The Xinjiang internment camps, officially called vocational education and training centers ( zh, 职业技能教育培训中心, Zhíyè jìnéng jiàoyù péixùn zhōngxīn) by the
government of China
The Government of the People's Republic of China () is an authoritarian political system in the People's Republic of China under the exclusive political leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It consists of legislative, executive, m ...
, are
internment camp
Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simpl ...
s operated by the government of
Xinjiang
Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest ...
and the
Chinese Communist Party Provincial Standing Committee.
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...
says that they have been used to indoctrinate
Uyghurs
The Uyghurs; ; ; ; zh, s=, t=, p=Wéiwú'ěr, IPA: ( ), alternatively spelled Uighurs, Uygurs or Uigurs, are a Turkic ethnic group originating from and culturally affiliated with the general region of Central and East Asia. The Uyghur ...
and other Muslims since 2017 as part of a "
people's war on terror", a policy announced in 2014.
The camps have been criticized by the governments of many countries and human rights organizations for alleged human rights abuses, including mistreatment,
rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ag ...
, and torture, with some of them alleging
genocide
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Latin ...
. Some 40 countries around the world have called on China to respect the human rights of the Uyghur community, including countries such as Canada, Germany, Turkey, Honduras and Japan. The governments of more than 35 countries have expressed support for China's government.
The camps were established in 2017 by
the administration of CCP general secretary
Xi Jinping
Xi Jinping ( ; ; ; born 15 June 1953) is a Chinese politician who has served as the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), and thus as the paramount leader of China, s ...
.
Between 2017 and 2021 operations were led by
Chen Quanguo
Chen Quanguo (; born November 1955) is a retiring Chinese politician and the current deputy head of the CCP Central Rural Work Leading Group. Between 2017 and 2022, he was a member of the 19th Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party and was pre ...
, who was formerly a
CCP Politburo
The Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party, formally known as the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and known as the Central Bureau before 1927, is the decision-making body of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). ...
member and the
committee secretary who led the region's party committee and government. The camps are reportedly operated outside the
Chinese legal system; many Uyghurs have reportedly been interned without trial and no charges have been levied against them (held in
administrative detention
Administrative detention is arrest and detention of individuals by the state without trial. A number of jurisdictions claim that it is done for security reasons. Many countries claim to use administrative detention as a means to combat terrorism ...
).
Local authorities are reportedly holding hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs in these camps as well as members of other
ethnic minority groups in China
Ethnic minorities in China are the non- Han population in the People's Republic of China (PRC).
The PRC officially recognizes 55 ethnic minority groups within China in addition to the Han majority. As of 2010, the combined population of of ...
, for the
stated purpose of countering extremism and terrorism and promoting
social integration
Social integration is the process during which newcomers or minorities are incorporated into the social structure of the host society.
Social integration, together with economic integration and identity integration, are three main dimensions of ...
.
The internment of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in the camps constitutes the largest-scale
arbitrary detention
Arbitrary arrest and arbitrary detention are the arrest or detention of an individual in a case in which there is no likelihood or evidence that they committed a crime against legal statute, or in which there has been no proper due process of law ...
of ethnic and religious minorities since
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
.
, it was estimated that Chinese authorities may have detained up to 1.8 million people, mostly Uyghurs but also including
Kazakhs
The Kazakhs (also spelled Qazaqs; Kazakh: , , , , , ; the English name is transliterated from Russian; russian: казахи) are a Turkic-speaking ethnic group native to northern parts of Central Asia, chiefly Kazakhstan, but also parts o ...
,
Kyrgyz and other ethnic Turkic
Muslims
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abraha ...
,
Christians
Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...
, as well as some foreign citizens including
Kazakhstanis, in these secretive internment camps located throughout the region.
In May 2018,
Randall Schriver, US
, said that "at least a million but likely closer to three million citizens" were imprisoned in detention centers, which he described as "concentration camps".
In August 2018,
Gay McDougall
Gay Johnson McDougall (born August 13, 1947, in Atlanta, Georgia) is an American lawyer who has spent her career addressing international human rights and racial discrimination. She is currently a Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence at the Leitner ...
, a US representative at the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, said that the committee had received many credible reports that 1 million ethnic Uyghurs in China have been held in "re-education camps". There have been comparisons between the Xinjiang camps and the
Chinese Cultural Revolution
The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goal ...
.
In 2019, at the United Nations, 54 countries, including China itself, rejected the allegations and supported the Chinese government's policies in Xinjiang. In another letter, 23 countries shared the concerns in the committee's reports and called on China to uphold human rights.
In September 2020, the
Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) reported in its
Xinjiang Data Project
The Xinjiang Data Project is a China-focused Australian research project created and managed by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI). The project states that it has identified grave human rights violations in Xinjiang, including th ...
that construction of camps continued despite government claims that their function was winding down.
In October 2020, it was reported that the total number of countries that denounced China increased to 39, while the total number of countries that defended China decreased to 45. Sixteen countries that defended China in 2019 did not do so in 2020.
