CCS/CREES Lecture. “Contemporary Xinjiang: What do we know? What don’t we know?”

Gardner Bovingdon, assistant professor of Central Eurasian studies, Indiana University, Bloomington. Sponsors: Center for Chinese Studies, CREES.

Xinjiang has long been one of the most contentious regions in China, no less so than its better-known neighboring region of Tibet. The region seemed calmer for much of the last decade, but the widely-publicized violence of July 2009 suggested the outward placidity had in fact concealed deep tensions. Xinjiang has also become increasingly closed to scholars and journalists since 2001, making an accurate assessment of that violence difficult. This talk will summarize what outside observers know, and what they do not know, about the politics of the region over the last decade.