Uyghurs

Based on Wikipedia: Uyghurs

A People Without a Country They Can Call Their Own

Imagine living in an oasis. Not the metaphorical kind—an actual oasis, a pocket of green and water surrounded by one of the most forbidding deserts on Earth. Now imagine that oasis is your entire world, the place your ancestors have farmed for a thousand years, and suddenly a distant government decides that your religion, your language, and your very identity are threats to national security.

This is the reality facing the Uyghurs today.

The Uyghurs are a Turkic ethnic group numbering somewhere between eleven and fifteen million people, most of whom live in what China officially calls the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. That name—"autonomous"—carries a bitter irony. Since 2014, and accelerating dramatically since 2017, the Chinese government has constructed what many international observers call the most sophisticated system of ethnic persecution since the Second World War. Scholars estimate that at least one million Uyghurs have been detained in what Beijing euphemistically terms "vocational education and training centers." Multiple governments and human rights organizations have labeled what's happening as genocide.

But to understand how we arrived at this moment, we need to travel back in time—far back, through centuries of empire, migration, and the gradual collision of civilizations along the ancient Silk Road.

The Oasis Dwellers of the Taklamakan

The Taklamakan Desert sits in northwestern China like a vast, hostile sea of sand. Its name, according to popular etymology, means "you go in but you don't come out." The desert is roughly the size of Germany, and at its center, summer temperatures can reach 50 degrees Celsius—122 degrees Fahrenheit. Nothing survives there.

But around the edges, where snowmelt from the surrounding mountains seeps down into the sand, oases bloom. These green islands in the desert became home to some of the ancient world's most cosmopolitan cities: Kashgar, Hotan, Turpan, Kucha. For centuries, these oases served as crucial waypoints along the Silk Road, that network of trade routes connecting China to the Mediterranean world.

The people who settled these oases came from many directions. Some were Indo-European speakers—the mysterious Tocharians, whose languages are more closely related to Celtic and Italic tongues than to any of their geographic neighbors. Some were Iranic peoples, relatives of the Persians and Scythians. And beginning around the 9th century, Turkic peoples began arriving from the steppes to the north.

These weren't the Uyghurs as we know them today. They were part of a broader movement of Turkic migration that would eventually reshape the demographics of Central Asia from the Mediterranean to the borders of China. The ancestors of today's Uyghurs were farmers, merchants, and craftsmen who gradually absorbed the earlier inhabitants of the Tarim Basin oases, adopting their agricultural techniques while contributing their Turkic language and, eventually, their Islamic faith.

What's in a Name?

Here's something that might surprise you: the term "Uyghur" is essentially a 20th-century invention. Or rather, a reinvention.

The name itself is ancient. Old Turkic inscriptions from the 8th century record the word "Uyghur," and it appears in Chinese chronicles as early as the Northern Wei dynasty, around the 4th to 6th centuries. But for most of the past thousand years, the Turkic Muslims of the Tarim Basin didn't call themselves Uyghurs at all.

They identified by their oasis of origin. A person from Kashgar was a Kashgari. Someone from Hotan was Hotani. Collectively, other Central Asians might call all of them "Kashgari" as a catch-all term, much as Americans might call all British people "English." When asked about their broader identity, they might say "Turki" (referring to their language family), "Musulman" (Muslim), or simply "yerlik"—local.

The Chinese had their own terms, none particularly flattering. "Chantou" meant "turban heads." Later, they would be grouped with other Muslims under the category "Hui," a classification that lumped together peoples as distinct as the Turkic oasis dwellers and the Chinese-speaking Muslim communities of the interior.

So where did "Uyghur" come from?

The answer involves the Soviet Union, European orientalists, and some creative historical engineering.

The Soviet Invention of a People

In the 19th century, Western scholars studying Central Asian history became fascinated by the medieval Uyghur Khaganate—a powerful Turkic empire that had dominated Mongolia and parts of Central Asia from 744 to 840. These scholars, including the German linguist Julius Klaproth, began using "Uyghur" as a historical term for the ancient Turkic peoples of the region.

Russian historians took this further, proposing that the modern Turkic Muslims of Xinjiang were descendants of the Uyghur Khaganate. This was, at best, a simplification. The medieval Uyghurs had been largely Buddhist and Manichaean, not Muslim. When their empire collapsed in 842, some fled south into the Tarim Basin, but they mixed with the existing population rather than replacing it. The ancestry of modern Uyghurs is complex, drawing on Turkic, Tocharian, Iranic, and other sources.

