The Neglected Cries

In Western China, a minority, of predominantly Muslim’s, called Uighurs are being oppressed, subjugated and, in some cases, murdered by the state. Despite this being widespread knowledge, the rest of the world has done very little to condemn or stop these actions. Some forms of oppression that are being used include extreme surveillance, torture and the detentions of, what the UN reports to be, over a million Uighurs. These actions contravene some of the most basic human rights and are widely considered to be China’s attempt to eradicate the Uighur identity and culture.

The Uighurs are the decedents of Turkic people and have a rich culture with Indo-European influences. The Uighurs inhabit Xinjiang, formally known as East Turkestan, which is located in West China. The Uighur follow Sunni Islam and have increasingly, due to their oppression and discrimination, yearned for independence from China. The Uighurs have had their own independent state on two occasions, in 1933 and 1949, both only lasting a few years. However, China is trying to change this motion of separation and has resorted to mass detentions and inhumane treatment of its Uighur minority to achieve this. However, it is arguably having the opposite effect.

In 1949, Mao Zedong’s Communist Party took control of China after a 5-year civil war. It then invaded Xinjiang to prevent Russia from taking control of it. As part of the communist regime, religion is considered incompatible and thus when Mao took control of China crackdowns on all expressions of faith began.

The majority of China belongs to the Han majority and with the help of China’s government, the Han began to migrate to Xinjiang in the 1950s. The Han’s created settlements in Xinjiang and now make up 39% of the population, a 1,000% increase since 1949. Poorer Han’s across China move to Xinjiang to work for the Bingtuan. Established in 1954 the original Bingtuan were solider farmers who were placed in Xinjiang to defend the province from Russia. However, as Russia became less of a threat the organisation still grew and has now become a quasi-paramilitary group. It is now over 3 million strong and operates more than 2,000 companies ranging from agriculture, energy, security, finance and media. The Bingtuan’s administrative division enforces the central government’s anti-Uighur policies whilst profiting from the Uighurs annexed land and resources. The Bingtuan exported $6.7billion worth of goods in 2017 alone. Xinjiang is extremely rich in fossil fuels. The region has an estimated 150 billion barrels in oil reserves, 40% of China’s coal and the Tarim Basin provides 23.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas as of 2017. These materials are transported to the business hubs in China making Xinjiang integral to China’s economic success.

Despite the region of Xinjiang being the home of the Uighurs since the 13th century, the Uighur’s have not been granted many of the jobs in any of the new industries created by the Bingtuan. This means that the Uighurs land and natural resources have been taken from them without them benefitting from the projects which has created tension between the Han’s and Uighurs. Also, as the Han settled, they made a lot of money from there new jobs and thus the cost of living started to rise rapidly. With the Uighurs not being able to secure the more developed jobs they became unable to afford the new cost of living on the land they believed to be their own.

For the Uighurs, this marginalisation led to anger and tension which led to sporadic bouts of violence towards the Han who, along with the government, had for decades discriminated against the Uighurs. In the 1980s and 1990s separatist group’s from Xingang coordinated unsuccessful revolts against the Chinese government. In 2009 more than 200 people were killed in riots in the capital of Urumqi and in 2017, 3 knife attacks killed 8 people in Guma, Southern Xinjiang.

Influenced partly by the riots and partly by the need to have tight control of the region, in 2016 and 2017 China enacted a series of “de-extremification policies” which were aimed at the Uighur’s. Uighurs now face punishment for some basic practises such as praying in public, wearing hijab, young men growing long beards or people under the age of 18 entering mosques and there are even restrictions on the movement of the Uighurs.

The Economist states that half of Uighur households have been paired with a member of the authority who can enter Uighur households and do checks for “suspicious behaviour” at any time. Fasting for the month of Ramadan is prohibited and certain Muslim names are also banned. If I was to live in Xinjiang, I would not be able to keep my first and possibly my second name. Islamic and Uighur education is also prohibited, and Quran’s must be approved by the state which means that certain passages that do not fit communist ideologies are changed. There has now also been the installation of pictures of Xi Jinping, China’s president, inside Mosques and on prayer mats which is clearly against religious sensibilities and would be, by the observer of any religion, be seen as offensive. Whilst authorities have denied the claims that Mosques are being destroyed, surveillance shows otherwise.

As some Uighur’s have turned to ISIL and Al-Qaeda this has given China the opportunity to justify their actions against the Uighur’s as fighting terrorism. However, the authorities are treating any expression of Uighur identity as part of what they call the 3 evils. The 3 evils being separatism, terrorism and religious extremism.

