Id Kah Mosque · N509FZ, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Understanding a Uyghur in 5 minutes
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A Turkic people of the oases
Uyghurs are a Turkic-speaking, mostly Sunni Muslim people whose homeland is the ring of oases around the Taklamakan Desert and the valleys north of the Tian Shan, in what China calls the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. China's 2020 census counted about 11.6 million in Xinjiang. Their language is close to Uzbek, and their culture, from food to music, looks west to Central Asia as much as east to China.
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- Xinjiang's population and ethnic composition in the Seventh National Population Census — Xinhua, Xinhua News Agency (2021)
- Uyghur — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
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A homeland with many names
Beijing calls the region Xinjiang ("New Frontier") and says it has been part of China since the Han dynasty. Many Uyghurs prefer "East Turkestan" or "Uyghur region" and see Chinese rule as a conquest completed by the Qing in 1759. Historians note that Chinese control was intermittent before then. Keeping the people separate from the state matters: Uyghurs are citizens of China but, for many, not "Chinese" in identity.
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia — Peter C. Perdue, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2005)
- The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land — Gardner Bovingdon, Columbia University Press (2010)
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Faith woven into place
Islam arrived with the Kara-Khanid khans in the tenth century and slowly replaced Buddhism. Uyghur Islam grew around saints' shrines (*mazars*), Sufi orders and pilgrimages, as well as mosques. For most Uyghurs being Muslim is part of being Uyghur, whether or not they pray five times a day, which is why restrictions on religion are felt as attacks on identity.
- The Sacred Routes of Uyghur History — Rian Thum, Harvard University Press (2014)
- An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples — Peter B. Golden, Otto Harrassowitz (1992)
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
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A name revived, a nation imagined
The modern Uyghur identity is both ancient and recent. The name belonged to an eighth-century steppe empire and a Buddhist kingdom at Turpan; oasis people long called themselves by their town or simply "Muslims". In the 1920s–30s reformers revived "Uyghur" for all the settled Turkic Muslims of the region, and two short-lived East Turkestan Republics, in 1933 and 1944, made it a political cause.
- Uyghur Nation: Reform and Revolution on the Russia–China Frontier — David Brophy, Harvard University Press (2016)
- The Sacred Routes of Uyghur History — Rian Thum, Harvard University Press (2014)
- The Ili Rebellion: The Moslem Challenge to Chinese Authority in Xinjiang, 1944–1949 — Linda Benson, M. E. Sharpe (1990)
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From autonomy to the camps
The People's Republic gave the Uyghurs an autonomous region in 1955, but real power stayed with the Party and Han migration reshaped the region. After unrest in 2009 and attacks in 2013–14, Beijing launched campaigns that from 2017 detained very large numbers of Uyghurs. China calls them vocational training centres; the UN human-rights office said in 2022 that the detentions may amount to crimes against humanity.
- The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land — Gardner Bovingdon, Columbia University Press (2010)
- The War on the Uyghurs: China's Internal Campaign against a Muslim Minority — Sean R. Roberts, Princeton University Press (2020)
- OHCHR Assessment of Human Rights Concerns in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China — Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations (2022)
- Vocational Education and Training in Xinjiang (white paper) — State Council Information Office of the People's Republic of China, State Council Information Office (2019)
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A people cut off from home
Large Uyghur communities live in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey, Germany and the United States. Since 2017 many cannot call relatives without putting them at risk, and many do not know whether their parents are alive, free or imprisoned. The diaspora has become the main place where Uyghur culture can be practised openly and where Uyghurs can speak about what happened.
- In the Camps: China's High-Tech Penal Colony — Darren Byler, Columbia Global Reports (2021)
- The War on the Uyghurs: China's Internal Campaign against a Muslim Minority — Sean R. Roberts, Princeton University Press (2020)
- "Break Their Lineage, Break Their Roots": China's Crimes against Humanity Targeting Uyghurs and Other Turkic Muslims — Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Watch (2021)
The story
Steppe khaganate & oasis kingdoms
744 – 933 The Uyghur Khaganate
A Turkic steppe empire called the Uyghurs rules Mongolia for a century from its capital Ordu-Baliq, rescues the Tang dynasty from rebellion and adopts Manichaeism, before falling to the Kyrgyz in 840.
- The Uighur Empire according to the T'ang Dynastic Histories — Colin Mackerras, Australian National University Press (1972)
- An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples — Peter B. Golden, Otto Harrassowitz (1992)
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- Uyghur Nation: Reform and Revolution on the Russia–China Frontier — David Brophy, Harvard University Press (2016)
Read more
- The Uighur Empire according to the T'ang Dynastic Histories — Colin Mackerras, Australian National University Press (1972)
- An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples — Peter B. Golden, Otto Harrassowitz (1992)
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- Uyghur Nation: Reform and Revolution on the Russia–China Frontier — David Brophy, Harvard University Press (2016)
The khaganate gives Uyghurs a proud ancient name and an image of a powerful, literate people who dealt with China as an equal and even saved its dynasty. Uyghur nationalists date their statehood to 744, while Chinese official histories stress that the Uyghurs were vassals and allies within China's orbit. Historians add that today's Uyghurs descend from many oasis peoples, not only from these steppe Uyghurs.
In 744 the Uyghurs, a confederation of Turkic tribes, overthrew the Second Turk Khaganate and took over the Mongolian steppe. Their rulers built a walled capital, Ordu-Baliq, in the Orkhon valley, an unusual city for nomads, full of merchants and craftsmen.
The Uyghur Khaganate was a great independent Uyghur state, the start of more than a thousand years of Uyghur history in Central Asia, long before Chinese rule.
The ancient Uyghurs (Huihe) were one of many peoples in the northern frontier who submitted to and allied with the Tang, part of the long formation of a unified multi-ethnic China.
The khaganate was a real steppe empire, but the link to modern Uyghurs is indirect: the name was revived in the twentieth century for the settled Turkic Muslims of the Tarim oases, whose ancestors included Uyghurs, other Turks, and Iranian- and Tocharian-speaking peoples.
Qocho: The Buddhist Uyghur Kingdom of the Silk Road
Uyghur refugees found a kingdom in the Turpan oasis, where they become Buddhists, translate scriptures, and develop the script that the Mongols and Manchus later adopt.
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples — Peter B. Golden, Otto Harrassowitz (1992)
- Xinjiang: China's Muslim Borderland — S. Frederick Starr (ed.), M. E. Sharpe (2004)
Read more
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples — Peter B. Golden, Otto Harrassowitz (1992)
- Xinjiang: China's Muslim Borderland — S. Frederick Starr (ed.), M. E. Sharpe (2004)
Qocho shows that Uyghur culture was cosmopolitan long before Islam: Buddhist, Manichaean and Christian, literate and at the heart of the Silk Road. Its cave paintings at Bezeklik and the ruins of Gaochang draw Uyghur pride, and its Old Uyghur script lives on in the Mongolian script. For some devout Muslims today it is a pre-Islamic past to be acknowledged rather than celebrated.
After 840 one group of Uyghurs settled in the Turpan basin, a hot, fertile oasis on the northern Silk Road, and built a kingdom centred on Qocho (Gaochang) and Beshbaliq. Over the following centuries most of them became Buddhists, while Manichaeism and Church of the East Christianity also flourished.
Islam & Turkic learning
934 – 1513 The Kara-Khanids and the Coming of Islam
The Kara-Khanid ruler Satuq Bughra Khan converts to Islam, Kashgar becomes a centre of Turkic Islamic culture, and Mahmud al-Kashgari and Yusuf Khass Hajib write the founding classics of Turkic literature.
