Interwoven ‘Destinies’: The Significance of Xinjiang to the China Dream, the Belt and Road Initiative, and the Xi Jinping Legacy

Abstract

The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) has been an uncomfortable fit within the Chinese state. However, XUAR’s location on the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) has increased the importance of this frontier region and it is now an important element in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and China’s future. Moreover, given the BRI now underpins Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era and Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy, XUAR has increasingly become interwoven into the China Dream, the BRI and Xi’s legacy, resulting in serious human rights violations there. This article argues that the repressive control of XUAR demonstrates Beijing’s acute anxiety over opening this region up to external influences, particularly from Central Asian and Middle Eastern SREB states.