Byler has worked as an advisor with faculty members and researchers at the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University to build the
Xinjiang Documentation Project, a project that documents the
persecution of Uyghurs in Xinjiang.[3][5] His research has been supported by Columbia University's Global Reports series and a Luce Foundation and
American Council of Learned Societies Early Career Fellowship.[3]
Byler has published many of his analyses of Central Asian, Chinese, and Uyghur life and politics on his long running blog
Art of Life in Chinese Central Asia. He is also a frequent contributor to
The China Project.
Byler has been frequently attacked by
Chinese state media, who have accused him of being an agent of the United States government, which Byler has denied. The Global Times, a newspaper run by the
Chinese Communist Party (CCP), has accused Byler of being an "anti-China figure" who makes "fabricated" allegations about "genocide and crimes against humanity" in Xinjiang.[6]
Books
Terror Capitalism: Uyghur Dispossession and Masculinity in a Chinese City (Duke University Press, 2021)[7]
In the Camps: China's High-Tech Penal Colony (Columbia University Global Reports, 2021)[8]
Xinjiang Year Zero with Ivan Franceschini and Nicholas Loubere (ANU Press, 2022)[9]