What happened in Xinjiang China, home to 11 million Uyghurs?

According to a quote from the forthcoming book John Bolton published in The Wall Street Journal, Trump told Chinese President Xi Jinping at dinner last year that Xi had to “continue building the camp,” which according to Trump was “the right thing to do.”

Where is Xinjiang and who lives there?

Xinjiang, officially named the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, is a remote area in the western tip of China.

It is home to around 11 million Uyghurs, a Muslim-majority ethnic minority who speak languages ​​that are closely related to Turkey and have their own distinct cultures.

Rich in natural resources, especially oil and natural gas, the region has witnessed a massive surge in the country’s majority population in the past few decades, amidst the concerted efforts of the government to develop the regional economy.

Historically, Uyghurs have been the majority in the region. Today, their number is just under half of Xinjiang’s total population, and many of them live in the rural south.

Xinjiang is also geographically strategic for Beijing. It is China’s gateway to Central Asia, bordering Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan, and Mongolia and Russia to the north and Pakistan and India to the south.

What happened there?

The US State Department estimates that more than one million Uyghurs, as well as members of other Muslim minority groups, have been detained in a wide network of internment camps in Xinjiang, where they are reportedly “subjected to torture, cruel and inhuman treatment such as harassment physical and sexual abuse, forced labor, and death. ”

The former detainee told CNN that they experienced political indoctrination and harassment inside the camp, such as lack of food and sleep and forced injections.

Initially, Beijing firmly denied the existence of the camp. But later claimed that the facility was a voluntary “vocational training center” where people learned work skills, Chinese language, and law. The current government insists that the camps are needed to prevent religious extremism and terrorism.

The documents, together with other first-hand reports, paint a worrying picture of what appears to be a strategic campaign by Beijing to erase Uyghur cultural and religious identity and suppress behaviors deemed not patriotic.

The oppression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang has also seen an increase in mass surveillance throughout the region.

When CNN traveled through Xinjiang in 2019, there were surveillance cameras every 150 feet, monitoring people’s faces and daily routines. Mobile police checkpoints appear randomly throughout the area, leading to long lines on public roads. At checkpoints, and sometimes randomly on the road, police officers stop people from asking for their ID cards and sometimes ask to insert unknown electronic devices into cell phones to scan them without explanation.

What’s the story?

Beijing’s crackdown on Xinjiang echoes the old paranoia about the border region and the deep suspicion of the non-Han population among Chinese rulers, which historically resulted in oppression and rebellion.

While the Chinese army raged through what is now Xinjiang and ruled its parts for centuries, the modern administrative unit only originates in the mid-nineteenth century, a fact hinting at its name, which translates as “new frontier” in Chinese.

In the 1930s and 40s, Xinjiang underwent a brief period of partial independence, when two secessionous Republics of East Turkistan were declared and quickly demoted.

Today, Uyghur activists are pushing Xinjiang to become a separate country that still calls it “East Turkestan.”

Over the past decade, the Chinese government has tightened its grip on the region, following violent incidents of ethnic unrest. The turning point came in 2009, when ethnic riots raged in Urumqi, the regional capital, killing at least 197 people.

Beijing blames Islamist militants and separatists for the violent attack. But Uyghur activists and human rights groups claim that Beijing’s suppression of religious freedom and unfair ethnic policies is at the root of the conflict.

The Uyghurs and other minorities in Xinjiang have long complained of discrimination in employment and education, and corruption is rife in state-controlled industries that continue to dominate the local economy.

In 2014, Ilham Tohti, a Beijing-based economics professor who is considered one of the leading moderate Chinese voices in Xinjiang, was jailed for life for “separatism” and spreading “ethnic hatred.”