Social Science Research Council

CHINA'S RESTRICTIVE CONCEPTION OF SECURITY THREATENS XINJIANG'S STABILITY
By Nicolas Becquelin

In my view, the Chinese state's restrictive concept of security-which emphasizes public order and conflates the monopoly of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and state sovereignty-actually poses a threat to the stability of Xinjiang and the region, in other words, to real long term security there. The way China uses the concept of sovereignty internally to crush any opposition in words or deeds should be questioned, because it is more part of the problem than part of the solution.

I see real security issues as being more about the sustainability of the political and economic arrangements in Xinjiang, than anything coming from a direct military (foreign) or terrorist (domestic or transnational) threat. By choosing to limit their understanding of what is security to sovereignty, dictatorship of the Party and so-called terrorism, the Chinese authorities demonstrate that their main concerns are maintaining their monopoly on power and limiting dissent than actually guaranteeing the conditions for long-term stability and security in the region.

The CCP has consistently used the category of endangering state security, previously known as "counterrevolution," to crush any dissenting voices, any possibility of a political opposition, in Xinjiang as in the rest of China. Particularly since September 11, Beijing has asserted that its crackdown on Xinjiang Uighur separatists is entirely legitimate, because they represent a threat to China's sovereignty. This is a powerful argument, because it sets the issue on a different level that the one where belongs, that is, a matter regarding the grave, widespread and systemic violations of human rights of the Uighur people. By evoking a threat to its national security, the Chinese state seeks to gain the support of the international community (tacit or explicit), attempts to justify the by-passing of due process in its treatment of people who are detained, and evades scrutiny by claiming that it needs to keep information about cases of alleged separatists secret. Xinjiang is currently the only province in China where people are still executed for political charges.(1)

China continues to define sovereignty in a very Westphalian, outmoded way, where what matters are borders rather than flows, narrow national sovereignty rather than regional integration, and a jingoistic independence rather than international cooperation. Since the end of the Cold War, absolute sovereignty has diminished because of the interdependence of countries, because of economic globalization, because of the weight of international and inter-state organizations, media, communications, non-governmental organizations and international public opinion. This interdependence not only means that the long term security of Xinjiang cannot be realistically assured by domestic repression, but also that the stability of Xinjiang, which borders the hotspots of Kashmir, Pakistan and Afghanistan, is vital not only to China but to the whole region, if not the world.

In a border region like Xinjiang, where half of the eighteen million strong population is not ethnic Chinese and the other half has moved there in the past fifty years, security and sovereignty are very contentious issues. The largest ethnic group is the Uighurs, a Turkic people numbering eight million, who are traditionally oases farmers. Between 300,000 and 500,000 other Uighurs are citizens of neighboring Central Asian republics. Xinjiang is also home to 1.2 million Kazakhs and another million people of other ethnic backgrounds, including Uzbeks, Kyrgyzs, Tajiks and Mongols.

Historically, Xinjiang has always been a very difficult region to control, and although it was made part of the Manchu empire during the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), effective control was really established only after the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949.

There has always been opposition to Chinese rule in Xinjiang, before and after 1949. We know very little about what happened between the 1950s and the 1980s because it was not reported. But we know that there were numerous incidents and uprisings, some fueled by the Sino-Soviet split, although there's no evidence that there was organized opposition. However, the short-lived East Turkestan Republic (1944-1949), set up with the help of the Soviets for tactical reasons (as Stalin waited to see the outcome of the civil war in China), continues to inspire aspirations towards independence.

As the PRC entered the reform era and rejected the radicalism of the Cultural Revolution, the Muslim population in Xinjiang, and especially the Uighurs, pioneered many of the social changes that were seen in the late 1970s and early 1980s. These involved a rapid resurgence of tradition and individual initiative: the rise of individual entrepreneurs, the reopening of mosques-sometimes funded by money from outside the country-and some revival of religious traditions. One of these, an important religious and social institution among the Uighurs, is the meshrep, which is a kind of community gathering, generally of males of the same generation. Community problems are discussed, funds are raised for social endeavors in the community and the advice of religious leaders is sought. The religious revival was mostly along the lines of traditional community Islam and rural life, and was not influenced by external trends at that time.

