by Subhash Kak Most people do not know that until about a thousand years ago, the Tarim Basin (northwest of Tibet, which is the part of Xinjiang below the Tian Shin Mountains) was Indic in culture and it was a thriving part of the Sanskritic world; its people spoke the Gāndhārī language which many see as descended from Vedic Sanskrit, and Khotanese Saka, which is also closely related to Sanskrit. Perhaps th ...

JamesTown Foundation Editor’s Note: This article continues coverage by China Brief of the ongoing efforts by the Chinese government to suppress dissent in Xinjiang (see China Brief, May 15 2018; and China Brief, November 5 2018). This article examines commonalities between the situation in Xinjiang and the government’s prior (and ongoing) efforts to suppress and “transform” practitioners of Falun Gong. Due ...

e-international Relations Xinjiang has recently been in the international spotlight due to the advent of what observers in the media and scholarly communities have described as a ‘security’, ‘police’, or ‘surveillance’ state (Rajagopalan 2018, Chin and Bürge 2017, Millward 2018). This refers to a conglomerate of security practices implemented by the Chinese authorities and mainly aimed at the Uyghur ethnic ...

Dolkun Kamberi, Ph. D Introduction Great politicians will pass from the earth, and the strongest imperial states will collapse and disappear from a new generation’s memory, but wisdom, civilization, and cultural heritage will continue to play a significant role among human beings as long as there is human history. The land of the Uyghurs today consists of the Tarim, Junghar, and Turpan basins, situated in t ...

  Uyghur Culture (General) The Uyghurs practice Islam. Currently under Chinese law, Uyghur women are not allowed to wear complete head-coverings and young Uyghur men are not allowed to have long beards. Uyghur language has Turkic origins and they use Arabic script. Uyghur art, dance and music is very popular with the music being particularly popular throughout China. Uyghurs use special instruments for ...