Reading About Xinjiang – The Qiao Collective’s Bibliography

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Xinjiang: A Report and Resource Compilation

I have just downloaded this compendium of information on Xinjiang, China, copied all the links and, starting in the next few days, I will over time read as many of the articles there in and watch as many of the videos as I can. There is enough material here to think about and keep someone busy until the end of the COVID-19 virus and long afterwards. A great deal of information gathering, intellectual work has gone into putting what is essentially an annotated bibliography together on the situation in Xinjiang China.

It is important that people – all people, but especially people here in the United States – familiarize themselves with China – with its history, its current situation it growing global connections. Each of you could do a lot worse. The United States is heading, no – has already entered – a new Cold War with China. It has become very nasty in a short period of time, starting with the Obama presidency and now gotten worse during the Trump years. Like the “old cold war” with the Soviet Union, it is largely based on exaggerations and lies, hiding what is essentially socio-economic competition.

Will this competition be peaceful, graceful or will it be – as appears to be shaping up, graceless (on the side of Washington) ultimately leading to a military “contest” that will benefit no one?

I hope not but given that the United States’ is suffering from a deepening malaise, wounded beast syndrome, it’s hard to say.

My starting point for becoming better informed about this subject is that, we in the United States are being lied to about China and specifically about Xinjiang. Of this I am certain. As a result one needs to give attention to two tasks: the first – the deconstruction of the lies. So many of the articles cited here, some of which I am already aware of, address this. But if we are being lied to, if the truth is being stretched to such a degree that it is no longer true, the question remains: what IS going on in Xinjiang and why?

Central to the increasing vilification of China has been the supposed treatment of Chinese Uyghurs in Xinjiang, China’s northwestern region. The Chinese government has been accused of serious repression – the term genocide is bandied about – of this population of Turkic culturally based Muslims. Missing from this narrative is a 30-40 year Western sponsored terrorist campaign to undermine the region, and as is with most campaigns of this nature , to split Xinjiang off from China, partition the country in a word, the age old way that imperialist countries (UK, USA) try to defeat their adversaries. The campaign of course hidden under a cynical human rights banner. will, I am convinced, fail. In fact it has already, the propaganda aside. Indeed the more it fails the more shrill are its advocates.

Part of this bibliography is political, a large part in fact… it details what is referred to as U.S. hybrid warfare against China, much of which centers around Xinjiang. But there is much historical and cultural information as well. There is more than enough material here to answer such questions.

Finally the Qiao Collective is a collective, as I understand it, of Chinese marxists – Communists as they define themselves – who live outside China and have come together in a collective to question… no – attack … the mainstream narrative developing here and in Europe about China that is taking on the aspect of a New Cold War. Their website is a goldmine of information, perspective. Try it, you’ll like it!

They write with “an edge”; some people find that offensive. Personally I find it refreshing. I hoping – and looking forward to the Qiao Collective putting out a similar bibliography on the Belt and Road Initiative to match this one.