Background
Xinjiang conflict
Various
Chinese dynasties
Dynasties in Chinese history, or Chinese dynasties, were hereditary monarchical regimes that ruled over China during much of its history. From the legendary inauguration of dynastic rule by Yu the Great circa 2070 BC to the abdication of t ...
have historically exerted various degrees of control and influence over parts of what is modern-day Xinjiang.
The region came under complete Chinese rule as a result of the
westward expansion
The United States of America was created on July 4, 1776, with the U.S. Declaration of Independence of thirteen British colonies in North America. In the Lee Resolution two days prior, the colonies resolved that they were free and independe ...
of the
Manchu
The Manchus (; ) are a Tungusic East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized ethnic minority in China and the people from whom Manchuria derives its name. The Later Jin (1616–1636) and ...
-led
Qing dynasty
The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...
, which also
conquered Tibet and
Mongolia
Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million, ...
.
This conquest, which marked the beginning of
Xinjiang under Qing rule
The Manchu-led Qing dynasty of China ruled over Xinjiang from the late 1750s to 1912. In the history of Xinjiang, the Qing rule was established in the final phase of the Dzungar–Qing Wars when the Dzungar Khanate was conquered by the Qing d ...
, ended circa 1758. While it was nominally declared to be a part of China's core territory, it was generally seen as a distant land unto its own by the imperial court; in 1758, it was designated a penal colony and a site of exile, and as a result, it was governed as a military protectorate, not integrated as a province.
After the 1928 assassination of
Yang Zengxin
Yang Zengxin (; March 6, 1864 – July 7, 1928) was the ruler of Xinjiang after the Xinhai Revolution in 1911 until his assassination in 1928.
Life
Yang Zengxin was born in Mengzi, Yunnan Province, in 1864. Though a Han Chinese, he had c ...
, the governor of the semi-autonomous
Kumul Khanate
The Kumul Khanate was a semi-autonomous feudal Turkic khanate (equivalent to a banner in Mongolia) within the Qing dynasty and then the Republic of China until it was abolished by Xinjiang governor Jin Shuren in 1930. The Khanate was located in ...
in east Xinjiang under the
Republic of China
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...
,
Jin Shuren
Jin Shuren (; c. 1883–1941) was a Chinese Xinjiang clique warlord who served as Governor of Xinjiang between 1928 and 1933.
Biography
Jin Shuren was born in Yongjing, Hezhou, Gansu. He graduated at the Gansu provincial academy and ...
succeeded Yang as governor of the Khanate. On the death of the Kamul Khan
Maqsud Shah in 1930, Jin entirely abolished the Khanate and took control of the region as
its warlord.
In 1933, the breakaway
First East Turkestan Republic
The Turkic Islamic Republic of East Turkestan (TIRET; ug, شەرقىي تۈركىستان تۈرك ئىسلام جۇمھۇرىيىتى, , Шәрқий Түркистан Түрк-Ислам Җумхурийити; ) was a short-lived breakaway ...
was established in the
Kumul Rebellion
The Kumul Rebellion (, "Hami Uprising") was a rebellion of Kumulik Uyghurs from 1931 to 1934 who conspired with Hui Chinese Muslim Gen. Ma Zhongying to overthrow Jin Shuren, governor of Xinjiang. The Kumul Uyghurs were loyalists of the Kumul ...
.
In 1934, the First Turkestan Republic was conquered by warlord
Sheng Shicai
Sheng Shicai (; 3 December 189513 July 1970) was a Chinese warlord who ruled Xinjiang from 1933 to 1944. Sheng's rise to power started with a coup d'état in 1933 when he was appointed the ''duban'' or Military Governor of Xinjiang. His rule o ...
with the
aid of the Soviet Union before Sheng reconciled with the Republic of China in 1942.
In 1944, the
Ili Rebellion
The Ili Rebellion () (Üch Wiläyt inqilawi) was a Uyghur separatist movement backed by the Soviet Union against the Kuomintang government of the Republic of China in 1944. After the start of the rebellion, the rebels established the Provision ...
led to the
Second East Turkestan Republic
The East Turkestan Republic (ETR) was a short-lived satellite state of the Soviet Union in northwest Xinjiang (East Turkestan), between November 12, 1944, and December 22, 1949. To differentiate it from the First East Turkestan Republic (1933� ...
with dependency on the Soviet Union for trade, arms, and "tacit consent" for its continued existence before being
absorbed into the People's Republic of China in 1949.
From the 1950s to the 1970s, the government sponsored
a mass migration of
Han Chinese
The Han Chinese () or Han people (), are an East Asian ethnic group native to China. They constitute the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 18% of the global population and consisting of various subgroups speaking distinctive va ...
to the region, policies promoting Chinese cultural unity, and policies punishing certain expressions of Uyghur identity.
During this time, militant Uyghur separatist organizations with potential support from the Soviet Union emerged, with the
East Turkestan People's Party being the largest in 1968.
