By Yatana Yamahata and Kanon Tsuda

Ethnic Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, China, have been subjected to violent assimilationist policies by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). According to UN estimates, over 1 million Uyghurs and a number of other minorities have been detained in Xinjiang. At the same time, children of detainees are brought into state-controlled orphanages and boarding schools. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute found that 380 suspected facilities serve as re-education camps and fortified prisons. Recently, accounts of systematic mass rape and sexual abuse of Uyghur women in internment camps have been reported. 

The treatment against the Uyghurs has been met with international criticism and condemnation, such as the call to boycott the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. Australia has called for a UN investigation into the allegations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang, and 39 UN member states have issued a statement criticising China for its human rights abuses against the Uyghurs. More concerningly, the US, Canada and the Netherlands confirmed that the atrocities committed against the Uyghurs constitutes genocide under international law. An independent report by the think tank Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy reiterated those findings on 9 March.

A Demographic and Cultural Genocide 

Genocide, according to Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, is defined as the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”. These acts fall into the following categories: 

1. killing members of the group;
2. causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
3. deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
4. imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
5. forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. 

The CCP’s actions clearly echo several, if not all, categories outlined above. Yet the caveat for the international community lies in the difficulty of labelling and establishing systematic abuse as “genocide”. The very definition of genocide requires clear-cut evidence that a government or individuals have engaged in the listed act(s) with an “intent to destroy” an entire group, not just some of its members.

The CCP has rejected accusations of genocide and human rights abuses and instead explained that the policies in Xinjiang are part of a fight against “three evils” of ethnic separatism, terrorism, and religious extremism. Although the CCP denied the existence of detention camps until 2018, it now claims that they are vocational education centres that function to increase employment opportunities. Additionally, Chinese officials have claimed that the population in Xinjiang had grown “from 10.2 million in 2010 to 12.7 million in 2018, an increase of more than 25 percent,” while “the population of Han people in the region increased by just 2 percent to 9 million over the same period.” 

Evidence suggests otherwise. Associated Press reports an unprecedented drop in birth rate of nearly 24% in last year alone compared to just 4.2% nationwide due to forced birth control through the use of IUDs, abortion, and sterlization. Analysts have thus described the situation as “demographic genocide”. Equally important, the CCP’s efforts to erase Uyghur identity and replace it with Han Chinese values via re-education programs have been critiqued by leading scholars in the field as “cultural genocide”. From destroying mosques to banning fasting during the holy month of Ramadan, the CCP has criminalized any sign of Islam. Yet the party has also defined ‘extremist religious behaviors’ as arbitrary markers such as illiteracy in Mandarin, purchasing strengthening equipment, or being an Uyghur born in the 1980s to 1990s.

History Repeating: Xinjiang’s Parallels with Tibet 

The systematic abuse of a minority ethnic group is not a new phenomenon in China: the CCP has suppressed the Tibetans’ cultural and religious freedoms since the occupation of Tibet in 1951. Tibetans faced various methods of oppression including but not limited to forced labour, bombing and massacres, destruction of agricultural lands, banning of their flag and national anthem, and restructuring of their education system to conform to Han values and culture. 

Unsurprisingly, the draconian control over both regions has been orchestrated by the same individual: Chen Quanguo. As the current Party Secretary of Xinjiang, Chen has used his experience in the same position in Tibet as a model to suppress the Uyghurs. Following Chen’s transfer to Xinjiang in 2016, there has been an escalation of extrajudicial detainment and forced disappearances. Correspondingly throughout 2017, regional spending on public security doubled and over 900,000 security-related jobs were advertised.

So is Xinjiang the “New Tibet”? In short, yes. Two motivations explain the CCP’s endeavours in Xinjiang and Tibet. The first is national expansion: sinicization or in other words, the solidification of ideological conformity and unwavering loyalty across its population. Yet this serves a larger purpose for its second agenda: global expansion to extend Beijing’s geopolitical influence. There is a geostrategic intent in gaining control over both regions’ abundant natural resources to bolster domestic supply and consolidate power in the international market.

However, what makes Xinjiang distinct is its geographic positionality as the central hub for the historic Silk Road. Having control over Xinjiang is thus perceived by the CCP as inextricable in order to advance their Belt-and-Road Initiative (BRI) project, which essentially seeks to recreate and expand the “Silk Road” across Eurasia and Africa. With 70 countries participating in this project and an expected investment of over $1 trillion, its completion may wholly restructure China to be at the heart of global trade. Yet due to the debt that would be owed for the construction of these travel corridors, critics are wary that China may use “debt-trap diplomacy” as a tactic to advance their own interests – including keeping silent on their human rights abuses. China’s partners, including Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, signed a letter praising China’s achievements in enforcing its “counterrorism” efforts in Xinjiang. 

Tibet’s history is repeating itself in Xinjiang, but with a twist: the atrocities committed against the Uyghurs cannot be understood without considering the linkage between the CCP’s domestic sociopolitical agenda and international politico-economic drive in its vision for the BRI. The latter must be considered against the backdrop of the international community’s inaction vis-á-vis the CCP’s activities in its borderland regions.