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:
How brands are responding to China’s Xinjiang boycotts: deleting past statements or all-out flip-flops
Some of the world’s largest apparel companies are facing an unprecedented reckoning in China as state media outlets and social media campaigns call for consumer boycotts in protest of the brands previously saying they were concerned about reports that China uses forced labor to produce cotton in its Xinjiang province. Now, some companies are deleting those statements or telling different stories about their products depending on whether the audience is Western or Chinese.
Under pressure in China, Zara deleted a statement about Xinjiang
Until yesterday, Zara’s parent company, Inditex, had a statement on its website stating the company’s zero-tolerance policy for forced labor and that it did not have relationships with any factories in Xinjiang. It has since been removed.
Airbnb asked to drop Olympic ties over China rights issues
Airbnb Inc. is being asked to drop its sponsorship connections to next year’s Beijing’s Winter Olympics by a coalition of 150 human-rights campaigners. The coalition is headed by groups that oppose rights violations in China including the detention of Muslim Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region.
EU imposes sanctions on four Chinese officials
The European Union Monday approved sanctions against four Chinese officials involved in running internment camps for hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs in the region of Xinjiang. The list conspicuously avoided targeting the top Communist Party boss in Xinjiang, Chen Quanguo, who was hit by U.S. measures last year.
China: Hearts and Lives Broken – The nightmare of Uyghur families separated by repression
Testimonies of Uyghur parents studying or making a living abroad prior to China’s crackdown on Xinjiang barely scratch the surface of the experiences of Uyghur families yearning for reunification with their children trapped in China.
Dismaying Uyghurs, Legislatures of Australia and Turkey Reject Motions on China Genocide Label
Lawmakers in Australia rejected a motion on Monday to recognize human rights violations in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region as genocide, disappointing hopes by Uyghurs and other XUAR natives that the country would follow similar designations by the U.S., Canada and the Netherlands. The decision followed a similar move by Turkish lawmakers last week in Ankara.
The Uyghur Genocide: An Examination of China’s Breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention
This report is the first independent expert application of the 1948 Genocide Convention to the ongoing treatment of the Uyghurs in China. It was undertaken in response to emerging accounts of serious and systematic atrocities in Xinjiang province, particularly directed against the Uyghurs, an ethnic minority, to ascertain whether the People’s Republic of China is in breach of the Genocide Convention.
The Human Rights Situation of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, China
This report from the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs outlines the repression of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang and considers Canada’s international obligations under the Genocide Convention.
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.
Part 3: Explaining Variation in the Growth and Decline of Detention Facilities across Xinjiang
This report explores trends in the growth and decline of nighttime lighting over detention facilities across Xinjiang. It reveals evidence to suggest that long-term prisons have become a greater priority than reeducation centers, helping chart the current trajectory of China’s widespread detention of Uyghur and ethnic minority populations in the region.
Part 2: Have Any of Xinjiang’s Detention Facilities Closed?
This report, the second in a three-part series, employs a novel empirical approach to systematically assess the current operating status of known detention facilities in Xinjiang using nighttime lighting. This analysis provides new, empirical evidence to suggest that the overwhelming majority of detention facilities in Xinjiang remain active, operational, and in many cases, still under construction – despite Chinese claims to the contrary.
Part 1: Investigating the Growth of Detention Facilities in Xinjiang Using Nighttime Lighting
In this three-part investigation, RAND researchers use nighttime lighting in Xinjiang to capture the speed and scope with which China’s detention campaign escalated beginning in 2016.
Between Dictatorship and Democracy. Life of Sairagul Sauytbay in Sweden
Sairagul Sauytbay talks about what she had to endure in the “political re-education camps” in Xinjiang. She escaped political repression in China in 2018 and crossed the border with Kazakhstan illegally, has been living in Sweden for a year and a half, where the Swedish government granted her political asylum.
The Roots of Cultural Genocide in Xinjiang
The notion that a genocide is underway in the twenty-first century seems outlandish. But whatever the merits of the term, the evidence of the atrocities that China has committed against Uyghurs is undeniable.
The future of Uyghur cultural — and halal — life in the Year of the Pig
Up until 2018, Lunar New Year celebrations were conspicuously absent from Uyghur society. Today, it is the largest cultural event of the year — for the wrong reasons.
China's Uighur camp detainees allege systematic rape
Women in China's "re-education" camps for Uighurs have been systematically raped, sexually abused, and tortured, according to detailed new accounts obtained by the BBC.
Trapped in the System: Experiences of Uyghur Detention in Post-2015 Xinjiang
This report presents the results of in-depth interviews conducted with eight individuals with recent direct experience inside detention facilities in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
Their goal is to destroy everyone': Uighur camp detainees allege systematic rape
Women in China's "re-education" camps for Uighurs have been systematically raped, sexually abused, and tortured, according to detailed new accounts obtained by the BBC.
Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang
(Originally published November 2006, revised February 2021) Eurasian Crossroads is an essential resource for anyone seeking to learn about the complex historical context of the genocide taking place in Xinjiang today. James Millward, who is widely regarded as the leading historian of Chinese Central Asia, provides an accessible-yet-thorough examination of the various peoples and empires that have called the region home.
China’s Brutality Cannot Be Ignored - Biden must push back against the persecution of the Uyghur minority
For the Biden administration to fulfill its pledge to “lead the democratic world,” it must urgently address what is among the gravest human rights crises of our times. The Chinese government’s campaign—assisted by mass surveillance using cutting-edge electronic and biological technology—is not just a horror in its own right. It serves as a cautionary tale about tech-driven and racially profiled oppression that we must stand against.