- An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples — Peter B. Golden, Otto Harrassowitz (1992)
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- The Sacred Routes of Uyghur History — Rian Thum, Harvard University Press (2014)
- Compendium of the Turkic Dialects (Dīwān Luγāt at-Turk) — Mahmud al-Kashgari, ed. and trans. Robert Dankoff with James Kelly, Harvard University (1982)
- Wisdom of Royal Glory (Kutadgu Bilig): A Turko-Islamic Mirror for Princes — Yusuf Khass Hajib, trans. Robert Dankoff, University of Chicago Press (1983)
Read more
- An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples — Peter B. Golden, Otto Harrassowitz (1992)
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- The Sacred Routes of Uyghur History — Rian Thum, Harvard University Press (2014)
- Compendium of the Turkic Dialects (Dīwān Luγāt at-Turk) — Mahmud al-Kashgari, ed. and trans. Robert Dankoff with James Kelly, Harvard University (1982)
- Wisdom of Royal Glory (Kutadgu Bilig): A Turko-Islamic Mirror for Princes — Yusuf Khass Hajib, trans. Robert Dankoff, University of Chicago Press (1983)
For most Uyghurs, Islam is inseparable from identity, and its story starts here. Satuq Bughra Khan's shrine at Artush and the tombs of Mahmud al-Kashgari and Yusuf Khass Hajib are treasured sites, and the two writers are celebrated as founding fathers of Uyghur letters. That is why restrictions on religion and the demolition of shrines are felt as attacks on who Uyghurs are, not only on what they believe.
In the tenth century a Turkic dynasty known to historians as the Kara-Khanids ruled lands on both sides of the Tian Shan, from Kashgar to the edge of Transoxiana. Around 934, according to later accounts, its prince Satuq Bughra Khan converted to Islam, influenced by Muslim merchants and scholars from the Samanid lands of Central Asia.
Tradition says the young prince Satuq learned of Islam from a Muslim merchant and converted in secret, then won power and brought his people to the faith.
The Kara-Khanids' origins are obscure, probably among Karluk and other Turkic tribes rather than the Uyghurs proper.
Khanates & khojas
1514 – 1754 The Yarkent Khanate, the Khojas and the Twelve Muqam
A Chaghatayid dynasty rules the southern oases from Yarkent, Sufi khojas gain great power, and court musicians, by tradition led by Queen Amannisa Khan, shape the Twelve Muqam.
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- The Making of a Musical Canon in Chinese Central Asia: The Uyghur Twelve Muqam — Rachel Harris, Ashgate (2008)
- The Sacred Routes of Uyghur History — Rian Thum, Harvard University Press (2014)
- Uyghur Muqam of Xinjiang — UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, UNESCO (2008)
Read more
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- The Making of a Musical Canon in Chinese Central Asia: The Uyghur Twelve Muqam — Rachel Harris, Ashgate (2008)
- The Sacred Routes of Uyghur History — Rian Thum, Harvard University Press (2014)
- Uyghur Muqam of Xinjiang — UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, UNESCO (2008)
The Yarkent Khanate is remembered as a high point of Uyghur culture: a Turkic Muslim kingdom in the oases, with poetry, music and Sufi saints. Amannisa Khan is a national heroine, the Twelve Muqam is the Uyghurs' great musical treasure, and the shrine of Afaq Khoja in Kashgar was one of the most visited places in the region.
In 1514 Sultan Said Khan, a descendant of Genghis Khan through his son Chaghatai, took Kashgar and made Yarkent the capital of a kingdom covering the southern oases of the Tarim Basin. Its people were settled Turkic-speaking Muslims who called themselves by their oasis, Kashgarliq or Yerliq, or simply Muslims; the shared literary language was Chaghatai Turkic.
Qing rule & rebellion
1755 – 1911 The Qing Conquest of Xinjiang
The Manchu Qing dynasty destroys the Dzungar Mongols and conquers the Tarim Basin oases, creating the "New Frontier", Xinjiang.
- China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia — Peter C. Perdue, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2005)
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land — Gardner Bovingdon, Columbia University Press (2010)
- The War on the Uyghurs: China's Internal Campaign against a Muslim Minority — Sean R. Roberts, Princeton University Press (2020)
- Holy War in China: The Muslim Rebellion and State in Chinese Central Asia, 1864–1877 — Hodong Kim, Stanford University Press (2004)
Read more
- China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia — Peter C. Perdue, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2005)
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land — Gardner Bovingdon, Columbia University Press (2010)
- The War on the Uyghurs: China's Internal Campaign against a Muslim Minority — Sean R. Roberts, Princeton University Press (2020)
- Holy War in China: The Muslim Rebellion and State in Chinese Central Asia, 1864–1877 — Hodong Kim, Stanford University Press (2004)
This is when the Uyghurs' homeland first came under the long-term rule of a Beijing-based empire, and the two sides read it in opposite ways. Beijing says Xinjiang has been part of China since ancient times and that 1759 restored it; many Uyghurs see it as a colonial conquest, and the very name "Xinjiang", "New Frontier", as proof. Many Uyghurs abroad prefer "East Turkestan" or "Uyghuristan", names Beijing treats as separatist.
In the mid-eighteenth century the Dzungars, the last great nomadic empire, still ruled the steppes north of the Tian Shan and held the southern oases as tributaries. Exploiting a Dzungar succession crisis, the Qianlong emperor sent armies west in 1755.
Xinjiang has been an inseparable part of China since the Han dynasty set up a Protectorate of the Western Regions in 60 BCE.
Chinese dynasties controlled the region only for brief periods over two thousand years.
James Millward and Peter Perdue describe the conquest as part of the Qing empire's expansion into Inner Asia, ruled distinctly from China proper, through local Muslim nobles (begs) and with few Han settlers in the south.
The Muslim Uprisings and Yaqub Beg's Kingdom
Muslim revolts drive out the Qing, a Kokandi commander, Yaqub Beg, builds an Islamic state in Kashgaria recognised by the Ottomans and Britain, and the Qing reconquer the region and make it a province.
- Holy War in China: The Muslim Rebellion and State in Chinese Central Asia, 1864–1877 — Hodong Kim, Stanford University Press (2004)
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land — Gardner Bovingdon, Columbia University Press (2010)
Read more
- Holy War in China: The Muslim Rebellion and State in Chinese Central Asia, 1864–1877 — Hodong Kim, Stanford University Press (2004)
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land — Gardner Bovingdon, Columbia University Press (2010)
Yaqub Beg's state is remembered by many Uyghur nationalists as a moment of independence and of ties to the wider Muslim world, especially the Ottomans. Its fall, and the creation of Xinjiang province in 1884, began the policy of integrating the region into China proper that continues today.
In 1864, as the Hui Muslim rebellion spread through north-west China, Muslims across Xinjiang rose against Qing rule and killed or expelled Qing garrisons. Out of the chaos, Yaqub Beg, a military commander from the Central Asian khanate of Kokand, seized Kashgar and by 1870 ruled most of the region.
A free Muslim state in East Turkestan, recognised by the Ottoman sultan and the British, that showed the region could govern itself until the Qing reconquered it by force.
Yaqub Beg was a foreign invader from Kokand backed by British and Russian imperialists; Zuo Zongtang's campaign recovered Chinese territory and defended national unity.
Hodong Kim shows that Yaqub Beg's regime grew out of a genuine local Muslim uprising, but was run largely by outsiders from Kokand, was harsh and taxing, and was not popular with many local people.
Warlords & East Turkestan republics
1912 – 1948 The First East Turkestan Republic
Amid warlord rule and revolt, Turkic Muslim rebels in Kashgar proclaim the Turkish Islamic Republic of East Turkestan, crushed within months by Hui and Soviet-backed forces.
- Warlords and Muslims in Chinese Central Asia: A Political History of Republican Sinkiang 1911–1949 — Andrew D. W. Forbes, Cambridge University Press (1986)
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- Uyghur Nation: Reform and Revolution on the Russia–China Frontier — David Brophy, Harvard University Press (2016)
- The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land — Gardner Bovingdon, Columbia University Press (2010)
Read more
- Warlords and Muslims in Chinese Central Asia: A Political History of Republican Sinkiang 1911–1949 — Andrew D. W. Forbes, Cambridge University Press (1986)
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- Uyghur Nation: Reform and Revolution on the Russia–China Frontier — David Brophy, Harvard University Press (2016)
- The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land — Gardner Bovingdon, Columbia University Press (2010)
The blue flag with a white crescent and star raised in Kashgar in 1933 is still the flag of the Uyghur cause abroad, carried at protests from Istanbul to Washington. In China it is a banned symbol of separatism. The republic's short life is a source of both pride and grief.
