Chen Quanguo
Chen Quanguo served as Xinjiang’s Party Secretary between August 2016 and December 2021. Within China’s political system, the Party Secretary is the leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) within a particular jurisdiction - in this case, Chen occupied what is essentially the highest political office in Xinjiang and was responsible for the formulation and implementation of policies.
Prior to his role in Xinjiang, Chen spent five years as Party Secretary in Tibet. Tibet experienced widespread unrest in 2008, with protests and demonstrations over the government’s historic and ongoing treatment and persecution of Tibetans being met with violence by Chinese security forces.
During Chen’s tenure there from 2011 to 2016, he was credited with restoring stability across Tibet through the construction of a sophisticated network of surveillance and widespread security measures. Chen’s performance was praised in the Chinese language media, with one report noting that “TAR society maintained stability, with no major reported incidents of unrest, whereas [such incidents] did occur in the surrounding Tibetan regions”.
After being transferred to Xinjiang in August 2016, he quickly rolled out the same securitization strategy. The year Chen came into power Xinjiang received its largest boost in policing capabilities than ever before: security-related job postings more than tripled in the space of a year as part of Chen’s drive towards bringing “zero-distance” policing to the region. That year also saw the introduction of the Integrated Joint Operation Platform (IJOP) to Xinjiang.
The year after Chen came into power also saw the region’s “re-education” drive rapidly accelerate. Between 2016-2017, the number of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang prisons due to “risks of extremism” increased five-fold, constituting just over a fifth of all arrests in China. In March 2017, the publication of new “de-extremification regulations” issued by Xinjiang’s government stated that “de-extremification must do transformation through education well, jointly implementing individual and centralized education”.
While Chen Quanguo has been the target of various international sanctions and in some cases been referred to as the “architect” of the interment drive in Xinjiang, the rapid implementation of measures so soon after taking on the role of Party Secretary suggests that rather than being the primary architect of the re-education internment campaign, Chen was most likely brought in to implement a plan that had largely been outlined and approved by the central government. As a result, his role is probably best assessed as that of an executor—not originator—of central government policy decisions.
Key Reading
Evidence of the Chinese Central Government’s Knowledge of and Involvement in Xinjiang’s Re-Education Internment Campaign (Jamestown, September 2021)
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 for the Chinese government’s draconian campaign of internment in Xinjiang in a series of speeches. But more direct links between Xinjiang’s re-education internment campaign that began in 2017, and the central government—including Xi himself—have so far remained elusive. 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.
The architecture of repression (ASPI, October 2021)
This report is a part of a larger online project which can be found on the Xinjiang Data Project website. The project maps and analyses the governance mechanisms employed by the Chinese party-state in Xinjiang from 2014 to 2021 within the context of the region’s ongoing human rights crisis. The authors have located and scrutinised thousands of Chinese-language sources, including leaked police records and government budget documents never before published.
Chen Quanguo: The Strongman Behind Beijing’s Securitization Strategy in Tibet and Xinjiang (Jamestown, September 2017)
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.
Party boss Chen Quanguo replicating his Tibet policy in Xinjiang (Tibetan Review, December 2016)
Party boss Chen Quanguo has been reported to be implementing in Xinjiang (East Turkestan) the policy of ironclad control with elements of economic rewards and an attitude of greater friendliness through a series of measures that he had introduced in Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) during his previous posting there. He is said to be seen as a success in the TAR, with his Xinjiang posting being considered a promotion, given the fact that it usually entails elevation to the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.
Xinjiang’s Rapidly Evolving Security State (Jamestown, March 2017)
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.
“Eradicating Ideological Viruses” - China’s Campaign of Repression Against Xinjiang’s Muslims (Human Rights Watch, September 2018)
The Chinese government has long carried out repressive policies against the Turkic Muslim peoples in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in northwest China. These efforts have been dramatically scaled up since late 2016, when Communist Party Secretary Chen Quanguo relocated from the Tibet Autonomous Region to assume leadership of Xinjiang. This report presents new evidence of the Chinese government’s mass arbitrary detention, torture, and mistreatment of Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang and details the systemic and increasingly pervasive controls on daily life there. These rampant abuses violate fundamental rights to freedom of expression, religion, and privacy, and protections from torture and unfair trials. More broadly, governmental controls over day-to-day life in Xinjiang primarily affect ethnic Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other minorities, in violation of international law’s prohibitions against discrimination.
Xinjiang Today: Wang Zhen Rides Again? (Made in China Journal, April 2019)
Following the intra-communal violence of early July 2009 in Urumqi, many Han invoked Wang Zhen's notorious approach to management of Xinjiang's non-Han population as the solution to what they termed 'the ethnic problem'. Today, Xi Jinping appears to have found his Wang Zhen in the figure of Chen Quanguo, Party Secretary of Xinjiang since August 2016.