Genocide in Xinjiang

Genocide in Xijiang

Inmates were tortured in poses like this for weeks in the Xinjiang concentration camps. [China Aid]

China's paranoia and determination to crush all possibility of Islamic separatism spread beyond its borders, with hi-tech electronic pigeons with GPS tracking and listening devices discovered inside neighboring countries. Russia, meanwhile, "stopped importing steam irons, cell phones, and phone charges from China after Chinese listening devices were discovered in the exports."[1]

In 2018, advertisements appeared in neighboring Kazakhstan, encouraging people with dual citizenship to return to China by a certain date to update their passports or risk losing them.

Thousands of trusting Kazaks made the journey across the border, only to be arrested and be put into the concentration camp system, where detainees were forced to only speak Mandarin, which is a language unknown to most Kazaks. Prisoners were even required to pass written examinations in Chinese or face severe beatings and deprivation. Many Kazaks committed suicide after realizing they had been tricked and would never see their families again.

Many citizens of Kazakhstan who did not hold Chinese passports were also detained after visiting relatives in Xinjiang. The government of Kazakhstan, which relies on China for its economic wellbeing, lodged a few weak protests on behalf their people, but its leaders were not willing to risk offending their giant neighbor. China was not troubled about who they arrested, with even a famous Kazak singer, Otanbek Ensekhan, seized from the stage as soon as he finished his performance at a concert in Urumqi, although he appears to have been released a short time later.

While China continued to deny even the existence of the camps they had filled to the brim, some of the foreign detainees who were able to return to Kazakhstan reported that people were "being forcibly medicated and injected with unknown substances. Those released suffered from loss of memory or even loss of reproductive ability."[2]

Finally, after mass protests on the streets of Turkey in February 2019, the Turkish government broke its silence by speaking out against the treatment of their Uyghur cousins in Xinjiang, with an official describing the concentration camps as "a great embarrassment for humanity."[3] The Turkish authorities were cautious in their denunciation, worried about the possible loss of hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese investment. Turkey is a key ally in Xi Jinping's 'Belt and Road' initiative, and a strategically placed nation to help China gain access to the European markets.

Over time, some foreign news agencies, led by the BBC, CNN and Reuters, managed to document many of the camps in Xinjiang, and some were even allowed to film inside the facilities, where stage-managed smiling Uyghurs nervously proclaimed the glories of the Chinese Communist Party.

One Kazak man, Omir Belaki, said people in the camps were mercilessly tortured in multiple ways, while Muslims were forced to eat pork and drink alcohol by their captors.[4]

With electronic surveillance having turned Xinjiang into a totalitarian police state and with an atmosphere of fear permeating every part of society, many towns and neighborhoods were emptied of people, with Omer Kanat of the World Uyghur Congress saying:

"Every household, every family has had three or four people taken away. In some villages you can't see men on the streets anymore―only women and children. All the men have been sent to the camps....

People supposedly prone to influences of Islamic extremism undergo a 'brainwashing' process inside the detention camps―often housed in converted schools or government buildings. Detainees are required to praise the ruling Communist Party, sing revolutionary songs, learn to speak Mandarin, study the thoughts of Chinese leader Xi Jinping, and confess perceived transgressions such as praying at a mosque or traveling abroad"[5]

At first, the BBC estimated at least one million people were being incarcerated throughout Xinjiang, as the world's media drew comparisons to Hitler's death camps. Bizarrely, when challenged on the existence of the camps that had already been visited and filmed, Chinese officials denied the facilities existed, before later saying they were 'vocational training centers' where people were willingly and happily learning new skills that would enable them to have better lives in the future.

There were no limits to Chinese efforts. As far afield as Australia, Turkey, Scandinavia, Malaysia, and the United States Uyghurs have been harassed and threatened by Chinese agents, and Uyghurs living overseas soon learned it was best not to contact their relatives in China because all calls and emails are monitored and could bring trouble to the recipients. China’s economic might made it hard for governments to resist. For example, Financial Times reported that,

"Chinese officials have been sending notices to overseas Uyghur students demanding their immediate return―often after detaining their parents in China―and about 150 Uyghur students at Al-Azhat University in Cairo, Egypt, have been detained by local authorities, with at least 22 being deported."[6]

By late 2018, a few Muslims who had managed to survive the camps emerged in the West, where they testified before the US Congress, the United Nations, and other bodies. Their experiences were shocking, but foreign governments seemed powerless to intervene, as China set their faces like flint and rejected all international pressure and condemnation. A 29-year-old Uyghur woman, Mihrigul Tursun, told the National Press Club in Washington DC:

