The first account of one of the world’s most pressing humanitarian catastrophes.
This eye-opening book reveals how China has used the US-led Global War on Terror as cover for its increasingly brutal suppression of the Uyghur people. China’s actions, it argues, have emboldened states around the globe to persecute ethnic minorities and severely repress domestic opposition in the name of combatting terrorism.
Within weeks of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, the Chinese government announced that it faced a serious terrorist threat from its largely Muslim Uyghur ethnic minority. Nearly two decades later, of the 11 million Uyghurs living in China today, more than 1 million have been detained in so-called re-education camps, victims of what has become the largest program of mass incarceration and surveillance in the world.
Drawing on extensive interviews with Uyghurs in Xinjiang, as well as refugee communities and exiles, Sean Roberts tells a story that is not just about state policies, but about Uyghur responses to these devastating government programs.
Providing a lucid and far-reaching analysis of China’s cultural genocide,
The War on the Uyghurs allows the voices of those caught up in the human tragedy to be heard for the first time.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Map: Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region
Foreword by Ben Emmerson
Preface
Introduction
1 Colonialism, 1759-2001
2 How the Uyghurs became a ‚terrorist threat‘
3 Myths and realities of the alleged ‚terrorist threat‘ associated with Uyghurs
4 Colonialism meets counterterrorism, 2002-2012
5 The self-fulfilling prophecy and the ‘People’s War on Terror, ’ 2013-2016
6 Cultural genocide, 2017-2020
Conclusion
A note on methodology
Transliteration and place names
List of figures
List of abbreviations
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index
Über den Autor
Sean R. Roberts is Associate Professor of the Practice of International Affairs and Director of the International Development Studies Program at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs