Explore the vast range of titles available.

Against the background of the Ürümchi riots (July 2009), this book provides a longitudinal study of contemporary Uyghur identities and Uyghur-Han relations. Previous studies considered China’s Uyghurs from the perspective of the majority Han (state or people). Conversely, The Art of Symbolic Resistance considers Uyghur identities from a local perspective, based on interviews conducted with group members over nearly twenty years. Smith Finley rejects assertions that the Uyghur ethnic group is a ‘creation of the Chinese state’, suggesting that contemporary Uyghur identities involve a complex interplay between long-standing intra-group socio-cultural commonalities and a more recently evolved sense of common enmity towards the Han. This book advances the discipline in three senses: from a focus on sporadic violent opposition to one on everyday symbolic resistance; from state to ‘local’ representations; and from a conceptualisation of Uyghurs as ‘victim’ to one of ‘creative agent’.

The recent conflict between indigenous Uyghurs and Han Chinese demonstrates that Xinjiang is a major trouble spot for China, with Uyghur demands for increased autonomy, and where Beijing’s policy is to more firmly integrate the province within China. This book provides an account of how China’s evolving integrationist policies in Xinjiang have influenced its foreign policy in Central Asia since the establishment of the People’s Republic in 1949, and how the policy of integration is related to China’s concern for security and its pursuit of increased power and influence in Central Asia. The book traces the development of Xinjiang - from the collapse of the Qing empire in the early twentieth century to the present – and argues that there is a largely complementary relationship between China’s Xinjiang, Central Asia and grand strategy-derived interests. This pattern of interests informs and shapes China’s diplomacy in Central Asia and its approach to the governance of Xinjiang. Michael E. Clarke shows how China’s concerns and policies, although pursued with vigour in recent decades, are of long-standing, and how domestic problems and policies in Xinjiang have for a long time been closely bound up with wider international relations issues. 1. China and the Integration of Xinjiang: The History of a Permanent Provocation 2. Xinjiang from the Qing Conquest to the Republic of China, 1760-1949 3. Completing the Forbears Behest: The Resurgence of the State’s Integrationist Project under the PRC, 1949-1976 4. ‘Crossing the River by Feeling for the Stones’: Xinjiang in the ‘Reform’ Era, 1976-1990 5. Reaffirming Chinese Control in the Wake of Central Asia’s Transformation, 1991-1995 6. Biding Time and Building Capabilities: Xinjiang and Chinese Foreign Policy in Central Asia, 1996-2001 7. Walking on Three Legs: Balancing China’s Xinjiang, Central Asia and Grand Strategy Derived Interests, 2002-2009 8. The Integration of Xinjiang: Securing China’s ‘Silk Road’ to Great Power Status? \"Overall, Clarke has done a wonderful job of piecing together a political history of Xinjiang’s strategic importance for Chinese policy in Central Asia. The achievement of Xinjiang and China’s Rise is in Clarke’s analysis, which is intelligent and comprehensive and offers a new perspective for framing Xinjiang in the larger global dynamics of contemporary politics.\" - Kristian Petersen, Ph.D., Gustavus Adolphus College; Journal of International and Global Studies \"Clarke's book is indispensible for anyone interested China's ethnic relations, state formation, and foreign policy, especially during the communist regime. Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates and above.\" -L. Teh, CHOICE (February 2012) Michael E. Clarke is a Research Fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute, Griffith University, Australia. He is the co-editor of China, Xinjiang and Central Asia: History, Transition and Crossborder Interaction into the 21st Century (also published by Routledge).

This book is intended to provide the narratives and analytics of China's spatial (dis)integration.Indeed, the Chinese nation is far too large and spatially complicated and diversified to be misinterpreted.