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658 articles matching the search query.
LGBTQ Uyghurs live trapped between layers of trauma
“I like living at home with my parents. To take care of them in their old age would be a great honor, and I could live out my days alone, working in my hometown until my death. If I could choose, that’s the destiny I would pick.”
Between Islamophobia and homophobia: Life as an LGBTQ Uyghur in China
Queer Uyghurs are caught between visibility and invisibility, censorship and self-censorship, being “out” and hiding in the closet. It is not safe for them to share their stories. But when they do, they tell of the human desire to belong and to love.
Are Uyghurs different from Ukrainians? — Q&A with Rayhan Asat
Rayhan Asat and her brother worked for better Uyghur-Han relations in China. Then he was forcibly disappeared. So Rayhan was outraged by the recent visit of the UN’s human rights chief to Xinjiang that became a photo op for Beijing. She also had some pointed criticism for SupChina.
International pressure builds over Xinjiang after UN visit
Dissatisfied with UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet’s recent visit to China, some Western countries have called for the International Labor Organization to carry out a mission to investigate Xinjiang.
An anonymous letter from a Uyghur in China
A citizen in eastern China describes how Uyghur “mouths have been sealed” over the past five years.
Uyghur voices in Istanbul
A Uyghur couple turns to music — inspired by the songs and poems of their culture — in response to the crisis in their homeland.
Editor’s Note for Tuesday, May 24, 2022
A note for Access newsletter readers from Jeremy Goldkorn.
Editor’s Note for Monday, May 23, 2022
A note for Access newsletter readers from Jeremy Goldkorn.
Great Wall of Steel: China’s Global Campaign to Suppress the Uyghurs
More than 1,500 Uyghurs have been detained or extradited, mostly in the Middle East and North Africa, according to a new report from the Woodrow Wilson Center. Globally, more than 5,500 Uyghurs outside of China have been targeted by Beijing from cyberattacks to threats made against family members who remain in the nation. Meanwhile, pressure over Beijing’s treatment of Uyghurs and other minorities is growing:
Britain proposed new changes that would ban its health service from buying medical supplies made in Xinjiang following pressure from rights groups. The United Nations team in China is preparing for a scheduled visit from human rights chief Michelle Bachelet next month. “As a company, we are apolitical,” said Joseph Phi, the chief executive of Hong Kong supply chain management company Li & Fung, which has faced pressure over whether some products have been made using forced labor.
China ratifies two international treaties on forced labor
The two conventions were passed by Beijing on April 20, in a move apparently intended to ease tensions over forced labor accusations in Xinjiang.
‘Always on and watching’: A former Xinjiang prisoner describes life inside China’s detention camps
A former detainee recalls a Xinjiang detention camp: Read a rare, firsthand account with Ovalbek Turdakun — a Christian, a Chinese passport holder, and an ethnic Kyrgyz — who was imprisoned in one of China’s detention camps.
Turdakun told his story after U.S. immigration authorities granted him and his family advanced parole, a temporary immigration status that lets them enter the United States. This article was published by TechCrunch, a website that usually covers Silicon Valley, and it says that Turdakun’s knowledge will “provide vital evidence regarding the use of technology provided by Chinese companies such as Hikvision to facilitate gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.”
China Lawmakers to Discuss Approval of Forced-Labor Conventions
Beijing will discuss two international forced-labor treaties at the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress next week, an issue that has previously stalled investment deals with the EU, and after rights activists last week urged the U.S.’s Biden administration to crack down on imported goods in Xinjiang.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhào Lìjiān 赵立坚 also called forced labor accusations “the biggest lie of the century,” in response to a U.S. research report that linked major automakers such as BMW and General Motors to controversial labor programs in the region.
Top political advisor stresses concerted efforts to create bright future for Xinjiang
No changes coming in Xinjiang: Senior leader and Politburo Standing Committee member Wāng Yáng 汪洋 visited Xinjiang from March 18 to 22 and “stressed the importance of maintaining a clear mind when it comes to the overall targets set for Xinjiang” (or see the front-page People’s Daily report, in Chinese).
Translation: Do not expect any adjustment to Beijing’s repressive policies that target Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities. See also, via the China-Africa Project, the news that Wáng Yì 王毅 “made history on Tuesday by becoming the first Chinese foreign minister invited to the annual meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the largest international organization of Muslim countries.”
Cornell University Chinese Students Walk Out after Uyghur Student Asks About Genocide
Chinese students walked out of a talk at Cornell University, after Democratic representative Elissa Slotkin of Michigan responded to a student’s question about Uyghurs at an on-campus event on March 10. Slotkin later wrote on Twitter that she pointed out “what is well known about Chinese policy toward the Uyghur community: that the government has carried out imprisonment, forced labor, and forced indoctrination.”
UN rights chief to visit Xinjiang as groups press for report
UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet plans to visit China in May, with a stop in Xinjiang, after she told the Human Rights Council that the Chinese government had granted approval. The breakthrough visit comes after a series of delays to enter the nation and mounting pressure from rights groups to publish a report into alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang.
