From State’s Agency to Essentialism: Reflecting Statehood in China’s Xinjiang Policy

This paper critically rethinks the unified personhood of the state in traditional constructivist IR through the case of China’s deradicalisation policies in Xinjiang. By framing Xinjiang policies in the ‘Chinese characteristics,’ the Chinese government resists liberal-imperial narratives from the West, particularly with the legal allegation of cultural genocide. However, this assertion of cultural subjectivity simultaneously reinforces the authoritarian control of domestic elite groups over marginal sub-state groups. While traditional constructivism has enabled emancipatory recognition of non-Western agencies, its tendency to depict states as coherent cultural subjects risks cultural essentialism, legitimising domestic authoritarianism under the guise of relative national particularity and silencing internal diversity. This paper proposes the concept of ‘Third Space’ as an epistemically pluralist and decolonial zone of subjectivity, carrying a relational position through a global view. It urges state actors to reflect on their ontological existence in relation to sub-state concerns, rather than imposing sovereign narratives in a single dimension. This approach may facilitate the sub-state groups like the Uyghurs to articulate a self-position beyond the binary grand narratives of state personhood, being viewed as either instrumentalised ‘liberal fighters’ by the West or ‘terrorists’ as the name to domestic repression by the state of China.