During the 1970s, the Soviets supported the
United Revolutionary Front of East Turkestan
The United Revolutionary Front of East Turkestan (; URFET) was a Uyghur nationalist group in Xinjiang that participated in the Xinjiang conflict as an armed separatist force. It was led by Yusupbek Mukhlisi, who operated in-exile with other f ...
(URFET) to fight the Chinese.
In 1997, a police roundup and execution of 30 suspected separatists during
Ramadan
, type = islam
, longtype = Religious
, image = Ramadan montage.jpg
, caption=From top, left to right: A crescent moon over Sarıçam, Turkey, marking the beginning of the Islamic month of Ramadan. Ramadan Quran reading in Bandar Torkaman, Iran. ...
led to large demonstrations in February 1997 that resulted in the
Ghulja incident, a
People's Liberation Army
The People's Liberation Army (PLA) is the principal military force of the People's Republic of China and the armed wing of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The PLA consists of five service branches: the Ground Force, Navy, Air Force, ...
(PLA) crackdown that led to at least nine deaths. The
Ürümqi bus bombings later that month killed nine people and injured 68 with responsibility acknowledged by Uyghur exile groups.
In March 1997, a bus bomb killed two people with responsibility claimed by Uyghur radicals and the
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
-based Organisation for East Turkistan Freedom.
In July 2009,
riots broke out in Xinjiang in response to a
violent dispute between Uyghur and Han Chinese workers in a factory and they resulted in over 100 deaths.
Following the riots, Uyghur radicals killed dozens of Chinese citizens in coordinated attacks from 2009 to 2016.
These included the
August 2009 syringe attacks,
the
2011 bomb-and-knife attack in Hotan,
the
March 2014 knife attack in the Kunming railway station,
the
April 2014 bomb-and-knife attack in the Ürümqi railway station,
and the
May 2014 car-and-bomb attack in an Ürümqi street market.
Several of the attacks were orchestrated by the
Turkistan Islamic Party
The Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) or the Turkistan Islamic Movement (TIM), formerly known as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) and other names, is a Uyghur Islamic extremist organization founded in Western China. Its stated goals ar ...
(formerly the East Turkestan Islamic Movement) which has been designated a
terrorist organization
A number of national governments and two international organizations have created lists of organizations that they designate as terrorist. The following list of designated terrorist groups lists groups designated as terrorist by current and fo ...
by several countries including Russia,
Turkey,
the United Kingdom,
and the United States (until 2020),
in addition to the United Nations.
Strategic motivations
After initially denying the existence of the camps the Chinese government has maintained that its actions in Xinjiang are justifiable responses to the threats of
extremism
Extremism is "the quality or state of being extreme" or "the advocacy of extreme measures or views". The term is primarily used in a political or religious sense to refer to an ideology that is considered (by the speaker or by some implied share ...
and
terrorism
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...
.
As a region on the northwestern periphery of China which is inhabited by ethnic/linguistic/religious minorities, Xinjiang has been said (by Raffi Khatchadourian) to have "never seemed fully within the Communist Party's grasp".
Part of Xinjiang was once seized by
Czarist Russia
The Tsardom of Russia or Tsardom of Rus' also externally referenced as the Tsardom of Muscovy, was the centralized Russian state from the assumption of the title of Tsar by Ivan IV in 1547 until the foundation of the Russian Empire by Peter I ...
and it was also independent for a short period of time. Traditionally, the government of the People's Republic of China has favored an assimilationist policy towards minorities and it has accelerated this policy by encouraging the mass immigration of Han Chinese into minority lands. After the
collapse of its rival and neighbor the Soviet Union—another huge multi-national communist state with one dominant ethnicity—the Chinese Communist Party was "convinced that
ethnic nationalism
Ethnic nationalism, also known as ethnonationalism, is a form of nationalism wherein the nation and nationality are defined in terms of ethnicity, with emphasis on an ethnocentric (and in some cases an ethnocratic) approach to various politi ...
had helped tear the former superpower to pieces". In addition, terrorist attacks were committed by Uyghurs in 2009, 2013, and 2014.
Several additional potential motives for the increased repression in Xinjiang have been presented by scholars who have conducted research outside China. First, the repression may simply be the result of increased dissent within the region beginning in circa 2009; second, it may be due to changes in minority policy which promoted assimilation into Han culture; and third, the repression may primarily be spearheaded by Chen Quanguo himself, the result of his personally hardline attitude towards perceived acts of
sedition
Sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that tends toward rebellion against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent toward, or insurrection against, estab ...
.
China's government has used the
terrorist attacks of 9/11 as a justification for its actions against the Uyghurs. It claims that its actions in Xinjiang are necessary because Xinjiang is another front in the "
global war on terrorism
The war on terror, officially the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), is an ongoing international counterterrorism military campaign initiated by the United States following the September 11 attacks. The main targets of the campaign are militant ...
." Specifically, they are trying to rid China of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization's three evils. The three evils are "transnational terrorism, separatism, and religious extremism," all three of which the CCP believes the Uyghurs possess. The true reason for the repression of the Uyghurs is quite convoluted but some argue that this is based on the CCP's desire to preserve China's identity and integrity, rather than its desire to condemn terrorism.
