Introduction to Starburst Analysis
Starburst analysis is a structured analytic technique (SAT) used to combat “the premature closing of minds,” which Marvin (2013) described as a common pitfall for intelligence analysts. To avoid this, starburst analysis seeks to ensure that analysists have a grasp of the situation they’re investigating. It allows them to enumerate the actors, to handle information overload, and to differentiate and isolate root causes from symptoms. It allows analysts to identify gaps in their intelligence. Using starburst analysis and other SATs, intelligence analysts hope to achieve objectivity, putting aside personal objectives and ethics. This objectivity is attained rapidly.
Starburst analysis requires the analyst to identify essential facts about an operational environment, doing so entails the analyst to answer the following questions:
- Who – who are the key actors?
- What – what are the key activities and operations?
- When – when did they occur? What changes are happening to the participants over time?
- Where – what locations did those activities happen?
- Why – why are the key activities occurring? What are the causes?
- How – details about the activities – how are these activities conducted?
In this post, starburst analysis is applied to the treatment of Uyghurs in China.
Who are the Primary Actors?
The Uyghurs are a Turkic ethnic group living in China. They practice a moderate form of Sunni Islam, speak a Turkic language, and are culturally and historically affiliated with Central Asia.
Within the Chinese Communist Party, the primary actors are Chen Quanguo and Ma Xingrui. Chen was the CCP Secretary of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region from 2016 to 2021, and was also the Political Commissa of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps. He oversaw the construction of internment camps used to imprison Uyghurs and established a surveillance system used to monitor Uyghurs and to track escapees from the camps. (Maizland, 2022)
Chin was replaced in 2021 by Ma Zingrui. While he has loosened restrictions on the population, Ma stated in March 2024 that the sinofication of mosques will continue as it is “inevitable”. (Chen, 2024)
Where do the Uyghurs Live?
Uyghurs mostly live in the XUAR (Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region) located in the northeast of China. This province borders eight countries including several Muslim countries (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan). The province is mineral rich, produces most of China’s cotton, has the largest coal and natural gas reserves in China, and 20% of its oil reserves.
China thus has a vested economic interest in the XUAR, and officials refer to it as a “core hub” for the Belt and Road Initiative. To this end, the PRC has taken steps to eliminate Uyghur culture, or at least replace the Uyghur population in the XUAR with Han Chinese.
What is CCP Policy towards the Uyghurs, and How is it Implemented?
As part of this program, mosques have been demolished or altered to remove motifs and Arabic writings.
There has been internment of 1 to 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslims in the re-education camps built by Chen Quanguo. The internees like in barbaric conditions and are made to renounce their Islamic faith. There are also forced labor programs requiring Uyghurs to work in labor-intensive industries including textile and apparel industries, and employment there involves political indoctrination. Refusal to work in such factories may result in detention.
There has also been programs of population replacement, substituting the Uyghurs in the XUAR with Han Chinese. (Lum & Weber, 2023)
One CCP religious affairs official has written (HRW, 2021) that their goal with the Uyghurs is to “break their lineage, break their roots, break their connections, and break their origins. Completely shovel up the roots of ‘two-faced people,’ dig them out, and vow to fight these two-faced people until the end,” where the phrase “two-faced people” refers to party members who are ideologically disloyal to the party.
When Did Key Activities Take Place
Between 1990 and 2001, over 200 acts of terrorism were attributed by the CCP to different Uyghur groups. These groups were primarily acting out of neighboring Turkestan, however, and the main terrorist organization within the XUAR is no longer in existence.
As mentioned above, internment camps were built by Chen Quanguo starting in 2017, and they continue to be in operation. Further, XUAR officials have instituted programs to eliminate the culture and language of the Uyghur. They enacted laws that “prohibits ‘expressions of extremification’ and placed restrictions upon dress and grooming, traditional Uyghur customs, and adherence to Islamic dietary laws (halal).” (Lum & Weber, 2023)
Why is it Being Done?
Past deadly incidents in the XUAR have been attributed by the CCP to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM). The ETIM, even at its height, was poorly financed and lacked the capacity to carry-out any attacks. The ETIM was declared a terrorist organization in 2002 and added to the Terrorist Exclusion List in 2004. It was removed from the Terrorist Exclusion List in 2020 since there has been no credible evidence that the group continues to exist.
Thus, while the Uyghurs may have had terrorist connections in the past, this was no longer the case by the time the internment camps were created in the XUAR. The CCP’s ultimate goal remains the same: to destroy the Uyghurs, their language, their culture.
As terrorist sympathies is no longer a motivation for their destruction, one is left with two possible explanations for the CCP’s animosity towards the Uyghurs:
- Enforcement of ideological purity
- Economic reasons – to make the XUAR into a hub of the Belt and Road Initiative.
What Actions did the United States Take?
The United States took several steps in response to CCP treatment of the Uyghurs (Lum & Weber, 2023), including:
- The imposition of economic sanctions on specific PRC officials and Chinese companies involved in forced labor
- Protection of Uyghur-Americans from harassment or intimidation by CCP agents
- Import restrictions that block the import of goods (including tomatoes and cotton originating in the XUAR
Conclusion
Starburst analysis allows intelligence analysts to quickly understand their operating environment. It allows them to identify key players and actions and allows the analyst to distinguish the essential from the irrelevant. All this was demonstrated here for the Chinese Uyghurs.
References
Chen, L. (2024). “Top official from China's Xinjiang says 'Sinicisation' of Islam 'inevitable'”. Reuters. Retrieved 28 March 2024 from https://www.reuters.com/world/china/top-official-chinas-xinjiang-says-sinicisation-islam-inevitable-2024-03-07/
Human Rights Watch. (2021). “Break Their Lineage, Break Their Roots: China’s Crimes Against Humanity Targeting Uyghurs and Other Turkic Muslims”. Retrieved 28 March 2024 from https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/19/break-their-lineage-break-their-roots/chinas-crimes-against-humanity-targeting
Lum, T. & Weber, M. A. (2023). “China Primer: Uyghurs”. Congressional Research Service. Retrieved on 26 March 2024 from https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10281
Maizland, L. (2022). “China’s Repression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang”. Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved on 28 March 2024 from https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/china-xinjiang-uyghurs-muslims-repression-genocide-human-rights
Marvin, A. (2013). “Dangers of Ethnicity in Analysis”. Small Wars Journal. Retrieved on 27 March 2024 from https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/dangers-of-ethnicity-in-analysis
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