K. Warikoo (ed.): Xinjiang: China’s Northeast FrontierHang Lin

ASIEN – Nr. 141 (2016) pp. 112–13

Oxon/New York: Routledge, 2016. 211 S., 90,00 GBP

Due to its geo-strategic position and its ethnic-religious complexity, Xinjiang has always been China’s vital hub of trans-Asian trade and traffic. Historically, Xinjiang as a frontier region was understood by the Chinese dynastic imagination as the edge of civilization and source of threat. The PRC adheres in many respects to a Han-Chinese nationalist discourse that reads back into history the political unity and territorial extent of the Chinese state to claim that Xinjiang, as Tibet and Inner Mongolia, have been “integral provinces” since “ancient times”. The incorporation of Xinjiang, however, is also marked with inherent political, and often violent, contestation. Ongoing episodes of inter-ethnic tension and anti-state violence in Xinjiang, in particular in 2009, bear witness to the enduring nature of this contestation. In Xinjiang: China’s Northeast Frontier, edited by Jawaharlal Nehru University’s Xinjiang-expert K. Warikoo, the authors strive to offer us an allaround understanding of the situation in Xinjiang by presenting coherent and concise, yet detailed, analyses of the ethnic relations, China’s policy, local resistance and contestation, and Xinjiang’s ethnic-religious and economic connections to its neighbors in an integrated manner.