Additionally, some analysts have suggested that the ruling Communist Party considers Xinjiang a key route in China's
Belt and Road Initiative
The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI, or B&R), formerly known as One Belt One Road ( zh, link=no, 一带一路) or OBOR for short, is a global infrastructure development strategy adopted by the Chinese government in 2013 to invest in nearly 150 ...
(BRI), however, it considers Xinjiang's local population a potential threat to the initiative's success, or it fears that opening Xinjiang up may also open it up to radicalizing influences from other states which are participating in the BRI. Sean Roberts of
George Washington University
, mottoeng = "God is Our Trust"
, established =
, type = Private federally chartered research university
, academic_affiliations =
, endowment = $2.8 billion (2022)
, preside ...
said the CCP sees Uyghurs' attachment to their traditional lands as a risk to the BRI. Researcher
Adrian Zenz
Adrian Nikolaus Zenz (born 1974) is a German anthropologist known for his studies of the Xinjiang internment camps (also known as "re-education" camps) and Uyghur genocide. He is a senior fellow in China studies at the Victims of Communism Mem ...
has suggested that the initiative is an important reason for the Chinese government's control of Xinjiang.
In November 2020, when the US dropped the Turkistan Islamic Party from its terrorist list because it was no longer "in existence", the decision was lauded by some intelligence officials because it removed the pretext for the Chinese government's decision to wage "terrorism eradication" campaigns against the
Uyghurs
The Uyghurs; ; ; ; zh, s=, t=, p=Wéiwú'ěr, IPA: ( ), alternatively spelled Uighurs, Uygurs or Uigurs, are a Turkic ethnic group originating from and culturally affiliated with the general region of Central and East Asia. The Uyghur ...
. However, Yue Gang, a military commentator in
Beijing
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
stated, "in the wake of the US decision on the ETIM, China might seek to increase its counterterrorism activities." The group continues to be designated as a terrorist group by the
United Nations Security Council
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the Organs of the United Nations, six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international security, international peace and security, recommending the admi ...
as well as by the governments of other countries.
Policies from 2009 to 2016
Both prior to and until shortly after the
July 2009 Ürümqi riots
The July 2009 Ürümqi riots were a series of violent riots over several days that broke out on 5 July 2009 in Ürümqi, the capital city of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), in northwestern China. The first day's rioting, which ...
,
Wang Lequan was the
Party Secretary for the Xinjiang region, effectively the highest subnational role; roughly equivalent to a governor in a Western province or state. Wang worked on modernization programs in Xinjiang, including industrialization, development of commerce, roads, railways, hydrocarbon development and pipelines with neighboring
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...
to eastern China. Wang also constrained local culture and religion, replaced the
Uyghur language
The Uyghur or Uighur language (; , , , or , , , , CTA: Uyğurçä; formerly known as Eastern Turki), is a Turkic language written in a Uyghur Perso-Arabic script with 8-11 million speakers, spoken primarily by the Uyghur people in the Xin ...
with
Standard Mandarin
Standard Chinese ()—in linguistics Standard Northern Mandarin or Standard Beijing Mandarin, in common speech simply Mandarin, better qualified as Standard Mandarin, Modern Standard Mandarin or Standard Mandarin Chinese—is a modern standar ...
as the medium of education in primary schools, and penalized or banned among government workers (in a region in which the government was a very large employer), the wearing of beards and headscarves,
religious fasting and praying while on the job.
In the 1990s, many Uyghurs in parts of Xinjiang could not speak Mandarin Chinese.
In April 2010, after the Ürümqi riots,
Zhang Chunxian
Zhang Chunxian (; born 12 May 1953) is a Chinese politician best known for his term as the Communist Party Secretary of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and the Political Commissar of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps from 201 ...
replaced Wang Lequan as the
Communist Party
A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...
chief. Zhang Chunxian continued and strengthened Wang's repressive policies. In 2011, Zhang proposed "modern culture leads the development in Xinjiang" as his policy statement and started to implement his ''modern culture'' propaganda. In 2012, he first mentioned the phrase "de-extremification" () campaigns and started to educate "wild Imams" () and extremists ().
In 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative was announced, a massive trade project at the heart of which is Xinjiang.
In 2014, Chinese authorities announced a "people's war on terror" and local government introduced new restrictions, including a ban on long beards and
wearing the burqa in public. In 2014, the concept of "transformation through education" began to be used in contexts outside of
Falun Gong
Falun Gong (, ) or Falun Dafa (; literally, "Dharma Wheel Practice" or "Law Wheel Practice") is a new religious movement.Junker, Andrew. 2019. ''Becoming Activists in Global China: Social Movements in the Chinese Diaspora'', pp. 23–24, 33, 119 ...
through the systematic "de-extremification" campaigns. Under Zhang, the Communist Party launched its "
Strike Hard Campaign against Violent Terrorism" in Xinjiang.
