Since 2016, China has escalated its security measures in Xinjiang, including the extensive use of internment facilities, strict surveillance and intense political indoctrination. These measures are believed to be a response by Beijing to terrorist attacks and ethnic clashes between 2009 and 2015, according to Raffaello Pantucci, a specialist on global terrorism with the RSIS in Singapore. “Violence became more frequent, and while it started in Nanjiang [in southern Xinjiang], you noticed how over time it spread across the region,” said Pantucci.