Xinjiang, China’s largest region and the only region in China with a majority Muslim population, is a historical crossroads of the ancient Silk Road. Located in the northwest, it borders eight countries: India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia and Mongolia. Its geographical location makes it a key region for the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the colossal infrastructure project with which Beijing aims to connect by land to Europe and the Middle East. But for the economy to prosper, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has decided there can be no room for dissent in Xinjiang, nor for an identity other than the one approved by the State.

Even though Xinjiang is theoretically autonomous, it has become an Orwellian nightmare, subject to severe restrictions by the central government. This region, which is half the size of Europe, has become a sophisticated system of social control and cultural repression. Under the gaze of millions of cameras, an entire people — the Uyghurs — is being slowly and methodically erased. Not through the gas chambers of the last century, but through intensive surveillance, forced sterilizations and family separations. 

Under the pretext of fighting terrorism, the CCP pursues a policy of “sinicization,” a systematic strategy to forcibly assimilate the Uyghur population. What was once a peripheral province is today China’s most militarized zone: a veritable open-air prison. Michelle Bachelet, the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, recently acknowledged “serious human rights violations” committed in Xinjiang that could constitute “crimes against humanity.” As early as 2005, Human Rights Watch raised the alarm, claiming that the systematic repression of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang is a deliberate political strategy that ultimately benefits the state of China. 

Most importantly, what happens in the Xinjiang re-education camps extends beyond China’s borders and encroaches on the international community. China is demonstrating to the world that cultural and religious identity can be rewritten or erased in the name of state stability and economic development. If the “Great Wall of Iron” system prevails without meeting cohesive global resistance, the risk is that the Xinjiang model will become an export product: a world where technology serves not to liberate humanity, but to perfect its imprisonment.

Demographic manipulation broke Uyghur roots

Today, Xinjiang is home to approximately 12 million Uyghurs, who refer to it as East Turkestan (Sherqi Turkistan). While the ethnic Han population primarily speaks Chinese, the Uyghur, Kazakh and Kyrgyz populations are ethnically Turkic, predominantly Muslim and have their own languages. Uyghur culture reflects a close affinity with Central Asian nations. Their roots trace back to the collapse of the ancient Karabalghasan Empire (which was located in present-day Mongolia) in 840 AD, followed by centuries of struggle for independence.

In 1759, the Manchu Qing Dynasty invaded East Turkestan, and between 1750–1863, the population residing under military control rebelled 42 times. Then, in 1863, Yaqub Beg, the emir of the Kashgaria kingdom, liberated East Turkestan, set up an independent state and entered into diplomatic talks. However, the Manchu Qing Dynasty formally incorporated East Turkistan in 1884, renaming it Xinjiang. After the fall of the Manchu Qing Dynasty in 1911, Xinjiang continued to be ruled by various leaders. 

Nationalism began to spread in Xinjiang in the 1920s. On November 12, 1933, the peoples of Xinjiang declared independence as the East Turkestan Republic (ETR). It lasted less than a year — the ETR was overthrown on April 16, 1934 following an invasion by the Kuomintang (KMT), the ruling political party of China from 1928 to 1949. On November 12, 1944, once again, the ETR declared independence. And, once again, it was short-lived. In 1949, a mysterious plane crash killed the ETR’s core leadership and the republic was invaded by the PLA. With the arrival of the People’s Liberation Army, Beijing began casting a veil of control that has never been lifted. 

Despite granting autonomy to Xinjiang (which is officially called the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, or XUAR) in 1955, the CCP’s promises of self-determination clashed with government policies. The first part of policy aimed at Xinjiang was not ideological, but demographic. Until the 1950s, Uyghurs represented about 90% of the population in the region; today, they account for a reduced 45%. They are effectively strangers in their own home. This was not a natural evolution, but rather a surgical operation of social engineering.

Following the fall of the Uyghur leadership, hundreds of thousands of people were driven into exile, primarily toward Turkey. Between 60,000 and 100,000 Uyghurs and Kazakhs fled the country. Then, through the paramilitary system of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (the XPCC, also known as Bingtuan), a paramilitary organization that manages farms, factories and mines, the State orchestrated a mass migration of Han, the ethnic majority in China. The government offered economic incentives, housing and careers to Han settlers to dilute the local identity. This relegated Turkic-speaking Muslims to an economic underclass, excluded from the most prestigious jobs and subjected to forced labor and wage discrimination. Many career sectors continue to advertise “Han only” hiring.

In February 1997, tensions culminated into a series of initially peaceful protests led by Turkic-speaking Muslim communities in the municipality of Ghulja. These demonstrations, however, were stifled by a violent counter-offensive launched by the Public Security Bureau and People’s Armed Police units. The outcome was dramatic: arbitrary arrests, extrajudicial killings, unfair trials and death sentences.