In August 2016,
Chen Quanguo
Chen Quanguo (; born November 1955) is a retiring Chinese politician and the current deputy head of the CCP Central Rural Work Leading Group. Between 2017 and 2022, he was a member of the 19th Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party and was pre ...
, a well-known hardline Communist Party secretary in
Tibet
Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa people, ...
, took charge of the Xinjiang autonomous region. Chen was branded as responsible for a major component of Tibet's "subjugation" by critics.
Following Chen's arrival, local authorities recruited over 90,000 police officers in 2016 and 2017 – twice as many as they recruited in the past seven years, and laid out as many as 7,300 heavily guarded check points in the region. The province has come to be known as one of the most heavily policed regions of the world. English-language news reports have labelled the current regime in Xinjiang as the most extensive
police state
A police state describes a state where its government institutions exercise an extreme level of control over civil society and liberties. There is typically little or no distinction between the law and the exercise of political power by the exe ...
in the world.
Antireligious campaigns in China
As a
communist country
A communist state, also known as a Marxist–Leninist state, is a one-party state that is administered and governed by a communist party guided by Marxism–Leninism. Marxism–Leninism was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, the Comint ...
, China does not have an official
state religion
A state religion (also called religious state or official religion) is a religion or creed officially endorsed by a sovereign state. A state with an official religion (also known as confessional state), while not secular state, secular, is not n ...
, However, its government recognizes five different religious denominations, namely
Buddhism
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...
,
Taoism
Taoism (, ) or Daoism () refers to either a school of Philosophy, philosophical thought (道家; ''daojia'') or to a religion (道教; ''daojiao''), both of which share ideas and concepts of China, Chinese origin and emphasize living in harmo ...
,
Islam
Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...
,
Catholicism
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
, and
Protestantism
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...
. In 2014, Western media outlets reported that it has conducted
antireligious campaigns in order to
promote atheism.
According to ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'', the CCP under Xi Jinping shifted its policies in favor of the outright
sinicization
Sinicization, sinofication, sinification, or sinonization (from the prefix , 'Chinese, relating to China') is the process by which non-Chinese societies come under the influence of Chinese culture, particularly the language, societal norms, cul ...
of
ethnic
An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
and religious minorities.
The trend accelerated in 2018 when the
State Ethnic Affairs Commission and the
State Administration for Religious Affairs
The State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) was an executive agency directly under the State Council of the People's Republic of China which oversaw religious affairs in the country. Originally created in 1951 as the Religious Affairs ...
were placed under the control of the CCP's
United Front Work Department
The United Front Work Department of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (UFWD; ) is a department of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) which is officially tasked with "united front work". For this endeav ...
.
Groups which are targeted for surveillance
Around 2015, according to
Chinese Human Rights Defenders China Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) is a non-government organization of domestic and overseas Chinese human rights activists and groups. The organization is headquartered in Washington DC. Its objective is to provide assistance to both human right ...
, a senior Chinese party official argued that "a third" of Xinjiang's Uyghurs were "polluted by religious extremist forces," and needed to be "educated and reformed through concentrated force."
At about the same time, the Chinese state-security apparatus was developing a "
Integrated Joint Operations Platform" (IJOP) to analyze information which was collected from its surveillance data. According to an analysis of this software by
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...
, a member of a minority group might be assessed by the IJOP as falling under one of 36 "person types" that could lead to arrest and internment in a re-education camp. Some of these person types included:
*people who do not use a mobile phone,
*who use the back door instead of the front,
*who consume an "unusual" amount of electricity,
*have an "abnormal" beard,
*socialize too little,
*maintain "complex" relationships,
*have a family member that exhibits some of these traits and so is "insufficiently loyal".
History
Beginning in 2017, local media outlets generally referred to the facilities as "counter-extremism training centers" () and "education and transformation training centers" (). Most of those facilities were converted from existing schools or other official buildings, although some of them were purpose-built.
The heavily policed region and thousands of check points assisted and accelerated the detention of locals in the camps. In 2017 the region constituted 21% of all arrests in China despite comprising less than 2% of the national population, eight times more than the previous year.
The judicial and other government bureaus of many cities and counties started to release a series of procurement and construction bids for those planned camps and facilities.
Increasingly, massive detention centers were built up throughout the region and are being used to hold hundreds of thousands of people targeted for their religious practices and ethnicity.
Victor Shih, a political economist at the
University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...
, said in July 2019 the mass internments were unnecessary because "no active insurgencies" existed, only "isolated terrorist incidents". He suggested that because a great deal of money was spent setting up the camps, the money likely went to associates of the politicians who created them.
According to the
Chinese ambassador to Australia Cheng Jingye in December 2019, all of the "trainees" in the centers have graduated and have gradually returned to their jobs or found new jobs with government assistance.
Cheng also called reports that one million Uyghurs had been detained in Xinjiang "fake news" and that "what has been done in Xinjiang has no ... difference with what the other countries, including western countries,
oto fight against terrorists."
