At the centre of the diplomatic, trade and public relations offensive by the western powers against China is the alleged maltreatment of the Uyghur minority in the western-most Chinese province of Xinjiang. Xinjiang covers 18% of China’s land mass but has a population of only 27 million out of the 1.5 billion in China as a whole. 48% of Xinjiang’s population are Uyghurs down from 80% in 1949. Han Chinese constitutes another 40% after several decades of steady migration. The remainder are other Muslim minorities, Mongols, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and Tajiks.
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China and the Uyghur question
At the centre of the diplomatic, trade and public relations offensive by the western powers against China is the alleged maltreatment of the Uyghur minority in the western-most Chinese province of Xinjiang. Xinjiang covers 18% of China’s land mass but has a population of only 27 million out of the 1.5 billion in China as a whole. 48% of Xinjiang’s population are Uyghurs down from 80% in 1949. Han Chinese constitutes another 40% after several decades of steady migration. The remainder are other Muslim minorities, Mongols, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and Tajiks.