Xinjiang is an arid region three times the size of France in the northwestern corner of the People’s Republic of China, bordering on Mongolia, Russia, and several Central Asian countries. Just over half of the region’s population of nearly 20 million is composed of Turkic-speaking, traditionally Muslim peoples, including over 1 million Kazakhs and some 9 million Uyghurs.
Since the 1990s, concerns about Uyghur separatism have received increasing official and media attention. These concerns have heightened since the events of 9-11 with the advent of a more robust U.S. presence in Central Asia and Chinese attempts to link Uyghur separatism...