But then there was a change of policy decided by the central leadership, prompted in part by an upsurge in expression of pro-independence sentiments in Tibet in the mid-1980s, culminating in the 1987 Lhasa demonstrations, which were violently suppressed by the authorities. In addition, after the suppression of the 1989 nationwide demonstrations, there was a general backlash against anything liberal in terms of social control. Thus in the 1990s we see a U-turn on religious policy, especially in Xinjiang. Control from above has gradually been replaced by control at every level: each level of government has the responsibility to control what is happening in its jurisdiction, and can be sanctioned if "incidents" take place. Imams have to renew their state accreditation every year, and it will not be renewed unless they attend "patriotic education" courses. Only very limited numbers of people selected by the state-sanctioned religious structures may receive religious training. Any independent religious movements, such as meshreps, are banned.

Paradoxically, this repressive turn coincided with the central government's decision to open Xinjiang somewhat to the outside world, particularly to Central Asia. Up until the fall of the USSR in 1991, the border with Central Asia was essentially sealed. After 1991 with the emergence of the new Central Asian republics, Beijing faced the dilemma of whether to open the border and run the risk of the possible instability in Central Asia spreading into Xinjiang, or to keep the border sealed.

The fact that they chose to open the border was recognition that security cannot be achieved by just closing borders, or by putting army divisions along them. Beijing took a clever bet by opening the border-bringing economic stimulus to what had previously been a backwater-but counterbalanced the move by significantly increasing control over Xinjiang, enticing Han Chinese "pioneers" and migrants from inland China to settle in Xinjiang, building transportation infrastructure, and strengthening the security forces-the army, the police and the Production and Construction Corps organization.(2)

The Chinese government rules Xinjiang in classic colonialist style, attempting to control and dominate the whole society. This is very clear and explicit in the government's rhetoric, which addresses the whole minority issue as a "nationality problem" that China must "solve." The authorities exercise tight control over schools, and require that the government officials, Party members, teachers, religious officials have to be selected according to principles favorable to the state and the CCP. The whole society is to be mobilized to denounce people who break those rules. When Chinese President Jiang Zemin visited Xinjiang in 1998, the headline in the Xinjiang Daily was, "When a rat crosses the street, everyone must shout at it." This is a classic Chinese proverb about the responsibility of individual members of society to denounce and report trouble, but in this context, it implies that loyalty of the Uighur population would be measured by their willingness to denounce and strike at what the Chinese government labels "separatists." On the one hand, the Chinese government speaks of there being only a "handful" of violent extremists, but at the same time it implies that a whole ethnic community is responsible for the actions of this minority.

Of course this kind of policy is a threat to the security of Xinjiang, understood as sustainable stability, the absence of violence and the inter-ethnic modus vivendi. As a matter of fact, the policies of China in the 1990s have destroyed the modus vivendi that had been established between Han Chinese and Uighurs.

Security understood as interdependence means that security cannot be imposed by public order measures, but requires the creation of political and economic networks where everyone has the incentive to collaborate, and not oppose the system. Two sets of cardinal policies imposed by the Chinese government starting in the late 1980s completely contradict those requisites for real security.

One is the increased social and economic discrimination against non-Han ethnic people, and the other is economic policies that are extremely threatening to the environment and the fragile ecology of Xinjiang. In combination, these two factors are even more dangerous than they would be on their own.

A key objective of the central government has been to dilute ethnic populations in "minority" areas. This is a very effective way to deal with contestation of domination by a central power. It is an imperial policy, and was originally imposed on Xinjiang by the Manchus in the Qing dynasty and has been used in Imperial China since the Han dynasty (206 BC-220 AD). Diluting the ethnic population has meant bringing large numbers of Chinese farmers to Xinjiang. The proportion of Chinese in Xinjiang's population has increased from a mere six percent in 1949 to over 40 percent in 2000.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the state believed that market mechanisms would be more effective in enticing people to move than the forcible relocations of the Mao era. After Mao's death, lots of people who had been sent to Xinjiang returned to their places of origin. So new policies were designed to give economic incentives to people from poorer areas of China to settle in Xinjiang, including a relaxed system of household registration and a modification of the property rights system that allowed local districts to transfer previously collective land to individual responsibility contract land. Because of systematic discrimination against minorities, and lack of access to state institutions like banks, the ones who were best able to benefit from this evolution of policy in property rights were mostly Chinese farmers and new migrants. This was combined with a policy that made cotton the backbone of the agricultural economy in Xinjiang.

