Pablo A. Rodríguez-Merino | Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (original) (raw)

Papers by Pablo A. Rodríguez-Merino

International Feminist Journal of Politics

Feminist approaches to international security have revealed persistent gendered stereotypes in th... more Feminist approaches to international security have revealed persistent gendered stereotypes in the construction of women in contexts of political violence and terrorism, including the Global War on Terror. Acknowledging the parallelism with the United States-led enterprise in its endeavor to "save" a female population and re-posing one of the most significant questions in gender-informed security studies, this article asks "Where are the women in China's 'People's War on Terror' (PWoT)?" It takes the idea of agency as pivotal in answering this question and investigates how the Chinese state has (im)mobilized, through concealment or deployment, the idea of and potential for agency when positioning Uyghur and other Turkic Muslim women in Xinjiang as specific subjects in the context of the PWoT. The article reveals the establishment of a gendered hierarchy of power in the Chinese counterterrorism playbook, one that fixes "Xinjiang women" as securitized and passive victims in need of rescuing by a state that continues to suppress their agency, despite official claims to the contrary.

International Feminist Journal of Politics, 2023

Historia Actual, Feb 1, 2013

This article tracks the evolution of contemporary violent resistance to the Chinese state in the ... more This article tracks the evolution of contemporary violent resistance to the Chinese state in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). It does so by reviewing and analyzing the nature of the main episodes of violence reported in the region since the beginning of the Chinese 'reform and opening up' period (1978-2012). It finds that violent resistance, not necessarily resulting from ideological or separatist agendas, has been present in Xinjiang in the form of low-scale insurgency, ethnic riots, and terrorism. The article forecasts that violence will remain a regional issue in the future considering the long-standing frictions with the Uyghur ethnic minority and the crackdown 'strike, hard' (yanda) campaigns of the Chinese government.

E-International Relations, Aug 15, 2018

Please refer to published version for the most recent bibliographic citation information. If a pu... more Please refer to published version for the most recent bibliographic citation information. If a published version is known of, the repository item page linked to above, will contain details on accessing it.

SOAS (University of London) China Institute, May 25, 2021

Critical Studies on Terrorism

How does violence become understood as terrorism? In this article, we show how a narrative approa... more How does violence become understood as terrorism? In this article, we show how a narrative approach to the study of violent events offers a conceptually productive way to understand the process of "seeing" an event as a terrorist act, one that explicitly integrates the phenomenology of violence. While the collective practice of defining terrorism in academia and the policy arena has struggled to produce a universal definition, we identify a set of "common sense" characteristics. We argue that if the framing of violent events prominently features these characteristics as discursive anchors, this primes processes of sensemaking toward interpreting violence as terrorism. While terrorism markers are often articulated as being pragmatic and apolitical indicators of terrorist acts, we show that they are indeed at the core of political contests over historical and physical facts about violent events. The narrative approach we develop in this article underscores that intuitive leanings toward interpreting violence as terrorism are a sign of political agency precisely because they are produced through the stories political agents tell.

This article examines the systematic framing of Uyghur-related violent unrest in Xinjiang as terr... more This article examines the systematic framing of Uyghur-related violent unrest in Xinjiang as terrorism by the Chinese state. The study draws attention to how Uyghur-related violent incidents in the region-and elsewhere in China-are often not so premeditated, political, and indiscriminate as their framing as terrorism by the Chinese state suggests. Narrative tensions are identified between the features of such events and dominant scholarly conceptualizations of terrorism as a category of organized violence that targets 'civilians' for political purposes. The article argues that the Chinese state uses an actor-based one-size-fits-all approach by which Uyghur-related violence is represented as terrorism not by virtue of the features of the violence, but because of the ethnicity of those involved. Such an approach, the article concludes, is analytically deceptive and politically delusional.

China Brief, 2022

Last month, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris spoke briefly with Taiwanese Vice President Lai Chi... more Last month, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris spoke briefly with Taiwanese Vice President Lai Ching-te at the inauguration of President Xiaomara Castro in Honduras (Taiwan News, January 28). When asked about the public interaction between Harris and Lai, People's Republic of China (PRC) Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) spokesperson Zhao Lijian responded curtly that "there is no Taiwanese 'vice president' since Taiwan is a province of China." Zhao called on the U.S. to "abide by the one-China principle and stipulations in the three China-U.S. joint communiques, take China's position and concerns seriously, stop all forms of official interactions with Taiwan and avoid sending wrong signals to 'Taiwan independence' forces" (FMPRC, January 28). Despite Zhao's rejoinder, China's response was subdued. Beijing's reactions to other recent engagements between top U.S. and Taiwanese officials have typically been more bark than bite. For example, neither then

Revista de Pensamiento Estratégico y Seguridad CISDE, 2018

Este artículo analiza los factores que resultaron en el fracaso de la campana guerrillera lanzada... more Este artículo analiza los factores que resultaron en el fracaso de la campana guerrillera lanzada por el Che Guevara en Bolivia en los anos 1966 y 1967. El artículo examina los errores de carácter estratégico cometidos por el Che, que resultaron en el aislamiento rural y urbano de la guerrilla, y su desconexión del entorno politico boliviano. Entre ellos, la elección de Bolivia como lugar para establecer un foco revolucionario, la decision de comenzar la campana en el sureste del país, o la incapacidad de Guevara para recabar apoyos en la izquierda boliviana o el movimiento minero. Asimismo, se valora como el contexto internacional de la época, con la ruptura sino-soviética en ciernes y una creciente influencia estadounidense en Latinoamérica, afectaron al desarrollo de los acontecimientos. El articulo concluye que la fallida campana del Che demostró la inviabilidad de exportar la teoría del foco insurgente a un escenario diferente al de Cuba.

