The Not-So-Terrorist Conflict: Analytical Deception and Political Delusion in China’s Framing of Uyghur-related Violent Events

Abstract

This article investigates the systematic framing of Uyghur-related violent unrest in Xinjiang as terrorism by the Chinese state. The study draws attention to how Uyghur-related violent incidents in the region -and elsewhere in China- are often not so premeditated, political, and indiscriminate as their framing as terrorism by the Chinese state suggests. Narrative tensions are identified between the features of such events and dominant scholarly conceptualizations of terrorism as a category of organized and premeditated violence that indiscriminately targets civilians for political purposes. The article argues that the Chinese state uses an actor-based one-size-fits-all approach by which many cases of Uygur-related violence are represented as terrorism not by virtue of the features of the violence, but because of the ethnicity of those involved. Such representation, the article concludes, is analytically deceptive and politically delusional.