,
“Offensive for Defensive: The Belt and Road Initiative and China’s New Grand Strategy,” Paciªc
Review, Vol. 29, No. 3 (Luglio 2016), pag. 455–463, doi.org/10.1080/09512748.2016.1154690.
129. “China Steps Up ‘Military Cooperation’ with Assad as Top Admiral Visits Damascus,” Tele-
graph, agosto 18, 2018, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/08/18/china-steps-up-military-
cooperation-with-assad-as-top-admiral-vi/; and Michael Martina, “China Holds First Anti-Terror
Drills with Saudi Arabia,” Reuters, ottobre 27, 2016, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-
saudi-security/china-holds-ªrst-anti-terror-drills-with-saudi-arabia-idUSKCN12R0FD. See also
Zhao Jun and Hu Yu, “On China’s New Era Anti-Terrorism Governance in the Middle East,"
Yonsei Journal of International Studies, Vol. 4 (2013), pag. 57–68; and Michael Clarke, “The Impact of
Ethnic Minorities on China’s Foreign Policy: The Case of Xinjiang and the Uyghur,” China Report,
Vol. 53, No. 1 (Febbraio 2017), pag. 1–25, doi.org/10.1177/0009445516677361.

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International Security 44:3 38

thoritarian rule at home—and the CCP, in particular, tends to treat external
and internal security threats as interrelated and to be suspicious of external ac-
tors’ intent to destabilize China.130 We argue that the CCP escalated repression
in speciªc ways in early 2017 as a preventive attempt to stop the transmission
of perceived security threats across state borders into China. Leaders in Beijing
and Urumqi concluded that a broad swath of Xinjiang’s Muslim population
was more vulnerable to jihadist inªltration than previously understood—
E, beginning in the spring of 2017, they pursued new internal security strat-
egies in an attempt to prevent that possibility from materializing inside
China’s borders.

The new repressive strategy launched in 2017–18 sought to address this
risk in several ways. Targeting diaspora networks aimed to cut off a likely vec-
tor by which terrorist threats could reenter China, while detention and re-
education sought to inoculate the population from infection. The strategy shift,
Perciò, was a type of “diffusion-prooªng” against a speciªc threat—jihadist
terrorism—by both cutting off extremism at its supposed entry point and si-
multaneously immunizing the population against those ideas taking root.131 In
that sense, it was a form of preventive repression that targeted dissent at even
earlier stages than many forms of preemptive repression studied by scholars—
seeking to keep contention from emerging altogether, rather than trying to re-
spond after it has materialized.132

130. There is a vast literature on the international diffusion of authoritarian breakdown. For a
summary, see Edward Goldring and Sheena Chestnut Greitens, “Rethinking Democratic Diffu-
sion: Bringing Regime Type Back In,” Comparative Political Studies, published ahead of print,
Giugno 16, 2019, doi.org/10.1177%2F0010414019852701. See also Sulmaan Wasif Khan, Haunted by
Chaos: China’s Grand Strategy from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping (Cambridge, Massa.: Harvard University
Press, 2018); M.E. Sarotte, “China’s Fear of Contagion: Tiananmen Square and the Power of the Eu-
ropean Example,” International Security, Vol. 37, No. 2 (Autunno 2012), pag. 156–182, doi.org/10.1162/
ISEC_a_00101; and Michael Clarke, “China’s ‘War on Terrorism’: Confronting the Dilemmas of the
‘Internal-External’ Security Nexus,” in Clarke, Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism in China, pag. 17–38.
More generally, see Stephen R. David, “Explaining Third World Alignment,” World Politics, Vol. 43,
No. 2 (Gennaio 1991), pag. 233–256, doi.org/10.2307/2010472; Kurt Dassel and Eric Reinhardt, “Do-
mestic Strife and the Initiation of Violence at Home and Abroad,” American Journal of Political Sci-
ence, Vol. 43, No. 1 (Gennaio 1999), pag. 56–85, doi.org/10.2307/2991785; and Johan Eriksson and
Mark Rhinard, “The Internal-External Security Nexus: Notes on an Emerging Research Agenda,"
Cooperation and Conºict, Vol. 44, No. 3 (settembre 2009), pag. 243–267, doi.org/10.1177 %2F0010836
709106215.
131. Karrie J. Koesel and Valerie J. Bunce, “Diffusion-Prooªng: Russian and Chinese Responses to
Waves of Popular Mobilizations against Authoritarian Rulers,” Perspectives on Politics, Vol. 11,
No. 3 (settembre 2013), pag. 753–768, doi.org/10.1017/S1537592713002107.
132. Some of this literature conºates preventive and preemptive repression. Emily Hencken Ritter
and Courtenay R. Conrad, “Preventing and Responding to Dissent: The Observational Challenges
of Explaining Strategic Repression,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 110, No. 1 (Febbraio
2016), pag. 85–99, doi.org/10.1017/S0003055415000623; Greitens, Dictators and Their Secret Police;
Rory Truex, “Focal Points, Dissident Calendars, and Preemptive Repression,” Journal of Conºict
Resolution, Vol. 63, No. 4 (April 2018), doi.org/10.1177%2F0022002718770520; and Ragnhild

