“The weapons of the people’s democratic dictatorship must be wielded without any hesitation or wavering.”
“The weapons of the people’s democratic dictatorship must be wielded without any hesitation or wavering.”
In one of the most significant and groundbreaking leaks from the ruling Chinese Community Party, 403 pages of internal governmental documents have been leaked to The New York Times, showcasing the horrendous situation inside China’s northwestern province of Xinjiang, where more than one million ethnic Muslims are being held in concentration camps.
Of these 403 pages, 96 pages were of internal speeches by the Chinese President Xi Jinping, 102 pages were internal speeches by other governmental officials, 161 pages were reports and directions on the surveillance and control of the Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, and 44 pages were internal investigations into officials in charge of controlling the Uyghur population.
The current situation in Xinjiang is being called a genocide by many human rights groups, with the concentration camps holding these ethnic Muslims being called the largest mass incarceration of peoples since the Holocaust itself. Systematic rape, torture, sterilization, and extrajudicial killings are all part of China’s horrendous ethnic cleansing of the native Muslim population of this region.
These leaked documents have only added to the evidence of China’s genocide, despite China’s continued defiance and denial of these concentration camps. Calling them “re-education centers”, China claims that this is all part of a wider campaign to stem extremists and stop foreign-influenced terrorists.
Within the document’s collection of President Xi’s internal speeches, he calls for a complete “struggle against terrorism, infiltration, and separatism, [showing] absolutely no mercy”. The leaked papers also hold the internal speeches by government official Chen Quanguo, the party boss for the region of Xinjiang, who ordered local officials to:
[Prepare for a] smashing, obliterating offensive…round up everyone who should be rounded up. Wipe them out completely, and destroy them root and branch.”
Worrying still is the apparent campaign by Chinese officials to round up the brightest of young Uyghur students to send to universities across mainland China, in the hopes of instilling fear as well as forced reversions away from Islam and towards the Communist Party. The documents instruct Chinese officials on how to convince and talk to these students, with a script that the officials could follow in anticipation for the conversation to be had with these Uyghur students. In addition to describing the student’s families as having been “infected” by the “virus” of Islamic extremism, the documents script out phrases of deeply worrying sentiment:
No matter what age, anyone who has been infected by religious extremism must undergo study….Treasure this chance for free education that the party and government has provided to thoroughly eradicate erroneous thinking, and also learn Chinese and job skills. This offers a great foundation for a happy life for your family.”
The same pages that had the scripted sentences for officials to say to these Uyghur students also described in detail how to explain to the students that bad behaviour could see their relatives being sent to concentration camps. Operating like a scoreboard, Chinese officials are apparently keeping a literal score on Uyghur students to keep them in check – anything done against the state can have devastating impacts on the student or their innocent family.
In another page of the leaked documents, President Xi told party officials during a speech:
The weapons of the people’s democratic dictatorship must be wielded without any hesitation or wavering.”
The tactics used by Chinese officials in Xinjiang were also described in detail – highlighting that Uyghurs who were seen with long beards, not drinking or smoking, praying in public, frequently attending the mosque, or learning Arabic could be detained immediately. These were described as “symptoms” of religious extremism, and was a sign of absolute anti-government sentiment.
While the exact number of ethnic Muslims detained in the concentration camps across Xinjiang were not recorded in the 403 leaked pages, there was a page on how to control the intensifying spread of infectious diseases in crowded “facilities” – which points towards the worrying number of Uyghur and other ethnic minority Muslims being held in these internment camps.
Interestingly, 44 pages from the leaked documents were on the internal investigations into Chinese party officials – one of whom was Mr. Wang, who had quickly rose to power and leadership in control of the southern region of Xinjiang, which holds the highest number of Uyghur Muslims. Although Mr. Wang organized and heavily supported mass incarceration across the region, he also had attempted to quietly release more than 7,000 Uyghur prisoners from one of the camps – in what appeared to be a growing movement on his part to ease ethnic tensions.
Because of this move however, Mr. Wang was immediately stripped of all power and prosecuted as a criminal, made to repent for disobeying the Chinese government. The internal investigation reported that Mr. Wang was being investigated for “gravely disobeying the party central leadership’s strategy for governing Xinjiang…He should have given his all to serving the party. Instead, he ignored the party central leadership’s strategy for Xinjiang, and he went as far as brazen defiance”. His whereabouts as of today were not mentioned in the reports.
In total, the leaked documents showcase the growing evidence of the ethnic cleansing and genocide being conducted by the Chinese state against ethnic minority Muslims in Xinjiang. While it was unclear how the documents were gathered, a member of the Chinese political establishment had anonymously sent them to The New York Times, in a desperate attempt to expose the crimes against humanity being conducted by President Xi and the Chinese government.
In what can be described as one of the world’s most horrendous human rights abuses, this genocide is happening as we speak – with much of the world’s leaders and governments eerily silent as they continue to bask in China’s economic and political partnership.