China “welcomes” the visit, though freedom of expression is protected in China but “can never be a pretext to make anyone above the law,” said Chén Xù 陈旭, China’s ambassador to the UN, after Bachelet raised concern about the treatment of critics in the nation.
In Xinjiang, a new normal under a new chief — and also more of the same
Ma Xingrui, the new party secretary of Xinjiang, is tasked with repairing the damage left by his predecessor, Chen Quanguo, who initiated the largest internment of a religious minority since World War II. But he will also need to execute Beijing’s new policy of thwarting what it calls the “two plots.”
Financing & genocide: Development finance and the crisis in the Uyghur Region
The World Bank is “funding a campaign of repression” against the Uyghurs, Washington-based think tank Atlantic Council details in a new report. According to the findings:
The International Finance Corporation (IFC) currently has approximately $486 million in direct loans and equity investment in four companies operating in the Uyghur region: Chenguang Biotech, Camel, Century Sunshine, and Jointown Pharmaceutical. These companies are “active participants” in the P.R.C.’s campaign of repression against the Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang through “forced labor, forced displacement, cultural erasure, and environmental destruction.” The IFC continued to issue new financing to projects in 2020, without any direct oversight, after a monitoring trip to the region in 2019.
The Silencing: a special report on China, the Uyghurs and a culture under attack
From Xinjiang’s network of detention centers to the suppression of tradition, writers report for the New Statesman on China’s campaign against the Uyghurs, “and what will be lost if it succeeds.”
UN Labor Head Candidate Sees Space to Talk to China About Forced Labor
There is “space” to work with China, International Labor Organization (ILO) director general candidate Kang Kyung-wha said, after the organization released a report that voiced “deep concern” over China’s “discriminatory” policies in Xinjiang, per Bloomberg.
Uyghur kids recall physical and mental torment at Chinese boarding schools in Xinjiang
Two Uyghur kids returned “malnourished and traumatized” after coming home to Turkey from boarding schools in Xinjiang. As China rounds up the Muslim ethnic minority group in “re-education” centers, Uyghur children have often been separated from their parents. NPR interviewed two of them in the first report of its kind.
Editor’s Note for Thursday, February 10, 2022
A note for Access newsletter readers from Jeremy Goldkorn. Today: Xinjiang, Afghanistan, Evergande’s CEO, and more.
China ‘deeply concerned’ about Uyghur militants in Afghanistan, ambassador says
Zhang Jun, China’s envoy to the UN, raised concerns over a Security Council report on Afghanistan-based terrorism. The Uyghur militant group that Beijing is particularly concerned about, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), is not considered to be an organized threat by the U.S.
Olympic Torchbearer Evokes Memories of 2008 for Fellow Uyghur
An ethnic Uyghur carried the Olympic torch last Friday, sparking another round of controversy over Beijing’s choice of torchbearers and human rights abuses. Dilnigar Ilhamjan (Dinigeer Yilamujiang), a cross-country skier born in Xinjiang, was a similar pick to fellow Uyghur athlete Kamaltürk Yalqun, who carried the torch at the Beijing Summer Games in 2008, the Wall Street Journal reports. China’s ambassador to the UN has since said that China “sternly refutes” earlier comments made by his U.S. counterpart that the choice was an attempt to distract from China’s alleged rights abuses against ethnic minorities, per Reuters.
India accuses China of politicizing Olympics with military commander torchbearer
On the eve of the Beijing Winter Olympics, India became the latest country to announce a diplomatic boycott of the ceremonies, citing the “regrettable” decision to pick a Chinese military commander from the recent India-China border clash as an Olympic torchbearer.
China open to U.N. rights chief visiting Xinjiang, as long as she doesn’t do any investigating there
The UN rights chief can visit Xinjiang, “as long as she doesn’t do any investigating there,” the Washington Post reports. Beijing used the word “exchange” rather than “investigation” to describe the potential upcoming visit by Commissioner Michelle Bachelet, which might “go forward but only after the [Winter Olympic] Games have concluded, thereby delaying the release of a long-awaited UN report on alleged abuses in the region.” See also reports from the South China Morning Post and Reuters.
Editor’s note for Friday, January 28, 2022
A note for Access newsletter readers from Jeremy Goldkorn. Today: China’s ambassador to the U.S., Qin Gang, warned Washington over Taiwan and defended Beijing’s policies in Xinjiang; Chinese regulators are seeking to allay international bankers’ fears, and separately, cracking down on deepfakes; companies are not going to boycott the Olympics.
French parliament passes motion condemning China 'genocide' against Uyghurs
France is now the eighth country to declare China is committing “genocide” against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. “France’s parliament passed an opposition-led motion asking the government to condemn China for ‘crimes against humanity and genocide’ against its Uyghur Muslim minority and to take foreign policy measures to make this stop,” Reuters reports. The other countries to have made official statements or pass parliamentary measures calling China’s actions genocide are the U.S., Canada, the Netherlands, the U.K., Lithuania, the Czech Republic, and Belgium.