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Counterterrorism and Preventive Repression 39

international

A wide range of ofªcial statements, speeches, and documents—including
the recently leaked speech from Xi Jinping quoted above—reveal the CCP’s
growing concern that
terrorist networks might penetrate
Xinjiang and inºame violence.133 Chinese-language scholarship emphasizes
the potential for Uyghurs’ transnational ties to provide ideological and mate-
rial support, radicalize the population, and increase its capacity for violence.134
UN 2013 news story on one incident reported, “Rioters had internalized reli-
gious extremism spread by foreigners . . . [and were] deluded by overseas ter-
rorist organizations who incited them to action”; it pointed particularly to
extremist videos accessed via the internet and cited “collusion between hostile
forces at home and abroad.” It also quoted a military researcher, saying that
the “three evil forces” (terrorism, separatism, and extremism) were boosted
“because some countries offered consent and support religious extremist
forces.”135 In 2014, Special Envoy Wu Sike referred to China as a victim of ter-
ror that had its roots in the Middle East,136 and in 2017, CCP ofªcials in both
Xinjiang and Ningxia (the autonomous region of the Muslim Hui people)
warned of the risk of religious extremism and jihadism inªltrating the popula-
tions of their respective provinces.137 A China Daily editorial written after the
2017 Islamic State video that promised to make “blood ºow in rivers” in China
stated, “The video lends further credence to . . . the oft-ignored assertions of
links between domestic and foreign terrorist elements.”138 Chinese sources
often express concern that Xinjiang will become “China’s Libya” or “China’s
Syria,” a metaphor meant to suggest that Islamic militancy and terrorism
could plunge the country into instability, even civil conºict.139

Nordås and Christian Davenport, “Fight the Youth: Youth Bulges and State Repression,” American
Journal of Political Science, Vol. 57, No. 4 (ottobre 2013), pag. 926–940, doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12025.
133. Ramzy and Buckley, “’Absolutely No Mercy.’”
134. Zhang Xiuming, Xinjiang fan fenlie douzheng he wending gongzuo de shijian yu sikao [Analysis of
counter-separatist struggle and stability work in Xinjiang] (Urumqi: Xinjiang Renmin Chubanshe,
2009); and Jeffrey Reeves, “Ideas and Inºuence: Scholarship as a Harbinger of Counterterrorism
Istituzioni, Policies, and Laws in the People’s Republic of China,” Terrorism and Political Violence,
Vol. 28, No. 5 (2016), pag. 827–847, doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2014.955915.
135. Xinhua, “Investigations Reveal Details of Xinjiang Terror Attack,” China Daily, Luglio 6, 2013,
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2013-07/06/content_16741513.htm.
136. Bai Tiantian, “China at Risk from Syria Spillover,” Global Times, Luglio 29, 2014, http://www
.globaltimes.cn/content/873090.shtml.
137. Gerry Shih, “Chinese Ofªcials Express Jitters over Jihad Threat,” Times of Israel, Marzo 13,
2017, https://www.timesoªsrael.com/chinese-ofªcials-express-jitters-over-jihadi-threat/; and Philip
Wen, “Fellow Uighurs Should Beware of ‘Two-Faced’ People in Separatism Fight, Ofªcial Says,"
Reuters, April 10, 2017, https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2017-04-10/fellow-
uighurs-should-beware-of-two-faced-people-in-separatism-ªght-ofªcial-says.
138. Martina and Blanchard, “Uighur IS Fighters Vow Blood Will ‘Flow in Rivers’ in China.”
139. “Protecting Peace, Stability Is Top of Human Rights Agenda for Xinjiang,” Global Times, Au-
gust 18, 2018, http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1115022.shtml.

