Visualising insecurity: the globalisation of China’s racist ‘counter-terror’ education

ABSTRACT

This paper analyses the Chinese party-state’s production of visual racism towards Uyghurs as a discursive foundation for its ethnic policy, as globally reproduced and disseminated by non-state actors. The paper draws from theoretical literature on the relationship between visual politics and affect, stressing the need for visual literacy to reflect on how images emotionally affect audiences’ identities and insecurities. It focuses this analysis on education texts in China’s post-2012 ‘de-extremification’ and ‘re-education’ campaigns, specifically on how images tell stories about life-or-death security issues that define Chinese identity. Chinese education about Uyghurs tends to frame Uyghur identities as racialised, culturally external existential threats to be defeated by state violence or teaching them to be Chinese. However, Uyghurs’ own visibility strategies in global advocacy counter the party-state’s imagery by centring their lives and experiences. The article shows how these strategies can be used as resources for teaching about Chinese politics and society.

本文分析了中国党国针对维吾尔人所构建的视觉种族主义。这种视觉种族主义既作为其民族政策的话语基础，又被非国家行为者在全球范围内复制和传播。本文借鉴了视觉政治与情感的相关理论，强调视觉素养需要反思图像如何在情感上影响受众的身份认同和不安全感。本文重点分析了2012年后中国“去极端化”和“再教育”运动中的教育文本，特别是图像如何讲述生死攸关的安全问题来定义中国身份。中国关于维吾尔人的教育倾向于种族化维吾尔人身份，视之为文化上存在的外部威胁，需要通过国家暴力来打倒或教育其成为中国人。然而，维吾尔人也用以自己的生活和经历为中心的视觉策略在全球呼吁中对抗党国的意象。文章展示了如何把这些策略作为关于中国政治和社会的教学资源。

KEYWORDS:

• China
• Uyghurs
• visual politics
• visual analysis
• education
• nationalism
• ethnicity
• identity
• state violence
• genocide

中国:

• 维吾尔人
• 视觉政治
• 视觉分析
• 教育
• 民族主义
• 种族
• 身份
• 国家暴力
• 种族灭绝

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 For example, see Vanessa Frangville’s and Rune Steenberg’s Remote Ethnography XUAR project: https://www.remote-xuar.com/.

2 As reported in the Channel 4 Dispatches documentary, 6 December 2023.

3 ‘Joint prevention and control’ (lianfang liankong 联防联控) later became synonymous with public health and disease control under the State Council’s ‘joint prevention and control mechanism’.

4 ‘Mass defence and governance’ (qunfang qunzhi 群防群治) is a nationwide security practice and mass propaganda campaign emphasising the need for all sectors of society to maintain stability.

5 See Nursiman’s testimony to the Uyghur Tribunal. Available: https://uyghurtribunal.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/UT-211117-Nursiman-Abdureshid.pdf.

6 The full film is online and covers Rushan’s daily experiences of family separation, transnational repression, and advocacy for her arbitrarily detained sister, Gulshan Abbas. Available: https://www.jawadmir.com/portfolio/in-search-of-my-sister/.

7 Kabir Qurban’s website: https://jokabir.com/about/.

8 Camilla Dilshat’s website: https://www.camilladilshat.com. Quotes below are included here.

9 Mamatjan Juma’s website: https://mamatjans.com. Quotes below are included here.

10 For example, see: https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2023/02/asia/china-police-data-leak-uyghur-families/index.html.

11 https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml.

12 For example, see the Tiktok Uyghur makeup tutorial controversy: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/nov/27/tiktok-makeup-tutorial-conceals-call-to-action-on-chinas-treatment-of-uighurs.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

David Tobin

Dr. David Tobin is Lecturer in East Asian Studies, University of Sheffield. His research on global politics focuses on China’s ethnic policy and Han-Uyghur relations, publishing in China Quarterly, Ethnic and Racial Studies, HAU Journal of Ethnographic Theory, Positions – Asia Critique, and Inner Asia. His book, Securing China’s Northwest Frontier: Identity and Insecurity in Xinjiang (Cambridge University Press), analyses the relationship between identity and security in China’s policy-making and its impact on Han-Uyghur relations. David’s current interdisciplinary research on China’s new ethnic policy and genocide, Documenting Uyghur Diaspora Voices, uses film, image, and text to share Uyghurs life stories experiencing separation from homeland.