Central Asian Survey

China has declared a war on terrorism in Xinjiang, identifying violence in the region as a top se... more China has declared a war on terrorism in Xinjiang, identifying violence in the region as a top security threat. However, what nowadays is officially constructed as ‘terrorism’ was framed as ‘counter-revolution’ in the past. Informed by the concept of macrosecuritization and the agenda of critical terrorism studies, this article examines the changing nature of Chinese state framing of violence in Xinjiang. Through a comparative analysis of the discursive construction of the Baren (1990) and Bachu (2013) violent incidents, I find that the terror lexicon has replaced old narratives of counter-revolution to legitimize a sustained crackdown under a novel geopolitical context. The construction of violence in Xinjiang as terrorism, I argue, is contingent, limited and unstable. It marginalizes factors other than an extremist or separatist agency in the incubation of the violence, in particular the frictions created by the crackdown with which the Chinese government is trying to placate the unrest.

SOAS China Institute Blog, 2021

Monde Chinois Nouvelle Asie, 2020

Critical Studies on Terrorism, 2019

How does violence become understood as terrorism? In this article, we show how a narrative approa... more How does violence become understood as terrorism? In this article, we show how a narrative approach to the study of violent events offers a conceptually productive way to understand the process of “seeing” an event as a terrorist act, one that explicitly integrates the phenomenology of violence. While the collective practice of defining terrorism in academia and the policy arena has struggled to produce a universal definition, we identify a set of “common sense” characteristics. We argue that if the framing of violent events prominently features these characteristics as discursive anchors, this primes processes of sensemaking toward interpreting violence as terrorism. While terrorism markers are often articulated as being pragmatic and apolitical indicators of terrorist acts, we show that they are indeed at the core of political contests over historical and physical facts about violent events. The narrative approach we develop in this article underscores that intuitive leanings toward interpreting violence as terrorism are a sign of political agency precisely because they are produced through the stories political agents tell.

Revista de Pensamiento Estratégico y Seguridad CISDE, 2018

Este artículo analiza los factores estratégicos que resultaron en el fracaso de la campaña guerri... more Este artículo analiza los factores estratégicos que resultaron en el fracaso de la campaña guerrillera lanzada por el Che Guevara en Bolivia en los años 1966 y 1967. El artículo examina los errores estratégicos cometidos por el Che, que resultaron en el aislamiento rural y urbano de la guerrilla, y su desconexión del entorno político boliviano. Entre ellos, la elección de Bolivia como lugar para establecer un foco revolucionario, la decisión de comenzar la campaña en el sureste del país, o la incapacidad de Guevara para recabar apoyos en la izquierda boliviana o el movimiento minero. Asimismo, se valora cómo el contexto internacional de la época, con la ruptura sino-soviética en ciernes y una creciente influencia estadounidense en Latinoamérica, afectaron al desarrollo de los acontecimientos. El artículo concluye que la fallida campaña del Che demostró la inviabilidad de exportar la teoría del foco insurgente a un escenario diferente al de Cuba.

ENGLISH: This article analyses the strategic factors that resulted in the failure of the guerrilla campaign launched by Che Guevara in Bolivia in the years 1966 and 1967. The article examines the miscalculations committed by Che, which resulted in the rural and urban isolation of the guerrillas and their disconnection from the Bolivian political spectrum. Among these, the choice of Bolivia as the place to launch a revolutionary 'foco', the decision to start the campaign in the southeast of the country, or the inability of Guevara to gather support from the Bolivian left or the miners' movement. The paper also examines how the international context of the time, with the Sino-Soviet split and growing American influence in Latin America, influenced the course of events. The article concludes that the failed revolution of Che in Bolivia proved the unfeasibility of exporting the 'foco' insurgency theory to a scenario other than its original Cuban stage.