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International Security 44:3 40

Rhetoric from China’s top security ofªcials has consistently focused on dis-
rupting connections between international and domestic actors to prevent ter-
rorist attacks. Meng Jianzhu, PRC minister of public security (2007–12) E
head of the Central Political-Legal Affairs Commission (2012–17), character-
ized the 2009 violence in Urumqi as the work of domestic and international
separatists and terrorists, framing the threat as a transnational one.140 In 2013,
Meng began to call for increased preventive counterterrorism work, in keeping
with broader shifts toward preventive social management under Xi’s leader-
ship.141 In a 2015 meeting of the Central Political-Legal Affairs Commission
and the National Counterterrorism Leading Small Group, he emphasized the
international roots of terrorist violence in China, and proposed increased bor-
der security to prevent terrorists from entering China from abroad, as well as
proposing that the CCP intensify its management of religious affairs to prevent
religious extremism from taking root.142

Chen Quanguo provided an encapsulation of CCP thinking in 2017, Quando
he outlined six principles for ªghting terrorism in Xinjiang.143 His remarks
characterized prevention as central; he speciªed that this included preventing
both “returns from abroad” and “weapons inºows.” Chen further highlighted
the need to prevent collaboration between international and domestic terror-
ist (and between domestic terrorists across regions), both in person and on-

140. Over time, Meng used the term “separatist” less and “terrorist” more. “Zhongguo gong’anbu
buzhang Meng Jianzhu dao Wulumuqi weiwen gong’an tejing” [China’s Minister of Public Secu-
rity Meng Jianzhu visits Urumqi to encourage public security special forces], China News, Luglio 8,
2009, http://news.china.com.cn/txt/2009-07/08/content_18096000.htm; “Meng Jianzhu qianfa
weiwenxin weiwen zai Xinjiang weiwen yixian de gong’an minjing” [Meng Jianzhu sends a letter
to the XUAR police to encourage them] (Beijing: Central People’s Government of the People’s Re-
public of China, Febbraio 3, 2010), http://www.gov.cn/ldhd/2010-02/03/content_1527048.htm;
and “Meng Jianzhu zai Wushi chuxi Xinjiang wujing budui fankong weiwen shishi dahui” [Meng
Jianzhu participates in the armed police rally for counter-terrorism and social stability] (Beijing:
Central People’s Government of the People’s Republic of China, Giugno 30, 2013), http://www.gov
.cn/gzdt/2013-06/30/content_2437296.htm.
141. Diana Fu and Gred Distelhorst, “Grassroots Participation and Repression under Hu Jintao
and Xi Jinping,” China Journal, Vol. 79 (Gennaio 2018), pag. 111–113, doi.org/10.1086/694299; “Meng
Jianzhu zai Wushi chuxi Xinjiang wujing budui
fankong weiwen shishi dahui”; E
“Meng Jianzhu, Guo Shengkun zai Xinjiang jiancha zhidao fankong weiwen gongzuo” [Meng
Jianzhu and Guo Shengkun direct counter-terrorism and stability activities in XUAR] (Beijing:
Central People’s Government of the People’s Republic of China, Luglio 1, 2013), http://www.gov.cn/
ldhd/2013-07/01/content_2437549.htm.
142. Note that the CCP’s conception of “extremism” includes aspects of Islamic religious practice
that are not linked directly to violence. Cai, “Meng Jianzhu.”
143. “Xinjiang Weiwu’er zizhiqu dangwei changwei (kuoda) huiyi chuanda xuexi Meng Jianzhu
zai Xinjiang diaoyan shi de jianghua jingshen—Chen Quanguo Zhuchi” [The Xinjiang Autono-
mous Region’s Party Standing Committee (enlarged) conference carried forward the study of the
spirit of Meng Jianzhu’s speech during his investigation of Xinjiang—Chen Quanguo], Xinjiang
Daily, agosto 30, 2017, http://cpc.people.com.cn/n1/2017/0830/c117005-29504540.html.

