Jim Millward

‘She didn’t realise how dangerous it was’: London-bound student held in China over Tibet support

Citizen Historians for the Smithsonian | Protect History Citizen Historians for the Smithsonian is a “Crowd to Cloud” effort to steward and safeguard our institution by preserving the Smithsonian Institution’s contents as they exist in 2025. With our feet ...

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Kudos to my colleagues @jimmillward.bsky.social and Chandra Manning for organizing and leading this effort. 🗃️

So disappointed with the Post these days.

Interesting. I’ve been smelling dead things on my runs.

No one in Qing ever said “Xinjiang has been part of China since ancient times.” Though the court did reference Tang expansion to Western Regiona

To be mischievous, here and there I might say, “In the Sinocentric geographical conventions which the Qing court for some purposes adopted, former Ming China was ‘inner,’ and non-Chinese parts recently conquered by the Qing were ‘outer’”

There is always inside and outside the pass. That’s the center / periphery imperial logic that 内地 originates in.

The problem with “inland” is that it already means something else in English: it refers to distance from the sea-the exact opposite of neidi with regard to Xinjiang. Some Chinese writers (especially official sources) translate 内地 as “inland” but they are making a mistake.

For Qing and before, “China” or Sinitic parts of the Qing, vs. Inner Asia or Central Asia. Xinjiang is geographically central (Inner) Asia. Geographical China is eastern Eurasia — a term a lot of middle period historians use to avoid confusion of “China.” Today, “eastern parts of the PRC”

It is pretty noticeable that even as mainstream opinion on Israel and Gaza finally shifts, you don’t hear the Responsible Adults apologizing for punishing all the college kids protesting the atrocities. Quite the opposite in fact!

Very stupid idea to create bs new program when threatened. Everyone knows, you only create bs new programs when someone writes you a big enough check.

the story of this administration is going to be a question of which wins out: the enthusiastic capitulation of elite American society to fascism or supercharged thermostatic backlash

www.nytimes.com/2025/06/30/o...

bsky.app/profile/jimm...

你对克里斯蒂·亨利耍了这么卑鄙的花招，等于保证短中期内不会有真正的美国学者想去新疆。我们可不想成为你这出木偶戏里的傀儡。

Now you trick Princeton into looking complicit in whitewashing your repression of Uyghurs. Do you actually WANT to cut off contacts with elite US universities?!?

中国共产党和新疆当局：你们把普林斯顿大学出版社变成了你们透明宣传的工具，正在破坏一个努力保持中美学术交流渠道畅通的机构。难道你们不想继续与普林斯顿、哈佛等大学进行交流吗？

XJ authorities and CCP, by turning PUP into a vehicle for your transparent propaganda, you are undermining the very institutions that are trying to keep channels of academic exchange open.

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ust the other day, DHS secretary Noem attacked Harvard again for a program in which XJ bingtuan officials took part.
From washingtonpost.com

Princeton U P is making the effort to stay engaged, to promote academic exchanges and even to give Chinese authors a platform to publish in English in a respected university press. They do so courageously, at a time when Trump is attacking academe precisely for China exchanges!

PUP is not the first, of course--as the familiarity of the stereotypical comments and images attest. We've seen this Potemkin dog and pony show before. But what saddens me is how PRC just betrayed Princeton U Press, right after giving it an award!

So the Princeton U Press delegation was tricked into helping in the on-going PRC efforts to avoid international condemnation for its repression of Uyghur identity and crimes against humanity (mass internments) from 2017.

Welcome to the United Nations

Uyghur births have been suppressed in the past--not clear if it is on-going, but that's one of the criteria for genocide, along with child separation:
From un.org

Forced labor still haunts China’s Xinjiang, report finds Findings will likely raise pressure on Western lawmakers to restrict imports from the region.

Forced labor, displacement of people to labor in factories far from home is still on-going. politico.eu/article/forc... Uyghur cultural and academic life, and even Uyghur language is curtailed: separation of children into Han-language only schools increases:
From news.un.org

Uyghurs abroad cannot freely visit or speak with family. Foreign scholars of the region, like myself, still not granted visas to PRC. (What are they afraid of?) Religious restrictions have intensified:
From hrw.org

Ekpar Asat

www.uscirf.gov/religious-pr...

Star Uyghur Scholar Who Vanished Was Sentenced to Life in China (Published 2023)

www.nytimes.com/2023/09/24/w...

Henry's comments set into this propaganda package of course seems to further the CCP goal of normalizing its policies in Xinjiang. But things there are not normal. Intellectuals like Rahile Dawut are still in prison for no reason, as are 100s of thousands of political prisoners.

A flurry of comments attached to the post, shouting how it proves Western forces were lying all the time about the camps in Xinjiang, everything is beautiful there, see how Uyghurs are happy, etc.