Accommodation or Assimilation? Chinese Government Policies Toward Uyghur Minority
Accommodation or Assimilation? Chinese Government Policies Toward Uyghur Minority

Summary/Abstract: The relationship between minority and majority groups in various contexts has the potential to lead to ethnic friction. Some states make use of accommodational policies to overcome this dichotomy, whereas others resort to assimilatory policies to eliminate inter-group differences. The Uyghur case typifies the situation where a nation-state assumes assimilatory policies rather than accommodational ones. Against this backdrop, while China claims to have granted autonomy to the Uyghurs, their autonomy comes with serious restrictions which reduce the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region to a province under Beijing’s direct rule. In addition, the Chinese government has, to large extent, adopted an assimilatory approach in the form of linguistic, religious, economic, and political policies, since Beijing perceives the Uyghur identity as an existential threat to social and political order in China. Consequently, the Uyghur issue has been transformed into an impasse which sometimes escalates to violent clashes between the parties involved.

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