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Counterterrorism and Preventive Repression 41

line. Finalmente, he emphasized digitization of public security, che è stato
used to amass intelligence on China’s Muslim minorities and their links
abroad, as well to apply predictive policing to counterterrorism.144 Chen’s
speech provides insight into how PRC public security organizations combat
the perceived risk of terrorist inªltration of Muslim populations on an
operational level: one of the mobile applications used for surveillance in
Xinjiang, Per esempio, ºags individual “returns from abroad” and prompts a
security investigation.145

A subset of this work focuses on reducing online contact between China’s
Muslims and transnational jihadists. The XUAR Informatization Promotion
Regulations, passed in 2009 and amended in 2014, explicitly aim to stop ºows
of online jihadist content into the region.146 Regulations that tightened authori-
ties’ control over online religious content were justiªed in terms of “fend[ing]
off foreign inºuences” and “combat[ing] extremism” by “banning religious-
involved separatist activities and any practice that stirs religious conºict
among citizens.”147 Revisions made in 2017 by the State Council were ex-
plained with reference to their anti-extremism function, and said to be
especially important “to deal with newly emerging situations or problems,"
suggesting that recent developments were behind the policy changes.148

The rise of this approach was based on the CCP’s growing belief that
China’s Muslim population was more vulnerable to foreign jihadists than pre-
vious assessments had indicated. PRC leaders became convinced that Xinjiang
was threatened, not just by a handful of foreign-backed separatists, but by the
thinking of large percentages of certain ethnic minorities. In late 2015, refer-
ences to “infection” in people’s thinking began to appear in discussions of

144. Per esempio, the chief engineer of one of the companies involved in Xinjiang’s Integrated
Joint Operations Platform was quoted as saying, “It’s very crucial to examine the cause after an act
of terror. But what is more important is to predict the upcoming activities.” Shai Oster, “China
Tries Its Hand at Pre-Crime,” Bloomberg, Marzo 3, 2016, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/
articles/2016-03-03/china-tries-its-hand-at-pre-crime. See also HRW, “China: Big Data Fuels
Crackdown in Minority Region” (New York: HRW, Febbraio 26, 2018), https://www.hrw.org/
news/2018/02/26/china-big-data-fuels-crackdown-minority-region.
145. HRW, China’s Algorithms of Repression: Reverse Engineering a Xinjiang Police Mass Surveillance
App (New York: HRW, May 2019).
146. Julia Famularo, “‘Fighting the Enemy with Fists and Daggers’: The Chinese Communist
Party’s Counter-Terrorism Policy in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region,” in Clarke, Terror-
ism and Counter-Terrorism in China, pag. 50–53.
147. Yang Sheng, “China’s Revised Regulations on Religion Fend Off Foreign Inºuences,” Global
Times, settembre 11, 2017, http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1065935.shtml.
148. Cui Jia, “State Council Amends Rules Governing Religion,” China Daily, settembre 8,
2017, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2017-09/08/content_31717459.htm. See also “China
Tightens Controls on Religious Activity, Targets Ethnic Groups,” Radio Free Asia, settembre 14,
2017, https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/religion-crackdown-09142017155745.html/.

