Join us for a free one-day workshop for educators at the Japanese American National Museum, hosted by the USC U.S.-China Institute and the National Consortium for Teaching about Asia. This workshop will include a guided tour of the beloved exhibition Common Ground: The Heart of Community, slated to close permanently in January 2025. Following the tour, learn strategies for engaging students in the primary source artifacts, images, and documents found in JANM’s vast collection and discover classroom-ready resources to support teaching and learning about the Japanese American experience.
Video: What happened in Xinjiang in July 2009?
Yang Zhongdong, USC U.S.-China Institute visiting scholar and Xinjiang University professor, examines Xinjiang's history and the social disturbances that broke out in Urumqi in July 2009.
October 9, 2010
Northwest China's Xinjiang region is energy rich. It has the country's largest deposits of oil and coal and is home to 40% of China's known natural gas reserves. More than 21 million people live there, almost five times more than did in 1949. Millions of Han migrants from other parts of China have come to join in extracting resources and building cities. In July 2009, horrific riots broke out in the region's capital, leaving nearly 200 people dead, almost 2,000 injured, and millions more too frightened to carry on with daily life. The government dispatched large numbers of security personnel and cut off the region's international phone and internet links (click here for USCI Talking Points coverage). Several of those convicted of violence during the riots were executed. Dozens were arrested.
On September 23, 2010, Professor Yang Zhongdong, a visiting scholar from Xinjiang University’s School of Humanities, discusses these riots. Yang argues against the use of the concept of "ethnic conflict" to describe the 2009 riots in Xinjiang. He combines a comprehensive analysis of the riots with particular attention to social, economic, cultural, and historical factors with recollections of his own personal experiences in Xinjiang.
Map modified from Wikipedia original. Xinjiang borders Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India.
Professor Yang's research focus is contemporary Muslim communities in Xinjiang Province. Born in Urumqi, the region’s capital, Yang is a Hui, a Muslim minority. This background helped inspire his study of the history and the culture of Xinjiang. As a scholar in Hui Studies, a fairly new discipline, Professor Yang emphasizes the importance of the ethnological discipline in his research. Ethnology, according to Professor Yang, incorporates a large amount of fieldwork that is essential to studying one specific ethnicity. The diversity of China dictates that an ethnological approach to studying the Xinjiang people is indispensable. His current research in Los Angeles involves comparing how religion and ethnicity shape the identity of Muslim minorities in the U.S. and China. (Click here for more on Yang Zhongdong.) [CD]
This video is also available on the USCI YouTube Channel.
Other resources on Xinjiang:
2020: Talking Points Newsletter: Hope and Fear
Symposium on What's at Stake in Xinjiang
2021: Xinjiang and the Belt and Road Initiative
Featured Articles
October 20, 2024
October 20, 2024
Please join us for the Grad Mixer! Hosted by USC Annenberg Office of International Affairs, Enjoy food, drink and conversation with fellow students across USC Annenberg. Graduate students from any field are welcome to join, so it is a great opportunity to meet fellow students with IR/foreign policy-related research topics and interests.
RSVP link: https://forms.gle/1zer188RE9dCS6Ho6
Events
Wednesday, November 20, 2024 - 3:00pm
Hosted by USC Annenberg Office of International Affairs, enjoy food, drink and conversation with fellow international students.
Thursday, November 7, 2024 - 4:00pm
Join us for an in-person conversation on Thursday, November 7th at 4pm with author David M. Lampton as he discusses his new book, Living U.S.-China Relations: From Cold War to Cold War. The book examines the history of U.S.-China relations across eight U.S. presidential administrations.