But historical accuracy wasn't really the point.

In 1921, at a conference in Tashkent organized by Soviet authorities, Turkic Muslims from the Tarim Basin were gathered to discuss—among other things—what they should call themselves. The Soviets had a vested interest in the outcome. Joseph Stalin's nationalities policy sought to categorize and fix ethnic identities throughout the Soviet sphere of influence. Creating distinct "nationalities" served the goal of divide and rule: a "Uyghur" who saw himself as Uyghur first was less likely to embrace pan-Turkic or pan-Islamic movements that might challenge Soviet power.

The conference participants, many of whom were intellectuals and activists, agreed to adopt "Uyghur" as their official ethnonym. It was a compromise. Some preferred "Turki" or "East Turkestani." But "Uyghur" had the advantage of being specific—it distinguished them from the Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, and other Turkic peoples—while also connecting them to a glorious imperial past.

The name stuck. When the warlord Sheng Shicai took control of Xinjiang in 1933, he adopted the Soviet classification system, making "Uyghur" an official category. After the Communist victory in China in 1949, the new government continued this practice. The Uyghurs became one of China's 55 officially recognized ethnic minorities.

The Path to Islam

Today, Islam is central to Uyghur identity. But this wasn't always the case.

The ancient Uyghur Khaganate practiced Manichaeism, a religion founded in 3rd-century Persia that blended elements of Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Buddhism. When the Khaganate collapsed and Uyghur refugees fled to the Tarim Basin, they encountered and eventually adopted Buddhism from the local population. The Buddhist Kingdom of Qocho, centered on Turpan, flourished for centuries.

Islam arrived gradually. The Karakhanid Khanate, a Turkic state based in what is now Uzbekistan and western Xinjiang, converted to Islam around 960. Over the following centuries, Islam spread eastward through the oases of the Tarim Basin, often through trade and intermarriage rather than conquest. The process took hundreds of years. By the 16th century, most Uyghurs identified as Muslim, but pockets of Buddhism persisted in the eastern oases until much later.

This gradual conversion left its mark. Uyghur Islam developed distinctive local characteristics, blending orthodox Sunni practice with Sufi mysticism and traces of earlier religious traditions. Shrines to local saints dot the landscape. Music and dance, discouraged by more puritanical Islamic movements elsewhere, remained central to Uyghur culture.

This cultural distinctiveness would later become both a source of identity and a target for repression.

Empires and Autonomy

The Tarim Basin's location made it a prize coveted by empires. Chinese dynasties, Mongol khans, Tibetan rulers, and various Turkic states all sought to control the oases and the lucrative trade routes that passed through them.

The Qing dynasty—the Manchu empire that ruled China from 1644 to 1912—conquered the region in the 18th century. They called it Xinjiang: "New Frontier" or "New Territory." The name itself reveals the colonial nature of the relationship. This wasn't a Chinese heartland being reunified; it was new territory being incorporated into an expanding empire.

Qing rule was often harsh, but it was also distant. The Manchu emperors were primarily interested in strategic control and extracting tribute. They didn't attempt to transform Uyghur society or suppress Islam. Local elites largely retained their positions so long as they remained loyal.

This changed dramatically in the 20th century.

The fall of the Qing in 1912 plunged Xinjiang into chaos. Warlords, Soviet agents, Nationalist Chinese forces, and local independence movements competed for control. Twice—in 1933 and 1944—Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims established short-lived independent republics, both called the East Turkestan Republic. Both were crushed, first by local warlords backed by the Soviet Union, then by the advancing Communist forces.

When the People's Republic of China was established in 1949, Xinjiang was incorporated as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Once again, "autonomous" proved more aspiration than description.

The Scattered Diaspora

Not all Uyghurs live in Xinjiang. Over the centuries, and accelerating dramatically in recent decades, Uyghur communities have scattered across the globe.

About 80% of Xinjiang's Uyghurs still live in the traditional oasis towns of the Tarim Basin: Kashgar, Hotan, Aksu, and their surrounding villages. But significant numbers have moved to the cities of northern Xinjiang, including the regional capital Ürümqi. These northern cities lie in a different geographic region called Dzungaria—historically the domain of nomadic Mongol peoples rather than settled Turkic farmers.

