Explaining the Plight of China’s Uighurs

In the months since the emergence of COVID-19, the Chinese Communist Party’s authoritarian regime has become only more repressive. The CCP has sought to expand its control over Hong Kong by cracking down on the semi-autonomous city’s civil liberties, moved to consolidate control over disputed areas on its border with India, and stirred up trouble in the South China Sea—while the rest of the world remains distracted by its continued battle with the virus.

The most troubling aspect of the CCP’s disturbing recent behavior, however, is undoubtedly its treatment of its Uighur population, a Muslim ethnic minority that lives mostly in the northwestern province of Xinjiang. The Uighurs have suffered from state persecution at the hands of the CCP for decades, but according to many reports, between 800,000 and 2 million Uighurs and other Muslim minorities have been forced into “re-education camps” by the Chinese government since April 2017. Videos posted to the Chinese version of TikTok reportedly show Uighurs being shipped off to labor camps even during the pandemic in February.

“It’s the largest-scale detainment of a religious minority that we’ve seen since World War II,” says Amy Lehr, director of the Human Rights Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Beijing’s justification for the camps—which the government initially denied existed, and now claim are “educational training centers” that are “like boarding schools, where the students eat and live for free”—is nominally concern over religious extremism and terrorist threats stemming from Islamic fundamentalism in the Uighur population. The Chinese Communist Party, which is officially atheist, has long seen religious expression as a threat to its power. (The Uighurs are hardly the first example of this—Buddhists in Tibet and practitioners of Falun Gong in mainland China have both borne the brunt of horrific state persecution.)

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Comments (17)
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  • I don't have much to say, but thank you for reporting on this. I hope the reporting continues. I'm generally skeptical about "awareness campaigns", but it seems this is one place where growing awareness to this evil would be a good beginning.

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  • I’ve been wanting to do something about this but am unsure as to what can make a difference. A boycott on goods likely made by Uyghur slave labor will not help so much. There is another piece of legislation introduced in March, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, that at first glance seems to put more teeth into making sure products made with forced/slave labor don’t reach our shores. Any idea if that could help? This is such a depressing situation and standing by seems so wrong.

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    1. Additionally, are there any groups that could use monetary support that anyone knows of?

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      1. I’ve looked but don’t feel comfortable yet with any. I’ll investigate some more

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    2. From a policy standpoint, making better friends and better trade deals with countries with better human rights records would help, especially in the region. Increasing trade by decreasing trade barriers, even unilaterally, with countries like S. Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, India, Japan, etc would do a lot to weaken the CCP's regional hegemony ambitions.

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      1. We definitely need to lessen our reliance on the CCP for goods and increasing trade with alternative countries could help. How can we push to make that happen?

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  • Good overview Nate. I know we deplore any oppression of innocent people - anywhere...

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  • The NBA players (millionaires) kneel in solidarity with supposed “institutional racism” of the USA but continue to court the millions of dollars possible in China without pointing out the crisis of the Uighurs and the institutional racism of China. Disgusting.

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    1. It would dilute the message they want to make. Chinese actors and athelets in the US certainly have a voice and would have more meaning.

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    2. Are you upset about kneeling for BLM or not kneeling for Uighurs?

      Do you want them to kneel for any cause? Or not kneel at all?

      'Cause, all of a sudden we found racism in foreign countries.

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      1. Racism is everywhere. However institutional racism does not exist in United States. Institutional racism clearly exists in China. To equate the problems that we have a United States to the problems we that we find in China is absurd. Likewise to kneel in support of BLM does nothing to help change the culture and United States. However to support financially China while it systematically mutilates its own people is abhorrent.

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    3. Neither do the largest Economic impact Purchasers from China: Wal-Mart and Apple.

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      1. Good point, I call them all out.

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  • A lot of people don't realize Xi has been prepping this move for awhile. Even before the Uighur's, Falun Gong were imprisoned and their organs harvested. Just all around an evil empire now.

    Just shows how the West needs to confront reality. The future will either be the eagle of freedom, or the dragon of oppression. Funny how terrorist in the middle east hate the west, but when a nation is actually killing off their Muslim brothers and sisters? They do nothing.

    Thanks for the terrible update. Much needed, and much sadness in this article.

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  • It's yet another reminder of how badly we erred in thinking that China would become more open with increased economic freedom. However, this is not an indictment of the Friedman-Hayek hypothesis of economic/political freedom always moving in tandem. On the contrary, it proves it - economic freedom tied to political repression leads to economic suppression, no matter how much one tries to free the latter. As such, it is depressing to see how China is slipping more towards the ilk of their North Korean colleagues, to the point that China news is now just like North Korea news - "prison/torture porn".

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  • Nobody can tear themselves away from idiotic crisis-of-the-week domestic disputes in the US these days. This is a good reminder that something with real consequences is happening right now, and when we talk about other things we ignore and diminish the real suffering of these people.

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