This two-pronged policy is very similar to what was done in Uzbekistan in Soviet times when "virgin lands" were opened and millions of new Russian settlers were moved in, and the river Amu Darya was diverted to irrigate the new cotton fields, which became known as "white gold." Cotton in Xinjiang is now known in Chinese as white gold, too. The awful results in Soviet Central Asia are well known: increased desertification, salinization of the soil, the Aral Sea shrank by half, and economic disaster for the people who previously relied on the cultivation of cotton.

In Xinjiang, these lessons are being ignored. Large irrigation projects are built that capture the water coming down from the mountain ranges to irrigate areas along the desert. This is presented as reclaiming land, but scientific studies have shown that the edge of the desert is extremely sensitive, and must be treated with great caution. Just flooding it with water and growing cotton might work well for the first five or ten years, but it ends in disaster, for many reasons. First, cotton needs a huge amount of water, which combined with the intensive use of fertilizers quickly erode the soil. Because it is very hot, all the water put on the ground takes the minerals from the soil and brings them to the surface, so after a while all the minerals form a crust on the surface. The result is increased desertification. It may work very well to entice new settlers to move to Xinjiang, but cotton is placing an enormous burden on the region's ecological sustainability.

In addition, the cotton policy has meant the enlargement of the Production and Construction Corps operation. They have been the main beneficiaries of the cotton policy as they have been able to extend their domain, because cotton is only really viable on a very large scale because of the manpower required. So they have extended their area of operation and incorporated lots of new migrants as well. This also threatens the environment, and even though this has been acknowledged and criticized by Chinese specialists, the overriding considerations of encouraging migration and strengthening the Corps continue to prevail.

The government has also forced local farmers to produce cotton. This has brought numerous problems. The first is that it is certainly not viable for a farmer with a small plot to cultivate cotton, because they do not have sufficient labor, water, or money for fertilizer. The development of cotton fields without significant new irrigation resources in southern Xinjiang, the poorest part of the region, has meant economic insecurity, even pauperization, for a great many farmers. Although farmers would prefer to grow grain, a number of areas are no longer self-sufficient in food, while farmers get more and more deeply into debt.

Of course the overall reforms of agricultural production in the PRC have created both winners and losers across the country, including in Xinjiang. Many factors determined which category farmers were in, such as the size of their plots, the price of the main crop in the area, access to markets, local leadership and so on. But what is clear is that in Xinjiang, many farmers are among the losers from reform.

These three aspects of the cotton policy really present a threat to the sustainability of Xinjiang where the concentration of population is already extremely high in the oases, much higher than in some provinces of China inland. Of course the propaganda always says that Xinjiang is one sixth of the land area of the PRC, and that it has only 1.5 percent of the population, implying that you can move lots of people in there. But this fails to mention that the sustainability of oases is a very matter thing.

The impact of the cotton policy on the environment and population of Xinjiang must be considered in the light of the overall demography of the region. With half of the Uighur population under 14, there will be a demographic explosion in the next 10 to 20 years. Given that there is already substantial underemployment in the rural areas and not many jobs in the cities, when combined with the effects of the cotton policy this will create an extremely difficult situation: a clear, identifiable threat to human security, both in terms of environmental sustainability and livelihood, and its potential for sparking ethnic conflicts.

Another factor contributing to insecurity is socio-economic discrimination against Uighurs and other non-Chinese ethnic groups in Xinjiang. The Chinese authorities are deeply distrustful of them, and as a result, discrimination against them has become institutionalized, both in official and private bodies. This can be seen very clearly when you look at education and the allocation of graduates; there is absolutely no doubt that when ethnic Chinese or Hui graduate from a university or a school, they have a much wider scope of opportunities for work than do Uighurs, Kazakhs and so on.(3) That is something that is recognized by the Uighurs themselves, who complain bitterly about it, and also very often by the Chinese, either in official positions or entrepreneurs, who say that they don't trust the Uighurs so that's why they don't employ them. It is not disguised or hidden discrimination, it is something that people will admit openly. Every Uighur entrepreneur I have spoken to told me that they need a Chinese partner if they are going to do business. This person does not necessarily do a lot, but they are needed to obtain the relevant permits, to have access to banks, to credit, and so on. Of course, with banks still being state-owned, many people have little or no access to credit, but the problem is especially severe for non-Han people, such as Uighurs.

