By Saamiya Laroia
China’s far northwest, autonomous region of Xinjiang is an area the Chinese State has wanted unmitigated control over for decades. The Xinjiang area is one of copious oil and energy reserves and Beijing has been struggling to gain control of this mineral wealth for a long time. In May 2014, state-owned enterprises invested $300 billion in 685 projects in Xinjiang. It was one of many fervid infrastructure and political campaigns to cement state influence in this energy-rich region. Recently, this region has grown in its significance with the inception of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Xinjiang is geographically adjacent to Central Asia, making it the perfect logistics hub for Chinese exports en route the Belt and Road initiative, China’s trillion dollar project meant to maximise Chinese political and economic influence.
Vox. “China’s Secret Internment Camps.” YouTube, uploaded by Vox, 7 May 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=246&v=cMkHcZ5IwjU&feature=emb_title.
Uighurs are a Turkish ethnic group that have long since occupied a large portion of this area. China has worried about the Uighurs wanting to split off from China and claiming the land as their homeland since Chinese control over the region was established in 1949, at the same time as the formation of the communist People’s Republic of China. Uighurs speak their own language, practice their own moderate variation of Sunni Islam and have their own rich history and culture. In 1950, the government encouraged mass migration of Han Chinese to this area, compounding ethnic tensions. In 1945, the Uighurs made up over 80% of the population compared to a minority Han Chinese population of 6%. By 2008, after these government measures, Xinjiang was 46% Uighur and 39% Han Chinese, with Han Chinese holding most of the higher paying jobs, leaving Uighurs with low-wage agricultural labour employments.
The conflicts began after years of minor ethnic clashes, with the July 2009 Uighur-led Ürümqi riots, where a group of mostly Han Chinese were killed. President Hu Jintao cracked down on the Uighurs, with oppressive laws restricting their religion and movement. Over the years, the Chinese government has painted the Uighurs as first a separatist and then terrorist threat.
To counter this ‘threat’, the state began to enact a series of de-extremification laws in 2016 and 2017. The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Regulations on De-extremification listed the execution of the ambiguously broad policies as a responsibility of virtually every government department: public security, education, judicial, press, culture, transportation, health, and telecommunications. These laws were incredibly pervasive and placed further restrictions of freedom of speech and movements as well as political and cultural rights.
The largest humanitarian violation with regards to the “people’s war on terror” announced in 2014, is the Xianjing internment camps China began building in 2017.
In essence, these camps which have been labelled as ‘re-education’ centres by the Chinese government, are instruments of brainwashing and violent oppression. The Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) in its 2018 report, gave a conservative estimate that between 800,000 to 1.1 million people, predominantly Uighurs, are currently held in political re-education centers where they are forced to memorize and recite Communist party propaganda everyday and made to shun their own Islamic beliefs.
There have been multiple reports of death and torture coming from these camps. The evidence for these camps being gross violations of humanitarian laws are undeniable and abundant. In one of the lists for equipment orders for these camps, there were 2,768 police batons, 550 electric cattle prods, 1,367 pairs of handcuffs, and 2,792 cans of pepper spray ordered. There have been extensive leaks, including the disclosure of a 400 page document by the New York Times in 2019, as well as numerous detainee statements about how they were abused, electrocuted, made to wear 5-kilogram chains and beaten by multiple guards at once. In November of 2019, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) published the China Cables, consisting of six documents, an “operations manual” for running the camps outlining use of artificial intelligence and surveillance technology for targeting and regulating people inside these camps. There is absolutely no denying the existence of these camps, there are first hand testimonials, documented evidence and satellite imagery showing barbed wire fences, watchtowers and detention centres.
While the Chinese Government acknowledges the existence of these camps, they continue to defend them as ‘re-education’ camps. The 800,000 to 3 million Muslims are still detained in these camps and China so far has given no notice of addressing this pressing humanitarian issue. With its economic and military predominance China is currently succeeding in its quest to quash criticism. Unless the world has a coordinated and vocal response railing against this crime, it is unlikely to take measures to dismantle these camps.
