Tumxuk

— The stated mission of the Bingtuan is to increase the Han population of Xinjiang: recruiting Han migrants, supported by subsidies from Beijing, is ‘the will of the state.'⁶ For example, a Bingtuan advertisement circulated on the ubiquitous Chinese social media app Weixin/WeChat in the first half of 2020 called for able-bodied people aged 18-35 with household registration in China proper and ‘good political quality’ (zhengzhi suzhi hao) to move to a new settlement built by the Third Division 50ᵗʰ Regiment 18 km from the southern city of Tumshug (Tumxuk, Tumushuke), between Kashgar and Aksu.

— But I hadn’t come to stay: my goal was two ancient Buddhist sites built into cliffs near a town called Tumxuk....It seemed easy enough to get there; there was only one town named Tumxuk on the map, located north of Aksu.