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The China News Database was last updated at 04:48PM on March 24, 2023.
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685 articles matching the search query.
Documenting the destruction of Uyghur and Kirghiz culture in China
Uyghur scholar and poet Aziz Isa Elkun has watched in anger as the Chinese government has waged war on the traditional music, dance, and poetry of his village home, and all the Turkic cultures of Xinjiang.
The man behind the protests at Pakistan’s Belt and Road hub at the port of Gwadar
Resentment at the Chinese-funded port development at Gwadar in Pakistan’s Balochistan Province has been building for several years and one man is leading an ongoing protest movement.
Three Uyghur poems
For World Poetry Day, we present three Uyghur poems (two of which are translated here for the first time into English) that tell stories of continuity and struggle: “Ballad of Nuzugum” by Tursun’ay Huseyin, “My Body is a Leaf” by Turghun Almas, and “Unending Song” by Téyipjan Éliyov.
This week on TikTok: China’s diplomacy in the Middle East and the arrest of Guo Wengui
Want more like this? Subscribe to The China Project’s official TikTok channel, The China Project, where Susan St.Denis explains complex topics about China clearly and simply in TikTok’s fast evolving visual and verbal language.
Uyghur women have been disproportionately singled out for abuse in Xinjiang
March 8 is International Women’s Day and the month of March is Women’s History Month. But there’s been nothing for Uyghur and other Muslim women to celebrate in Xinjiang.
This week on TikTok: Xinjiang’s basketball struggles and North Korea’s tumultuous relationship with China
Want more like this? Subscribe to The China Project’s official TikTok channel, ChinaVibe, where Susan St.Denis explains complex topics about China clearly and simply in TikTok’s fast evolving visual and verbal language.
Abduweli Ayup is writing books for exiled Uyghur children
Exiled linguist Abduweli Ayup is publishing books for children with the aim of ensuring the Uyghur language and cultural traditions never die despite the most repressive efforts of the Chinese state.
Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan — and beyond
Xinjiang’s history as a penal colony and then a high-tech laboratory has resulted in one of the most sophisticated and all-encompassing surveillance networks in the world to be deployed there. Other places may be next.
Former champion Xinjiang Flying Tigers quit Chinese Basketball Association
The Flying Tigers, which won the CBA title in 2017, have abruptly abandoned China’s professional basketball league with one month to play.
A search engine for disappeared Uyghurs
Uyghur exiles searching for loved ones are closer to answers thanks to a new internet search tool with access to more than 700,000 classified police records leaked from China last year.
Uyghur economist Ilham Tohti has been in prison for more than nine years now
He was a professor who worked within the Chinese state system to advocate for better treatment of the Uyghurs. His reward was a sentence to life in prison.
Visit of top Xinjiang official to London, Paris, and Brussels canceled after uproar
Erkin Tuniyaz, the most senior Uyghur Party official working for the Xinjiang government, was supposed to visit at least three European capitals. The trip was ‘postponed’ after a multinational, cross-party hue and cry.
U.K. court throws out Uyghur forced labor lawsuit but plaintiffs call the judgment an ‘important vindication’
Activists and a former victim of internment and forced labor sued the British government for failing to act on reports of forced labor in cotton supply chains. They lost the case, but say the wording of the judgment was an “important vindication” for persecuted Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other Muslim minorities.
Canada, a new Uyghur homeland
The Uyghur diaspora is celebrating Canada’s recent decision to accept 10,000 Uyghur refugees in the next two years. For them, there is finally hope of building a solid future.
The Uyghur Tribunal one year on: Has anything changed?
One year has passed since a panel of ordinary citizens in the U.K. declared a genocide to be unfolding in the Uyghur homeland, but much of the world still has to act on its implications.
Uyghurs condemn World Muslim Communities Council delegation to Xinjiang
The love affair between Beijing and Muslim leaders deepened last December with a rare visit by Xi Jinping to Saudi Arabia. Then over the New Year, a group of Islamic dignitaries came to Ürümchi, supposedly to see for themselves how well their beleaguered Uyghur brethren are being treated by the Chinese government.
Is the Turkish government going to stand up for Uyghurs, or will economic interests win out?
As Turkey heads into an election season, officials are promising that the country will not extradite Uyghurs to China. Can they be trusted?
Editor’s note for January 9, 2023
A note for Access newsletter readers from Jeremy Goldkorn.
Is the Uyghur Forced Labour Prevention Act working?
Half a year after Washington enacted a set of laws intended to prevent products of coerced labor from entering the U.S. market, supply chains in the solar power and apparel industries are snarled up, but it’s uncertain if the Uyghurs themselves have seen any benefit.
Afghanistan inks an oil deal with China, but the Taliban and Beijing don’t really trust each other
The Taliban-led administration has signed a contract with a Chinese company to extract oil from the Amu Darya basin in northern Afghanistan. But recent attacks on Chinese nationals and other marks of instability will likely make Beijing proceed cautiously.