After the Qing fell in 1912, Xinjiang was ruled by a succession of Han warlords nominally loyal to the Republic of China. In 1931 a revolt in Hami against the governor Jin Shuren spread across the region, drawing in the Hui general Ma Zhongying and many local Turkic leaders.
The first modern independent state of the Turkic Muslims of East Turkestan, proof of a will to self-government, destroyed by Chinese warlords and Soviet intervention.
A short-lived separatist regime inspired by pan-Turkism and pan-Islamism and encouraged by foreign imperialists, of the kind whose "East Turkestan" ideology Beijing regards as the root of later terrorism.
The Second East Turkestan Republic
A Soviet-backed revolt in the Ili valley creates the East Turkestan Republic in Ghulja, which controls three northern districts until it is folded into the People's Republic in 1949.
- The Ili Rebellion: The Moslem Challenge to Chinese Authority in Xinjiang, 1944–1949 — Linda Benson, M. E. Sharpe (1990)
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- Warlords and Muslims in Chinese Central Asia: A Political History of Republican Sinkiang 1911–1949 — Andrew D. W. Forbes, Cambridge University Press (1986)
- The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land — Gardner Bovingdon, Columbia University Press (2010)
Read more
- The Ili Rebellion: The Moslem Challenge to Chinese Authority in Xinjiang, 1944–1949 — Linda Benson, M. E. Sharpe (1990)
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- Warlords and Muslims in Chinese Central Asia: A Political History of Republican Sinkiang 1911–1949 — Andrew D. W. Forbes, Cambridge University Press (1986)
- The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land — Gardner Bovingdon, Columbia University Press (2010)
The second republic is remembered by many Uyghurs as the last time they governed themselves, and the plane crash that killed its leaders in 1949 is a long-held source of suspicion. Officially, China honours it as the "Three Districts Revolution", part of the Chinese revolution, while condemning its independence goals. Ghulja, its capital, remains a place of strong Uyghur memory.
In November 1944, Turkic and other rebels in the Ili valley, armed and advised by the Soviet Union, drove out the Nationalist garrison and proclaimed the East Turkestan Republic in Ghulja (Yining), with the religious scholar Elihan Töre as president. Its army controlled the three northern districts of Ili, Tarbagatai and Altai.
A genuine independent republic of the region's Turkic peoples, which had its own army and government and was betrayed by the Soviets and absorbed by the Chinese Communists after its leaders died in a suspicious crash.
The Three Districts Revolution was a progressive uprising against Kuomintang reaction and part of the Chinese people's democratic revolution. Its leaders who died in 1949 were patriots and revolutionary martyrs.
Linda Benson and James Millward show that the republic began as a local revolt but depended heavily on the Soviet Union, which used it as leverage over the Chinese Nationalists and abandoned its independence once Stalin's interests shifted.
Xinjiang in the People's Republic
1949 – 2008 Into the People's Republic: Autonomy, Settlers and the XPCC
The People's Liberation Army enters Xinjiang in 1949, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is created in 1955, and a paramilitary settler corps, the XPCC, begins bringing millions of Han Chinese to the region.
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land — Gardner Bovingdon, Columbia University Press (2010)
- Oil and Water: Being Han in Xinjiang — Tom Cliff, University of Chicago Press (2016)
- The War on the Uyghurs: China's Internal Campaign against a Muslim Minority — Sean R. Roberts, Princeton University Press (2020)
- Xinjiang's population and ethnic composition in the Seventh National Population Census — Xinhua, Xinhua News Agency (2021)
- Xinjiang: China's Muslim Borderland — S. Frederick Starr (ed.), M. E. Sharpe (2004)
Read more
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land — Gardner Bovingdon, Columbia University Press (2010)
- Oil and Water: Being Han in Xinjiang — Tom Cliff, University of Chicago Press (2016)
- The War on the Uyghurs: China's Internal Campaign against a Muslim Minority — Sean R. Roberts, Princeton University Press (2020)
- Xinjiang's population and ethnic composition in the Seventh National Population Census — Xinhua, Xinhua News Agency (2021)
- Xinjiang: China's Muslim Borderland — S. Frederick Starr (ed.), M. E. Sharpe (2004)
Every Uyghur grievance and every official claim about Xinjiang goes back to this period. Beijing calls 1949 "peaceful liberation" and points to the autonomous region named after the Uyghurs; many Uyghurs say the autonomy was never real, and that Han migration through the XPCC and later economic development turned them into a minority in much of their own homeland. The XPCC still runs its own cities, farms and courts across Xinjiang.
In September 1949, as the Communists won the civil war, the Nationalist leaders in Ürümqi, the governor Burhan Shahidi and the commander Tao Zhiyue, declared their allegiance to the new government. PLA troops under Wang Zhen entered the region that autumn.
Xinjiang was peacefully liberated in 1949, ending feudal exploitation and foreign meddling.
1949 began an occupation.
Historians describe a mix: the early PRC did invest in minority-language education, recognised Uyghurs as a nationality and promoted Uyghur cadres, but autonomy was limited by Party control, and Han settlement through the XPCC and later migration had features of settler colonialism, a term some scholars use and others reject.
The Cultural Revolution
Mao mobilises young Red Guards against "bourgeois" enemies in the Party and society, unleashing a decade of persecution, violence and chaos that ends only with his death.
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land — Gardner Bovingdon, Columbia University Press (2010)
- Mao's Last Revolution — Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2006)
- Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party since the Founding of the People's Republic of China — Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (1981)
- The Search for Modern China — Jonathan D. Spence, W. W. Norton (1990)
- Mao: A Life — Philip Short, Henry Holt (1999)
- The Dragon in the Land of Snows: A History of Modern Tibet Since 1947 — Tsering Shakya, Columbia University Press (1999)
Read more
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land — Gardner Bovingdon, Columbia University Press (2010)
- Mao's Last Revolution — Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2006)
- Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party since the Founding of the People's Republic of China — Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (1981)
- The Search for Modern China — Jonathan D. Spence, W. W. Norton (1990)
- Mao: A Life — Philip Short, Henry Holt (1999)
- The Dragon in the Land of Snows: A History of Modern Tibet Since 1947 — Tsering Shakya, Columbia University Press (1999)
For Uyghurs the Cultural Revolution was an assault on religion and culture as well as politics: mosques were closed or turned into warehouses, Qurans burned, imams paraded and beaten, and Uyghur customs denounced as "feudal". Older Uyghurs who lived through it often compare the post-2017 campaign to those years, and some say the present is worse.
In May 1966 Mao Zedong launched a "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" to purge the Party of what he called capitalist roaders and to keep revolution alive. He turned to the young. Students formed Red Guard units, waved the Little Red Book of his quotations and, at huge rallies in Tiananmen Square in 1966, saw Mao as a living god.
An assault on Tibetan civilisation itself: monasteries razed, monks and nuns forced to marry or labour, lamas paraded in struggle sessions and even private prayer forbidden.
The 1981 resolution calls it a "catastrophe" that was "initiated and led" by Mao and exploited by the counter-revolutionary cliques of Lin Biao and the Gang of Four.
Mao's own role was central. 5 million in rural China alone. Many perpetrators were also victims, and accountability was limited.
A time when being Muslim and Uyghur was itself treated as backward and suspect.
The Baren Uprising
An armed uprising in the township of Baren near Kashgar is crushed by Chinese forces, ending the relatively open 1980s and starting decades of security campaigns.