Surplus capacity in the rural workforce is a problem all over the PRC, but it is even more of a problem in Xinjiang because when people move to the city to find work, they suffer a triple burden of discrimination: being from a rural area, being non-Chinese and not having the language skills that are required in the cities, which are mainly populated by Chinese, not Uighurs or other indigenous people.

With the use of the Uighur language fading away due to Chinese domination of public institutions, with the life in the countryside no longer viable for many, with integration into the cities made extremely difficult, and with people-like the rest of the population in the PRC-affected by structural factors like the collapse of the health system, the increasing cost of education, competition for work, all this means that individuals have no basic security, nowhere to turn.

When people have no security and no rights, when this is combined with an absence of opportunities for social mobility and adaptable political institutions, then the seeds for a radical response are sown.

If people have nothing to lose, and see that their culture, way of life and environment are disappearing, and that voicing their concern or opposition lands them in jail, a system of values that explains why they are in this position and provides some answers and remedies becomes attractive. Traditional Islam is closed to them by the state, which refuses to allow religious leaders to discuss the social and economic problems in Xinjiang and the real plight of people, or issues like inter-ethnic relations. So what is left is something outside of the state, and as soon as you do anything outside state control, it is deemed to be illegal. This is a dynamic that pushes illegal organizations towards becoming more and more radical, because they don't have much to lose. The line for what is deemed to be a "threat to state security" is set very low; people have been detained even for providing religious instruction to their nephews. Arbitrary arrests are actually a deliberate tactic on the part of the authorities to threaten the rest of the population. The result is that most of the people become legitimately terrified of inadvertently committing some offense, but a fraction of them just become more hardened in their convictions, and more radical in their opposition to Chinese domination.

Facing the perceived threat of increased colonization by the Chinese state, Uighurs started to seek ways to resist this colonization and quick assimilation. Many have chosen exile, although the systematic threats and harassment of the families of those who have left by the security apparatus makes this a difficult choice. Uighur refugees are found in Central Asia (where there is an important Uighur community), in Turkey, Europe, Australia and the United States. But some also went to Pakistan, and certainly some participated in the Mujahedeen war against the Soviets. In the mid-1990s Uighurs who found themselves unwelcome in Pakistan anymore (due to pressure from China) joined or were enlisted by the Taliban to fight against the Northern Alliance. We know that some Uighurs who are PRC nationals are being detained by the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, and maybe a couple in Guantanamo Bay by the U.S. government as well.

However, in Xinjiang, the combination of ethno-nationalism and radical Islamic ideology-of Wahabist inspiration-is a very new phenomenon, one that emerged in the 1990s. But, as mentioned above, the causes of unrest in Xinjiang are overwhelmingly internal, domestic, not external or instigated by transnational terrorist organizations. Radical international Islamic organizations have never put China or Xinjiang on their list of areas for attention, and one of the reasons is that there are many other Muslims in the PRC besides the Uighurs-particularly the Hui, who are mostly Han Chinese but practicing Muslims. Because the overriding consideration of the Chinese state is not religion but ethnicity, they have been allowed a much freer hand than the Uighurs.

On the emergence of "terrorists" in Xinjiang, we know only what the Chinese government says about them, which is very little, and we need to be careful about the information they give when there is no way to monitor it independently. But it seems clear that the use of violence emerged from the determination among some Uighurs to fight against the rapid colonization of Xinjiang.

Chinese government policy also contributed to the emergence of a more radical response to Chinese domination when it channeled large amounts of weaponry through Xinjiang to support the Afghan Mujahedeen in their resistance against Soviet occupation. It is very likely that connections were made between the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan and certain people in Xinjiang at that time, because the weapons were smuggled through the Pamirs by local people who knew the terrain. So supporting radical factions backfired on the Chinese government. Of course what happened after the Taliban came to power is that it was easy to use the same channels to get weapons back into Xinjiang.