Policy Recommendations
With the severity and scale of these camps, it is preposterous that we have not had a more coordinated and hardline response from the international community.
While the US president recently introduced the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2020, making it the first law anywhere in the world to address the human rights crisis in East Turkistan, there are still additions to be made.
Give Uighur students in the US special protected status and a scholarship fund
After the release of China Cables, a leaker Asiye Abdulaheb, provided the ‘Karakax list’, a government spreadsheet tracking the reasons behind 311 of the internements at a detention centre in Karakax County. In general, the subjects on the Karakax almost all have relatives living abroad, a category that reportedly leads to “almost certain internment”. With many Uighur students finding themself cut off from their parents as they are placed in camps for arbitrary, trivial reasons, financial aid too is cut off for them. These students are stranded from their parents and money, it is a logical move to start a scholarship fund to help these affected students to educate themselves and survive on their own. The Trump Administration’s crackdown on immigration has adversely affected Uighurs in the US, leaving Uighur students applying for asylum, stuck in legal limbo and vulnerable to deportation. Granting special protected status to the hundreds and potentially few thousand Uighur students in US universities would send a concise message that the treatment of Uighurs back in China is completely unacceptable. The precedent for this would be the Bush Administration’s protection of Chinese students after Tiananmen with the Chinese Student Protection Act of 1992 (CSPA).
2) Form a special commission or appoint a commissioner to coordinate the policy and response Xinjiang at a priority level
This commission would be able to address the different elements of the crisis- diplomatic meetings, addressing of surveillance technologies being used by the Chinese, forced labour, etc. It could also be more effective to pinpoint involved Chinese officials and sanction them accordingly. Being the only commission in the world concentrated to targeting Xinjiang, shows that the US is leading the battle against Xinjiang with maximum priority.
3) Target forced labour in Xinjiang by investigating supply chains for forced labour products and take action accordingly
In March of 2020, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) published a report Uyghurs for sale: ‘Re-education’, forced labour and surveillance beyond Xinjiang.’ This report identified 83 foreign and Chinese companies benefiting from products made by forced labour of Uighurs in Xinjiang. It is absolutely necessary for the State to compile its own reports and investigation into American companies who could potentially be benefiting from forced labour. To secure the integrity of the country’s supply chains and protect companies from the severe legal and reputational consequences of partaking in this, this step is absolutely essential.
4) Sanction top Chinese officials involved with urgency
On June 22nd, President Trump has said he delayed sanctions of Chinese officials about the Xinjiang Crisis because of his trade deal with China. Now that the deal has been signed, the State should move promptly to impose these sanctions, as authorized under the Magnitsky Act of 2012. Officials like Chen Quangao, who recruited massive numbers of new policemen to buckle down on “re-education” measures, need to be identified and sanctioned immediately.
5) Ban investment into companies responsible for selling surveillance technology to Xinjiang
The Human Rights Watch report, “China’s Algorithms of Repression: Reverse Engineering a Xinjiang Police Mass Surveillance App,” shows that the Chinese Government is constantly trying to update its mass-surveillance measure. A statement from the senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, Maya Wang, confirms that China is using surveillance technology to illegally monitor Uighurs.
“Our research shows, for the first time, that Xinjiang police are using illegally gathered information about people’s completely lawful behavior — and using it against them. The Chinese government is monitoring every aspect of people’s lives in Xinjiang, picking out those it mistrusts, and subjecting them to extra scrutiny.”
Link to report: https://www.hrw.org/report/2019/05/02/chinas-algorithms-repression/reverse-engineering-xinjiang-police-mass
There is a cause for concern in the fact that US companies may be contributing to the crisis by associating with two Chinese companies: Hikvision and Dahua. Since 2016, these companies have won $1.2 billion in surveillance project contracts with Xinjiang, some of Hikvision’s projects were advanced camera systems for detention camps and mosques. These companies and state surveillance are closely intertwined and despite warning there are US companies that continue to hold investment in Hikvision.
The danger of ties between US companies and China’s authoritarian surveillance state is a pressing matter to address.
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