In the last few years, especially during the past year, we are constantly being bombarded with horror stories about Xinjiang, the western most province of China. We hear news articles like:
- The Chinese government is carrying out a genocide program against the Uyghur minority
- The Chinese government is wiping out the Muslim mosques
- Millions of Uyghur men and women are put in internment camps
- Hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs are forced laborers
In other words, the minority people in Xinjiang, the Uyghurs, are living under a genocide program, and are living miserably and without hope. This seems to be the image that we get from reading the news reports about Xinjiang from mainstream Western mass media and from the speeches of Western government leaders.
In this article, we examine these accusations and found that the accusations are mostly false, over generalized, fabricated fake news, and often outright lies. As a matter of fact, the conclusions in these reports are sometimes even contradicted by the data presented. Furthermore, these reports completely ignore or purposely ignore what and how China is transforming the country.
Genocide?
Since a lot of the data used in many of these accusations originated from reports by Adrian Zenz of the Jamestown Foundation in Washington, D.C. and reports from the Australia Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), we will reference their reports. Let’s first discuss the most serious accusation as stated in the conclusion of Ref. 1: the Chinese government is carrying a genocide program to eradicate the Uyghur minority from the Xinjiang Province. First, what is the definition of genocide? The UN defines genocide to mean committing acts with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Is there any evidence to support such a serious accusation? The answer is a definite no. Ref. 1 talks about a lot of data, but no data was presented that substantiates this conclusion at all.
As a matter of fact, the population data in Xinjiang presented in Ref. 1 contradicts this conclusion. For example, Fig. 3 in Ref. 1 shows that from 2005 to 2015, the Uyghur population in Xinjiang grew about 20%, while the Han population in Xinjiang grew by only about 8%. And Fig. 1 in Ref. 1 shows that from 2010 to 2018, the Uyghur population in Xinjiang grew from about 10.1 millions to about 11.5 millions, or grew by about 14%, while in the same period, the Han population in Xinjiang shrank from about 8.2 millions to about 7.5 millions, or shrank by about 8%! Furthermore, Fig. 1 also shows that consistently starting from 1985 to 2018, the percentage increase of the Uyghur population in Xinjiang has always been significantly higher than the percentage increase of the Han population in Xinjiang.
In other words, Adrian Zenz’s conclusion of a genocide program being carried out by the Chinese government in Xinjiang is completely fabricated and is so easy to disprove, even by the data he presented. The fact that such accusation has consistently been repeatedly spread, including by our former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as well as the current Biden administration, leads one to conclude that the only possible explanation is because the U.S. government wants to spread such false accusation, and as a matter of fact, the U.S. government is behind the spreading and perhaps the creation of such fake news.
Wiping Out the Muslim Mosques?
One of the accusations is that a large number (thousands) of Muslim mosques has been destroyed or removed in Xinjiang. [2] Ref. 2 is a September 2020 article in the New York Times that is based on a report from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) from satellite images of a randomized sample of 533 known mosque sites in Xinjiang. It is possible that for various reasons that some mosques in Xinjiang are no longer operational. However, it is definitely not true that thousands, or about one-third, of the mosques have been destroyed or removed. This is easily refuted by anyone who has visited Xinjiang, as has been pointed by various observers (Australian, British, Canadian, and American citizens who have lived in China) [3] that there are mosques almost everywhere you go in Xinjiang, and the Uyghur people attend mosque regularly. This is also consistent with our own observation when we went on a two-week visit to Xinjiang in the summer of 2010. It is also important to note that the number of mosques in Xinjiang is over 20,000, which is 10 times more than the number of mosques in the U.S.
Some Historical Facts on the Xinjiang Region:
We want to discuss some historical facts on the Xinjiang region, because they help to understand what is happening in Xinjiang today. It has been long recognized that the resource-rich territory of Central Asia [from the western part of China, to India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, southern part of USSR (now Kazakhstan, Krygyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan), Iran, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Eastern Europe] is an important part of the world. From the 19th century to early 20th century Central Asia has been a strategic competitive target, e.g, between USSR and Britain. Afghanistan is an important part of Central Asia, and was not a strong country with a stable government. In 1978 a civil war began between insurgent forces against the government in power. USSR was trying to support the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) and starting in 1979 became heavily involved militarily in a costly 10-year civil war in Afghanistan.
A major supporter and supplier of military equipment to the insurgent forces, often based in Pakistan, was the U.S. government. The insurgent forces included various mujahideen forces (or holy-war guerrillas) such as the Talibans which are closely related to Al Qaeda, headed by Osama bin Laden, as well as other Muslim supporters from nearby territories, including Uyghurs originally from Xinjiang who have been involved in terrorist activities like those associated with the East Turkistan Islamist Movement (ETIM) that advocates that Xinjiang should be separated from China to form the country of East Turkistan. After the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan in 1989 and after the target of the Taliban forces changed, and especially after the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, then the Talibans became an enemy of the U.S. government.
