James Leibold’s research while affiliated with La Trobe University and other places

Although the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC, also known as Taiwan) and their ruling parties have altered over time, there are quite a few similarities between their models of nation-building, more than is commonly acknowledged. The guofu (father) of the modern Chinese state, Sun Yat-sen, one of the few political leaders who is still honored on both sides of the Taiwan Straits, claimed all the peoples and territories of the former Qing empire comprised a single national community, the so-called Zhonghua minzu. Yet a Han super-majority has long sat at the center of this national imaginary. In this article, we ask what has happened to Sun’s imagined community across the last century, and how it has evolved in the two competing Chinese states the PRC and the ROC. We seek to demonstrate the enduring challenge of Han-centrism for multiethnic nation-building in both countries, while illustrating how shifts in domestic and international politics are altering this national imaginary and the place of ethnocultural diversity within it.

Racism, as a truly global phenomenon, requires a comparative approach that can account for its diverse forms and their commonalities. Despite the prevalence and relevance of racism throughout Asia, much scholarship on the topic remains parochially focussed on the north Atlantic world. This article aims to help address this issue in two ways. First, it discusses surveillance and racialisation practices in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China, based on an examination of leaked police files from the city of Urumqi. It examines how racialisation processes are carried out through surveillance, who these impact, and how. Second, these empirical materials are put in a broader comparative framework, drawing on Michel Foucault's concept of state racism, which sees racism as a technique of governance common to all contemporary states. The conclusions reflect on what it means to undertake anti-racist scholarship in a world of racist states.

Situated in the broader context of educational aid for Tibet and higher education reform in China, this article examines efforts to develop higher education in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR). Based on document analyses, observations and interviews, we interrogate the thoughts and actions of university officials in the TAR when responding to the state's call for the creation of “double first-class” ( shuangyiliu 双一流) universities and disciplines. Our study identifies two main strategies adopted by university officials: capitalizing on the plateau's unique geography and China's system of preferential ethnic policies. University administrators hope to use the TAR's unique and strategic location as a springboard for curriculum and research development, while drawing on aid and assistance from the central government and partner universities. We conclude that the future of higher education in the TAR is highly dependent on external assistance and that the region faces an uphill battle in building a truly world-class university.

This article examines the urbanization of Tibet. We argue that urbanization is a new technique of colonial governance for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and is characterized by what Yen Le Espiritu calls ‘differential inclusion’: a form of forcible incorporation resulting in particular spaces and populations being ‘deemed integral to the nation … only or precisely because of their designated subordinate standing’. We explore how urbanization achieves the differential inclusion of Tibet and Tibetans through three distinct processes: segregation (the separation of Tibetan and Han Chinese spaces), congregation (the creation of Tibetan-dominated towns) and negation (urbanization as an administrative process that undermines Tibetan political autonomy). We argue that these three processes form an integrated strategy of colonial governance aimed at achieving differential inclusion. We conclude by arguing that our case study of the urbanization of Tibet offers a model for thinking about the role urbanization plays in enforcing differential inclusion as a means of colonial governance elsewhere in the PRC, and beyond.

The motto ‘the Party rules everything’ is now a defining characteristic of governance in Xi Jinping’s ‘New Era’. This article analyzes the changing Party-state relationship by interrogating the competition between the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department and the State Council’s Ethnic Affairs Commission from the early 2000s, focusing particularly on the changes since Xi became leader in 2012. Through discourse analysis, the article documents the gradual yet significant shift in authority from the state to the Party in the institutional structures and ideological praxis of ethnic governance. It argues that the emerging power of the United Front Work Department over ethnic theory, policy and implementation signifies an important shift in ethnic governance through the intensification of integrationist solutions to China’s age-old ‘ethnic question’.

Following a series of high-profile attacks in Beijing, Kunming and Urumqi by Uyghur militants, the Chinese party-state declared a “war on terror” in 2014. Since then, China's Xinjiang region has witnessed an unprecedented build-up of what we describe as a multi-tiered police force, turning it into one of the most heavily policed regions in the world. This article investigates the securitization of Xinjiang through an analysis of official police recruitment documents. Informal police jobs, which represent the backbone of recent recruitment drives, have historically carried inferior pay levels. Yet, advertised assistant police positions in Xinjiang now offer high salaries despite low educational requirements, thereby attracting lesser-educated applicants, many of whom are ethnic minorities. Besides co-opting Uyghurs into policing their own people, the resulting employment is in itself a significant stability maintenance strategy. While the known numbers of violent attacks have subsided, China's heavy-handed securitization approach risks alienating both minority and Han populations.