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International Security 44:3 42

Xinjiang. The party secretary of the region’s Justice Department, Zhang Yun,
explained that approximately 30 percent of Xinjiang’s population had been
infected by religious extremism, and proposed that re-education would “get
a grip on the origin [of extremism] and put an emphasis on the 30% who
have been affected by extremist religious views”; thereby removing pres-
sure to “strike hard” later.149 In early 2016, Li Xiaoxia, a Xinjiang sociologist,
estimated the number of people contaminated by extremism at around
20 percent.150 These ªgures track fairly closely with estimates of the percentage
of the population detained for re-education.

Ofªcial discourse on Xinjiang has often employed medical metaphors to
evoke a sense of preventive urgency. Ofªcials from Xi Jinping down to the
county level have compared extremism to both cancer and infectious disease,
and frame detention and re-education as necessary interventions to preempt
serious health crises for patients at risk.151 A university work team sent to
identify targets in a village for re-education described its work as ªnding “tu-
mors” that needed to be eradicated, presumably before they could metastasize
and grow.152 A party document from Hotan, in southern Xinjiang, stated that
“anyone infected with an ideological virus must be swiftly sent for ‘residential
care’ of transformation-through-education classes before illness arises.”153 An
ottobre 2017 speech distributed to the Xinjiang Communist Youth League em-
braced the medical metaphor’s preventive logic in detail: “If we do not eradi-
cate religious extremism at its roots, violent terrorist incidents will grow and
spread all over like an incurable malignant tumor. Although a certain number
of people who have been indoctrinated with extremist ideology have not com-
mitted any crimes, they are already infected by the disease. There is always a
risk that the illness will manifest itself at any moment, which would cause seri-
ous harm to the public. That is why they must be admitted to a re-education

149. Chen Fang, “Xinjiang qu jiduanhua diaocha” [Investigating extremism in Xinjiang],
Fenghuang zixun, ottobre 12, 2015, http://news.ifeng.com/mainland/special/xjqjdh/. See also
Chinese Human Rights Defenders, “China: Massive Numbers of Uyghurs and Other Ethnic Mi-
norities Forced into Re-education Programs.”
150. Li Xiaoxia, “Xinjiang zongjiao jiduan sixiang chuanbo tedian ji diyu zhengce fenxi” [Analysis
of the special characteristics of transmission of religious extremism in Xinjiang and a resistance
policy], Minzu shehuixue tongxun [Studies of Ethnic Societies], No. 213 (agosto 2016), http://
www.shehui.pku.edu.cn/upload/editor/ªle/20180829/20180829124750_8488.pdf.
151. Ramzy and Buckley, “’Absolutely No Mercy.’”
152. Ben Dooley, “‘Eradicate the Tumors’: Chinese Civilians Drive Xinjiang Crackdown on Sepa-
ratism,” Agence France-Presse, April 26, 2018, https://www.afp.com/en/eradicate-tumours-
chinese-civilians-drive-xinjiang-crackdown.
153. Chris Buckley, “China Is Detaining Muslims in Vast Numbers. The Goal: ‘Transformation,’”
New York Times, settembre 8, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/08/world/asia/china-
uighur-muslim-detention-camp.html.

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Counterterrorism and Preventive Repression 43

hospital in time to treat and cleanse the virus from their brain and restore their
normal mind.”154 These were not just rhetorical ºourishes for an external audi-
ence. Internal CCP documents employed the same language, warning that
“violent terrorist acts will multiply like cancer cells” if religious extremist
thought itself was not rooted out of people’s minds.155