Some of these mujahideen forces, including the Uyghurs associated with ETIM, later also participated in other terrorist and military conflicts, such as those in Syria against the Syrian-Russian forces. So these Uyghurs have been trained and have combat experience involved in terrorist activities. As a matter of fact, during the last dozen years many of these Uyghur terrorists had engaged in a large number of terrorist activities in Xinjiang as well as other places in China, including:
- The 7/5/2009 large coordinated terrorist attack in multiple places in Urumqi (capital of the Xinjiang province)
- The 10/28/2013 suicide car bombing attack in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square
- The 3/1/2014 deadly stabbing at the Kunming Main Railway Station
- The 4/30/2014 deadly blast at Urumqi’s south railway station
- The 2/14/2017 deadly knife-wielding attack in Pishan County in southern part of Xinjiang
The other historical fact is that Central Asia is right in the middle of the modern silk road, or the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which is a critical part of the proposed economic revival and expansion of this whole region. Although it is a program initiated by China, it is a win-win situation for every country involved. The revival of the old silk road was already proposed and discussed in a conference in 1996 under the subject “Economic Development of the Regions along the New Euro-Asia Continenetal Bridge.” Experts from multiple countries, including Iran, Russia, China, and other Eurasian nations discussed proposals for cooperation on ambitious infrastructure projects of high-speed railways, ports, and agro-industrial corridors. However, from the very beginning, countries like Britain were strongly against and tried to sabotage the proposal. Similarly, today countries like the U.S. and Britain are trying hard to make the BRI from being realized. That is why they are trying so hard to create fake news about Xinjiang and China.
Millions of Uyghur Men and Women Are Put In Internment Camps?
One of the accusations on Xinjiang is that 1.8 million Uyghur and other Muslim minorities have been put in as many as 1,300 to 1,400 internment camps. This came from Adrian Zenz in an interview with Radio Free Asia (RFA). [4]
Recall that one of the facts we discussed about Xinjiang is that there is a number of ETIM terrorists who are involved in various terrorist activities including those advocating for the independence of Xinjiang. As a matter of fact, many of these ETIM terrorists were originally from Xinjiang and some of them may still live or have relatives in Xinjiang. Some of them are probably currently convicted criminals of terrorist activities. So they should be under guards under highly secured prisons.
But the overwhelming majority of Uyghurs are not ETIM terrorists, although some may have disgruntles about the multi-ethnic society and who may even know of people who may be sympathetic to ETIM ideaology. So they may be put in re-education training to help them understand that advocating independence for Xinjiang is not in the best interest of the Uyghur people. These people are in re-education classes, and are not in detention camps in highly guarded facilities.
However, what is most important is that Adrian Zenz ignores or purposely ignores that most of the people in what he calls “detention camps” are actually in various types of schools to train the large number of lowly educated and unskilled workers so they can have more education and skills to become more productive members of the society. This is part of the program that allows China in the last 40 years to reduce about 80% of its impoverished population, a feat that is remarkable and unmatched in history and admired around the world. This, as we discuss next, also helps to refute the accusation of hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs as forced laborers.
Hundreds of Thousands of Uyghurs Are Forced Laborers?
Another accusation by Adrian Zenz is that hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs are forced laborers working in grueling poorly paid jobs, especially as cotton pickers. He misses the crucial point of the critically important and extremely difficult job of trying to raise the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of possibly unskilled and poorly trained rural people. That is what the Chinese government is trying to accomplish, and that is one of the methods that China has used to eliminate about 80% of poverty from the country, a feat as mentioned earlier that is remarkable and unmatched in history and admired around the world. Zenz does not talk about what skills these workers have and what other jobs might be available to them, and how China is helping to educate and train these people.
Furthermore, the article mentions that the salary income of such seasonal cotton pickers are only (meaning that it could be more) 1,670 and 1, 805 RMB per month, and the article also states that China’s rural absolute poverty income line in 2019 stood at 4,000 RMB per person per year. This means that these seasonal cotton pickers working for only 3 months per year would earn more than the poverty income. So the data presented in Zenz’s paper again does not support his own claim. As in other countries, including the U.S., many farm workers are seasonal. During the harvesting season, a large number of workers may be required to do the work, and a lot of such seasonal workers may come from other areas.