But perhaps the most important reason for an upsurge in Islamic radicalism in Xinjiang in the 1990s, especially in southern Xinjiang, is the suppression of religious freedom. As mentioned above, the liberalization of the 1980s was replaced by an extremely repressive climate, in which any religious activity outside of the state-controlled religious groups is deemed illegal, and can lead to prosecution. The teaching of Islam in the mosques was extremely restricted, and the nature of the Islam taught was supervised by the state administration under the Bureau of Religious Affairs. For those Uighurs who wanted to receive religious education outside this structure, the closest place to go was Pakistan. So a certain number of Uighurs-probably a few thousand-found themselves in Pakistan madrassahs because they wanted a religious education, and were influenced by the kinds of Islamic groups that were active in Pakistan at that time, Jamiat-i-Islami and other organizations of Salafist inspiration.

These teachings contrast with the kind of Sunni Islam with a strong Sufi tradition traditionally practiced by Uighurs in Xinjiang, which represents a rather liberal form of Islam. Historically the Uighurs are well-known for their intellectual contribution to the civilizations of Central Asia, they were great historians, poets, writers and court advisers. They played this role at the different courts of the Central Asian kings, and at the court of Genghis Khan. So certainly there is no legitimacy to any claim that the form of Islam in Xinjiang has always posed a threat to the freedom of other people in this area. But I think that the question of whether a certain type of Islam is more or less tolerant, or more or less "dangerous," should not be used as a criterion to estimate whether such or such Muslim population is potentially prone to extremism or not, and certainly not to justify repression of any particular population.

In late August 2002, a Uighur organization, the East Turkestan Independence Movement (ETIM), was added to the United Nations' list of terrorist organizations and to the list maintained by the United States of organizations that should have their assets frozen. I have no objection in principle to a terrorist Uighur organization being placed on such lists. But there is little substantive information to support the case for listing ETIM. Just to give an example, at the beginning of 2002, the Chinese government put out some information on the total number of violent incidents in Xinjiang in the 1990s, up to 1998, and of the number of fatalities they caused. At the time, these incidents were attributed by Beijing to various different organizations under the umbrella of "Eastern Turkestan forces." But when the US State Department made the case for listing ETIM, they attributed the total number of incidents and victims in this official Chinese report to ETIM alone. Despite some questions about this from the international media, the New York Times in particular, no satisfactory answer has been given to explain this discrepancy. Given the complete absence of due process in the trial of alleged separatists in Xinjiang, considerable precautions should have been taken before effectively giving a green light to the Chinese authorities for a crackdown. This clearly has not been done.

The listing of this group without providing any proof is worrying at different levels. Firstly, no evidence has been provided that this is an international organization, or that it poses any threat to US interests. Secondly, it is disturbing that the United States and China co-sponsored the inclusion of this organization on the UN list without presenting any kind of evidence to support the claim. Thirdly, and most importantly, given the legitimacy the listing provides for the Chinese government's ongoing crackdown in Xinjiang, the fact that this inclusion was not balanced with any policy recommendations or actions to ensure that the listing not be used as a pretext for extensive and indiscriminate repression of the Uighur population is a major political miscalculation.

The way this issue was handled by the United States was, at best, inept. The State Department should know better. Much analysis since September 11th has demonstrated the strong connections between authoritarian states with no public space and the rise of Islamic militancy and terrorism in the Middle East. Why repeat in China the same mistake of encouraging repressive states that alienate their populations and, by extension, their support?

Another way to look at it, which shows the complete lack of realism in this decision, is that of course the Uighur people will resent this move and see it as an expression of hostility from the U.S. government towards them and their cause. There is no doubt that it can be interpreted in this way, especially since censorship in the PRC means that the previous mild messages of concern from the U.S. government about the situation in Xinjiang have not reached people there.(4) The very real risk is that the large Muslim population in Xinjiang will feel alienated by the United States' unquestioning acceptance of China's version of events. This is a serious miscalculation.

We know that many, if not most, of the members of al Qaida were people who had been driven out of their countries for their political and religious activities, particularly from Egypt. If China is allowed to continue its repression in Xinjiang unchecked, one danger is that hardened Uighur militants will go abroad, escaping from Chinese repression and looking for more favorable locations for their activities. Given the degree of repression in China, almost any place in the world would be better for such people!

