Beijing’s Systematic Erasure of Uyghur Life Is Cultural Genocide

In the old quarters of Kashgar, narrow lanes once carried the sound of traders calling across markets, families gathering in courtyards and craftsmen shaping wood, leather and clay. Today, much of that landscape has changed. Modern façades, wide streets and state-led redevelopment projects have replaced many of the structures that reflected centuries of Uyghur history. What appears at first as urban modernisation is, on closer examination, part of a broader pattern: the quiet, methodical erasure of a people’s cultural inheritance.

The transformation of Xinjiang is not abrupt. It unfolds street by street, classroom by classroom, gathering by gathering. Uyghur culture, long rooted in language, religious tradition and architecture, is being reshaped by policies that promote uniformity and li