Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

1 results

  • Explaining the Chinese framing of the “terrorist” violence in Xinjiang: insights from securitization theory

  • Marie Trédaniel, Pak K. Lee
  • Journal:
    Nationalities Papers / Volume 46 / Issue 1 / January 2018
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    20 November 2018, pp. 177-195
    Print publication:
    January 2018

  • This paper critically examines the Chinese framing of the “terrorist” violence in Xinjiang. Drawing on the Copenhagen school of securitization theory, it examines how the historical perception of the region as a primary source of security threats to inner China has led today's China to continue with representing the Han Chinese–Uyghur discord as an existential threat. In framing the ethnic conflict as a security issue, China has capitalized on the global “war on terror” of the early 2000s to transform the unrest into acts of Islamist terrorism to legitimize its counter-insurgency policies in Xinjiang. However, both the 2009 Urumqi riots and the 2014 Kunming attack lead us to conclude that the securitization strategy fails to quell the unrest. Not only have the Strike-Hard campaigns served to radicalize Uyghur nationalists, but also Han Chinese are not convinced that the Chinese government can contain the “terrorist” threat. Yet securitization blinds the leadership to the dysfunctional ethnic policy.