During the
COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China
The COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China is part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). China was the first country to experience an outbreak o ...
, there were no reports of cases of the coronavirus in Xinjiang prisons or of conditions in the internment camps.
After program suspensions due to the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic, Uyghur workers were reported to have been returned to other parts of Xinjiang and the rest of China to resume work beginning in March 2020.
In September 2020, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) launched its Xinjiang Data Project, which reported that construction of camps continued despite claims that their function was winding down, with 380 camps and detention centers identified.
The Muslim-majority countries like the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt were showing open support towards the Asian nation, stating that "China has the right to take anti‐terrorism and de‐extremism measures". The Arab nations were neglecting the human rights abuses to not ruin the economic ties they maintained with China, which is a crucial trading partner and investor for these countries. Moreover, the exiled Uyghur Muslims in these countries were regularly being detained and deported back to China.
According to the
Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...
, a young Chinese woman, Wu Huan was captured for eight days in a Chinese-run secret detention site in
Dubai
Dubai (, ; ar, دبي, translit=Dubayy, , ) is the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the capital of the Emirate of Dubai, the most populated of the 7 emirates of the United Arab Emirates.The Government and Politics of ...
. She revealed that at least two other Uyghur prisoners were detained with her at a villa turned into jail. Critics have largely criticized the
UAE
The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia (The Middle East). It is located at th ...
for its supporting role in detaining as well as deporting the Uyghur Muslims and other Chinese political dissidents at the orders of the Chinese government.
Leaks and hacks
''The New York Times'' leak
On 16 November 2019, ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' released an extensive leak of 400 pages of documents, sourced from a member of the Chinese government, in the hope that CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping would be held accountable for his actions. ''The New York Times'' stated that the leak suggests discontent inside the Communist Party relating to the crackdown in Xinjiang. The anonymous government official who leaked the documents did so with the intent that the disclosure "would prevent party leaders, including Mr. Xi, from escaping culpability for the mass detentions."
We must be as harsh as them and show absolutely no mercy. — Xi Jinping on the terror attacks in 2014, (translated from Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language of ...
)
One document was a manual aimed at communicating messages to Uyghur students who were returning home and would ask about their missing friends or relatives who had been interned in the camps. It said that government staff should acknowledge that the internees had not committed a crime and that "it is just that their thinking has been infected by unhealthy thoughts." Officials were directed to say that even grandparents and family members who seemed too old to carry out violence could not be spared.
[
''The New York Times'' stated that speeches obtained show how Xi views risks to the party similar to the ]collapse of the Soviet Union
The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Sov ...
, which ''The New York Times'' stated Xi "blamed on ideological laxity and spineless leadership." Concerned that violence in the Xinjiang region could damage social stability in the rest of China, Xi stated "social stability will suffer shocks, the general unity of people of every ethnicity will be damaged, and the broad outlook for reform, development and stability will be affected." Xi encouraged officials to study how the US responded following the September 11 attacks. Xi likened Islamic extremism alternately to a virus
A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism. Viruses infect all life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea.
Since Dmitri Ivanovsky's 1 ...
-like contagion and a dangerously addictive drug, and declared that addressing it would require "a period of painful, interventionary treatment."
The ''China Daily
''China Daily'' () is an English-language daily newspaper owned by the Central Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party.
Overview
''China Daily'' has the widest print circulation of any English-language newspaper in China. T ...
'' reported in 2018 that CCP official Wang Yongzhi was removed for "serious disciplinary violations." ''The New York Times'' obtained a copy of Wang's confession (which the report noted was likely signed under duress) and stated that ''The New York Times'' believed he was sacked for being too lenient on Uyghurs, for example his release of 7,000 detainees. Wang had told his superiors that he was concerned that the actions against the Uyghurs would breed discontent and thus result in greater violence in the future. The leaked documents stated, "he ignored the party central leadership's strategy for Xinjiang, and he went as far as brazen defiance. ... He refused, to round up everyone who should be rounded up". The article was discreetly shared on the Chinese platform Sina Weibo, where some netizens expressed sympathy for him. In 2017, there were more than 12,000 investigations into party members in Xinjiang for infractions or resistance in the "fight against separatism," which was more than 20 times the figure in the previous year.
ICIJ leak
On 24 November 2019, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Inc. (ICIJ), is an independent global network of 280 investigative journalists and over 140 media organizations spanning more than 100 countries. It is based in Washington, D.C. with pe ...
(ICIJ) published the China Cables
The China Cables are a collection of secret Chinese government documents from 2017 which were leaked by exiled Uyghurs to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, and published on 24 November 2019. The documents include a tele ...
, consisting of six documents, an "operations manual" for running the camps and detailed use of predictive policing
Predictive policing is the usage of mathematics, predictive analytics, and other analytical techniques in law enforcement to identify potential criminal activity. A report published by the RAND Corporation identified four general categories pred ...
and artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...
to target people and regulate life inside the camps.