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- The War on the Uyghurs: China's Internal Campaign against a Muslim Minority — Sean R. Roberts, Princeton University Press (2020)
- The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land — Gardner Bovingdon, Columbia University Press (2010)
Read more
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- The War on the Uyghurs: China's Internal Campaign against a Muslim Minority — Sean R. Roberts, Princeton University Press (2020)
- The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land — Gardner Bovingdon, Columbia University Press (2010)
Baren marks the end of the 1980s thaw, when mosques reopened and Uyghur culture revived. Since then, Beijing has treated Uyghur religious and political dissent first and foremost as a security threat, a pattern Uyghurs say has only intensified.
In the 1980s, under reformist leaders such as Hu Yaobang, Uyghurs saw a cultural and religious revival: mosques reopened, pilgrimages resumed and trade with Central Asia grew. In April 1990, a group of men in Baren township, in Akto county south of Kashgar, led by a young man named Zeydin Yusuf, rose in armed revolt with calls for jihad.
A counter-revolutionary armed rebellion by separatists calling for holy war, planned with outside support, and quickly put down.
A local protest, partly against birth-control quotas, mosque closures and Han migration, that turned violent and was met with overwhelming force and mass arrests.
The Ghulja Protests
Young Uyghurs march in Ghulja (Yining) against the suppression of their community gatherings and the arrest of religious figures; security forces break up the protest, and arrests and executions follow.
- People's Republic of China: Gross Violations of Human Rights in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region — Amnesty International, Amnesty International (1999)
- The War on the Uyghurs: China's Internal Campaign against a Muslim Minority — Sean R. Roberts, Princeton University Press (2020)
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- Down a Narrow Road: Identity and Masculinity in a Uyghur Community in Xinjiang China — Jay Dautcher, Harvard University Asia Center (2009)
Read more
- People's Republic of China: Gross Violations of Human Rights in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region — Amnesty International, Amnesty International (1999)
- The War on the Uyghurs: China's Internal Campaign against a Muslim Minority — Sean R. Roberts, Princeton University Press (2020)
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- Down a Narrow Road: Identity and Masculinity in a Uyghur Community in Xinjiang China — Jay Dautcher, Harvard University Asia Center (2009)
For Uyghurs, Ghulja is a symbol of peaceful protest met with brutal force, commemorated every February in the diaspora. The suppression of the *meshrep*, gatherings young men had used to fight alcohol and drug abuse, showed many Uyghurs that even self-help organised outside the Party was unacceptable.
In the mid-1990s young Uyghur men in Ghulja, in the Ili valley, revived the meshrep, a traditional gathering with music, food, storytelling and moral teaching, to campaign against alcohol and heroin, which were devastating their community. The authorities, wary of any organisation outside Party control, banned the gatherings and arrested organisers, along with religious students.
A peaceful demonstration was dispersed with water cannon in freezing weather, beatings and gunfire; many were killed, thousands detained and many later executed.
A riot organised by separatists, in which rioters attacked Han residents and burned property, killing several people. The authorities restored order and punished criminals according to law.
Surveillance & the camps
2009 – today The Ürümqi Riots
A Uyghur protest in Ürümqi turns into the deadliest ethnic violence in China in decades; official figures say 197 people died, most of them Han, and a vast crackdown and disappearances follow.
- The War on the Uyghurs: China's Internal Campaign against a Muslim Minority — Sean R. Roberts, Princeton University Press (2020)
- "We Are Afraid to Even Look for Them": Enforced Disappearances in the Wake of Xinjiang's Protests — Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Watch (2009)
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- Oil and Water: Being Han in Xinjiang — Tom Cliff, University of Chicago Press (2016)
- Terror Capitalism: Uyghur Dispossession and Masculinity in a Chinese City — Darren Byler, Duke University Press (2022)
- "Absolutely No Mercy": Leaked Files Expose How China Organized Mass Detentions of Muslims — Austin Ramzy and Chris Buckley, The New York Times (2019)
Read more
- The War on the Uyghurs: China's Internal Campaign against a Muslim Minority — Sean R. Roberts, Princeton University Press (2020)
- "We Are Afraid to Even Look for Them": Enforced Disappearances in the Wake of Xinjiang's Protests — Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Watch (2009)
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- Oil and Water: Being Han in Xinjiang — Tom Cliff, University of Chicago Press (2016)
- Terror Capitalism: Uyghur Dispossession and Masculinity in a Chinese City — Darren Byler, Duke University Press (2022)
- "Absolutely No Mercy": Leaked Files Expose How China Organized Mass Detentions of Muslims — Austin Ramzy and Chris Buckley, The New York Times (2019)
"Seven-Five" (5 July) is a turning point. For Han residents of Xinjiang it is a memory of mob killings, and it hardened many against Uyghurs. For Uyghurs it began the era of mass surveillance, disappearances and suspicion that led to the camps; the internet was cut for ten months. Uyghurs and Han in Ürümqi, who had lived side by side, became more segregated and mistrustful.
On the night of 25–26 June 2009, at a toy factory in Shaoguan, in Guangdong province far to the south-east, a false rumour that Uyghur workers had raped Han women set off a brawl. Han workers attacked Uyghur colleagues; officially two Uyghurs were killed and many injured.
A premeditated violent crime of beating, smashing, looting and burning, instigated from abroad by the World Uyghur Congress and Rebiya Kadeer, in which rioters murdered innocent Han civilians.
A peaceful protest against the authorities' handling of the killing of Uyghur workers in Shaoguan was met by police force and turned violent.
Ordinary Han people were attacked and killed in the street for being Han. Many felt the government had failed to protect them, and some took to the streets in anger.
"Strike Hard" and the Mass Internment Camps
After a series of attacks, Beijing launches a "Strike Hard" campaign; from 2017 a vast system of camps holds very large numbers of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims, which China calls vocational training and the UN says may amount to crimes against humanity.
- OHCHR Assessment of Human Rights Concerns in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China — Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations (2022)
- Vocational Education and Training in Xinjiang (white paper) — State Council Information Office of the People's Republic of China, State Council Information Office (2019)
- Fight against Terrorism and Extremism in Xinjiang: Truth and Facts (China's response to the OHCHR assessment) — Permanent Mission of the People's Republic of China to the UN Office at Geneva, United Nations (2022)
- Concluding Observations on the Combined Fourteenth to Seventeenth Periodic Reports of China — UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, United Nations (2018)
- "Thoroughly Reforming Them towards a Healthy Heart Attitude": China's Political Re-education Campaign in Xinjiang — Adrian Zenz, Central Asian Survey (2019)
- Exposed: China's Operating Manuals for Mass Internment and Arrest by Algorithm — Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (2019)
- "Absolutely No Mercy": Leaked Files Expose How China Organized Mass Detentions of Muslims — Austin Ramzy and Chris Buckley, The New York Times (2019)
- In the Camps: China's High-Tech Penal Colony — Darren Byler, Columbia Global Reports (2021)
- The War on the Uyghurs: China's Internal Campaign against a Muslim Minority — Sean R. Roberts, Princeton University Press (2020)
- "Break Their Lineage, Break Their Roots": China's Crimes against Humanity Targeting Uyghurs and Other Turkic Muslims — Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Watch (2021)
- "Like We Were Enemies in a War": China's Mass Internment, Torture and Persecution of Muslims in Xinjiang — Amnesty International, Amnesty International (2021)
- Cultural Erasure: Tracing the Destruction of Uyghur and Islamic Spaces in Xinjiang — Nathan Ruser, James Leibold, Kelsey Munro and Tilla Hoja, Australian Strategic Policy Institute (2020)
- China cuts Uighur births with IUDs, abortion, sterilization — Associated Press, Associated Press (2020)
- Uyghur Tribunal Judgment — Uyghur Tribunal (chair Sir Geoffrey Nice KC), Uyghur Tribunal (2021)
Read more
- OHCHR Assessment of Human Rights Concerns in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China — Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations (2022)
- Vocational Education and Training in Xinjiang (white paper) — State Council Information Office of the People's Republic of China, State Council Information Office (2019)
- Fight against Terrorism and Extremism in Xinjiang: Truth and Facts (China's response to the OHCHR assessment) — Permanent Mission of the People's Republic of China to the UN Office at Geneva, United Nations (2022)
- Concluding Observations on the Combined Fourteenth to Seventeenth Periodic Reports of China — UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, United Nations (2018)
- "Thoroughly Reforming Them towards a Healthy Heart Attitude": China's Political Re-education Campaign in Xinjiang — Adrian Zenz, Central Asian Survey (2019)
- Exposed: China's Operating Manuals for Mass Internment and Arrest by Algorithm — Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (2019)
- "Absolutely No Mercy": Leaked Files Expose How China Organized Mass Detentions of Muslims — Austin Ramzy and Chris Buckley, The New York Times (2019)
- In the Camps: China's High-Tech Penal Colony — Darren Byler, Columbia Global Reports (2021)
- The War on the Uyghurs: China's Internal Campaign against a Muslim Minority — Sean R. Roberts, Princeton University Press (2020)
- "Break Their Lineage, Break Their Roots": China's Crimes against Humanity Targeting Uyghurs and Other Turkic Muslims — Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Watch (2021)
- "Like We Were Enemies in a War": China's Mass Internment, Torture and Persecution of Muslims in Xinjiang — Amnesty International, Amnesty International (2021)
- Cultural Erasure: Tracing the Destruction of Uyghur and Islamic Spaces in Xinjiang — Nathan Ruser, James Leibold, Kelsey Munro and Tilla Hoja, Australian Strategic Policy Institute (2020)
- China cuts Uighur births with IUDs, abortion, sterilization — Associated Press, Associated Press (2020)
- Uyghur Tribunal Judgment — Uyghur Tribunal (chair Sir Geoffrey Nice KC), Uyghur Tribunal (2021)
Almost every Uyghur family has someone who was detained, imprisoned or has fallen silent. Uyghurs abroad often cannot call their parents without endangering them. Mosques, shrines and old neighbourhoods have been demolished, and religious practice and the Uyghur language have been pushed out of public life. This is the defining event of present-day Uyghur life, and the name of a camp, a disappeared parent or a deleted WeChat contact can carry enormous pain.