The CCP explains re-education as deep preventive counterterrorism work to
internal and external audiences. It calls extremism the ideological foundation
of terrorism, implying that the only truly effective form of prevention is alter-
ing people’s thinking. XUAR ofªcials warn that “as long as extremism exists,
terrorism will spread like cancer,”156 echoing Xi’s 2014 assertion that extremist
religious ideology lay behind “a series of violent terrorist incidents from Bachu
[in Kashgar] to Shanshan [in Turpan] and from Kunming to Urumqi.”157 The
objective of prevention is therefore easily linked to the tool of re-education;
Meng Jianzhu referred to it as creating “a healthy heart attitude.”158 At a
Febbraio 2019 conference for foreign diplomats in Beijing, Deputy Foreign
Minister Zhang Hanhui and XUAR Deputy Governor Erkin Tuniyaz referred
to detention as “preventive counter-terrorism and de-extremism work.”159 The
Youth League recording quoted above defended re-education as preventive
and actually lifesaving: “Going into a re-education hospital for treatment is not
a way of forcibly arresting people and locking them up for punishment; it is an
act that is part of a comprehensive rescue mission to save them.”160 If extrem-

154. Quoted in James Millward, “‘Reeducating’ Xinjiang’s Muslims,” New York Review of
Books, Febbraio 7, 2019, https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/02/07/reeducating-xinjiangs-
muslims/.
155. “Dao jiaoyu zhuanhua ban xuexi shi dui sixiang shang huan bing qunzhong de yici mianfei
zhuyuan zhi” [Going to the Transformation-through-Education class is a free hospitalization for
ideologically ill people],” Hetian lingjuli, April 10, 2017, https://read01.com/BL28Bk.html#
.XFOZC88zY0Q.
156. See the quote from Nayim Yessen, director of the Standing Committee of the regional legisla-
tive body that passed Xinjiang’s 2017 Regulation on De-extremiªcation, in Mao Weihua and Cui
Jia, “New Xinjiang Regulation Aims to Prevent Extremism,” China Daily, Marzo 31, 2017, http://
www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2017-03/31/content_28747922.htm.
157. Quoted in Famularo, “‘Fighting the Enemy with Fists and Daggers,’” p. 47.
158. Mao and Cui, “New Xinjiang Regulation Aims to Prevent Extremism”; PRC Supreme Court,
“Meng Jianzhu: Kaichuang Xinjiang shehui wending he changzhi jiu’an xin jumian” [Meng
Jianzhu: Creating a new phase of Xinjiang’s social stability and permanent order], agosto 28, 2017,
cited in Adrian Zenz, “Thoroughly Reforming Them toward a Healthy Heart Attitude: China’s
Political Re-education Campaign in Xinjiang,” Central Asian Survey, Vol. 38, No. 1 (2019), pag. 102–
128, doi.org/10.1080/02634937.2018.1507997; and “Zhuanfang Xinjiang zhengfa wei shuji jianjue
dadiao jiduan shili muhou heishou” [Wipe out the extremists behind forces], Tianshanwang, Octo-
ber 15, 2015, http://www.china.com.cn/news/2015-10/15/content_36814937_2.htm.
159. Reuters, “China Says ‘Preventive’ Work in Xinjiang Detention Camp Should Be Applauded,"
Guardian, Febbraio 24, 2019, https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/24/china-says-
preventive-work-in-xinjiang-detention-camps-should-be-applauded.
160. Millward, “‘Reeducating’ Xinjiang’s Muslims.”

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International Security 44:3 44

ism or terrorist inclination is a disease, then re-education is the immunization
that protects patients, and the entire body politic, from future infection.

In short, around 2015–16, just as the CCP observed new evidence of Uyghur
participation in Islamic militant groups abroad, it also concluded that as much
as a third of Xinjiang’s population was vulnerable to extremist inºuence; Quello
it was imperative to preventively re-educate a much broader swath of
that population than previously believed; and that this must be done before
extremist infection could manifest in terrorist symptoms. This precipitated the
deployment of wide-scale involuntary detention, shifting the CCP from selec-
tive to collective repression and differentiating Xinjiang from other minority
regions. XUAR ofªcials appear to embrace the shift toward collective target-
ing; one Kashgar-based police chief recalled being told by a party ofªcial, “You
can’t uproot all the weeds hidden among the crops one by one—you need to
spray chemicals to kill them all. Re-educating these people is like spraying
chemicals on the crops. That’s why it is a general re-education, not limited to a
few people.”161

