We said never again … why can’t we keep our word? - Chinese re-education camps
- Anastasia Humpert-Riches
- Mar 9, 2021
- 3 min read
Updated: Mar 18, 2021
China is no stranger to controversy, with their authoritarian rule and the ambition to rule the world there have always been an eye on the country’s activity. China plans to open the new age version of the Silk road, a trade route that would connect African, Europe, Russia and Asia. This project is forecast to be finished by 2049 and is going to cost china an estimated 300 billion USD. But why is this relevant to the internment camps?
In the image above we can see the planned routes that china is planning on constructing. This route goes through the region of Xinjang, an area where the ethnic minority of Uyghur Muslims live. They are an ethnic minority whose religion and race are more similar to the neighbouring countries than the traditions of the dominant Hans. Throughout the 1990s and the early 2000s there were conflicts as the Uyghurs often wanted to gain autonomy and separate from china or due to tensions between ethnic groups. Most notably we have the July 2009 riots in ürümqi. These violent riots started after the death of two Uyghur factory workers after a confrontation. The riots ended up killing 197 people, a majority of which were Hans, another 1,721 were injured. So why are the riots and the new plans for a silk road remake relevant?
Well because the area of Xinjang is china’s gateway to the western world, it’s also filled with lots of natural resources including coal and gas. The people living in that area could be separatist meaning that it would complicate china’s plans to build their roads there. Traditionally central china has always seen this group as not loyal and therefore they need to find a way to overcome this problem. The easy solution? Re-education camps, hidden under the guise of wanting to prevent terrorism and the spread of violence china is attempting to wipe out an entire ethnic group. This way they can continue their plans to build a trade route without worrying about being stopped.
These camps were never meant to be seen by the western world but inevitably they were and what we learnt should shock and horrify anyone who learn about it. Now as we get more and more details of what is happening inside the camps, we can no longer chose to ignore it. Allegations of systematic rape, torture, abuse and testing on innocent men and women have been coming out. Uyghur women outside the camps are subject to having contraceptive forced on them, forced marriages to Han Chinese and being sterilized without their consent. This has led to the growth rates in the region declining by 60% between 2015 to 2018. Inside the camps men and women are subject to forced manual labour, learning mandarin, singing songs that support the government and being forced to eat pork and drink alcohol (Both against their religion). This is what the Chinese ambassador in the Uk had to say: "The region now enjoys social stability and unity among ethnic groups. People there are living a happy life with a much stronger sense of fulfilment and security (..) Some people in the West have been fiercely slandering and smearing China over Xinjiang in an attempt to create an excuse to interfere in China's internal affairs, disrupt China's counter-terrorism efforts in Xinjiang and thwart China's steady development."
Human rights watch and other NGOs have stated that the camps are committing cultural genocide and have called on the Chinese government to shut them down with little success. In 2019 it was found that the government had been systemically destroying Uyghur cemeteries and religious buildings had been turned into leisure centres such as karaoke bars. Sadly in 2020 on 39 countries officially condemned the actions of the government… 54 countries voiced their support. German anthropologist Adrian Zenz stated that the Chinese government is committing an act of genocide according to Article II of Section D of the United Nations Genocide Convention which states that by “imposing measures to prevent births within a group” the government was committing an act of genocide.
Thankfully some countries are waking up to this reality, In February this year Canada voted that china was committing genocide against the Uyghur population and hopefully other countries will follow suit. There is an international responsibility for nations to intervene but also us as people, the 2022 Beijing Olympics are next year and any support is direct support of the genocide happening, we have the choice to boycott and pressure companies sponsoring the event such as AirBnB, Toyota and coca cola. If you aren’t willing to boycott companies then please consider spreading awareness on the subject and signing petitions. Anything that will create pressure on those who can make a change to fight against the prosecution of Uyghur Muslims in china. Here are more sources to make a change:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/549020 (Only works for British citizens)
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