In May 2014, after the Kunming and Ürümqi attacks, Beijing launched a "Strike Hard Campaign against Violent Terrorism" in Xinjiang. Religious expression was increasingly treated as a sign of "extremism": long beards, veils, fasting at Ramadan for officials and students, and religious names for children were restricted.
Facing terrorist attacks that killed hundreds of people, Xinjiang established vocational education and training centres to free people from extremism through learning the national language, law and job skills.
People were taken for praying, wearing a veil, having WhatsApp, travelling abroad or having relatives overseas. Former detainees describe political indoctrination, overcrowding, torture and sexual violence.
The OHCHR found in August 2022 that "serious human rights violations" had been committed in Xinjiang in the context of China's counter-terrorism and counter-"extremism" policies, that arbitrary and discriminatory detention of Uyghurs and other mainly Muslim groups "may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity", and that allegations of torture, sexual violence and coercive birth control were credible.
The United States formally declared the policies a genocide in 2021, and parliaments in Canada, the Netherlands, the UK and elsewhere passed similar motions; Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International called them crimes against humanity.
Labour Transfers and Forced-Labour Reports
Researchers and UN experts report that Uyghurs are moved into factory and farm work under coercive state "labour transfer" programmes, linking Xinjiang's cotton, solar and other industries to global supply chains.
- Contemporary Forms of Slavery Affecting Persons Belonging to Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minority Communities (A/HRC/51/26) — Tomoya Obokata, UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, United Nations (2022)
- In Broad Daylight: Uyghur Forced Labour and Global Solar Supply Chains — Laura T. Murphy and Nyrola Elimä, Sheffield Hallam University, Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice (2021)
- Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (Public Law 117-78) — United States Congress, US Government Publishing Office (2021)
- OHCHR Assessment of Human Rights Concerns in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China — Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations (2022)
- Fight against Terrorism and Extremism in Xinjiang: Truth and Facts (China's response to the OHCHR assessment) — Permanent Mission of the People's Republic of China to the UN Office at Geneva, United Nations (2022)
- Terror Capitalism: Uyghur Dispossession and Masculinity in a Chinese City — Darren Byler, Duke University Press (2022)
Read more
- Contemporary Forms of Slavery Affecting Persons Belonging to Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minority Communities (A/HRC/51/26) — Tomoya Obokata, UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, United Nations (2022)
- In Broad Daylight: Uyghur Forced Labour and Global Solar Supply Chains — Laura T. Murphy and Nyrola Elimä, Sheffield Hallam University, Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice (2021)
- Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (Public Law 117-78) — United States Congress, US Government Publishing Office (2021)
- OHCHR Assessment of Human Rights Concerns in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China — Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations (2022)
- Fight against Terrorism and Extremism in Xinjiang: Truth and Facts (China's response to the OHCHR assessment) — Permanent Mission of the People's Republic of China to the UN Office at Geneva, United Nations (2022)
- Terror Capitalism: Uyghur Dispossession and Masculinity in a Chinese City — Darren Byler, Duke University Press (2022)
For Uyghurs abroad, forced labour turned their community's suffering into something the world could act on, through import bans and boycotts. Many Uyghurs inside China have relatives sent to factories far from home. Beijing calls the programmes poverty alleviation, and the argument now shapes trade disputes between China and Western governments.
Alongside the camps, Xinjiang's government expanded "surplus labour" transfer programmes, moving rural Uyghurs into factories in Xinjiang and other provinces, often in groups, with political education, Mandarin classes and restrictions on religious practice. Some former detainees said they were sent straight from camps to factories.
Labour transfer is voluntary poverty alleviation that gives rural people stable jobs, higher incomes and training, protected by labour law.
A UN special rapporteur concluded in 2022 that it was reasonable to conclude that forced labour of Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other minorities was occurring in sectors such as agriculture and manufacturing, and that some instances may amount to enslavement as a crime against humanity.
Core values & worldview
Ask a Uyghur where they are from, and they will usually name an oasis: Kashgar, Hotan, Turpan, Ghulja. Local loyalties run deep, and each oasis has its own accent, cap pattern and jokes about the others. Above that is a shared sense of being Uyghur: a Turkic Muslim people with their own language, history and homeland, related to the Uzbeks and Kazakhs rather than to the Han Chinese.
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land — Gardner Bovingdon, Columbia University Press (2010)
Faith as identity. Most Uyghurs are Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi school, and Islam shapes the rhythm of life: births, circumcisions, weddings and funerals, Ramadan and the two Eids. Religious practice varies a great deal, from devout to very secular, but for most Uyghurs being Muslim is simply part of being Uyghur.
- The Sacred Routes of Uyghur History — Rian Thum, Harvard University Press (2014)
- Down a Narrow Road: Identity and Masculinity in a Uyghur Community in Xinjiang China — Jay Dautcher, Harvard University Asia Center (2009)
Hospitality and respect. A guest is fed first and best, with tea and nan offered before anything else, and refusing food can give offence. Respect for elders is strong: younger people greet them first, serve them first and rarely contradict them in public.
- Down a Narrow Road: Identity and Masculinity in a Uyghur Community in Xinjiang China — Jay Dautcher, Harvard University Asia Center (2009)
Music, poetry and humour. Uyghurs often describe themselves as a people who sing and dance. Poetry is loved and quoted, from the eleventh-century Kutadgu Bilig to modern poets, and wit, teasing and storytelling are prized; the trickster Nasreddin Ependi is everyone’s favourite.
- The Making of a Musical Canon in Chinese Central Asia: The Uyghur Twelve Muqam — Rachel Harris, Ashgate (2008)
- Wisdom of Royal Glory (Kutadgu Bilig): A Turko-Islamic Mirror for Princes — Yusuf Khass Hajib, trans. Robert Dankoff, University of Chicago Press (1983)
History as dignity. Many Uyghurs carry a strong sense of a long, independent past, from the Uyghur Khaganate to the Kara-Khanids and Yarkent, and of a homeland that was theirs before Chinese rule. Official Chinese history tells a different story, of Xinjiang as part of China since ancient times, and that clash of narratives sits at the heart of the conflict.