Perceptions of widespread domestic vulnerability also explain the CCP’s in-
tense focus on re-education. Ofªcials concluded that existing policies focused
on degrading citizens’ capacity for terrorism were inadequate; they needed ad-
ditional policies aimed at addressing the root causes of the propensity for ex-
tremism and terrorist violence—a goal that could be achieved only through
intensive, longer-term re-education of a large number of Xinjiang’s inhabit-
ants.162 Mass re-education as preventive counterterrorism policy, Perciò,
securitizes large areas of cultural, religious, and educational life in Xinjiang,
because these are seen as underlying causes of behavior that threatens China’s
security.163 Deªning religious and cultural practice as a security threat helps
explain the turn to collective targeting, mass detention, and dilution of minor-
ity culture that accompanies re-education, as well as the extension of these pol-
icies to diaspora communities where Uyghur culture can reside and survive
abroad. Heightened perceptions of domestic vulnerability to inªltration by a
newly coalescing external threat, Poi, explain the 2017–18 shift to collective
repression, re-education, and targeting of diaspora networks and online
contacts—perceived as vectors of potential terrorist infection.

161. Shohret Hoshur et al., “Chinese Authorities Jail Four Wealthiest Uyghurs in Xinjiang’s
Kashgar in New Purge,” Radio Free Asia, Gennaio 5, 2018, https://www.rfa.org/english/news/
uyghur/wealthiest-01052018144327.html.
162. Leibold, “The Spectre of Insecurity.” We discuss the implications of this capacity/willingness
distinction in the conclusion.
163. Yuhua Wang and Carl Minzner, “China’s Security State,” China Quarterly, Vol. 222 (Giugno
2015), pag. 339–359, doi.org/10.1017/S0305741015000430.

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Counterterrorism and Preventive Repression 45

Conclusione

Presto 2017, the CCP changed its domestic security strategy in Xinjiang. In
addition to existing policies of securitization and surveillance, authorities esca-
lated the use of mass detention, ideological re-education, and pressure on
Uyghur diaspora networks. Common explanations (contentious politics, mi-
nority policy, and regional leadership) are helpful, but incomplete. We have ar-
gued that changing perceptions of China’s international security environment,
and related perceptions of vulnerability on the domestic security front, sig-
niªcantly contributed to the CCP’s adoption of a new internal security strategy
in Xinjiang. Speciªcally, new policies appear to have been catalyzed by percep-
tions of an increased threat from Uyghur participation in transnational Islamic
militant groups in Southeast Asia and the Middle East—a threat that shifted
from potential to operational in 2014–16 and accompanied a revised as-
sessment of heightened domestic vulnerability to inªltration among China’s
Muslim population. The CCP concluded that it needed to block diffusion of
terrorism into China and preventively inoculate its population from infection
by extremist and terrorist networks, which explains the early 2017 timing, shift
from selective to collective repression, emphasis on re-education, and pressure
applied to Xinjiang’s transnational ethnic (Uyghur) and religious (Muslim)
networks. It also helps explain why Xinjiang experienced a marked change in
domestic security strategy whereas other regions, such as Tibet, did not.

terrorist

The CCP’s changing perceptions of internal vulnerability to an evolving
transnational
threat shaped repressive strategy in Xinjiang. As
noted above, Beijing may have misperceived the threat, it may invoke the
threat instrumentally, and its new strategy may well be counterproductive.
Even if this is true, Tuttavia, our ªndings have important theoretical and prac-
tical implications.