Editor’s note for Tuesday, January 18, 2022
A note for Access newsletter readers from Jeremy Goldkorn. Today: Billionaire Silicon Valley tech investor Chamath Palihapitiya incited controversy by claiming that “nobody cares about what’s happening to the Uyghurs.” He later gave a non-apology apology, but was he really wrong that the outside world is not really bothered by the persecution of the Uyghurs?
Human Rights Watch, the New York–based NGO, released its 32nd annual report on human rights conditions worldwide. Here is what it had to say on a few key China topics:
On the internet: “The once-cacophonous internet is now dominated by pro-government voices that report to the authorities on people whose views they deem insufficiently nationalistic.” On Hong Kong: “Authorities devastated human rights protections and civil liberties in Hong Kong, recasting much of the peaceful behavior that had undergirded Hong Kong life, such as publishing news, as acts of subversion.” On Xinjiang: “The Chinese authorities are committing crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang.”
China Names Former Xinjiang Commander to Lead Troops in Hong Kong
Péng Jīngtáng 彭京堂, the new Hong Kong garrison commander, was “previously chief of staff for the armed police in the far western region of Xinjiang,” where he was tasked with counterterrorism, the Wall Street Journal reports. Bloomberg notes that Peng’s appointment, which was personally signed by Xí Jìnpíng 习近平, continues a trend of the Hong Kong and Beijing governments promoting “career policemen” to key posts in the city.
Editor’s note for Friday, January 7, 2022
A note for Access newsletter readers from Jeremy Goldkorn. Today: Signals of economic doom and gloom from property developers Shimao and Kaisa; Walmart get rapped for alleged cybersecurity violations, days after being scolded for allegedly removing goods from Xinjiang from its Sam’s Club shelves; all 170 guests of a birthday party in Hong Kong, including 13 senior officials, were ordered into quarantine due to COVID-19.
The Kazakhstan protests and Sino-Russian relations
What do the protests in Kazakhstan mean for China and its relationship to Russia, which has sent troops to the central Asian nation to crush the unrest?
U.S. signals displeasure as Tesla opens Xinjiang showroom
U.S. backlash to Tesla’s Xinjiang expansion: “I can’t speak to the specific situation of one company, but as a general matter, we believe the private sector should oppose the P.R.C.’s human rights abuses and genocide in Xinjiang,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said yesterday in response to reports that Tesla had opened a showroom in Urumqi, Xinjiang. The New York Times and Associated Press also have reports on criticism from activists and human rights groups.
It’s China vs. Walmart, Latest Western Brand Entangled in Human Rights Dispute
American companies navigate Xinjiang sensitivities: Walmart was warned to “respect the feelings of the Chinese people” by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection after the company’s Sam’s Club chain stopped selling items from Xinjiang. The incident comes barely a week after Chinese officials “chastised Intel for asking suppliers not to source goods from the region,” and could presage further controversy for international companies during the Beijing Olympics next month, the Wall Street Journal reports.
What can we expect from Xinjiang’s new Party boss Ma Xingrui?
As global pressure on Beijing mounts because of its repressive policies in Xinjiang, the Communist Party has brought in a new man to lead the region.
Rocket scientist put in charge of Xinjiang
Under Chen Quanguo’s leadership, Xinjiang became globally notorious for the mass internment and surveillance of Uyghurs. Now Chen is being replaced by an aerospace engineer who has been running prosperous Guangdong Province.
Intel apologizes as Biden signs Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act into law
A new law will ban U.S. companies from buying anything at all from Xinjiang unless they can prove it was not made with forced labor. Intel is already dealing with the fallout.
UK independent body: China committed genocide in Xinjiang | AP News
A U.K. independent panel has concluded that China “committed genocide” in Xinjiang: The Uyghur Tribunal, led by lawyer Geoffrey Nice, heard about 30 witnesses and experts give evidence in public hearings in London earlier this year. The judgment “largely rested on the suppression of births” among Uyghurs, Nice said, per the Guardian. The Chinese Foreign Ministry gave a statement (in English, Chinese) in response to the ruling, alleging that the tribunal “hired liars to make false statements and falsify evidence” and its judgment is “nothing but a political farce staged by a handful of contemptible individuals.”
House Passes Bill to Punish China Over Oppression of Uyghurs
The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation yesterday to punish China for its treatment of Uyghurs, demonstrating broad bipartisan support for a harder line against China. The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which would ban the import of goods produced by ethnic Muslims in internment camps, was passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority of 428 to 1. Shares of Chinese solar equipment manufacturers operating in Xinjiang, including JA Solar Technology, fell on the news.
US government agencies bought Chinese surveillance tech despite federal ban
At least three U.S. government agencies accidentally bought banned Chinese surveillance equipment two years after the relevant companies were put on a blacklist due to security concerns and ties to Xinjiang.
