China’s Islam in Xinjiang: from functionalization to elimination

Abstract

This thesis examines the practice and effects of the Chinese Communist Party’s religious and minority policies in Xinjiang on the eve of the wholesale repression of Islam and Uyghur culture after 2016. Based on government papers and speeches, publications and communications by the China Islamic Association, as well as fieldwork in Xinjiang itself and among the Uyghur diaspora in Europe between 2013 and 2018, this thesis specifically looks at the shift in the Chinese Communist Party approach to Islam in the context of the “Xinjiang problem”. State restrictions on Uyghur religious life and the state’s apprehensions of Islam as a vessel and cause of Uyghur unrest already existed since the 1990s. The policies of repression and control in Xinjiang have been addressed by several studies, showing that they fueled the use of Islam as an anti-Chinese symbol of resistance. But there was also a state-backed positive policy on Islam, which sought to bind religious communities more firmly to the Party-state, using Islamic scripture and Islamic authority figures to stimulate cultural and political loyalty among Muslims. This thesis looks at this “functionalization” of Islam by the Chinese state to understand what exactly changed in the CCP’s approach in the 2010s, why it changed, and whether the new policies in Xinjiang constituted a deeper shift in the Party’s dealing with religion.