[45] During the Mao era the People's Republic oversaw the migration into Xinjiang of millions of Han, who have been accused of economically dominating the region,[46][47][48][49] although a 2008 survey on both ethnic groups has contradicted the allegation.

[45][failed verification] On the other hand, some Han citizens view Uyghurs as benefiting from special treatment, such as preferential admission to universities and exemption from the (now abandoned) one-child policy,[62] and as "harbouring separatist aspirations".

[66] Ethnic minority couples were paid incentives to keep their family size below the legal limit and accept sterilisation after three children preceding the removal of the preferential policy.

Religious freedom exists for Hui Muslims, who can practice their religion, build mosques and have their children attend them; more restrictions are placed on Uyghurs in Xinjiang.

[79] In the last two decades of the 20th century, Uyghurs in Turpan were treated favourably by China with regard to religion; while Kashgar and Hotan were subject to more stringent government control.

[107] Corruption, appropriation of land, and the commandeering of grain and livestock by Chinese military forces were all factors which led to the eventual Kumul Rebellion that established the First East Turkestan Republic in 1933.

[115][116] As the Sino-Soviet split deepened, the Soviets initiated an extensive propaganda campaign criticising China, encouraging minority groups to migrate – and later revolt – and attempting to undermine Chinese sovereignty by appealing to separatist tendencies.

China responded to these developments by relocating non-Han populations away from the border, creating a "buffer zone" which would later be filled with Han farmers and Bingtuan militia.

[124][125][126] During the 1970s, the Soviets likely supported the United Revolutionary Front of East Turkestan (URFET),[5] which issued a series of press releases responsible for creating the impression of an active, organized resistance movement, despite involving only a handful of individuals.

[135] China established camps to train the Afghan mujahideen near Kashgar and Hotan, investing hundreds of millions of dollars in small arms, rockets, mines, and anti-tank weapons.

[141] China's "Strike Hard" campaign[g] against crime, beginning in 1996, saw thousands of arrests, as well as executions, and "constant human rights violations", and also marked reduction in religious freedom.

[142] On 28 October 2013, five Uyghurs drove a jeep into Beijing's Tiananmen Square, set the gas tank on fire, killed two civilians and injured more than forty bystanders.

[151] In 2005, Uygur author Nurmemet Yasin was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment for inciting separatism following his publication of an allegorical short story, "The Blue Pigeon".

[156] The following year, an attempted suicide bombing on a China Southern Airlines flight was thwarted[157] and the Kashgar attack resulted in the death of sixteen police officers four days before the beginning of the Beijing Olympics.

[170] On 28 October 2013, an SUV ploughed through a group of pedestrians near Tiananmen Square in central Beijing, crashed into a stone bridge and caught fire, causing dozens of casualties.

[182] On 18 April, a group of 16 Chinese citizens identified as ethnic Uyghurs engaged in a shootout with Vietnamese border guards after seizing their guns when they were being detained to be returned to China.

[196] On 18 September 2015, in Aksu, an unidentified group of knife-wielding terrorists attacked sleeping workers at a coal mine and killed as many as 50 people, before fleeing into the mountains.

[9][198] The Bangkok bombing is suspected to have been carried out by the Turkish ultranationalist organisation known as the Grey Wolves in response to Thailand's deportation of 100 Uyghur asylum-seekers back to China.

[241] According to a fax received by CNN, Chinese officials acknowledged that birth rates dropped by almost a third in Xinjiang in 2018, but they denied reports of forced sterilization and genocide.

[249] However, the exact size of the Turkistan Islamic Party remains unknown and some experts dispute its ability to orchestrate attacks in China, or that it still exists as a cohesive group.

[255] Philip B. K. Potter writes that despite the fact that "throughout the 1990s, Chinese authorities went to great lengths to publicly link organizations active in Xinjiang—particularly the ETIM—to al-Qaeda [...] the best information indicates that prior to 2001, the relationship included some training and funding but relatively little operational cooperation.

[1][17] However, in 1998 the group's headquarters were moved to Kabul, in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, while "China's ongoing security crackdown in Xinjiang has forced the most militant Uyghur separatists into volatile neighboring countries, such as Pakistan," Potter writes, "where they are forging strategic alliances with, and even leading, jihadist factions affiliated with al-Qaeda and the Taliban."

They include Mustafa Setmariam Nasar,[260] Abu Yahya al-Libi,[261][262] and late al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri who has on multiple occasions issued statements naming Xinjiang (calling it "East Turkestan") as one of the "battlegrounds" of "jihad to liberate every span of land of the Muslims that has been usurped and violated.

[268] Andrew McGregor, writing for the Jamestown Foundation, opines that "though there is no question a small group of Uyghur militants fought alongside their Taliban hosts against the Northern Alliance [...] the scores of terrorists Beijing claimed that Bin Laden was sending to China in 2002 never materialized" and that "the TIP's 'strategy' of making loud and alarming threats (attacks on the Olympics, use of biological and chemical weapons, etc.)

"[292] In October 2019, 23 countries issued a joint statement at the UN urging China to "uphold its national and international obligations and commitments to respect human rights".

[299][300][301] The ruling Democratic Progressive Party released a short video on social media urging support for Uyghurs in China and criticising the Chinese government.

[302] The United States Senate and House of Representatives passed the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act in September 2019 and December 2019 respectively in reaction to the conflict.

[309] Hundreds of Uyghurs fleeing China through Southeast Asia have been deported back by the governments of Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, and others, drawing condemnation from the U.S., the UNHCR, and human rights groups.

The major concern here is the fact that the presence of these entities could finance human rights violations and enable the supervision of ethnic minorities by technological cooperation.

In the context of the Xinjiang conflict, China is doing just that, while maintaining that they are placing Uyghurs into internment camps to prevent the spread of separatist ideology and terrorist rhetoric in the country.