The largest Uyghur community outside Xinjiang proper lives in an unexpected place: Taoyuan County in Hunan Province, deep in south-central China. These "Taoyuan Uyghurs" are descendants of soldiers and officials who were stationed there during the Ming dynasty, over 600 years ago. They've maintained a distinct identity despite centuries of separation from their ancestral homeland.

Larger diaspora communities exist in the Turkic-speaking countries of Central Asia—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan—where Uyghurs share linguistic and cultural ties with the majority populations. Turkey has become an increasingly important destination, partly because of cultural affinity (Turkey and the Uyghurs share Turkic linguistic roots) and partly because Turkey has been more willing than most countries to accept Uyghur refugees.

Smaller communities are scattered across the globe: Saudi Arabia, where some Uyghurs have settled for religious reasons; Australia, Europe, and North America, where political refugees have sought asylum. These diaspora communities have become crucial for documenting and publicizing the persecution occurring in Xinjiang, since gathering information inside the region has become nearly impossible.

The Crisis of the Present

Since 2014, and intensifying dramatically since 2017, the Chinese government has implemented what it calls a campaign against "extremism" and "separatism" in Xinjiang. The scale of this campaign is difficult to comprehend.

Based on satellite imagery, leaked government documents, and testimony from former detainees and officials, researchers have identified hundreds of detention facilities across the region. These range from former schools hastily converted into prisons to purpose-built complexes covering multiple city blocks. Estimates of the number of Uyghurs detained in these facilities range from one million to three million—representing somewhere between 10% and 30% of the adult Uyghur population.

The Chinese government initially denied the camps existed. When satellite evidence made denial impossible, officials rebranded them as "vocational education and training centers" designed to combat terrorism and provide job skills. Leaked internal documents, however, reveal a system focused on ideological transformation: forcing detainees to renounce their religious beliefs, learn Mandarin Chinese, and demonstrate loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party.

But the detention camps are only part of the story. Outside the camps, Uyghurs face what observers have called the most comprehensive surveillance system ever constructed. Facial recognition cameras blanket public spaces. Checkpoints dot every town and city. Residents must install government spyware on their smartphones. Religious practice is severely restricted: men are forbidden from wearing beards, women from wearing face veils, and families from giving their children traditionally Islamic names.

Perhaps most disturbingly, multiple investigations have documented systematic programs of forced sterilization and birth suppression targeting Uyghur women. Birth rates in Uyghur-majority areas have plummeted—by some measures, declining by over 80% since 2015. Under international law, measures intended to prevent births within a targeted ethnic group constitute one of the defining acts of genocide.

The Question of Genocide

Is what's happening to the Uyghurs a genocide?

The United Nations Genocide Convention, adopted in 1948, defines genocide as acts committed "with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group." These acts include killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions calculated to bring about physical destruction, imposing measures intended to prevent births, and forcibly transferring children away from the group.

By 2024, multiple governments—including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, and the Netherlands—along with the European Parliament and numerous human rights organizations, had formally declared that China's treatment of the Uyghurs constitutes genocide or crimes against humanity.

China vigorously denies these accusations. Officials argue that the measures in Xinjiang are necessary to combat terrorism and separatism following a series of violent incidents in the 2000s and 2010s. They point to economic development and poverty reduction as evidence of benevolent intentions. And they accuse Western governments of hypocrisy and interference in China's internal affairs.

The debate over terminology matters for legal and diplomatic reasons. But for the Uyghurs themselves—watching their language disappear from schools, their mosques demolished, their relatives vanish into the camp system—the semantic distinction between "genocide" and "crimes against humanity" may feel beside the point.

Ancient Bones and Modern Politics

In the sands of the Taklamakan Desert, archaeologists have discovered something remarkable: the mummified remains of people who lived thousands of years ago, preserved by the extreme dryness. These "Tarim mummies" have become unexpectedly political.

Some of the mummies, dating from around 2000 BCE, have features that look distinctly non-East Asian: light hair, round eyes, long faces. For Uyghur activists, these mummies represent proof that their ancestors inhabited the region long before any Chinese presence—a counter to Chinese government claims that Xinjiang has "always been" part of China.

The Chinese government, predictably, has sought to minimize the significance of these findings. And the science turns out to be more complicated than either side's narrative suggests.

