ABSTRACT
Restive Muslim populations at China’s northwest border have provoked concern among authorities that separatist factions may agitate for independence, at the same time, China’s Hui Muslims have gone online to create new identities. To what extent does Chinese Muslims’ emerging use of new media survive under the Chinese Communist Party’s censorship? Based on interviews and online observations of the reported activities and growth of a Chinese Muslim youth website since 2015, this chapter argues that young Chinese Hui Muslims have been attempting to extend their influence through online networks to mobilize Muslim youths and trying to reshape the cultural image of Islam in China. It shows the ways in which marginalized Muslim youths maintain their religious vision at the national and international level. Domestically, Chinese Muslim youths aim to construct new understandings of Islam in China as they handle issues facing Muslim youths at the societal level, while at the international level, they align with the global Muslim brotherhood (ummah).