However, the Ürümqi riots in July 2009 marked the definitive breaking point. What began as a peaceful protest by Uyghur students demanding an investigation into the killing of two Uyghur factory workers turned into extreme violence between the Han and the Uyghurs. According to CCP reports, nearly 200 people died, most of them Han. The Uyghur death and disappearance toll still remains unclear. The ensuing crackdown marked the final divorce between the Party and the minority. Beijing authorities claimed that the World Uyghur Congress and its leader Rebiya Kadeer were the hidden directors of the unrest and accused them of planning the riots from exile.  

From that moment on, Beijing chose neutralization. Under the pretext of the “Global War on Terror,” China labeled every expression of Uyghur culture and resistance as a manifestation of separatism, terrorism and extremism. The separatist group East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) is of particular concern to China. In 2002, the US designated ETIM as an international terrorist organization. However, there is a lack of consensus and information on ETIM. Nonetheless, the CCP has turned to an extreme surveillance strategy across Xinjiang on the pretense of the Global War on Terror. 

Nightmarish, radical punishments are used to control the Uyghurs

The CCP’s radical sinicization strategy is one of biological and social manipulation. Between 2015 and 2018, forced sterilizations and the mandatory insertions of intrauterine devices caused the Uyghur birth rate to decline by more than 60%. Approximately 16,000 mosques have been demolished and 630 villages renamed between 2009 and 2023 to erase any historical traces of the Uyghurs. Many children have been separated from their families and taken to state boarding schools that have banned the Uyghur language.

Everyday actions — such as sending messages containing Quranic verses, observing Ramadan, abstaining from alcohol, wearing a beard or donning a veil — are classified as “signs of extremism,” punishable by detention and forced indoctrination. The CCP has invested millions of dollars to build 1,200 “Vocational Education and Training Centers” (VETCs) where, since 2017, more than one million Muslims — including Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Uzbeks and Kyrgyz — have disappeared. 

Analysis of leaked Chinese government documents such as the China Cables and the Xinjiang Papers has shown that VETCs are maximum-security prisons with iron discipline and punishments. The Xinjiang Papers revealed that between 2017 and 2018, more than 12% of the adult population in a single county was detained in a camp or prison. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) used satellite data to reveal the existence of over 385 detention facilities. However, obtaining precise statistics is nearly impossible.

Survivor testimonies are harrowing. Detainees are subjected to forced political indoctrination and torture practices such as sleep deprivation and confinement. There are also reports of unidentified pills or injections given to detainees that caused negative reproductive or psychological effects. Armed guards are ordered to follow a shoot-to-kill policy for anyone attempting to escape. Albeit with different technologies, the logic remains the same as Nazi Germany: the dehumanization, segregation and neutralization of a minority to ensure the purity and stability of the dominant social body.

Pervasive surveillance allows this system to thrive

The heart of the Xinjiang system is “grid-style social management.” This massive control apparatus rests on a sophisticated digital surveillance system and predictive policing. Through a massive database called the Integrated Joint Operations Platform (IJOP), the state used AI to cross-reference personal information data such as private messages and spending habits in order to create lists of “suspicious” people. Cities are fragmented into zones, each monitored by a pervasive network of facial recognition technology and police stations. Big data, smart cameras and biometric databases track every breath of daily life.

The Xinjiang Papers also revealed that soldier-turned-politician Chen Quanguo was the orchestrator of this intense security system. He forged his method during his time as Party Secretary of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) from 2011 to 2016, transforming the region into a laboratory for extreme surveillance. His tactic was labeled the “securitization strategy.” 

His success in the TAR earned the full confidence of Beijing leadership. He became the Party Secretary of the XUAR in 2016, and his ruthless model was rapidly exported to Xinjiang in order to neutralize all dissent in the region. Even though Chen retired in 2021, his system has left a deep cut in Xinjiang. The subsequent security buildup in Xinjiang surpassed that of Tibet. In Xinjiang, there are approximately 323 police stations per 100,000 inhabitants compared to the 216 stations per 100,000 inhabitants in the TAR. 

This strategy integrated social control with massive state-led job creation. Chen promoted mass police recruitment campaigns. He applied a colonial tactic: enrolling local populations to police their own people. Thousands of Uyghurs and Tibetans have been absorbed into a continuously expanding public security sector. While the private economy stifles under the weight of controls, a state salary becomes the only means of survival. Economic dependency transforms potential rebels into cogs of the system, guaranteeing Beijing a forced loyalty and a stability bought at a high price — a price that many have denounced and called a genocide. 

Global eyes have turned to the CCP’s abuses

In 2021, the Uyghur Tribunal in London issued a verdict on the situation that profoundly shook the international landscape. Although an independent and non-judicial body in the strict sense, the Tribunal’s analysis concluded “beyond reasonable doubt” that the People’s Republic of China is committing genocide against the Uyghur minority. This verdict denounced the CCP’s systematic intent to destroy, in whole or in part, an ethnic and religious group. Even when faced with this evidence, however, the global community today appears dramatically split between the defense of universal values and economic pragmatism.

