Cold War Encounters in US-Occupied Okinawa: Women, Militarized Domesticity, and Transnationalism in East Asia. By Mire Koikari. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. 245 pp. £69.99 (Cloth).

Soviet “informal empire” finally led to the close of the Soviet–Xinjiang border and the “Three District Rebellion” against Han ethno-cultural domination in the region. The establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, however, did not lead to the immediate end of the Soviet “informal empire” in Xinjiang. Soviet capital and technicians were still badly needed by the Chinese Communists. According to Kinzley, the nonferrous metal operation shipped everything it produced to the Soviet Union in the early 1950s to repay Soviet loans and technical assistance. Furthermore, Kinzley suggests that the narrative of Xinjiang since 1949 has focused on the Production and Construction Corps, while overlooking the role of capital investments and industrial priorities (p. 152). Petroleum and nonferrous minerals have become the twin poles of resource extraction in Xinjiang. Based on the “layers” laid by the Russian and later Soviet geologists and planners, the author argues that sites such as Dushanzi have become the nodes of state power in Xinjiang, while the Production and Construction Corps have played only a supporting role. Indeed, these industrial sites deserve more attention from scholars. In addition to the comparison of state capital investments, the author’s argument would benefit from such details as the demographic changes and administrative relations to substantiate this part of his analysis. In the conclusion, Kinzley incisively points out the connection between the economic inequalities in Xinjiang today and the spatial pattern of infrastructure shaped throughout history. The large scale state-sponsored inflow of Han migrants to those industrial and urban centers further complicated the economic disparity with ethnic tensions. There is no doubt that this solid study has successfully unveiled the historical “layers,” a geographic pattern of social and economic inequalities in Xinjiang. Yet this spatial inequality is not unique. We can see it in other parts of the world as well. Regardless of historical contingency or necessity, modern industrial systems and political forces together have shaped the world into a pattern of centers and peripheries. The archival sources used in this work are impressive. These include archives in Beijing, Xinjiang, Moscow, and Taiwan. In addition to the voices of state leaders, local officials, industrial planners, and geologists, we are eager to hear the voices of thousands of Uyghur and Kazakh laborers, who, as Kinzley admits, are unrepresented in official archives. These archives better represent the voices of the Han Chinese people who migrated to Xinjiang to work on these mineral mines and oil fields. I believe the author would agree that the material dimension should not be restricted to the elites. It is also related to the daily life of the masses, and their voices could provide inspiration and even solutions to the socioeconomic challenges in Xinjiang. In the end, considering the unsustainability of mineral resources and petroleum, the industrial towns in northern Xinjiang may face resource depletion and population outflow in the near future. Then a new question would emerge: will the withering of the historical “layers” foster an opportunity or another crisis for the Chinese state and Xinjiang?