{"id":376,"date":"2019-05-06T02:24:31","date_gmt":"2019-05-05T17:24:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/?p=376"},"modified":"2019-05-06T02:24:39","modified_gmt":"2019-05-05T17:24:39","slug":"the-uighurs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/2019\/05\/06\/the-uighurs\/","title":{"rendered":"The Uighurs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By\u00a0Karen Leigh<\/a>April 19, 2019, 4:38 PM GMT+9 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/quicktake\/the-uighurs<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Inside<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In its far western region of Xinjiang, China says it\u2019s fighting separatism and religious extremism among Uighurs, a Muslim ethnic group. To some outsiders, it\u2019s building a 21st-century gulag, combining police-state repression backed by high-tech facial recognition systems with old-fashioned internment camps and re-education techniques culled from the Cultural Revolution. A United Nations assessment said tens of thousands to \u201cupwards of 1 million\u201d Uighurs have been detained. As the scale and brazenness of China\u2019s crackdown becomes clearer, the international outcry is growing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Situation<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The number and size of the detention camps has expanded rapidly since 2016, with estimates ranging from 180 centers to more than 1,000. Chinese authorities call them \u201cvoluntary education centers\u201d to purge \u201cideological diseases\u201d; foreign news outlets and human rights groups have reported physical and psychological abuse on a massive scale. Uighur citizens in the camps have been forced to disavow their Islamic beliefs, praise the Communist Party and endure solitary confinement, the\u00a0Associated Press<\/a>reported. The Uighur population is under\u00a0intense surveillance\u00a0<\/a>in Xinjiang, with residents having to submit to facial scans when entering markets or fuel stations. Officials have banned \u201cabnormal beards,\u201d religious names for children and observing the traditional day-time fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Xinjiang lies at the heart of the Belt and Road initiative, President Xi Jinping\u2019s flagship project to promote trade between east and west, and the government is spending vast sums building up cities and transport links along it. With just 1.5 percent of China\u2019s population, Xinjiang accounted for one-fifth of criminal arrests in 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Background<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Uighurs (pronounced WEE-gurs) are a Turkic-speaking ethnic minority of mostly Sunni Muslims with close cultural ties to Central Asia (some of them refer to Xinjiang as East Turkestan). A nomadic people who established a kingdom in the eighth century in what is now Mongolia, the Uighurs claim thousands of years <\/a>of history in the rugged terrain of Xinjiang, which borders eight countries. They\u2019ve been under Beijing\u2019s control since China\u2019s communist revolution in 1949, when ethnic Han Chinese began moving there in earnest; Uighur groups have long complained <\/a>that their culture was under threat and Han Chinese received preferential treatment. About 10 million Uighurs inhabit the province, which is the size of the U.S. state of Alaska. Most live in the south and hardly interact with the 9 million Han Chinese who dominate the north. Tensions erupted in 2009 as protests <\/a>in the capital Urumqi over the deaths of two Uighurs in Guangdong province turned into riots; 200 people, mostly Han Chinese, were killed. Attacks by Uighur separatists intensified in the years that followed, with one of the groups that carried them out \u2014 the Turkistan Islamic Party <\/a>\u2014 also being credited with having thousands of jihadist fighters in Syria. After attacks in China spread beyond Xinjiang, Xi toughened his stance. In 2014, he ordered authorities to \u201cstrike first\u201d against terrorists. Then in 2016, he appointed Chen Quanguo to run Xinjiang following a stint in charge of Tibet, where he implemented a system of intense security <\/a>that was criticized by human rights groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Argument<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

China justifies <\/a>its crackdown by labeling it counter-terrorism. It points to the dearth of terrorist activity in Xinjiang since the security program was ratcheted up. The European Union and U.S. have led international condemnation of the Uighurs\u2019 treatment, though that\u2019s yet to turn <\/a>into action. There\u2019s been scant protest from governments of Muslim-majority nations \u2014 China is a major trade partner and aid donor to many. There was one exception: Turkey\u2019s foreign ministry described the centers as \u201cconcentration camps<\/a>\u2019\u2019 and a \u201cgreat shame for humanity\u2019\u2019 U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo branded China in a \u201cleague of its own<\/a>\u201d as a human-rights violator, while American lawmakers called for a freeze on the assets of Xinjiang chief Chen. China says the U.S. should stop interfering <\/a>in its internal affairs. Critics say China\u2019s harsh treatment of Uighurs highlights a growing trend to prioritize the Han Chinese, which make up 90 percent of the country\u2019s population, and underscores a willingness by leaders to confront challenges with greater extremes of repression. More broadly, they worry China is creating a template for how to run a modern-day, technology-driven authoritarian state<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Reference Shelf<\/h3>\n\n\n\n