- The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land — Gardner Bovingdon, Columbia University Press (2010)
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
Daily life & customs
Traditional Uyghur life centres on the courtyard house, with grape vines overhead, a raised platform (supa) covered with rugs where the family eats, sleeps in summer and receives guests, and an oven for baking nan. The oases depend on water from the mountains, carried in canals and, at Turpan, in underground karez channels.
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- Down a Narrow Road: Identity and Masculinity in a Uyghur Community in Xinjiang China — Jay Dautcher, Harvard University Asia Center (2009)
Food is a source of joy: laghman hand-pulled noodles, polo pilaf with yellow carrots and mutton, samsa, kawap skewers, and endless bowls of tea with nan. Melons, grapes, apricots and raisins from Turpan and Hami are famous across China.
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
Bazaars, especially the Sunday market in Kashgar, were the social centre of oasis life. Men gathered in meshrep and tea-houses; families came together for weddings, which are loud, joyful affairs with dancing to dutar, drums and the sanam dance, and for circumcision feasts.
- Down a Narrow Road: Identity and Masculinity in a Uyghur Community in Xinjiang China — Jay Dautcher, Harvard University Asia Center (2009)
- Meshrep — UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, UNESCO (2010)
Pilgrimage to saints’ shrines (mazars) was once a central part of religious life. At desert shrines such as Ordam Padishah, thousands gathered for festivals with prayers, music and markets, and pilgrims traced a sacred geography of saints and martyrs. Rian Thum shows how these shrines carried Uyghur history itself. Many have since been closed or demolished.
- The Sacred Routes of Uyghur History — Rian Thum, Harvard University Press (2014)
- Cultural Erasure: Tracing the Destruction of Uyghur and Islamic Spaces in Xinjiang — Nathan Ruser, James Leibold, Kelsey Munro and Tilla Hoja, Australian Strategic Policy Institute (2020)
The Uyghur language belongs to the Karluk branch of the Turkic family, close to Uzbek. It is written in China in a modified Arabic script that marks all vowels; between the 1960s and 1982 a Latin script was used, and Uyghurs in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan use Cyrillic. A Latin transcription is widely used online and in the diaspora. Mandarin has increasingly replaced Uyghur in schools, a change many Uyghurs fear will cut children off from their language.
- Uyghur — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- "Break Their Lineage, Break Their Roots": China's Crimes against Humanity Targeting Uyghurs and Other Turkic Muslims — Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Watch (2021)
Wounds & sensitivities
The camps and the silence. Since 2017, very large numbers of Uyghurs have been detained in camps or sentenced to prison, and almost every Uyghur family has been touched. Many in the diaspora cannot contact their families, or speak to them only in coded, cheerful messages. Some have seen relatives appear in Chinese state videos denouncing them. This is a living wound, not history.
- OHCHR Assessment of Human Rights Concerns in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China — Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations (2022)
- In the Camps: China's High-Tech Penal Colony — Darren Byler, Columbia Global Reports (2021)
- "Like We Were Enemies in a War": China's Mass Internment, Torture and Persecution of Muslims in Xinjiang — Amnesty International, Amnesty International (2021)
Being called terrorists. After 2001, and especially after attacks in 2013–14, Uyghurs found themselves treated as suspects everywhere: at checkpoints, hotels and airports in China and sometimes abroad. Sean Roberts argues that the “terrorist” label became the justification for treating a whole people as a threat.
- The War on the Uyghurs: China's Internal Campaign against a Muslim Minority — Sean R. Roberts, Princeton University Press (2020)
The erasure of places. The demolition of Kashgar’s old city, mosques and shrines, and of cemeteries where grandparents were buried, is felt as an attempt to erase Uyghur memory from the landscape.
- Cultural Erasure: Tracing the Destruction of Uyghur and Islamic Spaces in Xinjiang — Nathan Ruser, James Leibold, Kelsey Munro and Tilla Hoja, Australian Strategic Policy Institute (2020)
- The Sacred Routes of Uyghur History — Rian Thum, Harvard University Press (2014)
Being spoken for. Uyghurs often see their culture presented in China as colourful song and dance for tourists, while the people themselves are silenced. Being praised for “happy dancing minorities” can hurt.
- Terror Capitalism: Uyghur Dispossession and Masculinity in a Chinese City — Darren Byler, Duke University Press (2022)
- The Making of a Musical Canon in Chinese Central Asia: The Uyghur Twelve Muqam — Rachel Harris, Ashgate (2008)
Older wounds. Older Uyghurs remember the Cultural Revolution’s attacks on religion, the famine of the Great Leap Forward, nuclear tests at Lop Nur, and the crackdowns after Baren, Ghulja and Ürümqi.
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land — Gardner Bovingdon, Columbia University Press (2010)
Modern attitudes
Politics. Uyghur views are hard to measure, because inside China speaking freely is dangerous. Gardner Bovingdon found deep and widespread discontent with Chinese rule well before 2017, expressed mostly through everyday resistance rather than violence. In the diaspora, many Uyghurs support independence for “East Turkestan”, while others focus on human rights, genuine autonomy or simply finding their families.
- The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land — Gardner Bovingdon, Columbia University Press (2010)
- The War on the Uyghurs: China's Internal Campaign against a Muslim Minority — Sean R. Roberts, Princeton University Press (2020)
Inside Xinjiang. Beijing presents today’s Xinjiang as stable, prosperous and open to tourists, with new roads, factories and incomes. Some Uyghurs have benefited from development, and some work in the state and the Party, by conviction or necessity. Many others live with checkpoints, compulsory political study and the knowledge that their words may be monitored.
- Terror Capitalism: Uyghur Dispossession and Masculinity in a Chinese City — Darren Byler, Duke University Press (2022)
- Fight against Terrorism and Extremism in Xinjiang: Truth and Facts (China's response to the OHCHR assessment) — Permanent Mission of the People's Republic of China to the UN Office at Geneva, United Nations (2022)
Religion. Some Uyghurs became more observant from the 1990s, influenced by Islamic revival across the Muslim world; others are secular. Both groups now live under strict limits on religious practice in China. In the diaspora, many are rediscovering faith and tradition, often as a way of holding on to identity.
- The Sacred Routes of Uyghur History — Rian Thum, Harvard University Press (2014)
- The War on the Uyghurs: China's Internal Campaign against a Muslim Minority — Sean R. Roberts, Princeton University Press (2020)
The Muslim world. Many Uyghurs feel let down that most Muslim-majority governments have supported China’s policies at the UN, while some Western governments have called them genocide. Turkey, with its Turkic kinship, is both a refuge and an uncertain friend.
- The War on the Uyghurs: China's Internal Campaign against a Muslim Minority — Sean R. Roberts, Princeton University Press (2020)
- OHCHR Assessment of Human Rights Concerns in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China — Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations (2022)
Not all Uyghurs are the same
North and south. The southern oases, Kashgar, Hotan and Yarkent, are almost entirely Uyghur, rural and more religiously conservative. The north, especially the Ili valley around Ghulja, has a history of Russian and Soviet influence and a more cosmopolitan reputation. Turpan and Hami in the east have their own traditions.
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- Xinjiang: China's Muslim Borderland — S. Frederick Starr (ed.), M. E. Sharpe (2004)
City and countryside. Many urban Uyghurs, especially in Ürümqi, were educated in Mandarin-medium schools (minkaohan) and speak Chinese more fluently than Uyghur; they are sometimes teased by Uyghur-educated peers as half-Han. Rural Uyghurs may speak little Mandarin.
- Terror Capitalism: Uyghur Dispossession and Masculinity in a Chinese City — Darren Byler, Duke University Press (2022)
- The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land — Gardner Bovingdon, Columbia University Press (2010)
Religion. Levels of practice range from devout to secular, with differences between shrine-centred tradition and reformist movements that reject shrine veneration.