Cotton is a major product of Xinjiang. The world’s two largest producers of cotton are India and China (with the U.S. as number 3). Xinjiang cotton accounts for 85% of cotton produced in China and 20% of the world supply. In spite of the fact that Zenz’s accusation is not valid, it has already led to boycotts of products using cotton from Xinjiang, such as from H&M (Swedish), Nike (American), and Adidas (German). The Trump administration on 1/13/2021 also announced a ban on imports of cotton (as well as tomatoes) from Xinjiang. Zenz’s paper on forced labor related to cotton came out only in December 2020, and yet the U.S. government already issued a sanction against Xinjiang cotton on 1/13/2021. [6] This suggests an intimate relationship between Zenz and the U.S. government.
There are other accusations by Zenz, ASPI, and others. But suffice to say, these accusations are also mostly false, over generalized, fabricated fake news, and often outright lies, and will not be discussed in this article.
Summary:
In the last few years, we are heard of many reports about horrendous things happening in Xinjiang, including the Chinese government is carrying out a genocide program on the Uyghur ethnic minority. However, the conclusions of these reports are in general false, not supported by evidence, and the data presented often even contradict their own conclusions. What is even more important is that these reports do not understand or purposely ignore how the Chinese government has eliminated about 80% from the previous poverty-level class and successfully transformed the country from an extremely poor and backward country to a modernized society.
This caused us to look more carefully into the sources of these reports. The major source of these reports is from Adrian Zenz of The Jamestown Foundation of Washington, DC, which has close connection to the CIA and NED. Furthermore, Adrian Zenz has claimed that he is “led by God” against China’s government. The other major source is the Australia Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) which is funded by the Australian Department of Defense, and supported by the British government and the U.S. government. These and other additional reports are then repeated by organizations like the World Uyghur Congress, Uyghur Human Rights Project, Radio Free Asia (RFA), Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD), which are all supported by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Then these reports are repeated in our mass media newspapers and TV channels and by our government leaders.
The fact that such flimsily supported accusations have consistently been repeatedly spread, including by our former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as well as the current Biden administration, leads one to conclude that the only possible explanation is because the U.S. government wants to spread such false accusations, and as a matter of fact, the U.S. government is behind the spreading and perhaps the creation of such fake news.
We understand that China is now the U.S.’s major economic competitor. But we should not create or spread fake news to damage the reputation of our competitors. The world is not blind and sooner or later can see through the smokescreen. Doing so will not increase American competitiveness, but will isolate the U.S. and will lead to confrontations and world conflicts with disaster consequences for everyone involved.
Finally, it is important to remind us that that part of Central Asia has encountered a lot of terrorist activities, that terrorist organizations like the East Turkistan Independence Movement (ETIM) is active in Xinjiang and many terrorist acts have occurred in Xinjiang. That is why the Chinese government must implement actions to counter such terrorist activities. Furthermore, Xinjiang is a society with multiple ethnic groups with different languages, cultures, and religions. It is very easy for conflicts and misunderstandings to develop among such groups. China is working very hard to resolve and eliminate such issues, and they should be commended in making a lot of progress, instead of creating fake news to foment such problems.
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[1] Adrian Zenz “Sterilizations, IUDs, and Mandatory Birth Control: The CCP’s Campaign to Suppress Uyghur Birthrates in Xinjiang, Jamestown Foundation Report, Washington, D.C., June 2020: https://jamestown.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Zenz-Internment-Sterilizations-and-IUDs-REVISED-March-17-2021.pdf?x38094.
[2] “China Is Erasing Mosques and Precious Shrines in Xinjiang” by C. Buckley and A. Ramzy, New York Times, September 25, 2020 based on report from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI): https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/25/world/asia/xinjiang-china-religious-site.html.
[3] There are many eyewitnesses who have recently visited Xinjiang, including (a) an Australian British and his wife who cycled across China”: “https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jlUy2DR8TQ, (b) “Xinjiang Genocide: An Excerpt from the ‘Genocide’ Panel” by Daniel Dumbrill, a Canadian businessman who has lived in China for many years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mH-0l_zToN4, (c)“What It’s Really Like to Travel to Xinjiang, China?” by Cyrus Janssen, an American businessman who lived in China for about 10 years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8qnr8DXZOc.
[4] “Expert Says 1.8 Million Uyghurs, Muslim Minorities Held in Xinjiang’s Internment Camps” by J. Lipes, Radio Free Asia (RFA) report, 11/24/2019: https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/detainees-11232019223242.html.
[5] “Coercive Labor in Xinjiang: Labor Transfer and the Mobilization of Ethnic Minorities to Pick Cotton” by Adrian Zenz, December 2020: https://newlinesinstitute.org/china/coercive-labor-in-xinjiang-labor-transfer-and-the-mobilization-of-ethnic-minorities-to-pick-cotton/.
[6] “U.S. Bans All Cotton and Tomatoes from Xinjiang Region of China” by Ana Swanson, New York Times, Jan. 13, 2021: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/13/business/economy/xinjiang-cotton-tomato-ban.html.