Theoretically, we contribute to the ªeld’s understanding of authoritarianism
and preventive repression. The CCP has used two approaches to policing in
Xinjiang, both aimed at identifying and eradicating dissent before it translates
into oppositional public behavior: (1) surveillance-intensive,
intelligence-
based policing; E (2) detention-based re-education. Both forms of repression
are preventive, and while they are complementary in many respects, Essi
work via different pathways. Intelligence-based and technology-based polic-
ing seeks to target and preempt citizens’ capacity to challenge the party-state,
while re-education and “transformation through education” target their will-
ingness to do so.164 Re-education, Perciò, should be incorporated into dis-

164. On capacity versus willingness, see Davenport, “State Repression and Political Order.” On

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International Security 44:3 46

cussions of authoritarian survival (perhaps in a comparative framework with
other forms of legitimation) and preventive repression. This would be particu-
larly useful because some work on preventive repression assumes that its ad-
vantage lies in its selective and covert nature, which can minimize potential
blowback. China’s strategy in Xinjiang highlights conditions under which pre-
ventive repression is not necessarily more selective or covert, and instead pro-
duces higher, more visible repression. There are many questions here that
future research could explore more systematically.

Our analysis also has implications for foreign policy related to Xinjiang and
to various countries’ relations with the PRC. We conclude that perceptions of
terrorist threat have shaped CCP behavior in Xinjiang, an argument that many
analysts have been reluctant to embrace. China’s threat perceptions may be in-
accurate, and/or its public rhetoric may be instrumental, but our analysis sug-
gests that those who seek to alter China’s treatment of its Uyghur citizens may
be more effective if they approach that behavior as grounded in counter-
terrorism policy, rather than framing objections on human rights grounds.

Allo stesso tempo, China’s linking of international terrorism with policies of
domestic repression poses an operational conundrum for countries that seek to
collaborate with China on common terrorist threats. Mass internment of
Chinese Muslims will likely make it harder, not easier, for countries to justify
and craft law enforcement and counterterrorism cooperation with the PRC.
(Turkey’s criticism of China’s treatment of the Uyghurs is a recent example.165)
Allo stesso tempo, Tuttavia, if cutting off counterterrorism cooperation with
China increases their own terrorist risk, countries that collaborate with China
on these efforts will face signiªcant and potentially difªcult trade-offs; Questo
may be why countries that conduct signiªcant counterterrorism cooperation
with China were largely absent from the letters that adopted a public stance on
Xinjiang.166 Policymakers who want those countries to act differently will have
to recognize the trade-offs that their governments face, and craft solutions that
realistically address their security challenges.

preventive repression, see Ritter and Conrad, “Preventing and Responding to Dissent”; Greitens,
Dictators and Their Secret Police; Truex, “Focal Points, Dissident Calendars, and Pre-Emptive Re-
pression”; and Christopher M. Sullivan, “Undermining Resistance: Mobilization, Repression, E
the Enforcement of Political Order,” Journal of Conºict Resolution, Vol. 60, No. 7 (ottobre 2016),
pag. 1163–1190, doi.org/10.1177%2F0022002714567951. For a similar discussion on terrorism
framed in terms of supply-side and demand-side approaches, see Max Abrahms, “What Terrorists
Really Want: Terrorist Motives and Counterterrorism Strategy,” International Security, Vol. 32, No. 4
(Primavera 2008), pag. 78–105, doi.org/10.1162/isec.2008.32.4.78.
165. Duchâtel, “China’s Foreign Fighters Problem.”
166. Putz, “Which Countries Are For or Against China’s Xinjiang Policies?"

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Counterterrorism and Preventive Repression 47

More broadly, examining external sources of China’s domestic security poli-
cies in Xinjiang reinforces the analytical leverage and potential policy traction
that scholars can gain by viewing CCP behavior not just through the lens of a
repressive party-state, but as the behavior of a state that, despite its growing
power, is simultaneously insecure at home and abroad, and that sees these
insecurities as deeply interrelated.167 Even insecurities that appear primar-
ily domestic may have signiªcant origins in China’s changing role on the
world stage.

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167. Susan L. Shirk, China: Fragile Superpower: How China’s Internal Politics Could Derail Its Peaceful
Rise (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).
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