Shortly after the publication of the China Cables, leaker Asiye Abdulaheb went on to provide Adrian Zenz
Adrian Nikolaus Zenz (born 1974) is a German anthropologist known for his studies of the Xinjiang internment camps (also known as "re-education" camps) and Uyghur genocide. He is a senior fellow in China studies at the Victims of Communism Mem ...
with the " Karakax list", allegedly a Chinese government spreadsheet that tracks the rationale behind 311 of the internments at a "Vocational Training Internment Camp" in the seat of Karakax County
Karakax County (), alternatively Moyu County, also transliterated from Uyghur as Qaraqash County (; ), alternately Qaraqash, is a county in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and is located in the southern edge of the Tarim Basin, it is under ...
in Xinjiang. The purpose of the list may have been to coordinate judgments on whether an individual should remain in internment; in some entries, the word "agree" was written beside a judgment. Records detail how subjects dress and pray, and how their relatives and acquaintances behave. One subject was interned because she wore a veil years ago; another was interned for clicking on a link to a foreign website; a third was interned for applying for a passport, despite posing "no practical risk" according to the spreadsheet. In general, the subjects on the Karakax list all have relatives living abroad, a category that reportedly leads to "almost certain internment." 149 subjects are documented as violating birth control policies. 116 of the subjects are listed without explanation as "untrustworthy"; for 88 of these, this "untrustworthy" label is the only reason listed for internment. Younger men, in particular, are often listed as "untrustworthy person born in a certain decade". 24 subjects are accused of formal crimes, including six terrorism-related allegations. Most of the subjects have been released, or scheduled for release, following the end of their one-year internment term; however, some of these are recommended for release into "industrial park employment", raising concerns about possible forced labor.
Xinjiang Police Files hack
The 'Xinjiang Police Files
The Xinjiang Police Files are data breaches, leaked documents from the Xinjiang internment camps, forwarded to anthropologist Adrian Zenz from an anonymous source. On May 24, 2022, an international consortium of 14 media groups published informa ...
', a large body of police files derived from data found in a hack of a local computer server,[ was sent to the German anthropologist Adrian Zenz, who works for the ]Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation
The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC) is a non-profit anti-communist organization in the United States, authorized by a unanimous Act of Congress in 1993 for the purpose of "educating Americans about the ideology, history and legacy ...
.[ Zenz has been sanctioned by the Chinese government since 2021. He has been instrumental in exposing the camp system in Xinjiang. The files and some English translations are partly accessible via their special homepage set up by this foundation or via the links to an academic repository in Zenz' article in the ''Journal of the European Association for Chinese Studies''.
The data was evaluated by journalists from 14 media companies worldwide, including the British BBC, '']Le Monde
''Le Monde'' (; ) is a French daily afternoon newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average circulation of 323,039 copies per issue in 2009, about 40,000 of which were sold abroad. It has had its own website si ...
'' in France and ''El País
''El País'' (; ) is a Spanish-language daily newspaper in Spain. ''El País'' is based in the capital city of Madrid and it is owned by the Spanish media conglomerate PRISA.
It is the second most circulated daily newspaper in Spain . ''El Pa ...
'' in Spain. In Germany, Bayerischer Rundfunk
Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR; "Bavarian Broadcasting") is a public-service radio and television broadcaster, based in Munich, capital city of the Free State of Bavaria in Germany. BR is a member organization of the ARD consortium of public broadcas ...
and ''Der Spiegel
''Der Spiegel'' (, lit. ''"The Mirror"'') is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of 695,100 copies, it was the largest such publication in Europe in 2011. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...
'' examined and researched the data.
According to the evaluation of a number of digital forensic scientists and other experts, the Xinjiang Police Files come from the computers of the Chinese authorities. It is the largest data leak on Chinese state-run re-education camps that has been made public outside of China to date.[
In May 2022, the BBC published summaries of the Xinjiang Police Files.] The Xinjiang Police Files were published during the first visit by a UN human rights commissioner to China in 14 years. By combining the photographs of some 5,000 Uyghurs contained in the data with other data in the hack, details of over 2,800 detentions emerged.[ Other documents in the leak included police protocols for running an internment camp.
]
Camp facilities
In urban areas, most of the camps are converted from existing vocational schools, CCP schools, ordinary schools or other official buildings, while in suburban or rural areas the majority of camps were specially built for the purposes of re-education. These camps are guarded by armed forces or special police and equipped with prison-like gates, surrounding walls, security fences, surveillance systems, watchtowers
A watchtower or watch tower is a type of fortification used in many parts of the world. It differs from a regular tower in that its primary use is military and from a turret in that it is usually a freestanding structure. Its main purpose is to ...
, guard rooms, and facilities for armed police.
While there is no public, verifiable data for the number of camps, there have been various attempts to document suspected camps based on satellite imagery and government documents. On 15 May 2017, Jamestown Foundation
The Jamestown Foundation is a Washington, D.C.-based conservative defense policy think tank. Founded in 1984 as a platform to support Soviet defectors, its stated mission today is to inform and educate policy makers about events and trends, which ...
