XINJIANG, CHINA–Evidence suggests the Chinese government has imprisoned between 800,000 and 2 million Muslims since 2017 in the Northwest region of the country. The majority of these are Uyghurs, a Turkic-speaking ethnic group that is a relatively small minority in China.
Those arrested have been sent to camps the Chinese government calls “vocational education and training centers” according to a report released by the Council on Foreign Relations. They have also been characterized as “re-education camps” and human rights activists have called them “concentration camps,” likening the treatment of the Uyghurs to the Holocaust. The Holocaust was the systemic imprisonment, torture, and genocide of over 6 million Jews and 10 million total people by the Nazi party in Germany before and during World War Two.
China has been accused of subjecting Uyghurs to torture, forced labor, involuntary sterilization and rape. Genocide is the word used by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and human rights groups to argue that China is trying to eradicate the Uyghur population. China has denied all allegations of human rights abuses and claims and justified its actions in the name of preventing terrorism and Islamic extremism.
The treatment of the Uyghurs has been discovered through the testimony of those who lived through it and escaped as well as satellite imagery of the expanding camps and of mosques that have been destroyed over time. The BBC reports that “two-thirds of the mosques in Xinjiang have been damaged or destroyed since 2017.”
This is not the first time China has been accused of harming and suppressing a country or people group. During the 1950s, China invaded and took over Tibet and later destroyed monasteries during dictator Mao Zedong’s cultural revolution. That period and the “Great Leap Forward” policies resulted in between 40 and 80 million deaths, although the true figure will never be known. If the higher estimate is true, that would mean Mao is responsible for the most deaths by any dictator in human history. Video footage shows Chinese police using tear gas and violence against pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong. Tensions between Taiwan and the mainland have increased amid disputes over the island’s status as an independent country.
When the 2020 live-action remake of Mulan was released, American entertainment corporation Disney came under fire for filming the movie in the province of Xinjiang (where the Uyghurs are located) and thanking the Chinese Communist Party in the credits.
Governments, politicians, and groups across the globe have criticized China for their treatment of the Uyghurs, but little action has been taken, largely due to China’s massive economic influence and fear of retaliation. In 2022, a movement in the United Nations by the US, UK, and Canada to debate the issue was voted down. Several majority-Muslim countries were among those voting against the motion, including Qatar, Indonesia, the UAE, and Pakistan.
The evidence from multinational investigations and China’s history and reputation regarding minority groups provides support for the allegations of human rights abuses. However, China continues to stand by its actions and Beijing has not changed in response to the accusations of the world.