"I thought that I would die rather than go through this torture and begged them to kill me. The authorities put a helmet-like thing on my head, and each time I was electrocuted, my whole body would shake violently, and I would feel the pain in my veins. I don't remember the rest. White foam came out of my mouth, and I began to lose consciousness. The last word I heard them saying is that being a Uyghur is a crime."[7]

In 2019, Adrian Zenz, a world expert on mass incarcerations, reviewed official documents and estimated China had constructed at least 1,000 detainment camps in Xinjiang, holding 1.5 million people. He estimated one in six Muslim adults in the region were being held and subject to brainwashing.[8]

Belatedly, in December 2019, the US congress voted 407 to one to pass the "Uighur Act of 2019," which censured China for their actions and issued sanctions against those involved. Republican Congressman Chris Smith called China's actions in Xinjiang "audaciously repressive," involving "mass internment of millions on a scale not seen since the Holocaust."[9]

China reacted angrily after President Donald Trump signed the Act into law, saying their policies were working and there had not been a single terrorist incident in the Region in three years.

News also filtered through that thousands of Han cadres and officials in the region had resigned or sought early retirement because of the stress they felt having to implement Xi's goals against their own citizens. One official complained:

"The Han people are deeply dissatisfied, Life is harsh [in Xinjiang] even for cadres. Officials are exhausted as nobody is allowed days off [even after working for weeks].... China has set up what is called a 'sent-down system' in the region that requires cadres to live in the homes of Uyghurs as part of surveillance programmes.

The cadres sent down must bring gifts and pay out of their own pocket and anyone refusing to go is sacked right on the spot. Measures like these have triggered widespread resentment... Xinjiang authorities regularly advertise jobs with lucrative packages, but it is hard to retain people and requests for early retirement have been rejected in the past year."[10]

Survivors begin to Speak

As the rest of the world began to acknowledge the scale of atrocities being committed against the ethnic people of Xinjiang, a small number of escapees managed to give interviews. Horrific stories of brainwashing, killings and systematic rape emerged. In October 2019 a Uyghur woman, Sayragul Sauytbay, described how she was forced to work as a language teacher in one camp, teaching Chinese to Uyghur and Kazak prisoners.

She revealed that the “curriculum” of the camps consisted of systematic brainwashing that targeted the prisoners’ ethnic identity, religious beliefs, and humanity. Language lessons consisted of rote memorization and recitation of propaganda such as “I love China,” “I am Chinese,” and “Thank you for the Communist Party.”

The living nightmare for the prisoners caused Sauytbay to speak out once she had a chance. She shared:

“One elderly woman was imprisoned for making an international phone call with a cell phone—but this woman was from a tribe so remote that she did not even know how to use a phone. When she denied making the call, she was taken to a torture room. I saw her when she returned. She was covered with blood, she had no fingernails and her skin was flayed.

Rape of both men and women was routine in the camps. Prisoners live in densely packed cells with a single bucket to relieve themselves, and they survive on watery soup, with only one serving of meat per week. That meat is pork. All of these prisoners are Muslims, and eating pork violates their religious convictions. Camp guards forced them, week in and week out, to eat the pork, breaking down even their privately held beliefs about God….

The afternoons are spent confessing all manner of ‘sins’ against the Communist regime—and if prisoners do not have enough to confess, they are punished. Some of those sins included showing emotion at the sight of another prisoner’s punishment. In one horrifying incident, prison guards publicly gang-raped a woman, all the while watching to see if any prisoner registered shock, horror, pity, or even tried to look away from the terrible scene. All those who did ‘were taken away and we never saw them again.’”[11]

A Senator’s Analysis

While many foreign governments were reluctant to criticize China for their draconian actions in Xinjiang, probably the one political statement that showed a clear understanding of the nature of the atrocities being perpetrated on the people of Xinjiang came from Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton in December 2019. Many foreign governments are reluctant to criticize the Chinese authorities for their draconian actions in Xinjiang. But Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton’s press statement in December 2019 shows a clear understanding of the nature of the atrocities being perpetrated on the people of Xinjiang:

”This reign of terror began in 2014, after a string of terror attacks in Xinjiang. But instead of bringing those terrorists to justice, the Chinese Communist Party used the attacks as an opportunity to eradicate all dissent, all wrong thinking—if you will—from a province with 25 million residents. It would be as if you tried to turn the state of Texas into a concentration camp.

