A new Strategy Risks investigation examines how two longtime Yale University scholars participated in a Chinese government-linked forum in Xinjiang and how Chinese state media amplified their subsequent remarks to support Beijing’s narrative about the region.

In June 2024, Yale scholars Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim attended the International Forum on the History and Future of Xinjiang, where more than 100 Chinese and foreign experts gathered to discuss Xinjiang’s history, culture, and relationship to Chinese civilization. The forum included prominent involvement from Pan Yue, then deputy head of the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department, and a prearranged tour that included institutions and sites with documented cooperative ties to the U.S.-sanctioned Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps.

Following the trip, Tucker and Grim publicly praised the preservation of minority culture in Xinjiang and made remarks that Chinese state media subsequently amplified in coverage defending Beijing’s policies in the region. Strategy Risks found no evidence that either scholar was paid or instructed by Chinese authorities. Instead, the report examines how participation by respected Western academics can lend independent credibility to government narratives that present Xinjiang in favorable terms despite extensive documentation of human-rights abuses in the region.

The investigation draws on English- and Chinese-language open-source materials, including Chinese government records, university materials, academic sources, and state-media coverage. Tucker responded to Strategy Risks’ outreach but had not provided responses to the report’s questions as of publication. Grim, Yale University, and the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology did not respond to requests for comment.

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