China s Soft War on Terror: Space-Making Processes of Securitization

"This book explores how the Chinese government reasserts its control and management of public spaces as part of its overall counter-terrorism strategy. The work focuses primarily on the banal and alternative forms that China's 'war on terror' takes: the everyday, non-military, socio-economic and spatio-material. It presents three different cases of control associated with the state's effort to manage material, social and digital public spaces as remedies to terrorism and ethnic unrest in China: the redevelopment project of Kashgar-the 'home' of Uyghur culture-from 2001 to 2017; the forging of local partnerships with potential agents (i.e. the local cadres and Imams in Xinjiang) as part of the process of implementing counter-terrorism policies; and an online campaign about international terrorism that appeared on Sina Weibo. Using securitization theory as a theoretical framework, the book establishes links between human geography and critical security studies and advances the understanding of non-confrontational forms of resistance in China. It also focuses attention on the binary relationship between the securitizing agency of the state and the counter-securitization agency of 'terrorists', while also exploring the manner in which other societal forces interact with these processes. This book will be of interest to students of critical terrorism studies, Chinese studies, human geography, and security studies"--

Cover -- Half Title -- Series Information -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- Illustrations -- 1 Introduction: A Study on Non-Terrorists -- The Worlds of Non-Terrorists in the War on Terror -- The China Questions -- Research Site and Methods -- Xinjiang and Terrorism in China -- Methods -- Plan of the Book -- Notes -- 2 Between a Counter-Terrorist and a Novelist -- Research Beyond Words, Terrorism Beyond Terrorists -- A Novelist's Dilemma -- What of the Geographers of Terrorism? -- Counter-terrorism and a Localized View of Non-Terrorists in China -- Toward a Materialist and Emotional Theory of More-Than-Terrorism in China -- Deconstructing Securitization: Spatial and Emotive Perspectives -- The Emotionality of Securitization -- The Social Ontology of Fear -- From Fears to the Spaces of Potentiality -- The Spatiality of Securitization -- The Destruction of Public Sphere in Counterterrorism -- From the 'Securitization of Space' to the 'Space of Securitization' -- Resistance Within Securitization -- Securitization and Counter-Securitization -- Non-confrontational Resistance in Securitization -- Rule of Bricolage in Xinjiang -- Securitization in China -- Situating the Concept of Securitization in China -- Authoritarian Domination Beyond the Fatalism of Zero-Sum Game -- Notes -- 3 The Home Front -- Counterterrorism and Security in Xinjiang -- Kashgar's Old Town: a Volumetric Uyghur Neighborhood -- Insecurity, Securitization and Kashgar's Old Town -- Toward the Road to Securitization? The Demolition and Reconstruction Project of the Old Town -- Phase 1: Building Reinforcement and Resident Relocation (2000-2006) -- Phase 2: Mass Demolition, Protective Demolition and Construction (2006-2009) -- Securitizing the Redevelopment Project (2008-2009) -- The Supplemental Program of Redevelopment: Poverty Alleviation -- The Han Planners.