The Chinese Communist Party has increasingly shifted towards a more authoritarian regime under Xi Jinping, says researcher Elke Spiessens from the Dutch University of Leiden. “You see within the party a tendency to draw more control to Beijing and keep people more under control.” Among other things, this new direction manifests itself in China’s increasing profile as a nation-state, in which there is no room for an alternative identity, and the Islam appears to be the Chinas government’s ideal scapegoat to justify the opression of Uyghurs.