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The Sinophone internet is awash with short videos promoting Han-Uyghur inter-marriage. This one asserts that Xinjiang has long been a mixed race region and is now safe and home to many beautiful and eligible Uyghur women who will appreciate a doting Han husband
This video asserts there are no major racial differences b/ Uyghurs & Han nor any scientific reasons why different minzu groups should not inter-marry. The only hurdles are culture & language. But don't worry: there are many Uyghur women proficient in the Han culture/language
There is a long history of this colonial strategy--using inter-ethnic marriage as a tool for forging national integration/cohesion--that goes back to imperial times, with Liang Qichao, Sun Yat-sen & others advocating it. See my 2016 Foreign Affairs essay fam.ag/1quqJ9M
Overall, mixed marriages are extremely rare in China, esp. when compared to rates elsewhere in the world. In 2010, only 2.8 percent of Chinese households consisted of more than one ethnic group, down from 3.2 percent a decade earlier. And only 2.5 percent were Han-minority mixes.
Despite high rates of exogamy among some minority groups in China, endogamy is the norm among the Han majority and the Tibetan and Uighur minorities. Only 1.5 percent of Han Chinese married outside of their ethnicity in 2010. And a scant 0.44 percent of Uyghurs did.
And the rate of Han-Uyghur intermarriage dropped from 0.56 to 0.20 percent over the last decade. The figure is higher among Han and Tibetans at roughly five percent in 2010, but has also declined slightly over the last decade.
