Inclusion and Its Discontents: Preferential Policies in College Admissions in Xinjiang

The central and local states in Xinjiang, where Muslim Uyghur groups are concentrated, have promoted large expansions of minority enrolment in colleges in the post-Mao era. This paper argues that this expansion, especially when aided by preferential policies, has come up against the realities of the new market economy, which favors competitive skills and disadvantages minority students. Both processes – preferential policies for greater minority access to higher education but disadvantages for minority graduates in the marketplace – have politicized ethnic identities at the expense of the Chinese state’s goal of inclusion. This argument will be substantiated by a close analysis of preferential policies for college admissions in Xinjiang and their unintended consequences in the post-Mao period.