China’s Police State in Xinjiang

The People’s Republic of China has built the world’s most advanced police state in Xinjiang, the “autonomous region” in northwestern PRC whose indigenous Uighur peoples have long bristled under repressive and discriminatory Communist rule. Cutting-edge surveillance, population control technologies, and large-scale Chinese force deployments have made Xinjiang the most heavily garrisoned part of the country. Five to ten percent of Uighurs have been incarcerated or forced into camps for “re-education.” Meanwhile, the PRC’s efforts to suppress or eliminate Uighur culture and Islamic religious practice have also intensified. Beijing justifies its police state in Xinjiang by citing security concerns over ethnic “splittism” and foreign Islamist ideology. Despite criticism of Communist Party policy from Chinese themselves, the party has gone to extraordinary lengths to stifle dissent and control what China and the world hears about Xinjiang. What do we know about the situation in Xinjiang, and where is it hea