2017 - The Year Everything Changed in Xinjiang

A concentration camp at Turpan―one of dozens built to detain up to three million Muslims in Xinjiang.

‘Nets above and Snared below’

The renowned Chinese evangelist and mission leader Andrew Gih (Chinese name: Ji Zhiwen) was an insightful man who saw the threat and nature of Communism from its earliest times in China. In 1961 he wrote the following words, which helps to explain what has unfolded in Xinjiang since 2017:

As detailed in the earlier chapters of this book, tensions have existed in Xinjiang between the Han Chinese and Muslim peoples (especially the Uyghurs) for centuries, but the situation broke into full-scale death and destruction in 2017, when conventional arrests were discarded in favor of mass detainment of every person the Communist Party considered a potential threat.

Although to the outside world the dramatic actions in Xinjiang seemed haphazard and rushed, they were carefully formulated and systematically implemented by the government. According to one reporter, during a late 2014 meeting,

In 2016, President Xi Jinping decided the Communist head of Xinjiang, Zhang Chunxian, was too weak to implement his brutal policies, and he was replaced by hardliner Chen Quanguo.

The unprecedented crackdown resulted in up to three million people being interned in concentration camps throughout the region, where they were subjected to brainwashing and "re-education" programs that the Communist authorities cynically described as "vocational retraining centers."

Although life for most Han people in Xinjiang continued without much direct dislocation, life for the Muslim ethnic minority peoples was shattered and would never be the same again. Tragically, the fledgling churches that had only recently emerged among these groups were also decimated, as believers found themselves caught up in the chaos. Many Uyghur, Kirgiz, Kazak and Hui Christians were lost in the madcap violence that engulfed the region.

The Kunming Trigger Point

For China, which had long sought ways to subjugate Xinjiang's Muslims, a major tipping point which led to this overwhelming action did not take place in Xinjiang, but in the leafy city of Kunming in faraway southwest China at about nine o'clock in the evening of March 1, 2014.

On that fateful day, a group of eight Uyghurs (six men and two women), dressed in black and wielding long knives, ran through the crowds of people inside the Kunming train station, slashing men, women and children at random. Police shot dead four of the assailants and subdued the others, but not before a stream of blood covered the floors. By the end of the night, it emerged that 31 people had been slashed to death, with another 143 injured, many with life-threatening conditions.

The incident in Kunming understandably shocked the nation, and questions were asked as to how such a brazen attack could have been planned and carried out without the knowledge of the authorities. For a time, the ability of the Communist Party to protect its own citizens was brought into question, and the nation's leaders—with President Xi Jinping having assumed office just 15 months earlier—appeared shocked that the violence that had long plagued Xinjiang had now spread far outside the region's borders.

It emerged that the terrorists hailed from the Hotan area in southwest Xinjiang. They had been incensed by the closure of a mosque and the arrest of its imam the previous year, resulting in riots in Hotan which saw 15 people killed and more than 50 others injured.

The Threat to Xi's Vision

A cornerstone of Xi's ascent to the presidency of China in 2012 was his comprehensive plan to make China the greatest military and economic power in the world. The centerpiece of this plan was the 'Belt and Road' initiative, designed to link China to the rest of the world and spur trillions of dollars in trade. Of all the places in China that are key to the implementation of this ambitious plan, none is more vital than Xinjiang, which serves as China's gateway to South Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East, Russia, and ultimately Europe.

The timing of the Muslim insurgency in Xinjiang, therefore, could not have come at a worse time for Xi's plans. The increase in violence occurred right as the initiative was being launched, with billions of dollars of investment flowing into surrounding countries.

Facing a possible threat to the entire Belt and Road program and China's subsequent plans for prosperity and world dominion, it is not surprising that the Chinese Communist Party launched such a massive crackdown against the Uyghurs and other Muslims of Xinjiang.

The trends had been disturbing to the Communist hierarchy in Beijing. At the same time the government sent businessmen into the Middle East to open new regions for commerce, hundreds of Muslim men had traveled for jihad to Syria and other nations, where they joined the Islamic State. President Xi was determined that his country would not fall prey to Islamic terrorism, and he would do whatever was necessary to stop its spread, even if China’s actions would place it offside with the rest of the world.

