The Murder of a Uyghur in America Spotlights the Dangers for the Diaspora

At 10:15 p.m. on July 29, Shukur Aikebaer was abducted and murdered outside his residence in Chino County, California, by two individuals, reportedly named Zhengfeng Bo and Jianquan Bo. Aikebaer’s death sent shock waves through Uyghur communities worldwide. 

Investigators have not established a motive or released details about the suspects; Zhengfeng Bo was killed by police during the kidnapping. However, the incident mirrors a similar case from Uzbekistan. In July 2024, Ablehet Qahar, an Uyghur historian, was murdered in his Tashkent apartment. The crime was quietly swept under the rug, and shortly after, Qahar’s residence was barricaded and the entirety of his Uyghur historical collections disappeared. 

Together, the two deaths underscore a reality many Uyghurs know well: that physical distance from Xinjiang – called East Turkestan by many of the region’s native Uyghur people – no longer guarantees their safety.

Over the past decade, the People’s Republic of China has dramatically expanded its efforts to stifle the voices of Uyghurs outside its borders. Reports of surveillance, harassment, threats to family, and attempted deportations have become familiar features of diaspora life. Collectively, such practices are understood as transnational repression – the effort by governments to monitor and coerce individuals living outside their territorial jurisdiction.

But focusing only on Beijing’s direct actions misses a larger shift that is unfolding globally, notably in Central Asia.

Most discussions of transnational repression emphasize the sending state’s own actions, whether these be intelligence services, diplomatic pressure, cyber surveillance, or direct intimidation. However, China’s growing political and economic influence appears to be producing a different dynamic, one in which repression is carried out also through the institutions of partner governments. It is, in effect, a form of transnational repression by proxy.

Home to one of the world’s largest Uyghur diasporas, Central Asia has long been central to preserving Uyghur language and culture. However, in recent years the atmosphere has changed. The last few decades in foreign policy have repositioned Central Asia’s importance on the international stage, with the region now reemerging as a key bridge between East Asia and the West. China’s rising economic footprint has sculpted Beijing into an increasingly influential actor in shaping both the foreign policy and the domestic priorities of Central Asian states.

Today, half of the economic corridors within China’s Belt and Road Initiative rely on Central Asian soil and support, making the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan vital arteries in China’s push for worldwide connectivity. The tight-knit relationship has brought significant economic benefits but has also created incentives for governments to accommodate Beijing’s concerns – including those involving Uyghur communities.

In Tashkent, my field interviews in 2024 revealed a sharp decline in Uyghur cultural identity over the past five years. Across all interviews conducted in Uzbekistan, community members noted a drastic decline in Uyghur language use and preservation in the past year, particularly among Uyghur youth. Many described a shift away from using Uyghur in public and semi-public environments, especially in contexts where visibility to authorities was a concern. 

Several interviewees reported perceived changes in important cultural hubs. The Tashkent Uyghur National Cultural Center, for example, has now begun sharing its space with representatives of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a Chinese state-backed organization that has been utilized to “project power and influence beyond China’s borders.” After the introduction of an SCO presence, Uyghur language classes ceased, and youth groups were no longer able to use the space as they once had. Visitors also described increased monitoring inside the building. 

The same sentiment emerged when discussing political symbolism. One community member explained: “We don’t have our motherland’s flag up. We cannot. If we hang it from the window or outside, we will get trouble from the Uzbek authorities, maybe face arrest. It is not well-received.”

The interviewee also cited an escalation in the targeting of Uyghur historical material and ancient records: “Let me tell you of the case of [Uyghur elder in community]. If you go to his house, it is full to the brim with ancient Uyghur texts, books, and writings. That man, though, he is old now… So those books will be thrown away. Actually, they are coerced into throwing away things like this.”

The existence of these collections points to an earlier period in which cultural retention within private spaces remained viable. However, such continuity appears progressively under strain in recent years. The reported coercion to discard such items demonstrates a change from passive erosion to more active forms of interruption enforced by authority.

The situation in Kazakhstan is more complicated.

In 2025, the country was named as one of China’s clients in the Geedge Networks “Great Firewall” leak, which exposed China’s exportation of highly advanced censorship and surveillance infrastructure. The systems and specific technology being sold abroad are extensions of the same digital governance architecture first utilized and refined in the Uyghur homeland, one of the most surveilled regions in the world.

Reflecting this development in China-Kazakhstan relations, fieldwork on Uyghurs in Kazakhstan has resulted in both scrutiny and opposition from local authorities. Several interviewees later reported being threatened and barred from maintaining contact with the researcher. Such experiences reflect the broader climate of securitization and severe surveillance surrounding Uyghur communities and identity preservation – even outside of China’s borders.

Similar to Uzbekistan, Uyghur community members in Kazakhstan also described state-enforced methods of linguistic destruction and cultural eradication. “We teach in Cyrillic,” one interviewee said. “It’s not allowed to teach the Uyghur [Arabic] script to the kids or have any educational material published and printed out in Uyghur [Arabic] script.”

By restricting education to Cyrillic, the Kazakh government effectively forces Uyghur linguistic practice into a state-regulated framework, part of a larger process of depoliticization and controlled assimilation. The prohibition also weakens Uyghurs’ access to the Arabic script that links them to both their literary heritage and contemporary developments in their homeland. While the Uyghur language is under increasing pressure in China, when it is used, it is written with the Arabic script.

Extending further than curricula issues, the concept of Uyghur education in itself has proven to be a problem in recent years. “I gave up on my dream of being a police officer,” one interviewee confided. “It says I am Uyghur on my ID. And I went to Uyghur school. It’s almost like an unsaid rule. They will not hire Uyghurs like this for government positions; it’s not allowed.”

The person’s mention of an “unsaid rule” points to a form of informal but widely understood discrimination. If attendance at a Uyghur school is treated as a disqualifying characteristic, it suggests that language has become politicized in a way that renders it incompatible with state integration. Uyghur has been recast as a marker of exclusion from the political community.

Ultimately, transnational repression represents a new frontier in authoritarian governance, and this evolution has implications that reach far beyond the Uyghur community. For years, Western governments have treated China’s human rights abuses and China’s geopolitical rise as parallel challenges requiring separate policy responses. Central Asia suggests both pose the same challenge. In addition to its effects on regional politics and economics, Beijing’s growing influence is expanding the reach of its human rights agenda beyond China’s borders. If policymakers fail to recognize that connection, they risk confronting China’s repression where it begins rather than where it is already taking hold.