China Going All Out to Demographically Undermine Its Muslim Uighur Population
By
Tilak Devasher
Aug 24,
2020
Aspate of
reports published recently highlight the plight of the nearly 11 million
Uighurs living in Xinjiang. The Uighurs are a Turkic ethnic group whose members
are predominantly Muslim. The reports indicate that China is trying to wipe out
their identity and forcibly assimilate them by attacking their culture,
traditions, beliefs and reducing their population growth. Collectively these
measures are suggestive of grave human rights violations.
In spotlight: International criticism is slowly gathering steam.
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The brutal
crackdown dates back to at least 2009 when there were violent clashes between
Uighurs and Han Chinese in which about 200 people, mostly Han, were killed. The
crackdown was intensified following the visit of President Xi Jinping to the
region in 2014. Since 2017, the authorities have set up detention camps called
‘vocational education and training centres. The International Consortium of
Investigative Journalists has accessed classified Chinese government directives
that provide operational plans for the detention centres and orders for
carrying out mass detentions guided by sweeping data collection and artificial intelligence.
The camps, reminiscent of the Nazi-era concentration camps, are believed to
have contained between one to two million Uighurs since 2017. Leaked videos
showed prisoners being led from a train, while under heavy guard, shaved,
blindfolded and shackled. Reports indicate rampant torture, forced labour and
ideological ‘training’.
Another
report from the Canberra-based Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
indicates that about 80,000 detainees have been transferred to 27 factories
across China since 2017. Such factories were involved in producing goods for 83
global brands. Advertisements for ‘government-sponsored Uighur labour’ have
begun to appear online. One ad read: ‘The advantages of Xinjiang workers are:
semi-military style management, can withstand hardship, no loss of personnel…
minimum order 100 workers!’
Uighurs,
who are subjected to ubiquitous surveillance, have been detained not for crimes
but for things like contacting people abroad, attending mosques, having more
than three children, sending texts containing Quranic verses, wearing
headscarves or long beards, declining to eat pork, or having travelled abroad.
Many have also been picked up for using a popular app known as Zapya.
In a bid to
eradicate Uighur identity, China has directly tackled Islamic beliefs. One
measure has been to destroy mosques and cemeteries that had existed for
hundreds of years. According to CNN, over 100 cemeteries have been destroyed in
the past two years. One such is the Sultanim cemetery in Hotan that had existed
in one form or another for over 1,000 years. According to satellite images, it
was flattened by 2019 and part of it is now a parking lot. One demolished
mosque has made way for a public toilet. Other measures include prohibiting
residents from wearing the burqa in public, asking mosques to raise the
national flag to ‘promote a spirit of patriotism’ and a ban on fasting during
Ramzan.
Efforts are
also being made to demographically undermine the Uighurs. According to a report
of Adrian Zenz for the Jamestown Foundation, China is using pregnancy checks,
forced intrauterine devices, sterilisation and abortions to reduce the
population of Uighurs and other Muslims in Xinjiang. The authorities planned in
2019 to subject at least 80% of women of childbearing age in four rural
southern prefectures to intrusive birth prevention surgeries. In 2018, 80% of
all new IUD placements in China were performed in Xinjiang — despite the fact
that the region made up only 1.8% of the nation’s population.
This
campaign has been successful. Birth rates in the mostly Uighur regions of Hotan
and Kashgar went down more than 60% from 2015 to 2018. Birth rates have
nose-dived, falling nearly 24% last year alone, compared with just 4.2%
nationwide.
There are
also reports about medical testing and forced organ harvesting. Such measures
fall within the purview of the 1948 Genocide Convention that defines genocide
as ‘imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group’.
International criticism is slowly gathering steam. In 2019, Turkey had
condemned China’s treatment of the Uighurs, but under pressure, President
Erdogan soon backed down.
The West
has been more forthcoming. The US has imposed sanctions against party officials
implicated in rights abuses. An initiative has been launched to boycott the
Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics unless ‘significant improvements’ were made in the
treatment of the Uighurs by January 2021.
Pakistan,
which otherwise projects itself as the champion of Muslim rights, has been
silent on this issue. When asked, Imran Khan took the shocking plea that he did
not know much about it, adding that China had been a great benefactor.
Pakistan’s silence has not only demolished its credibility to talk about the
Kashmir issue but also it is likely to face a backlash from its own religious
groups unhappy with what China is doing. Reports indicate anger and severe
criticism of China over its persecution of the Uighurs in the journals of such
religious groups, something that Pakistan would find difficult to ignore for
long.
China’s
position is that the camps are voluntary vocational training centres that have
been designed to eradicate religious extremism and violence. As proof they cite
that Xinjiang has not experienced a terrorist attack since December 2016. What
China has not been able to explain convincingly is the growing international
outrage at the atrocities. No amount of rhetoric about terrorism can justify
the forcible sterilisations and abortions, massive detention and forced labour
camps, and attempts to erase the Uighur identity.
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Tilak
Devasher is a Member, National Security Advisory Board. Views are personal
Original
Headline: Systematic erasure of identity
Source: The Tribune India
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-politics/china-going-all-demographically-undermine/d/122710