Another lesser-known reason for why China came down so hard on the people of Xinjiang is the rampant drug trade that flowed through the region, primarily from opium smuggled across the border from Afghanistan and Pakistan. As many as 70 to 80 percent of men in some areas of southern Xinjiang were estimated to have been involved in the drug trade, which was destroying millions of lives throughout China.

For many years, China had spent considerable resources trying to stem the flow of narcotics, with tens of thousands of Uyghurs and other suspected drug smugglers being executed. Despite their efforts, the drug trade kept growing, so China may have seen their brutal crackdown as an opportunity to end the flow of narcotics once and for all.

Overwhelming Force

After an initial crackdown across Xinjiang in response to the Kunming massacre, during which thousands of Muslims are believed to have been killed, the government appeared to pause as Xi formulated a long-term plan of action. A new iron-clad determination to "permanently fix the Uyghur problem" emerged, which was supported by most Chinese people, who felt traumatized by the events in Kunming.

The authorities realized that their decades-long efforts to bring peace to Xinjiang had totally failed. For a generation, China had used a "velvet glove" strategy of trying to appease the Muslims of Xinjiang through investment and by building schools, hospitals and other infrastructure. This strategy was abandoned, and the glove was removed to reveal a clenched fist of steel. A new hardline approach was implemented, which shocked the world by its severity and scope.

To start, new laws were introduced in Xinjiang, which caused even more anti-Han sentiment among Muslims. One of the new rules prohibited parents and guardians from "organizing, luring or forcing minors into attending religious activities or forcing them to wear religious dress or symbols."[3] Citizens were encouraged to spy on their neighbors and to report parents who they suspected of raising their children in a religious faith.

The police and military were given new wide-ranging powers in Xinjiang, aided by hundreds of thousands of facial-recognition cameras, processing everything that went on in the region. Police were granted authority to stop and search anyone on the street, and could demand to see their phones or other electronic devices. If any questionable emails, texts or websites the person had visited were found, they could be immediately taken into custody.

Next, every person in Xinjiang who had a passport was ordered to hand it over to the police, and to apply for permission if they wanted to leave the country. This policy, aimed at cutting off Muslims' ability to connect with extremists in neighboring countries like Afghanistan and Tajikistan, caused great inconvenience to hundreds of thousands of genuine travelers, including the many businessmen who ply their trade across borders.

In 2017, the government further infuriated Muslims in Xinjiang by issuing a list of 29 Islamic names that people were no longer permitted to call their children. The list included ‘Mohammed’, ‘Islam’, ‘Imam’, and ‘Hajj’.[4]

Prominent Uyghurs sent to the camps included professional footballers, the President of Xinjiang University and several professors, and the director of the Xinjiang Medical Institute. All of these people were arrested for showing insufficient loyalty to the Communist Party, and for exhibiting "nationalistic tendencies."

Locals in Xinjiang identified 48 "evil bans" which the government used as reasons for arresting people and sending them for "re-education." The list included "traveling abroad, knowing someone who has traveled abroad, watching foreign videos or movies, fasting, praying, attending religious seminars, downloading foreign software, not submitting voice recordings to the government, and speaking in a native language in public."[5]

By the end of 2017, a glimpse into the scale of China's plans emerged with news that in addition to implementing a national facial recognition database, the government created a DNA database of every adult in Xinjiang. Human Rights Watch reported:

"Aden Yoq"

Throughout 2017, awareness of the scale of the crackdown in Xinjiang gradually dawned on the rest of the world. Visitors to many cities and towns reported how entire Muslim neighborhoods had been boarded up and were largely devoid of people, while grandmothers were left to take care of children whose parents had been suddenly taken away. Satellite images appeared on Western news websites, showing how dozens of massive secure facilities, surrounded by barb-wire and high walls, had quickly been constructed throughout the region. Many camps were so large that they were able to house tens of thousands of detainees.

As the world struggled to come to terms with developments in Xinjiang, the estimates of the number of people incarcerated in the camps increased markedly, with the US Department of Defense stating the number was "at least a million but likely closer to three million citizens" in May 2018.[7]

If the Muslim population of Xinjiang thought the preceding years were as bad as things could get, 2018 commenced with the Chinese constitution being altered to appoint Xi Jinping ‘President for life’, and the concentration camps were filled to overflowing. The government also built hundreds of "orphanages" throughout the region to house the children of parents that had been taken away. According to local media reports, just one county near Kashgar built 18 new orphanages in 2017.

