Allegations of human rights abuses

After the establishment of the autonomous region in the 1950s, large numbers of Han (ethnic Chinese) began moving into Xinjiang, which had long been home to the Uyghurs, a Turkic-speaking people. The influx became especially pronounced after 1990, and by the late 20th century the Han constituted two-fifths of Xinjiang’s total population. Over time economic disparities and ethnic tensions grew between the Uyghur and Han populations and eventually resulted in protests and other disturbances. A particularly violent outbreak occurred in July 2009, mainly in Ürümqi, in which it was reported that nearly 200 people (mostly Han) were killed and some 1,700 were injured. Violent incidents increased after that and included attacks by knife-wielding assailants and by suicide bombers. Chinese authorities responded by cracking down on Uyghurs suspected of being dissidents and separatists. The authorities’ actions included shootings, arrests, and long jail sentences until 2017, when the Chinese government initiated a thorough crackdown on Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Citing a need for greater security, the government set up cameras, checkpoints, and constant police patrols in Uyghur-dominated areas. The most controversial governmental undertaking—which was met by protests from human rights organizations—was the indefinite detention of up to one million Uyghurs in “political training centers,” heavily fortified buildings that were likened to the reeducation camps of the Mao Zedong era. In August 2018 the United Nations called upon China to end the detention, but government officials denied the existence of the camps.

In January 2021 the United States announced that China was committing genocide against Uyghurs because of its use of internment camps and forced birth control and abortions. A few months later, the United States, along with the United Kingdom, Canada, and the European Union, imposed sanctions on top Chinese officials. In 2022 the United Nations’ human rights office released a long-awaited report that accused China of committing “serious human rights violations,” which may be crimes against humanity. China rejected the report’s findings and called it a “farce.”

International relations

True reintegration of the People’s Republic of China into the international community can be said to date to 1971, when it replaced Taiwan (Republic of China; ROC) as China’s representative to the United Nations. With that event, many countries that formerly had recognized the ROC established relations with the People’s Republic. The normalization of diplomatic ties with the United States, which began in 1973, culminated in 1979.

China’s foreign policy since the mid-1970s generally has reflected the country’s preoccupation with domestic economic development and its desire to promote a peaceful and stable environment in which to achieve these domestic goals. Except for its disagreement with Vietnam over that country’s invasion of Cambodia in 1978, China has by and large avoided disputes and encouraged the peaceful evolution of events in Asia. China adopted a policy of “one country, two systems” in order to provide a framework for the successful negotiation with Great Britain for the return of Hong Kong and adjacent territories in 1997 and with Portugal for the return of Macau in 1999; both were given special administrative status. Furthermore, China became an advocate of arms control and assumed a more-constructive, less-combative stance in many international organizations.

The bloody suppression of the demonstrations in 1989 set back China’s foreign relations. The United States, the European Community (later succeeded by the European Union), and Japan imposed sanctions, though by 1992 China had largely regained its international standing with all but the United States. But by the mid-1990s both sides had taken steps toward improved relations, and China retained its most-favored-nation status in U.S. trade—subject to annual review by the U.S. Congress until 2000, when Congress made the status permanent.

The collapse of communism in eastern Europe beginning in mid-1989 and the subsequent disintegration of the Soviet Union deeply disturbed China’s leaders. While hard-liners used these developments to warn about the dangers of reform, Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin were able to minimize such backsliding and move China closer to becoming a major world power. The country’s admission into the World Trade Organization in 2001 was considered a significant step in its further integration into the global economy. Added to that was the international prestige that accompanied Beijing’s selection to host the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. The Games, which included events held in six other Chinese cities, were generally considered a great success. Two years later, the country staged the highly successful Expo 2010 Shanghai China world exposition, which showcased what was by then one of the world’s largest and most technologically advanced metropolises. Beijing was selected to host the 2022 Winter Olympic Games, which some analysts argued were used to “sportswash” China’s widely criticized human rights violations against the Uyghur Muslim people and other Turkic enclaves.