, a Washington, DC-based think tank, released a list of 73 government bids related to re-education facilities.[ On 1 November 2018, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) reported on suspected camps in 28 locations. On 29 November 2018, ]Reuters
Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world.
The agency was estab ...
and Earthrise Media reported 39 suspected camps. The East Turkistan National Awakening Movement
The East Turkistan National Movement ( abbr. ETNM; ug, شەرقىي تۈركىستان مىللىي ھەرىكىتى) also known as the East Turkistan National Awakening Movement ( abbr. ETNAM; ug, شەرقىي تۈركىستان مىللىي ...
reported an even larger numbers of camps.
In a 2018 report from US government-funded Radio Free Asia
Radio Free Asia (RFA) is a United States government-funded private non-profit news service that broadcasts radio programs and publishes online news, information, and commentary for its audiences in Asia. The service, which provides editoriall ...
, Awat County (Awati) was said to have three re-education camps. An RFA listener provided a copy of a "confidentiality agreement" requiring re-education camp detainees to not discuss the workings of the camps, and said local residents were instructed to tell members of re-education camp inspection teams visiting No. 2 Re-education Camp that there was only one camp in the county. The RFA listener also said the No. 2 Re-education Camp had transferred thousands of detainees and removed barbed wire from the perimeter of the camp walls.
Boarding schools for the children of detainees
The detention of Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities has allegedly left many children without their parents. The Chinese government has allegedly held these children at a variety of institutions and schools colloquially known as "boarding schools," although not all are residential institutions, that serve as ''de facto'' orphanages. In September 2018, the Associated Press reported that thousands of boarding schools were being built. According to the Chinese Department of Education children as young as eight are enrolled in these schools.
According to Adrian Zenz and BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
in 2019, children of detained parents in boarding schools were penalized for failing to speak Mandarin Chinese and prevented from exercising their religion. In a paper published in the ''Journal of Political Risk'', Zenz calls the effort a "systematic campaign of social re-engineering and cultural genocide". Human Rights Watch said that the children detained at child welfare facilities and boarding schools were held without parental consent or access. In December 2019, ''The New York Times'' reported that approximately 497,000 elementary and junior high school students were enrolled in these boarding schools. They also reported that students are only allowed to see family members once every two weeks and that they were forbidden from speaking the Uyghur language.
Numerous locations have been identified as re-education camps. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute, whose funding is primarily from the Australian Government with overseas funding primarily from the US State Department and Department of Defense, had identified more than 380 "suspected detention facilities".
*Camps in
**Lop County No. 4 Vocational Skills Education and Training Center
*
**No. 4 Training Center (on the road between
(Uchturpan, Wushi), Aksu Prefecture
*Yutian county vocational training centre in
The mass internment of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in the camps has become largest-scale
.
Many media outlets have reported that hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs, as well as Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and other ethnic minorities, are held in the camps.
, a news service funded by the US government, estimated in January 2018 that 120,000 members of the Uyghurs were being held in political re-education camps in Kashgar prefecture alone at the time. In 2018, local government authorities in
expected to have almost 12,000 detainees in vocational camps and detention centres and some projects related to the centres outstripped budgetary limits. Reports of Uyghurs living or studying abroad being detained upon return to Xinjiang are common, which is thought to be connected to the re-education camps. Many living abroad have gone for years without being able to contact their family members still in Xinjiang, who may be detainees.
, who has been in exile since 2005, has had as many as 30 relatives detained or disappeared, including her sisters, brothers, children, grandchildren, and siblings, according to
. It is unclear when they were taken away.
On 13 July 2018,
national and former employee of the Chinese state, appeared in a court in the city of
, Kazakhstan for being accused of illegally crossing the border between the two countries. During the trial she talked about her forced work at a re-education camp for 2,500 ethnic Kazakhs.
for exposing re-education camps in Kazakh court.
Her testimony for the re-education camps have become the focus of a court case in Kazakhstan, which is also testing
. On 1 August 2018, Sauytbay was released with a six-month suspended sentence and directed to regularly check-in with police. She applied for
in Kazakhstan to avoid deportation to China. Kazakhstan refused her application. On 2 June 2019 she flew to Sweden where she was subsequently granted political asylum.
According to a Radio Free Asia interview with an officer at the
police station, as of August 2018, 30,000 persons, or about one in six Uyghurs in the county (approximately 16% of the overall population of the county), were detained in re-education camps.
to collect public testimonies on people detained in the camps. Each page lists basic demographic information including dates and suspected cause of detention, location, in addition to supplementary videos, photos and documents.
Writing in the Journal of Political Risk in July 2019, independent researcher Adrian Zenz estimated an upper speculative limit to the number of people detained in Xinjiang re-education camps at 1.5 million.
In November 2019, Adrian Zenz estimated that the number of internment camps in Xinjiang had surpassed 1,000. In November 2019,
estimated that 1 in 10 Uyghurs are being detained in re-education camps.
When the
...