Skip Nav Destination
Close Modal
Update search
NARROW
Format
Journal
Date
Availability
1-2 of 2
Sheena Chestnut
Close
Follow your search
Access your saved searches in your account
Would you like to receive an alert when new items match your search?
Sort by
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
International Security (2020) 44 (3): 9–47.
Published: 01 January 2020
Abstract
View article
PDF
In 2017–18, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) changed its domestic security strategy in Xinjiang, escalating the use of mass detention, ideological re-education, and pressure on Uyghur diaspora networks. Commonly proposed explanations for this shift focus on domestic factors: ethnic unrest, minority policy, and regional leadership. The CCP's strategy changes in Xinjiang, however, were also likely catalyzed by changing perceptions of the threat posed by Uyghur contact with transnational Islamic militant groups in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, and a corresponding increase in perceived domestic vulnerability. This threat shifted from theoretical risk to operational reality in 2014–16, and occurred alongside a revised assessment that China's Muslim population was more vulnerable to infiltration by jihadist networks than previously believed. Belief in the need to preventively inoculate an entire population from “infection” by these networks explains the timing of the change in repressive strategy, shift toward collective detention, heavy use of re-education, and attention paid to the Uyghur diaspora. It therefore helps explain specific aspects of the timing and nature of the CCP's strategy changes in Xinjiang. These findings have implications for the study of the connections between counterterrorism and domestic repression, as well as for authoritarian preventive repression and Chinese security policy at home and abroad.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
International Security (2007) 32 (1): 80–111.
Published: 01 July 2007
Abstract
View article
PDF
Since public disclosure by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) of its uranium enrichment program in 2002 and the subsequent restarting of its plutonium reactor, policymakers and academics have expressed concern that the DPRK will one day export nuclear material or components. An examination of North Korea's involvement in nonnuclear criminal activities shows that the DPRK has established sophisticated transnational smuggling networks, some of which involve terrorist groups and others that have been able to distribute counterfeit currency and goods on U.S. territory. These networks provide North Korea with a significant amount of much-needed hard currency, but the DPRK regime's control over them has decreased over time. These developments suggest that North Korea has both the means and motivation for exporting nuclear material, and that concerns over nuclear export from the DPRK, authorized or not, are well founded. When placed in the context of the global nuclear black market, the North Korea case suggests that criminal networks are likely to play an increased role in future proliferation. In addition, it raises the concern that proliferation conducted through illicit networks will not always be well controlled by the supplier state. It is therefore imperative to track and curtail illicit networks not only because of the costs they impose, but also because of the deterrent value of countersmuggling efforts. New strategies that integrate law enforcement, counterproliferation, and nonproliferation tools are likely to have the greatest success in addressing the risks posed by illicit proliferation networks.