Legitimacy of China?s Counter-Terrorism Approach: The Mass Line Ethos

This book examines how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has sought to legitimise its counter-terrorism strategy in the eyes of its domestic and international audiences. An important element of CCP policy in Xinjiang has been the deployment of ordinary Chinese citizens, or the 'mass line,’ to create new realities on the ground. This book explores how the history of ideological struggle in the PRC has taken on new characteristics, as well as offering insight into how the CCP has maintained legitimacy in the eyes of its population, even as it pursues policies which are internationally controversial, shedding light on the past and future of the behaviour of the Chinese state, a subject of interest to China scholars, scholars of the Belt and Road, and counter-terrorism experts.

Chi Zhang is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of St Andrews, an Associate Member of the Handa Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, and a Visiting Scholar of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University.