A 2021 genetic study found that the earliest Tarim mummies were genetically distinct from both East Asians and Western Eurasian populations. Rather than being migrants from anywhere, they appeared to be descendants of an ancient population that had been largely isolated for thousands of years—a genetic relic of a much earlier era of human history. They weren't Uyghur ancestors in any direct sense, nor were they Chinese. They were something else entirely, a reminder that human history is messier than nationalist narratives allow.

Later populations in the Tarim Basin do show evidence of mixing between different groups, including people related to the Indo-European-speaking cultures of the western steppes. The Uyghurs of today are the product of thousands of years of migration, mixing, and cultural exchange—as, indeed, are most human populations. The question of who has the "rightful" claim to any piece of territory based on ancient ancestry is, ultimately, unanswerable. Everyone's ancestors came from somewhere else.

A Language Under Threat

The Uyghur language belongs to the Turkic family, making it a distant cousin of Turkish, Kazakh, Uzbek, and several dozen other languages spoken from Eastern Europe to Siberia. If you speak Turkish, you would find Uyghur somewhat familiar—many basic words are similar—but the languages have diverged enough over the centuries that communication would be difficult without study.

Uyghur uses a modified Arabic script, the same writing system used for Persian, Urdu, and Pashto. This is a relatively recent development in the long sweep of history. The ancient Uyghurs used their own alphabet, derived from Sogdian, which was itself derived from Aramaic. (Genghis Khan's Mongol Empire would later adopt a version of this Uyghur script, and it's still used for Mongolian in Inner Mongolia today.) When the Uyghurs converted to Islam, they gradually adopted Arabic script, a process completed by the 16th century.

Under Communist rule, the script has changed multiple times. In the 1950s and 1960s, China introduced a Latin-based alphabet, then a Cyrillic-based one (copying Soviet practice), before eventually returning to a modified Arabic script in 1982. These shifts disrupted literacy and created generational divides—grandparents unable to read what their grandchildren wrote.

Today, the Uyghur language faces a different threat. Education in Xinjiang has increasingly shifted to Mandarin Chinese. Uyghur-language schools have been closed or converted. The government describes this as "bilingual education," but critics note that the result is children who struggle to read and write in their parents' language. When combined with the detention of Uyghur intellectuals, writers, and educators, the long-term future of the Uyghur language as a living cultural medium is in serious doubt.

The View from Inside

What does it feel like to live under this system?

Testimony from former residents and detainees describes a pervasive atmosphere of fear. Every interaction is potentially monitored. Speaking Uyghur in public attracts suspicion. Having relatives abroad—even in countries like Turkey or Kazakhstan—can be grounds for detention. Religious practice must be hidden. Saying the wrong thing to the wrong person can mean disappearing into the camp system, sometimes for years.

The technology is inescapable. Cameras with facial recognition track movement through cities. Checkpoints require ID scans. Phones must run government apps that monitor communications. Home visits by assigned "relatives"—Han Chinese party members dispatched to live with Uyghur families—mean that even private life is surveilled.

For many Uyghurs, the experience is one of cultural erasure in real time. The neighborhood mosque, where their father prayed, has been demolished. The cemetery where their grandparents are buried has been bulldozed to build a parking lot. Their brother went to the police station for questioning and never came home. Their children are learning to be ashamed of their heritage.

What Comes Next?

Predicting the future is always hazardous, especially in a situation as dynamic and politically charged as this one. But some trends seem clear.

The Chinese government shows no sign of abandoning its policies in Xinjiang. International condemnation has been vocal but largely ineffective—the economic incentives for engaging with China remain too powerful for most governments to impose serious consequences. The few countries that have taken concrete action, like banning imports made with forced labor, face enormous challenges in enforcing such restrictions.

The Uyghur diaspora continues to grow, as those who can escape do so. These communities in Turkey, Kazakhstan, Europe, and North America are preserving Uyghur culture and language—but in exile, separated from the homeland that gave them meaning.

Inside Xinjiang, a generation of Uyghur children is growing up in an environment designed to sever them from their heritage. Whether this will succeed in its apparent goal of assimilation, or whether it will create lasting resentment that manifests in future generations, only time will tell.

What seems certain is that the Uyghurs—as a people, as a culture, as an identity—are at a crossroads. The oasis civilization that flourished for a thousand years on the edge of the Taklamakan Desert faces an existential challenge. How this story ends will say something important not just about China or Central Asia, but about what kinds of diversity the 21st century world will tolerate, and what it will allow to be erased.