Relations with Taiwan

A major unresolved issue in the region has been the status of Taiwan. Since 1949 the regimes on both the mainland and Taiwan have agreed that Taiwan is a province of China—the principal difference being that each has asserted it is the legitimate government of the country. Tensions were especially high between the two entities in the first decades after the split, marked by periodic artillery duels between batteries on the Taiwan-controlled islands of Matsu and Qemoy, just off the coast of Fujian province, and those opposite them on the mainland. The ROC’s claim of legitimacy was dealt a serious blow after 1970 with its loss of UN representation and diplomatic recognition by most of the world’s countries. Still, Taiwan remained viable and emerged as a global economic powerhouse, its security guaranteed by a commitment from the United States and backed by U.S. military presence in the region. The continued American involvement in Taiwan affairs has at times been a source of friction in U.S.-China relations.

Through all this, economic ties improved considerably between the mainland and Taiwan. Taiwan has become one of China’s major trading partners, Taiwan-based businesses have invested heavily on the mainland, and large numbers of people from the island have come to live and work on the mainland. Beijing has continued to press for reintegrating Taiwan as a province of China under mainland administration. However, there has been a sustained movement on Taiwan advocating that the island become an independent sovereign state and not continue to be considered a part of China. Tensions escalated after the pro-independence Chen Shui-bian was elected president of the ROC in 2000. Nonetheless, discussions continued between the two sides, and in 2005 high-ranking Nationalist Party (KMT) officials traveled to the mainland, the first such visits since 1949.

Tensions between China and Taiwan eased significantly after the Nationalists regained control of both Taiwan’s legislature and presidency in 2008. Talks, often at a high level, continued and increased between the two sides on both economic and diplomatic issues. A notable accomplishment of these discussions was a trade agreement, signed in 2010, that would gradually reduce or eliminate tariffs on a large number of goods and commodities exported from one side to the other.

In January 2016 Taiwan’s voters went to the polls and gave Tsai Ing-wen, chair of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), a resounding victory. She avoided mention of Taiwan independence, “one China,” and the 1992 Consensus (an agreement whereby both sides of the Taiwan Strait would accept one China but could define “China” differently).

This equation looked as if it might shift when the U.S. president-elect Donald Trump went against decades of diplomatic protocol by accepting a telephone call from Tsai in December 2016. It was the first conversation between leaders of the two governments since 1979, and it seemed to overturn the carefully calculated absence of formal diplomatic relations between Taiwan and the United States. That phone call prompted Beijing’s foreign ministry to lodge a formal complaint with the United States, though Tsai later said that the call did not signal a policy shift for Taiwan. Trump, for his part, recommitted the U.S. to the one-China policy in February 2017 during his first phone conversation as president with his Beijing counterpart, Xi Jinping. Nevertheless, in 2019 the Trump administration escalated the U.S. policy of selling arms to Taiwan by agreeing to provide tanks and missiles worth some $2.2 billion, along with 66 F-16C/D fighter jets at a cost of about $8 billion. Meanwhile, Xi Jinping intensified his call for Tsai to embrace the 1992 Consensus.

During this period tensions grew between China and Taiwan, as China’s ever-increasing military buildup seemingly heightened Taiwan’s risk of invasion. For its part, Taiwan increased its defense spending to nearly $17 billion in 2022 (with an additional $8.6 billion to be spent over the next five years), but that figure paled next to China’s massive outlay. In 2021 U.S. Pres. Joe Biden entered office and stepped up support for Taiwan with some $750 million of arms sales, and U.S. warships passed through the Taiwan Strait roughly monthly that year. However, in stating on more than one occasion that the United States would come to Taiwan’s aid if it were attacked by China, Biden appeared to abandon the policy of strategic ambiguity, heightening U.S.-China tensions even though White House officials qualified his statements and emphasized that U.S. policy regarding Taiwan had not changed. Against this backdrop the proliferation of incursions of Chinese warplanes into Taiwan’s airspace seemed all the more threatening, especially in a world that was trying to come to grips with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

In August 2022 U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi became the highest-ranking elected U.S. official to travel to Taiwan in some 25 years. The Chinese government had strongly warned against the visit, which it regarded as provocatively enhancing Taiwan’s international standing. In late July, amid escalating tensions, Xi Jinping also had warned Biden in a phone meeting that the U.S. should not “play with fire” regarding Taiwan. In 2023 tensions spiked as China increased its military pressure on Taiwan by conducting large military drills and encircling the island with ships and aircraft, which in September included sending a record number of Chinese fighter jets (more than 100) toward Taiwan in 24-hour period.