Neo-Propaganda is in Vogue: Romanticising Xinjiang Through Global Media

This article explores ways Chinese Communist Party (CCP) narratives around Xinjiang are perpetuated via seemingly apolitical texts produced by non-government actors, a trend within “neo-propaganda.” Echoing wider discourses allows texts to move “amphibiously” across public spheres. We explore this dynamic via the work of fashion photographer Ma Hailun (马海伦), appearing beyond Chinese media, in Vogue, international exhibitions, and social media. Ma's work buttresses CCP propaganda and policies in Xinjiang, but chimes with wider discourses within fashion photography that romanticise ethnic otherness via claims to affinity – a form of “imperialist nostalgia,” which in Ma's case also speaks to the “dream of Han innocence” and a settler–colonial relationship with the region. Largely positive framing of Ma's work in non-Chinese media points to how it encourages viewers to downplay the severity of CCP repression and dissociate themselves from it, all the more significant given the links between branded fashion and forced labour.