Xinjiang, China: What You Need To Know About US Sanctions On Chinese Officials For Alleged Abuse Of Uyghurs

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The United States Department of State estimates that up to 2 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities have passed through a vast network of detention centers in the region, where former inmates claim they were subjected to intense political indoctrination, forced labor, torture and even sexual abuse.

Human rights groups and overseas Uyghur activists have also accused the Chinese government of forced cultural assimilation and forced birth control and sterilization against Uyghurs.

The former Trump administration has officially established that China is committing genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghur Muslims.

China vehemently denies allegations of human rights violations and stresses that the camps are voluntary “vocational training centers” designed to eradicate religious extremism and terrorism.

This week, the US, along with the European Union, Canada and the United Kingdom, announced sanctions against Chinese officials for human rights violations in Xinjiang. In a joint statement, the group denounced China’s alleged “use of forced labor, mass detention in internment camps, forced sterilizations and the collective destruction of Uyghur heritage”.

China responded almost immediately with sanctions and travel and business bans against ten EU politicians and four entities. Both sides have doubled down, with European leaders accusing China of “confrontation” and Beijing accusing the EU of “gross interference” in its internal affairs.

Here’s what you need to know about Xinjiang and the allegations of atrocities.

Where is Xinjiang and who lives there?

Xinjiang, officially the Uyghur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang, is a vast and remote region in the far west of China. It spans 1.6 million square kilometers (640,000 square miles) from the Tibetan Plateau in the southeast to Kazakhstan on the northwest border and is by far China’s largest administrative region, but one of the least densely populated.

An ethnically diverse region, it is home to a variety of minority ethnic groups, including Hui, Kazakhs, and the largest group, the Uyghurs, who speak a language closely related to Turkish and have their own culture.

Beijing's crackdown in Xinjiang has separated thousands of children from their parents, a new report claims. CNN has found two

Xinjiang is rich in natural resources, especially oil and natural gas. The central government has made a concerted effort to develop the region’s economy, causing a large-scale influx of the ethnic-majority Chinese Han people into China in recent decades.

Historically, Uyghurs were the majority in the region. Now they account for just under half of Xinjiang’s total population of 22 million, and many of them live in the southern, rural part of Xinjiang.

The region is geographically strategic for Beijing. Xinjiang is China’s gateway to Central Asia and borders Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan, as well as Mongolia and Russia to the north and Pakistan and India to the south.

What led to the crackdown?

Xinjiang’s minority groups have long felt marginalized and excluded from the economic boom, claiming widespread labor discrimination in state-controlled industries that have dominated the local economy.

Government-backed restrictions on religious practices and customs that have been central to their Islamic identities since the 1990s have also led to inter-ethnic tensions and occasional violence.

Beijing has tightened its grip on the region in recent years. A turning point came in 2009, when ethnic riots in Urumqi, the regional capital, resulted in the death of at least 197 people, which led to a government crackdown imposing widespread and lasting restrictions on Muslim minorities.

The government has also linked Uyghurs to attacks in Xinjiang and other parts of China. Beijing has blamed Islamist militants and separatists for the violence, although it is disputed how many of these incidents are related or directed by foreign militant groups.

In recent years, Beijing has stepped up the restrictions of Islam in the name of the fight against terrorism. The crackdown includes banning veils, long beards and Islamic names, cracking down on Quran study groups and preventing Muslim officials from fasting for Ramadan.

Repression has further escalated after Communist Party hardliner Chen Quanguo took charge of Xinjiang in 2016. Chen, the former party boss in the neighboring Tibet Autonomous Region, unleashed a series of security measures by installing a network of manned checkpoints and artificial intelligence. surveillance cameras with power to monitor people’s daily routines. Authorities also collected biometric data from residents and conducted samples on their phones to scan for content that was considered problematic or suspicious.

What are the detention camps?

The biggest step that China has taken in its crackdown is its network of detention camps across the region. Former inmates have described experiencing political indoctrination and abuse in the camps, such as food and sleep deprivation, forced injections, forced sterilizations, abortions and gang rapes.

They were chained and forced to live in bad conditions; one inmate said she was in a cell with 20 other women and that she was only allowed to go to the toilet once a day for three to five minutes. Those who took longer were electrocuted with shock batons, she said.
Allegations of chained students and gang rapes in detention camps in China
In a report published in March, Amnesty International estimated that there may be thousands of Uyghur children who have been separated from their parents for years as a result of the government’s tightening grip on Xinjiang.

Initially, Beijing flatly denied the existence of the camps. But it later claimed that the facilities are voluntary “vocational training centers” where people learn vocational skills, Chinese language and law. The government is now emphasizing that the camps are necessary to prevent religious extremism and terrorism.

However, leaked Chinese government documents have revealed that people could be sent to a detention center for simply “wearing a veil” or growing “a long beard”. Those who have disappeared in the camps include Uyghur intellectuals and artists – people who would not need vocational training, as the Chinese government claims.

The documents, along with other first-hand reports, paint an alarming picture of what appears to be a strategic campaign by Beijing to deprive Uyghurs of their cultural and religious identity and suppress behaviors considered unpatriotic.

The Chinese government has disputed the authenticity of leaked documents.

How has the world reacted?

The treatment of Uyghurs and other minorities in Xinjiang has been widely condemned by the international community. In July 2019, 22 countries signed a letter urging China to end “mass arbitrary detentions and related violations” and called on Beijing to allow UN experts to enter the region.

But many Muslim-majority countries have been silent about China’s crackdown on Xinjiang, and some have even expressed support for Beijing. Just four days after the letter condemning Chinese policy in Xinjiang was submitted to the United Nations, 37 countries, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Syria, Russia and North Korea, wrote to the UN and praised China for his’ remarkable achievements in this field. of human rights “in Xinjiang.

In January this year, the US officially declared that China is committing genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs. A month later, the Dutch and Canadian parliaments passed similar motions, despite opposition from their leaders.

The US also banned imports of cotton products and tomatoes produced in Xinjiang over concerns about forced labor.

US and allies announce sanctions against Chinese officials for
In March, a nongovernmental organization conducted for the first time an independent legal analysis of the allegations of genocide – and what responsibility Beijing might bear. The report, conducted by more than 50 global experts, concluded that the Chinese government’s alleged actions violated every provision in the United Nations Genocide Convention.

Days before the report was released, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said genocide allegations “couldn’t be more ridiculous.” The Chinese government has repeatedly defended its actions in Xinjiang, saying that citizens now enjoy a high standard of living, calling the allegations a smear campaign by foreign forces.

The sanctions announced this week are some of the strongest and most unified actions taken in protest against the treatment of the Uyghurs, who were ostensibly intended to isolate and pressurize Beijing.

The US targeted Wang Junzheng, the party committee secretary of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, and Chen Mingguo, director of the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau. Meanwhile, the EU endorsed Zhu Hailun, former head of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and three other top officials for overseeing the detention and indoctrination program.

But none of the sanctions so far has named Xi Jinping, China’s most powerful leader in decades, who has called his government’s Xinjiang policies “perfectly correct.”

CNN’s Ben Westcott contributed to this report.

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