Han migrants incentivized to move to Xinjiang as Uyghurs sent away
There is well-documented evidenceย that the Chinese government is transferring detained Uyghurs from internment camps in Xinjiangย to factories in other parts of China where they are forced to work. At the same time, a new report from Radio Free Asiaย says, the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), or bฤซngtuรกn ๅ ตๅข, a โquasi-military organization, is luring Han Chinese settlers to the regionโs south as part of a policy experts say amounts to demographic engineering.โ
XPCC has long recruited Han migrantsย from the rest of the country, but as scholar Rian Thum explains to Radio Free Asia: โUp until, say, the last decade, the vast majority of Han settlers moved to the northern part of the administrative unitโฆ But what weโve seen more recently is an effort to move Han Chinese people into the southern part of the region, which is the part where historically a vast majority of the population is Uyghur.โ
The aim is clear: to dilute the Uyghur presence in southern Xinjiang and accelerate the minorityโs assimilation into the majority culture.
โJeremy Goldkorn