On one side, a bloc led by the US, Canada, the UK and the Netherlands has formally adopted the term “genocide” to describe Beijing’s policies. On his last day in office during the first Trump administration, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reaffirmed that Chinese actions constitute “crimes against humanity.” At the time, President Joe Biden’s choice for Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, agreed. This stance is supported by rigorous reports from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, both of which have documented the described violence. 

On the economic front, the Western response has struck at the heart of commercial interests. Xinjiang produces more than 20% of the world’s cotton. Investigations have provided significant evidence that more than half a million Uyghurs and other ethnic minority people are forced to pick cotton. New fNew factories have been built within re-education camps. When major Western retailers like H&M, Nike or Burberry expressed concern over the forced labor, China erased many of these brands from the Chinese web. Stores vanished from digital maps and disappeared from e-commerce platforms. Chinese celebrities boycotted the brands and taxis even refused to take consumers to physical stores. It is market blackmail: either accept our cotton (and the blood it carries) or lose millions of consumers.

 Legislation such as the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) in the US now impose an almost total block on goods coming from Xinjiang, assuming that any product extracted or manufactured in that region is the result of forced labor. The EU has also introduced similar restrictions that draw a clear boundary line in global trade, making access to the single market conditional on respect for fundamental human rights.

However, this Western unity clashes with the silence of many Muslim-majority countries. Nations such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, despite their cultural and religious ties with the Uyghurs, remain constrained by heavy debt and close infrastructural agreements with China and have adopted a position of strategic neutrality. For these governments, the issue is officially downgraded to a Chinese “internal affair.” Economic dependence on the New Silk Road can, in many cases, silence confessional solidarity and the moral mandates of international diplomacy.  By claiming that the Uyghurs are waging a dangerous battle for independence, it asserts that counter-terrorism measures are a prerequisite for peace and prosperity in the region. The Uyghur minority has become isolated from their Muslim brothers for economic necessity and persecuted at home for ideological ambition. 

The CCP’s authoritarian model is changing the international stage

One example of how Beijing is isolating the Uyghurs is China’s relationship with Afghanistan. Following the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan and the subsequent fall of Kabul in 2021, China has taken a proactive turn in its Afghanistan policy. Beijing is moving to fill the strategic vacuum left by Washington. For China, Afghanistan is a fundamental piece in stabilizing the Xinjiang border and for securing BRI trade corridors. China had already woven a dense diplomatic network with the Taliban. This is evidenced by over 140 diplomatic meetings between Afghanistan and China and the welcoming of Chinese Ambassador Zhao Sheng in Kabul. 

The pact is clear: oil, humanitarian and technological investments in exchange for security and silence. China has eliminated tariffs on Afghan goods, signed a $540 million oil contract (which has since been broken) and pledged $13 million in humanitarian aid. This support is the price for a guarantee of vital importance: the Taliban have ensured that Afghan territory will never serve as a base for Uyghur militants of the ETIM. It is a game Beijing knows well, having already woven similar threads with Mullah Omar, ex-supreme leader of the Taliban, in 2000. 

Today, that historical precedent evolves into a digital alliance where Chinese cameras serve to seal a border that permits no terrorist infiltration and ignores human rights. Chinese tech giant Huawei and the Taliban have allegedly held discussions about wiring Afghanistan with advanced surveillance systems. While the Taliban has claimed that the network would be used to counteract the Islamic State, there are concerns that China could use the surveillance to track Uyghurs in Afghanistan. Already the Taliban has relocated Uyghur fighters away from the border Afghanistan shares with China. It has also increased surveillance around the Uyghurs who live in Afghanistan.

The Taliban, while presenting themselves as defenders of the faith, have cynically sacrificed the Uyghur cause in exchange for economic oxygen and international legitimacy. This collaboration allows both regimes to proceed with internal repression without interference. Beijing offers Kabul a crucial lifeline to mitigate UN sanctions while the Taliban grant China privileged access to Afghanistan’s vast and unexplored mineral resources.

However, the agreement with the Taliban regime appears to be a risky bet. The threat from the terrorist group Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) remains an unpredictable variable that Beijing cannot control. This is evidenced by the 2021 suicide attack that killed nine Chinese workers involved in China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects in Pakistan. Despite the dense surveillance network and Kabul’s reassurances, the region’s chronic instability risks turning these billion-dollar investments into a strategic boomerang..

The use of security rhetoric to justify the destruction of an identity creates a disturbing bridge between Beijing’s strategies and other dark pages of history and recent events. Xinjiang was made to be a model of digital authoritarianism, and now that model is being exported. China is challenging the foundations of international coexistence. The immense scale of the repressive operation in Xinjiang rules out the possibility that this is an isolated case of abuse. Absolute stability has been prioritized over fundamental rights, and such a strategy will not stop at Chinese borders. 

[Cheyenne Torres edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.