Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the northwestern autonomous region of Xinjiang last week to mark its 70th anniversary. In 1955, less than a decade after the establishment of the modern Chinese republic, the border area was officially established as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR).Today, it often makes headlines over reports of human rights violations of its minority Uyghur Muslim community, and for Beijing routinely rejecting those allegations. A recent Chinese state media opinion article began by saying, “The 70th anniversary… calls for exposing the lies spread by the West, especially Western politicians and media, about the naturally beautiful, culturally rich, politically stable, ethnically harmonious and economically thriving region.”During his visit, too, Xi spoke about “earthshaking changes” over the decades and how Xinjiang has “joined the rest of the country in embarking on a new journey of building a modern socialist country in all respects.”At crossroads of Central AsiaXinjiang is the northwestern frontier of China, bordering another autonomous region, Tibet, to its south. It also shares borders with India, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia and Mongolia. It is sparsely populated due to its difficult terrain, like the Taklamakan Desert in the south and the Kunlun mountain range, which separates it from Tibet. The region supports some agriculture, often depending upon rivers fed by glaciers and snowmelt, and is rich in oil and other natural resources.In his book Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang, American academic James A Millward wrote that one of the region’s earlier names was “Chinese Turkestan”. “‘Turkestan’ was a term medieval Islamic writers applied to the northern and eastern parts of Central Asia—the lands of the Turkic-speaking nomads”. Thirteenth-century Venetian explorer Marco Polo also used the name.Parts of modern Xinjiang have been controlled by different groups over the last 2,000 years, including the Hephthalites of Central Asia, the Kok Turks of Mongolia, and the Han and Tang dynasties of China.In the 9th century came the Uyghurs, who shared many cultural commonalities with the Turks, and interestingly, opposed Islam while permitting Christianity and Buddhism. They were among the many ancestors of today’s Uyghurs.Story continues below this adExplained | Why China plans to connect the restive Xinjiang to Tibet, at India’s doorstepMillward noted that while the community’s exact origins are contested among scholars, what’s clear is that the region has always seen frequent interactions between various cultures and kingdoms by virtue of its location. By the 17th century, Xinjiang was Islamicised owing to multiple influences, including Sufi mystics.Integration with modern ChinaMillward wrote that in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, parts of Xinjiang had local rulers in the oases who paid tribute to nomad overlords. However, the region found itself situated around powerful groups — the Zunghar nomads in the north, the Manchu Qing dynasty of China, and Tibet. In the Qing period (1644 to 1911), the “emperor and the court justified the conquest in financial and strategic terms, arguing that a forward position allowed banner troops to be stationed on the steppe.”By the late 19th century, Xinjiang was established as a Qing province, with new administrative and educational systems — similar to elements of “Sinicisation” or assimilation with the dominant Han Chinese culture seen today.The first half of the 20th century saw massive shifts in China brought on by the fall of the Qing as the last dynasty of imperial China, a civil war between the nationalist and the communist parties over the control of modern China, and the Second World War fought against Japan.Story continues below this adFrom 1931 to 1934 and 1944 to 1949, Uyghur nationalists established an independent nation called the Eastern Turkestan Republic. It stemmed from ethno-nationalist sentiments, but another view is that the Soviets aided the movements for their own strategic goals. However, both ultimately fell apart.Explained | China’s massive military parade, and capabilities and concerns it displayedWith the formation of the communist People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, attempts began to establish local governance mechanisms in Xinjiang, but the cultural differences threw up many challenges for the communists early on. Many non-Han officials staffed the lower levels of new government organs to aid assimilation.Millward wrote that land reforms, a central tenet of communist societies, were also aimed at undermining local elites by mobilising the poorer peasants against them. Given the atheistic principles of the Communist Party, it slowly moved to target Islamic practices. “Islam poses a challenge to Communism, and vice versa, because both systems compete for influence in social, legal, ideological and political spheres, not to mention for control of land,” Millward wrote.While the Qing had patronised key mosques and shrines, even ratifying some imams, the PRC clamped down on them. “The main source of Islam’s wealth and its tightest connection to the community in southern Xinjiang… was land and other endowment property, managed in a system known as waqfiya.” Land redistribution policies greatly impacted such systems.Story continues below this adWhat they did have in common with the Qing emperors was the goal of settling the Han Chinese in Xinjiang, “both to relieve population pressure in eastern provinces and to strengthen security on the frontier,” Millward wrote.Sinicisation of Islam, West’s focusAs of 2021, around 25 million people (less than 2% of China’s total population) live in Xinjiang, which forms one-sixth of China’s total area. The Han ethnic group numbered 10.92 million, and ethnic minorities (including the Uyghurs) numbered 14.93 million.In the last two decades, the Chinese state has increasingly focused on the Uyghurs from a security perspective. This period saw several incidents, such as clashes between Uyghurs and the Han Chinese in the capital Urumqi in 2009 and attacks (including bomb blasts) in Kashgar in the early 2010s.Debasish Chaudhuri, an Assistant Professor at Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, and an Adjunct Fellow at the Institute of Chinese Studies (ICS), New Delhi, has argued that these attacks reveal much about modern Xinjiang. There are “deep resentments against Chinese rule, against the Han population influx, the inequitable distribution of political power and economic benefits, and the severe restrictions on religious and cultural activities,” he wrote for the ICS.Story continues below this adFor long, he wrote, the Chinese government has emphasised curbing “three radical ideologies, namely, religious extremism, ethnic separatism and terrorism,” officially referred to as “three evil forces”. Between 1996 and 2010, China regularly characterised “the wide range of Uyghur political activities (violent as well as non-violent)… through the single prism of their ethno-religious identity as a “biological threat” “akin to a virus” to Chinese society that had to be eliminated.”In service of that goal, surveillance has been heightened and “re-education camps” were set up, which were found to have placed large numbers of people under confinement (reportedly upto a million), with reports of torture and indoctrination. Many religious events and markers (such as domes atop mosques) have been removed.While the early 2000s saw the United States cooperate with China on these issues under the common banner of terrorism, the treatment of Uyghurs has become a source of contention today. Several major Western brands, such as Nike, H&M and Adidas, have expressed concerns over the use of slave labour in cotton production in Xinjiang, while China has responded by boycotting them.Xinjiang inhabitants face a range of challenges at present, ranging from heightened official surveillance to melting glaciers hampering access to water. As Millward wrote, it comes at a time when China’s hold on Xinjiang is “more secure than ever”, thanks to the disappearance of the Soviet Union as a counter-influence. Under Xi, Xinjiang is also a key component of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) infrastructure project.Story continues below this adDuring his visit, Xi said that “The profound changes in Xinjiang over the past 70 years are a vivid reflection of the historic process of national rejuvenation.” It highlights how, for China, regions such as Xinjiang, Tibet (which Xi also visited recently) and Taiwan are seen as key for projecting a vision of a strong and unified Chinese nation, despite the issues in reconciling with their aspirations and diversity.