- The Sacred Routes of Uyghur History — Rian Thum, Harvard University Press (2014)
The diaspora. Uyghurs in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan often descend from families who moved to the Russian empire in the 1880s or fled in the 1950s–60s. They speak Russian, write Uyghur in Cyrillic and have a long-settled identity. Uyghurs in Turkey, Europe, the US and Australia are mostly more recent migrants, students and refugees.
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- The War on the Uyghurs: China's Internal Campaign against a Muslim Minority — Sean R. Roberts, Princeton University Press (2020)
Uyghurs and other Muslims in China. Uyghurs are not the same as the Hui, who are Chinese-speaking Muslims spread across China, nor the Kazakhs and Kyrgyz of Xinjiang, though members of these groups were also detained.
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- OHCHR Assessment of Human Rights Concerns in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China — Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations (2022)
Meeting someone
Conversation starters
- Their oasis. Ask where their family is from. Every Uyghur can tell you what their town is famous for, Turpan’s grapes, Hotan’s jade, Kashgar’s bazaar.
- Food. Laghman and polo are the safest and happiest topics in the world, and many Uyghur restaurants abroad are run by families who love to explain them.
- Music and dance. Ask about the muqam, the dutar or wedding dances.
- The Making of a Musical Canon in Chinese Central Asia: The Uyghur Twelve Muqam — Rachel Harris, Ashgate (2008)
- Language and literature. A few words of Uyghur (“Yaxshimusiz?” for “How are you?”) will be warmly received, as will knowing about Mahmud al-Kashgari.
Topics to approach carefully
- Family back home. Don’t ask “Is your family in a camp?” Many Uyghurs don’t know where their relatives are, and talking can be painful or dangerous for those relatives. Let them raise it.
- In the Camps: China's High-Tech Penal Colony — Darren Byler, Columbia Global Reports (2021)
- Speaking publicly. A Uyghur may decline to be photographed, quoted or named. Respect that.
- “So you’re Chinese?” Many Uyghurs hold Chinese passports but do not identify as Chinese; others are comfortable saying so. Follow their lead.
- The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land — Gardner Bovingdon, Columbia University Press (2010)
- Terrorism. Don’t link Uyghurs to terrorism in conversation; the stereotype has caused enormous harm.
- The War on the Uyghurs: China's Internal Campaign against a Muslim Minority — Sean R. Roberts, Princeton University Press (2020)
- Politics and names. “Xinjiang” or “East Turkestan” are both political choices. If unsure, “the Uyghur region” or simply asking which they prefer is safest.
Common misconceptions
- “Uyghurs are Chinese Muslims, like the Hui.” Uyghurs are a Turkic people with their own language; the Hui are Chinese-speaking Muslims.
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- “Uyghurs are Arabs or Middle Eastern.” They are Central Asian Turks, closest in language to Uzbeks.
- Uyghur — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- “Uyghur culture is a folk show.” It includes a millennium of literature, philosophy and a classical music tradition.
- The Making of a Musical Canon in Chinese Central Asia: The Uyghur Twelve Muqam — Rachel Harris, Ashgate (2008)
- Compendium of the Turkic Dialects (Dīwān Luγāt at-Turk) — Mahmud al-Kashgari, ed. and trans. Robert Dankoff with James Kelly, Harvard University (1982)
- “The camps are a rumour” or “the story is simple.” The UN, journalists and researchers have documented mass detention extensively; China disputes the characterisation, and debates continue over terms such as genocide. Read the sources and listen.
- OHCHR Assessment of Human Rights Concerns in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China — Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations (2022)
- Fight against Terrorism and Extremism in Xinjiang: Truth and Facts (China's response to the OHCHR assessment) — Permanent Mission of the People's Republic of China to the UN Office at Geneva, United Nations (2022)
- “All Uyghurs want independence.” Views vary widely, and inside China they cannot be expressed freely.
- The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land — Gardner Bovingdon, Columbia University Press (2010)
People everyone knows
Mahmud al-Kashgari
A scholar from the Kara-Khanid ruling family who, in Baghdad, wrote the Diwan Lughat al-Turk ("Compendium of the Turkic Dialects") in Arabic to teach the Turks' language to the caliph's world. It includes a famous round world map centred on Balasaghun and records Turkic poems and proverbs. His tomb at Opal, near Kashgar, is a beloved pilgrimage site, and Uyghurs see him as a founding father of their written culture.
- Compendium of the Turkic Dialects (Dīwān Luγāt at-Turk) — Mahmud al-Kashgari, ed. and trans. Robert Dankoff with James Kelly, Harvard University (1982)
- An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples — Peter B. Golden, Otto Harrassowitz (1992)
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
Yusuf Khass Hajib
Born in Balasaghun and writing in Kashgar, he composed Kutadgu Bilig ("Wisdom that Brings Good Fortune"), a long Turkic verse dialogue on just kingship and right living, and presented it to the Kara-Khanid ruler. It is one of the first great works of Islamic Turkic literature. His mausoleum in Kashgar is a landmark, and lines from his poem are taught as part of the Uyghur classical heritage.
- Wisdom of Royal Glory (Kutadgu Bilig): A Turko-Islamic Mirror for Princes — Yusuf Khass Hajib, trans. Robert Dankoff, University of Chicago Press (1983)
- An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples — Peter B. Golden, Otto Harrassowitz (1992)
Amannisa Khan
A poet and musician who became queen of the Yarkent Khanate. Uyghur tradition credits her with gathering and arranging the scattered melodies that became the Twelve Muqam, the great suite cycle at the heart of Uyghur classical music. Scholars note that the canon as performed today was largely shaped in the twentieth century, but she remains a national heroine, and her tomb in Yarkent is visited by musicians and admirers.
- The Making of a Musical Canon in Chinese Central Asia: The Uyghur Twelve Muqam — Rachel Harris, Ashgate (2008)
- Uyghur Muqam of Xinjiang — UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, UNESCO (2008)
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
Ahmetjan Qasimi
A Soviet-educated leader from Ghulja who became the leading figure of the second East Turkestan Republic (1944–49) in Xinjiang's north. In 1949 he agreed to negotiate with the Chinese Communists, and he and other leaders died when their plane crashed in the Soviet Union in August 1949 on the way to Beijing. Chinese histories honour him as a revolutionary martyr; many Uyghur nationalists regard the crash as suspicious and the republic he led as the last time Uyghurs governed themselves.
- The Ili Rebellion: The Moslem Challenge to Chinese Authority in Xinjiang, 1944–1949 — Linda Benson, M. E. Sharpe (1990)
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- Uyghur Nation: Reform and Revolution on the Russia–China Frontier — David Brophy, Harvard University Press (2016)
Rebiya Kadeer
A laundress who became one of the richest businesswomen in Xinjiang and was once a member of China's top advisory body. She was arrested in 1999 on her way to meet a US congressional delegation, imprisoned on charges of passing state secrets, and released into exile in 2005. As president of the World Uyghur Congress from 2006 to 2017, she became the face of the Uyghur cause abroad. Beijing accused her of instigating the 2009 Ürümqi riots, which she denied.
- The War on the Uyghurs: China's Internal Campaign against a Muslim Minority — Sean R. Roberts, Princeton University Press (2020)
- People's Republic of China: Gross Violations of Human Rights in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region — Amnesty International, Amnesty International (1999)
- "We Are Afraid to Even Look for Them": Enforced Disappearances in the Wake of Xinjiang's Protests — Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Watch (2009)
Ilham Tohti
An economist at Minzu University in Beijing who ran the website Uyghur Online and criticised discrimination and unemployment among Uyghurs while explicitly rejecting separatism and violence. In 2014 he was sentenced to life in prison for "separatism". He received the Václav Havel Prize and the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize in 2019. To many Uyghurs, his fate showed that even moderate, loyal criticism was no longer tolerated.
