Nury Tiyip grew up following in his brother Tashpolat’s footsteps: from their hometown of Ili, a remote city near the Chinese-Soviet border; to Urumqi, where they both played volleyball at Xinjiang University; to Japan, where they also studied.

Tashpolat was Nury’s idol and a model citizen — a member of the Muslim Uighur minority who managed to thrive in a system dominated by ethnic Han Chinese.