The Chinese Communist Party did not limit their suppression to adults. Under direct command from Beijing, hospitals in Xinjiang were ordered to perform late-term abortions on minority babies, and in many cases newborn babies were killed as soon as they were delivered. A hospital worker, Hasiyet Abdulla, described the carnage:

Dr. Joanna Smith Finley of Britain’s Newcastle University commented,  "It's not an immediate, shocking, mass-killing-on-the-spot-type genocide, but it's a slow, painful, creeping genocide…. A direct means of genetically reducing the Uyghur population." [9]

So devastating were the effects of the changes to society that the Turkic phrase adem yoq ("everybody's gone") was commonly heard throughout the villages and towns of Xinjiang. When asked how a person's family was doing, the answer was often: "adem yoq."

The number of news reports on the dire situation in Xinjiang could fill several books, but we will try to cover a few of the main developments in this brief section, with sources provided in the notes for those who desire to read more.

Punitive new actions designed to strip Muslims of all that is precious to them were also implemented, including a ban on people studying the Qur'an or the Arabic language. Families were visited in their homes and forced to sign a document that said, "Today, I pledge to report what I know to the government. I understand there is a legal liability for hiding the truth. I swear that no one in my household is studying the Qur'an or Arabic."[10]

Uyghurs were ordered to bring all knives to their nearest police station to have them registered, and in May 2018, Muslims in Xinjiang were strictly forbidden to celebrate Ramadan, with Muslim-owned restaurants and shops forced to remain open and serve food during the month normally reserved for fasting in the Islamic world.

Traditional Muslim marriages were outlawed, and in June 2018, as part of the plan to transform Uyghurs into patriotic Chinese citizens, 40 Uyghurs from Kashgar, Aksu, and Hotan were arrested and tortured in concentration camps after they refused to participate in a Chinese Dragon Boat Festival. An additional 100 families

Muslim men were banned from growing long beards, women could not wear veils in public, and homeschooling was outlawed. China also officially banned all Chinese citizens from going on pilgrimage to Mecca―a journey seen as the pinnacle of the faith for Muslims throughout the world.

Arbitrary arrests of people with no connection to terrorism at all continued to occur across the region. For example, in December 2017 a Kazak man, Jierebaike Yelimaisi, was sent to a concentration camp simply because he had traveled abroad for heart surgery.[12]



1. Andrew Gih, The Church Behind the Bamboo Curtain (London, Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1961), pp. 14-15.
2. Jun Mai, “China Says Tough Measures in Xinjiang are to Beat Terrorism —Why isn’t the West Convinced?” South China Morning Post (April 4, 2021).
3. Thomas D. Williams, "China Tells Citizens to Report Parents who 'lure' Kids into Religion," Beitbart News (18 October 2016).
4. "China Bans list of Islamic Names in Xinjiang," Fox News (28 April 2017).
5. "Xinjiang Locals Cite 48 Bans as Reasons for some Arrests," China Aid (16 October 2018).
6. Glyn Moody, "China is Building the Ultimate Surveillance Tool," TechDirt (18 December 2017).
7. See ”US Accuses China of Using Concentration Camps Against Muslim Minority," The Guardian (4 May 2018); and "UN says it has Credible Reports that China holds Million Uyghurs in Secret Camps," Reuters (10 August 2018).
8. Andrea Morris, “Chinese Govt Orders Hospitals to Perform Late-term Abortions, Kill Newborn Babies of Religious Minorities,” CBN News (August 24, 2020).
9. Morris, “Chinese Govt Orders Hospitals to Perform Late-term Abortions.”
10. "Xinjiang Increases Crackdown on Minorities, Forbids Qur'an, Arabic Language Study," China Aid (6 March 2018).
11. "40 Arrested for Refusing to Celebrate Dragon Boat Festival," China Aid (24 June 2018).
12. "Authorities Arrest Man who Sought Heart Surgery Abroad," China Aid (20 September 2018).