Chen Quanguo, the current communist party secretary, has been given the authority to police over Xinjiang. Quanguo was the former minister of Tibet when China wanted to stop ethnic unrest. In Tibet, Quangao introduced large scale police patrols, set up communist party propaganda, stopped people entering Buddhist temples, and encouraged neighbours to spy on each other. Quanguo is famous for stating that religion is a “poison” and has now introduced these ideologies to Xinjiang. Chen Quanguo has essentially made Xinjiang a well- funded police state in which the Chinese government uses advanced technology, propaganda and fear of imprisonment to control the actions and thoughts of the Uighur’s. The problem with using words such as “poison” to describe religion is that it has strong connotations and can create an adversarial atmosphere in which the government can justify using any means “necessary” to get rid of the “poison” as the people will see religion as dangerous due to the governments fearmongering.

Between 2012 and 2017 China’s domestic security budget doubled but in Xinjiang, it tripled. This meant that in 2017 China spent $8.5billion to monitor Uighur life. There are cameras on almost every street, Uighur vehicles are registered to track any suspicious movement between areas and there is a mandatory mobile app, called Zapya, which regularly scans Uighur devices for any content that is deemed to be politically incorrect. Uighurs are forced to provide DNA samples, biometric data and personal information on their lifestyle and relationships to the authorities. This information is then tied to an ID card which must be presented at checkpoints, fuel stations and even supermarkets to decide whether the individual is a threat.

The Uighurs that are held not to be safe are sent to prisons or “re-education” camps where Human Rights groups reports over a million Uighurs are being held captive. People put in these camps are accused of extremism but some actions that can lead to the detention in these camps include marrying in a religious ceremony, refusing to watch state television or even a slight change in routine. There was even an instance where a woman was sent to the camps for over a year for simply having WhatsApp on her phone. Clearly these actions are far from extremist behaviour.

At first Chinese officials denied the exitance of these centres altogether. However, as communities looked at satellite imagery there was clear evidence of the existence of these “re-education” camps which were confirmed by pictures taken from inside of China. China then had to accept that these facilities existed but painted them as training schools for criminals and terrorists.

Sessions in the camps include praising president Xi Jinping, studying communist propaganda and Uighur’s criticising their own Uighur language, culture and religion. There are also many accounts of people being tortured, raped, beaten and killed in these camps. However, China denies any breach of Human rights. People that have family in the camps or are in these camps themselves cannot communicate with the outside world. Many locked up in these centres are forced to confess to crimes that they did not commit to stop the torture.

Sophie Richardson, the China director at Human Rights Watch, says that the China Cable leaks, which are leaked Chinese government documents, should be used by prosecutors. She says that these documents show “actionable pieces of evidence, documenting gross human rights violations. I think it's fair to describe everyone being detained as being subject to at least psychological torture.”

Despite the widespread knowledge of these barbaric actions, there has been a lack of global condemnation. According to Wikileaks China successfully lobbied Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other Muslim countries to prevent them from releasing statements on the treatment of Uighurs after the Urumqi riots of 2009. This in part explains the lack of global condemnation from Muslim majority countries. On the other hand, China’s multi-trillion-dollar Belt and Road initiative is also keeping countries like Pakistan quiet. Countries in the institutive will receive millions in loans to develop their countries roads, railways and pipelines to better their trade with China, boost their economies and develop their infrastructure. This sadly shows that the freedom, human rights and lives of the Uighurs are being brought. Surely no amount of money should be able to buy the freedom of over a million Muslims that have done nothing to deserve death, mental and/or physical torture.

The Chinese themselves that live in China cannot be blamed for their lack of condemnation as China has some of the most restrictive internet censorship rules in the world. This means that news of these camps is not known to most Chinese people that live in China. The government takes down any mention of defamatory statements and has been known to arrest those who speak out about it. This tight censorship can be seen by the lack of knowledge by the new generation of Chinses citizens of the Tiananmen Square massacre where almost 1,000 Chinese citizens were killed by the government. The government has tried to hide what happened on 4th June 1989 ever since, deleting any mention of it from their internet platforms. Also, the Chinese people themselves are not to blame, it is not them that are doing this, it is the government.

When considering the geographic location of Xinjiang, it makes sense why China would spend hundreds of millions to repress and gain control of the Uighurs. The Belt and Road initiate, which runs mainly through Xingang, is planned to cost China £760b but is planned to make China even more favourable to trade with by creating an infrastructure that massively improves transport into and out of China. This would ultimately allow China to rival America as having the biggest and most prosperous economy in the world. This combined with the commodity-rich land means that, in reality, China cannot afford to lose the land as it would mean that a lot of the energy that powers the country would be lost. If the Uighurs were able to get their independent state it would mean that China would not be anywhere near as prosperous as it currently is. However, China has gone about retaining control of this land in the wrong way. China is driving the consensus between the Uighurs to seek independence and is justifying that maybe they should be granted independence due to their oppression. China has fallen foul of the mentality that the acts of a few outraged Uighurs represent the mentality and beliefs of over a million Uighur which they have locked up in camps. China is using the façade of fighting the three evils to ensure that it can retain Xinjiang as part of China and can thus retain its economic prosperity.