All Reading
This section contains a curated list of useful articles, investigations, books and other reading materials. The list is updated on a weekly basis and suggestions for additions are welcome.
Starting Points:
Unemployment Monitoring and Early Warning: New Trends in Xinjiang’s Coercive Labor Placement Systems
This new report charts concerning new trends in Xinjiang forced labor as the region now mandates "every able-bodied person to achieve stable employment," and keeps transferred Uyghurs in their place through an unemployment monitoring/surveillance system.
Evidence of the Chinese Central Government’s Knowledge of and Involvement in Xinjiang’s Re-Education Internment Campaign
Documents leaked to the New York Times (also known as the Xinjiang Papers) in November 2019 revealed how Chinese President Xi Jinping laid the groundwork. Now, previously unanalyzed central government and state media commentary surrounding the introduction of the crucial March 2017 “XUAR De-Extremification Regulation” show that several important central government institutions were closely and directly involved in the drafting and even approval of this key legislation.
Coercive Labor and Forced Displacement in Xinjiang’s Cross-Regional Labor Transfer Program
This report provides new evidence from Chinese sources that Xinjiang’s labor transfers to other regions or provinces in China meet the forced labor definition of the International Labor Organization (ILO). The report develops a process-focused evaluation model for evaluating coercion at each stage of the labor transfer program. The Nankai Report, along with other Chinese academic sources, indicates that labor transfers are not just serving economic purposes, but are implemented with the intention to forcibly displace ethnic minority populations from their heartlands, intentionally reducing their population density, and tearing apart homogeneous communities.
Sterilizations, IUDs, and mandatory birth control: The CCP’s campaign to suppress Uyghur birthrates in Xinjiang
This report presents detailed analysis of another troubling aspect of state policy in Xinjiang: measures to forcibly suppress birthrates among ethnic Uyghur communities, to include the mass application of mandatory birth control and sterilizations.
Xinjiang’s Re-Education and Securitization Campaign: Evidence from Domestic Security Budgets
In August 2018, at a meeting of the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the PRC flatly denied the existence of “re-education camps”, stating that they were instead “vocational education and employment training centers to acquire employment skills and legal knowledge”. But the PRC government’s own budgets appear to contradict these assertions.
Hu the Uniter: Hu Lianhe and the Radical Turn in China’s Xinjiang Policy
One of the leading figures of a new generation of PRC ethnic policymakers, Hu Lianhe’s public defense of Xinjiang’s “anti-extremism” strategy suggests his close involvement in the policy’s design and implementation.
New Evidence for China’s Political Re-Education Campaign in Xinjiang
The existence of "re-education camps" is denied by the Chinese government. In February 2018, Zhang Wei, China’s Consul General in Kazakhstan, issued what is to date the only statement by a Chinese public official on the reputed camp network. In reference to a CNN report on the camps, Zhang argued that “we do not have such an idea in China”. This article demonstrates that there is, in fact, a substantial body of PRC governmental sources that prove the existence of the camps.
Chen Quanguo: The Strongman Behind Beijing’s Securitization Strategy in Tibet and Xinjiang
Over the last year, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) Party Secretary Chen Quanguo has dramatically increased the police presence in Xinjiang by advertising over 90,000 new police and security-related positions. This soldier-turned-politician is little known outside of China, but within China he has gained a reputation as an ethnic policy innovator, pioneering a range of new methods for securing Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rule over Uyghurs, Tibetans and other ethnic minorities in western China.
Xinjiang’s Rapidly Evolving Security State
Since the July 5, 2009 riots in the regional capital of Urumqi, thousands have died in violent clashes between the Muslim Uyghur minority and the Han-dominated Party-state. In response, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has built a multi-tiered security state with, among other components, the recruitment of nearly 90,000 new police officers and a 356 percent increase in the public security budget. According to Chinese President Xi Jinping, Xinjiang is now the “frontline” in China’s battle against “terrorism,” and consequently a testing ground for new policing and surveillance methods.