So what should be the position of the international community towards the situation in Xinjiang? If the main objective is to defuse the threat of terrorist actions around the world, then the policies should adopt the best means of achieving this goal.

Pressuring China to be more discriminating in its fight against terrorism and to respect its obligations to abide by international human rights law is the only way to prevent deterioration of the situation in Xinjiang, and to avoid more serious, protracted problems in the future.

Pressure should be brought to bear on the neighboring countries in Central Asia that have been collaborating with the Chinese government in recent years, by sending people wanted by the Chinese authorities back to Xinjiang without any due process and by refusing to recognize people from Xinjiang as political refugees. Those governments should be reminded that this is a violation of their international obligations, and they should not return people forcibly to China. The Central Asian governments should be encouraged to give more space to the many Uighur organizations abroad that are committed to non-violence. They should be allowed to voice their concerns and provide information about the situation in Xinjiang, so that policy can be better informed about what's happening on the ground. Certainly, more prominence should be given to the plight of the Uighur population in Xinjiang in all the various dialogues, bilateral and multilateral, that are going on between China and other countries.

The release of prisoners should be a focus for such dialogues, particularly those cases in which the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has already designated the imprisonment as arbitrary, notably Rebiya Kadeer and Tohti Tunyaz.(5)

In terms of Chinese policy in Xinjiang, a realistic shift would be to encourage the emergence of civil organizations and community leaders who can be good interlocutors with the Chinese state, articulating the needs and demands of the population and presenting them to government. Letting communities organize and articulate their interests-besides the fact that it is their legitimate and recognized right to do so-would definitely save a lot of money and increase efficiency, and probably allow some urgent issues and looming crises to be addressed.

Regarding public order and security, creating a transparent and fair judicial process for the people or groups that have committed violent actions would be a huge contribution to stability. There is no doubt that such people should be removed from society so that they cannot do any further harm, but this should be done in a way that ensures that only the people who actually committed the crimes are sentenced, and that the ones who did not are not penalized. If you allow freedom of expression to blossom, there is certainly a majority of people who will prefer a political medium that does not mean they risk being sent to jail.

More needs to be done to impress on the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank the risks of the agricultural policies being pursued in Xinjiang, particularly by comparing them to what happened in Soviet Central Asia. Both banks, as well as other international donors, should be aware of this in their work on desertification in Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, or else they could merely be contributing to making the problems worse.

The logic that the Chinese authorities currently rely on, which is to crush all dissent, is bound to fail-very much as the US "war on terror" is bound to fail. A war on terror is lost from the start. Beijing's view of security actually leads to the creation of more terrorists than it can arrest, because every terrorist arrested becomes a martyr. But in a relatively democratic society, terrorists that you arrest are terrorists, and they do not inspire others to do the same. Letting people recreate and safeguard individual and community security that brings people together is the only answer for Xinjiang in the long term.

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NOTES:

1. See various reports and releases by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch for information on rights conditions in Xinjiang. For example, Amnesty International, "People's Republic of China: China's Anti-Terrorism Legislation and Repression in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region," March 2002, available at: Amnesty International. See also, Human Rights Watch, "China: Human Rights Concerns in Xinjiang," October 2001, available at Human Rights Watch.

2. The Production and Construction Corps, the chief vector of colonization of Xinjiang, is a 2.4 million strong organization, structured along military lines, that runs state farms and industries. One out of three Chinese in Xinjiang belong to the Corps, which is directly under the authority of Beijing.

3. Hui are Chinese-speaking Muslims.

4. An example is when President George W. Bush, during his October 2001 visit to Shanghai for the APEC meeting, said that the "war against terrorism" should not be used as a pretext to suppress minorities, especially in Xinjiang.

5. Rebiya Kadeer, a successful Uighur businesswoman and community leader, was arrested and sentenced to 14 years in prison for attempting to pass "state secrets" abroad. Tohti Tunyaz is a Uighur scholar who was arrested during a research trip in Xinjiang. He was sentenced to 11 years in prison on secrets charges. In both cases, their imprisonment was judged to be "arbitrary in nature" by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, since it related to their exercise of their fundamental rights and freedoms.

Nicolas Becquelin completed his Ph.D. on Xinjiang at the School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences (EHESS) in Paris, France, in 2001. He is currently research director in the Hong Kong office of the organization Human Rights in China.