Secret documents revealed a stunning order from General Secretary Xi Jinping, who said, ‘We must be as harsh as them and show them absolutely no mercy.’

So to beat these terrorists, Beijing chose to adopt the tactics of terror. Every Uyghur and dissenter in the province is suffering as a result…. They’ve turned the province into a garrison state with ruthless and pitiless competence….

Uyghurs, young and old, were loaded onto buses and taken to camps with thick concrete walls and razor-sharp barbed wire. The police informed anxious relatives that these were schools and their loved ones were being ‘re-educated.’ And no, they were not free to leave the school, nor would there be any recess or field trips….

Beijing now holds—let me say again—more than one million people in these re-education camps—supposedly for reasons of national security, but the truth is a lot more chilling.

The Chinese Communists, like all totalitarians, are paranoid about their own survival—and rightly so, as they are a conspiracy of greedy, power-mad princelings with no democratic legitimacy whatsoever.

And like all totalitarian rulers, the Chinese Communist Party is also a very jealous master. Every attachment, every conviction, every loyalty—whether to one’s family, one’s culture, even one’s Creator—must be sacrificed on the altar of the Party.

According to the Chinese Communist Party, every knee must bow before it, and every tongue must profess the slogans of Xi and Mao….

A paranoid Communist power won’t limit itself to one province or people, nor will it ultimately limit itself to its own land. It will extend its tyrannical reach to every corner that it views as its own, creeping ever outward until it commands the deference of all the world. Until it ‘deals with’ the rebellious billions who haven’t yet learned to love the Chinese Big Brother.

The Chinese Communist Party is running concentration camps today, but make no mistake: its appetite for expansion is far greater, its methods of control applicable to anyone, anywhere. The Free World must confront this threat in plain view, and act now to avert such a dark and chilling future.” [12]

After strenuously denying the existence of the camps for years, in 2020 the Chinese authorities finally admitted that on average, they provided “vocational training” to 1.3 million Xinjiang residents each year between 2013 and 2019.[13]

Finally, on the last day of the Trump administration in Washington DC, the US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, officially accused the Chinese government of genocide for their treatment of the Uyghur people.[14] China responded angrily, describing the accusations as “outrageous lies” by people who hold “prejudice and hatred against China.” They included Pompeo on a sanction list of 28 American officials. The individuals and their family members were banned from ever visiting China or doing business with Chinese companies.

If China thought the change of US administration would bring relief, their hopes were short-lived, with the incoming President Joe Biden’s pick for Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, saying he agreed with his predecessor’s finding.

1. "Chinese 'Surveillance Pigeon' discovered near Kazakhstan as Detentions, Blockades Continue." China Aid (5 May 2018).
2. "Horrors Continue in Xinjiang Detention Camps, Further Arrests without Cause," China Aid (11 May 2018).
3. "China's Treatment of Uighurs is 'Embarrassment for Humanity' says Turkey," The Guardian (10 February 2019).
4. See Gerry Shih, "Muslims Forced to drink Alcohol and eat Pork in China's 'Re-education' Camps, Former Inmate Claims," The Independent (18 May 2018).
5. Steven Jiang, "Thousands of Uyghur Muslims Detained in Chinese Political Education Camps," CNN (3 February 2018).
6. Emily Feng, "China targets Muslim Uighurs Studying Abroad," Financial Times (1 August 2017).
7. "Uighur Woman Pled for Death as Authorities Tortured Her," China Aid (29 November 2018).
8. "Expert Estimates China Has More Than 1,000 Internment Camps for Xinjiang Uyghurs," Radio Free Asia (12 November 2019).
9. "US House Approves Uighur Act Calling for Sanctions on China's Senior Officials," The Guardian (4 December 2019).
10. Mimi Lau, "Wanted: Chinese Cadres to hold Beijing’s line in Xinjiang as Han Chinese head for the Exits," South China Morning Post (4 December 2019).
11. Jane Clark Scharl, “For China’s Uighurs, the Red Terror Isn’t Over,” Crisis Magazine (5 August 2020).
12. Press Release on the website of Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton (December 3, 2019): https://www.cotton.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=1261
13. Mimi Lau & Linda Lew, “China claims 1.3 million Xinjiang Residents given ‘Vocational Training’ each Year,” South China Morning Post (17 September 2020).
14. “US: China Committed Genocide against Uighurs,” BBC News (20 January 2021).