Xi Jinping, the paramount leader of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), toured eastern Xinjiang on a four-day ‘investigative tour’ in mid-July—his first visit to the Uyghur Region since 2014. On the surface, the trip and its public messaging do not appear to differ much from those of his predecessors. However, the ideological focus of Xi's remarks made there was one promoting a historical narrative of primordial Zhonghuaness in which Uyghurs, Kyrgyz, Kazakhs and other indigenes of X...
