Re-education 'front and centre' in Xinjiang life beyond China's camps, says ASPI think tank
By
Max Walden
Posted 7h ago7 hours ago, updated 1h ago1 hours ago
Propaganda in Xinjiang reads: "Unity and stability is fortune, separatism and turmoil is misfortune".(AP: Ng Han Guan)
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Chinese authorities are engaged in an effort to fundamentally reshape how people in the Xinjiang region "act and speak", according to new research by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).
Key points:
- ASPI has detailed the governmental systems overseeing China's repressive policies in Xinjiang
- Beijing has previously accused ASPI of publishing "fake news" to slander China
- ASPI says it wants to put a face to those responsible for human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other minorities
The think tank profiled 170 offices involved in implementing the Chinese Communist Party's policies in Xinjiang, a remote part of north-west China,
since 2014.
"In the last seven years in Xinjiang, the party-state has returned to mass political campaigns in an attempt to manufacture loyalty, conformity and stability through a root-and-branch transformation of the society," said Vicky Xu, a co-author of the report.
"Re-education work not only occurs in so-called 'vocational education and training centres', but is also front and centre in everyday life.
"The party-state seeks to alter how people act and speak."
ASPI is mostly funded by the Australian government, and other
sponsors include the US State Department, Carnegie Endowment for Peace, US arms manufacturers and the embassies of the UK, Japan and Israel.
Government positions are dominated by Han Chinese in Xinjiang, ASPI found.(Reuters: Thomas Peter )
Rights groups
accuse China of genocide and crimes against humanity for its policies in Xinjiang, including detention of up to 1 million Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in re-education camps referred to by authorities as vocational training centres.
ASPI drew on thousands of Chinese-language sources, including leaked police records and state budgets, to provide a picture of the people and systems governing Xinjiang.
James Leibold, a professor at La Trobe University and another co-author of the research, said despite extensive media reporting on Xinjiang, little attention had been paid to "pulling the curtain back, and looking at the who and the how, with regards to what we're calling the 'architecture of repression'."
ASPI says Xi Jinping is adopting tactics used by communist China's founding father Mao Zedong.(AP: Andy Wong)
"Xinjiang really is part of our lives today because the repression that is occurring in the region, chiefly through products that we all consume, really does have implications across the globe."
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ASPI mapped more than 440 senior officials who had served as county party secretaries, and found most of them were members of the country's majority Han ethnicity.
President Xi Jinping personally ordered the reintroduction of a Mao-era policy of neighbourhood informants in Xinjiang, and local authorities have popularised public denunciations comparable to the so-called "struggle sessions"
Mr Xi personally endured as a child, ASPI said.
"Xi Jinping is really taking a page out of Mao's playbook [in Xinjiang] … leaders like Xi or Mao can get around the kind of, messy or complicated nature of the vast party-state system to accomplish goals," Dr Leibold said.
Many Uyghurs outside of China accuse the country of genocide.(Reuters: Dilara Senkaya)
In late 2019, China
said detainees had "graduated" from the re-education camps, and Xinjiang officials have
since faced accusations, including from ASPI, of operating forced labour schemes.
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"While some of the camps may have been mothballed, and some of the overt forms of oppression may not be as sharp as in the past, the agenda to manufacture stability in Uyghur continues to this day and there are human victims," Dr Leibold said.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry has been contacted for comment.
Chinese officials have previously dismissed ASPI as "publishing fake news critical of China" and "slander".
"The facts have amply demonstrated that ASPI is fabricating and spreading lies, rumours and disinformation in matters related to China," Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said in response to a separate ASPI report in 2020.
"It aims to stigmatise and demonise China and damage China's image and interests."
Calls for China to 'open its doors' to Xinjiang
The few journalists able to access Xinjiang during 2021 have reported a shift away from the heavy-handed security crackdown towards Uyghurs, as the government seeks to boost domestic tourism to the region.
"Through more than seven years of intense propaganda work, Uyghurs and other indigenous groups now find themselves being assigned fictional Han relatives," said Ms Xu, referring to a "home stay" policy whereby officials are assigned to stay at people's homes.
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China's Xinjiang propaganda campaign is not new, but the effort appears to be in overdrive (ABC News: GFX/Jarrod Fankhauser)
"[Uyghurs are] being taught how to dress and maintain their homes; their courtyards are 'modernised' and 'beautified' while their ancient tombs and mosques are destroyed."
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In June,
more than 40 countries including Australia called upon China to allow UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet access to Xinjiang to investigate allegations of mass incarceration and other human rights abuses.
"I regret that I am not able to report progress on my efforts to seek meaningful access to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region," Ms Bachelet told the Human Rights Council last month.
"In the meantime, my office is finalising its assessment of the available information on allegations of serious human rights violations in that region, with a view to making it public."
Dr Leibold said the only way to remove treatment of the Uyghurs as a "major irritant" between the West and China was to "have China open its doors up".
"If it really believes it's got nothing to hide then why has it been blocking unfettered access by the UN?"
Beijing has overseen a "root-and-branch" transformation of Xinjiang, ASPI says.(AP: Ng Han Guan)
China claims Xinjiang is open to observers, however press and diplomatic visits to the region are tightly controlled.
"It's important to realise that Xinjiang's repressive policies are designed and carried out by people — real people who had gone to Harvard or want a promotion," Ms Xu said.
"When you put a face to the deed it makes understanding these events so much easier.
"Individuals who played leading roles in these mass human rights abuses should be held accountable."
Posted 7h ago7 hours ago, updated 1h ago
