Exiles or Intermediaries? East Turkistani Muslims in the Interwar Middle East

Recent political repression in Xinjiang (commonly referred to in sources cited here as Eastern Turkistan) has raised the question of the degree and nature of support for the Uyghur cause in the wider “Islamic world”. Most discussion of Uyghur exile political activity in the Middle East begins with the 1949 Chinese Communist revolution and the flight of leading Uyghur members of the Nationalist Party (Guomindang) to India, and from there to refuge in Republican Türkiye or the Hijaz. This article examines a series of individuals from Xinjiang who were active in the region in the interwar period, with an emphasis on Cairo as a hub of intellectual exchange. While in some respects these activities can be seen as laying the foundations for the emergence of fully fledged nationalist agitation from the 1950s onwards, they also form part of a wider milieu of pan-Islamic and pan-Asianist thinking, which offered East Turkistani Muslims a role in mediating, as opposed to interrupting, growing ties between Republican China and the Middle East. The article explores the ways in which intellectuals and activists navigated this situation and considers the relevance of their experience to the discussion of present-day Uyghur advocacy.