- Ilham Tohti: Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought 2019 — European Parliament, European Parliament (2019)
- The War on the Uyghurs: China's Internal Campaign against a Muslim Minority — Sean R. Roberts, Princeton University Press (2020)
- Terror Capitalism: Uyghur Dispossession and Masculinity in a Chinese City — Darren Byler, Duke University Press (2022)
Rahile Dawut
A leading ethnographer at Xinjiang University who spent decades documenting Uyghur shrines (mazars), folk songs and oral traditions, working with Chinese and foreign scholars. She disappeared in late 2017, and in 2023 human-rights monitors reported that she had been sentenced to life imprisonment on state-security charges. For scholars of Uyghur culture she has become a symbol of what the campaign took from the community's intellectual life.
- The Sacred Routes of Uyghur History — Rian Thum, Harvard University Press (2014)
- In the Camps: China's High-Tech Penal Colony — Darren Byler, Columbia Global Reports (2021)
- Statement on the life sentence of Uyghur scholar Rahile Dawut — Dui Hua Foundation, Dui Hua Foundation (2023)
Try it yourself
The quickest way into a culture: a song, a film, a book and a dish.
Listen
Read
- The Backstreets Perhat Tursun's modernist novel of a young Uyghur man adrift in Ürümqi, translated into English by Darren Byler and a Uyghur co-translator in 2022.Find it
Taste
- Laghman Hand-pulled noodles, stretched and slapped on the table, topped with a stir-fry of mutton, peppers, tomatoes and greens.Recipe
- Polo Rice pilaf cooked in a huge cauldron with mutton, yellow carrots and sometimes raisins, the dish of weddings, funerals and guests, traditionally eaten with the hand.Recipe
- Nan, samsa and kawap Round breads baked on the walls of a clay tonur oven, mutton-filled pastries from the same oven, and lamb skewers grilled over coals, the taste of every Uyghur bazaar.Recipe
See & do
- Meshrep Traditional gatherings with music, dance, jokes, food and moral teaching, a kind of community court and party in one.Look it up
- Doppa and atlas silk The embroidered four-sided skullcap, with patterns that differ from oasis to oasis, and etles, the brilliant tie-dyed silk worn by women; both are everyday symbols of Uyghur identity.Look it up
Where
Homeland Diaspora Significant place
Related
China · Islam · Turkey (Türkiye) · Kashmir
Sources & further reading
- "Thoroughly Reforming Them towards a Healthy Heart Attitude": China's Political Re-education Campaign in Xinjiang — Adrian Zenz, Central Asian Survey, 2019
- "Like We Were Enemies in a War": China's Mass Internment, Torture and Persecution of Muslims in Xinjiang — Amnesty International, Amnesty International, 2021
- People's Republic of China: Gross Violations of Human Rights in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region — Amnesty International, Amnesty International, 1999
- Warlords and Muslims in Chinese Central Asia: A Political History of Republican Sinkiang 1911–1949 — Andrew D. W. Forbes, Cambridge University Press, 1986
- China cuts Uighur births with IUDs, abortion, sterilization — Associated Press, Associated Press, 2020
- "Absolutely No Mercy": Leaked Files Expose How China Organized Mass Detentions of Muslims — Austin Ramzy and Chris Buckley, The New York Times, 2019
- Exposed: China's Operating Manuals for Mass Internment and Arrest by Algorithm — Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, 2019
- Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party since the Founding of the People's Republic of China — Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, 1981
- The Uighur Empire according to the T'ang Dynastic Histories — Colin Mackerras, Australian National University Press, 1972
- In the Camps: China's High-Tech Penal Colony — Darren Byler, Columbia Global Reports, 2021
- Terror Capitalism: Uyghur Dispossession and Masculinity in a Chinese City — Darren Byler, Duke University Press, 2022
- Uyghur Nation: Reform and Revolution on the Russia–China Frontier — David Brophy, Harvard University Press, 2016
- Statement on the life sentence of Uyghur scholar Rahile Dawut — Dui Hua Foundation, Dui Hua Foundation, 2023
- Uyghur — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Ilham Tohti: Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought 2019 — European Parliament, European Parliament, 2019
- Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China — Ezra F. Vogel, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011
- The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land — Gardner Bovingdon, Columbia University Press, 2010
- Holy War in China: The Muslim Rebellion and State in Chinese Central Asia, 1864–1877 — Hodong Kim, Stanford University Press, 2004
- "Break Their Lineage, Break Their Roots": China's Crimes against Humanity Targeting Uyghurs and Other Turkic Muslims — Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Watch, 2021
- "We Are Afraid to Even Look for Them": Enforced Disappearances in the Wake of Xinjiang's Protests — Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Watch, 2009
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press, 2007
- Down a Narrow Road: Identity and Masculinity in a Uyghur Community in Xinjiang China — Jay Dautcher, Harvard University Asia Center, 2009
- The Search for Modern China — Jonathan D. Spence, W. W. Norton, 1990
- In Broad Daylight: Uyghur Forced Labour and Global Solar Supply Chains — Laura T. Murphy and Nyrola Elimä, Sheffield Hallam University, Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice, 2021
- The Ili Rebellion: The Moslem Challenge to Chinese Authority in Xinjiang, 1944–1949 — Linda Benson, M. E. Sharpe, 1990
- Compendium of the Turkic Dialects (Dīwān Luγāt at-Turk) — Mahmud al-Kashgari, ed. and trans. Robert Dankoff with James Kelly, Harvard University, 1982
- The Snow Lion and the Dragon: China, Tibet, and the Dalai Lama — Melvyn C. Goldstein, University of California Press, 1997
- Cultural Erasure: Tracing the Destruction of Uyghur and Islamic Spaces in Xinjiang — Nathan Ruser, James Leibold, Kelsey Munro and Tilla Hoja, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, 2020
- OHCHR Assessment of Human Rights Concerns in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China — Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations, 2022
- Fight against Terrorism and Extremism in Xinjiang: Truth and Facts (China's response to the OHCHR assessment) — Permanent Mission of the People's Republic of China to the UN Office at Geneva, United Nations, 2022
- An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples — Peter B. Golden, Otto Harrassowitz, 1992
- China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia — Peter C. Perdue, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005
- Mao: A Life — Philip Short, Henry Holt, 1999
- The Making of a Musical Canon in Chinese Central Asia: The Uyghur Twelve Muqam — Rachel Harris, Ashgate, 2008
- The Sacred Routes of Uyghur History — Rian Thum, Harvard University Press, 2014
- Mao's Last Revolution — Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006
- Xinjiang: China's Muslim Borderland — S. Frederick Starr (ed.), M. E. Sharpe, 2004
- The War on the Uyghurs: China's Internal Campaign against a Muslim Minority — Sean R. Roberts, Princeton University Press, 2020
- Vocational Education and Training in Xinjiang (white paper) — State Council Information Office of the People's Republic of China, State Council Information Office, 2019
- Oil and Water: Being Han in Xinjiang — Tom Cliff, University of Chicago Press, 2016
- Contemporary Forms of Slavery Affecting Persons Belonging to Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minority Communities (A/HRC/51/26) — Tomoya Obokata, UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, United Nations, 2022
- The Dragon in the Land of Snows: A History of Modern Tibet Since 1947 — Tsering Shakya, Columbia University Press, 1999
- Concluding Observations on the Combined Fourteenth to Seventeenth Periodic Reports of China — UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, United Nations, 2018
- Meshrep — UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, UNESCO, 2010
- Uyghur Muqam of Xinjiang — UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, UNESCO, 2008
- Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (Public Law 117-78) — United States Congress, US Government Publishing Office, 2021
- Uyghur Tribunal Judgment — Uyghur Tribunal (chair Sir Geoffrey Nice KC), Uyghur Tribunal, 2021
- Xinjiang's population and ethnic composition in the Seventh National Population Census — Xinhua, Xinhua News Agency, 2021
- Wisdom of Royal Glory (Kutadgu Bilig): A Turko-Islamic Mirror for Princes — Yusuf Khass Hajib, trans. Robert Dankoff, University of Chicago Press, 1983