E-International Relations, 2018

Central Asian Survey, 2019

Este artículo analiza el período chino de reforma y apertura en la Región Autónoma Uigur de Xinji... more Este artículo analiza el período chino de reforma y apertura en la Región Autónoma Uigur de Xinjiang (RAUX) y explora las dinámicas que facilitaron la resurgencia del separatismo uigur pese a la relativa liberalización, especialmente en el ámbito religioso, con la que el gobierno chino acompañó el viraje económico. En primer lugar, se presentan las medidas ‘gradualistas’ de índole económica y social aplicadas por el Partido Comunista Chino (PCCh) en Xinjiang durante la década de los años 1980. Posteriormente, se evalúan sus resultados’, identificando las limitaciones que para las minorías étnicas tuvo este enfoque ‘gradualista’, sobre todo en lo referente a la autonomía política y prosperidad económica. Finalmente, el artículo examina el desarrollo de actividades disidentes y separatistas en la región como las manifestaciones estudiantiles de Urumqi en 1985 o la ‘rebelión contrarrevolucionaria’ de Baren en 1990, evento que catalizará una campaña represiva en la región. El artículo reflexiona sobre el complejo (des)equilibrio entre moderación y asimilacionismo al que los líderes chinos se enfrentan en Xinjiang y por el que, independientemente del enfoque adoptado, las políticas del régimen chino acaban contribuyendo de uno u otro modo al separatismo uigur.

This article analyses China’s reform and opening up period in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) and explores the dynamics that facilitated a revitalisation of Uyghur separatism in spite of the liberalization policies, particularly in the religious realm, that accompanied the economic change. To this aim, it first introduces the economic and social ‘gradualist’ policies applied by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Xinjiang during the 1980s decade, paying special attention to those that allowed a religious and cultural revival in the region. Next, it evaluates the ‘gradualist’ approach, identifying the limitations that these policies had for the ethnic minorities with respect to political autonomy and economic prosperity. Finally, the article examines the emergence of dissident and separatists activities in the region, from the student demonstrations in Urumqi (1985) to the Baren ‘counterrevolutionary rebellion’ (1990), which would eventually trigger a repressive campaign in the region. The article reflects on the conundrum faced by Chinese leaders in Xinjiang, by which moderate policies originally aimed at appeasing the ethnic minorities may well result in the emergence of separatism, thus triggering a further repressive approach also conducive to dissidence.

Historia Actual, Feb 2013

Journal of International Relations and Foreign Policy, Jun 2014

This article reviews the key aspects of the Chinese presence in Africa in order to reflect on the... more This article reviews the key aspects of the Chinese presence in Africa in order to reflect on the strengths and contradictions of this involvement. By analyzing the grounds and legitimacy claims which sustain Chinese endeavors in Africa, the sectors of this involvement, and the instruments used to implement the Chinese strategy in the continent, the paper reflects on the historical role that China plays in Africa, and how it relates with the European view on the matter.

Books by Pablo A. Rodríguez-Merino

Violence, Discourse, and Politics in China’s Uyghur Region

International Feminist Journal of Politics

International Feminist Journal of Politics, 2023

Historia Actual, Feb 1, 2013

E-International Relations, Aug 15, 2018

SOAS (University of London) China Institute, May 25, 2021

Critical Studies on Terrorism

China Brief, 2022

Revista de Pensamiento Estratégico y Seguridad CISDE, 2018

Central Asian Survey

SOAS China Institute Blog, 2021

Monde Chinois Nouvelle Asie, 2020

Critical Studies on Terrorism, 2019

How does violence become understood as terrorism? In this article, we show how a narrative approa... more How does violence become understood as terrorism? In this article, we show how a narrative approach to the study of violent events offers a conceptually productive way to understand the process of “seeing” an event as a terrorist act, one that explicitly integrates the phenomenology of violence. While the collective practice of defining terrorism in academia and the policy arena has struggled to produce a universal definition, we identify a set of “common sense” characteristics. We argue that if the framing of violent events prominently features these characteristics as discursive anchors, this primes processes of sensemaking toward interpreting violence as terrorism. While terrorism markers are often articulated as being pragmatic and apolitical indicators of terrorist acts, we show that they are indeed at the core of political contests over historical and physical facts about violent events. The narrative approach we develop in this article underscores that intuitive leanings toward interpreting violence as terrorism are a sign of political agency precisely because they are produced through the stories political agents tell.

Revista de Pensamiento Estratégico y Seguridad CISDE, 2018

E-International Relations, 2018

Central Asian Survey, 2019

Historia Actual, Feb 2013

Journal of International Relations and Foreign Policy, Jun 2014

Violence, Discourse, and Politics in China’s Uyghur Region

La necesidad de conocer África, 2017

Este artículo revisa los aspectos clave de la presencia china en África para reflejar sobre las f... more Este artículo revisa los aspectos clave de la presencia china en África para reflejar sobre las fortalezas y contradicciones de esta participación. Al analizar los motivos y reclamos de legitimidad que sostienen los esfuerzos chinos en África, los sectores en que se basa y, en particular, los instrumentos utilizados para cumplir con los objetivos de Beijing en
el continente, el ensayo intenta reflexionar sobre el papel histórico que desempeña China en África, y cómo se relaciona con la visión europea sobre el tema.

This article reviews the key aspects of Chinese presence in Africa in order to reflect on the strengths and contradictions of this involvement. By analyzing the grounds and legitimacy claims which sustain Chinese endeavors in Africa, the sectors in which is based and notably the instruments utilized to fulfill Beijing’s objectives in the continent, the essay attempts to reflect on the historical role that China plays in Africa, and how it relates with the European view on the matter.