Until Nothing is Left | Sheffield Hallam University
The Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (also known as the XPCC, or Bīngtuán 兵团) is a paramilitary corporation that controls much of the agriculture and industry in Xinjiang. A new report by scholars at Sheffield Hallam University details the XPCC’s involvement in human rights abuses against Uyghurs.
Great Wall of Steel: China’s Global Campaign to Suppress the Uyghurs
More than 1,500 Uyghurs have been detained or extradited, mostly in the Middle East and North Africa, according to a new report from the Woodrow Wilson Center. Globally, more than 5,500 Uyghurs outside of China have been targeted by Beijing from cyberattacks to threats made against family members who remain in the nation. Meanwhile, pressure over Beijing’s treatment of Uyghurs and other minorities is growing:
Britain proposed new changes that would ban its health service from buying medical supplies made in Xinjiang following pressure from rights groups. The United Nations team in China is preparing for a scheduled visit from human rights chief Michelle Bachelet next month. “As a company, we are apolitical,” said Joseph Phi, the chief executive of Hong Kong supply chain management company Li & Fung, which has faced pressure over whether some products have been made using forced labor.
‘Always on and watching’: A former Xinjiang prisoner describes life inside China’s detention camps
A former detainee recalls a Xinjiang detention camp: Read a rare, firsthand account with Ovalbek Turdakun — a Christian, a Chinese passport holder, and an ethnic Kyrgyz — who was imprisoned in one of China’s detention camps.
Turdakun told his story after U.S. immigration authorities granted him and his family advanced parole, a temporary immigration status that lets them enter the United States. This article was published by TechCrunch, a website that usually covers Silicon Valley, and it says that Turdakun’s knowledge will “provide vital evidence regarding the use of technology provided by Chinese companies such as Hikvision to facilitate gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.”
China Lawmakers to Discuss Approval of Forced-Labor Conventions
Beijing will discuss two international forced-labor treaties at the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress next week, an issue that has previously stalled investment deals with the EU, and after rights activists last week urged the U.S.’s Biden administration to crack down on imported goods in Xinjiang.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhào Lìjiān 赵立坚 also called forced labor accusations “the biggest lie of the century,” in response to a U.S. research report that linked major automakers such as BMW and General Motors to controversial labor programs in the region.
Top political advisor stresses concerted efforts to create bright future for Xinjiang
No changes coming in Xinjiang: Senior leader and Politburo Standing Committee member Wāng Yáng 汪洋 visited Xinjiang from March 18 to 22 and “stressed the importance of maintaining a clear mind when it comes to the overall targets set for Xinjiang” (or see the front-page People’s Daily report, in Chinese).
Translation: Do not expect any adjustment to Beijing’s repressive policies that target Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities. See also, via the China-Africa Project, the news that Wáng Yì 王毅 “made history on Tuesday by becoming the first Chinese foreign minister invited to the annual meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the largest international organization of Muslim countries.”
Cornell University Chinese Students Walk Out after Uyghur Student Asks About Genocide
Chinese students walked out of a talk at Cornell University, after Democratic representative Elissa Slotkin of Michigan responded to a student’s question about Uyghurs at an on-campus event on March 10. Slotkin later wrote on Twitter that she pointed out “what is well known about Chinese policy toward the Uyghur community: that the government has carried out imprisonment, forced labor, and forced indoctrination.”
UN rights chief to visit Xinjiang as groups press for report
UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet plans to visit China in May, with a stop in Xinjiang, after she told the Human Rights Council that the Chinese government had granted approval. The breakthrough visit comes after a series of delays to enter the nation and mounting pressure from rights groups to publish a report into alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang.
China “welcomes” the visit, though freedom of expression is protected in China but “can never be a pretext to make anyone above the law,” said Chén Xù 陈旭, China’s ambassador to the UN, after Bachelet raised concern about the treatment of critics in the nation.
Financing & genocide: Development finance and the crisis in the Uyghur Region
The World Bank is “funding a campaign of repression” against the Uyghurs, Washington-based think tank Atlantic Council details in a new report. According to the findings:
The International Finance Corporation (IFC) currently has approximately $486 million in direct loans and equity investment in four companies operating in the Uyghur region: Chenguang Biotech, Camel, Century Sunshine, and Jointown Pharmaceutical. These companies are “active participants” in the P.R.C.’s campaign of repression against the Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang through “forced labor, forced displacement, cultural erasure, and environmental destruction.” The IFC continued to issue new financing to projects in 2020, without any direct oversight, after a monitoring trip to the region in 2019.
The Silencing: a special report on China, the Uyghurs and a culture under attack
From Xinjiang’s network of detention centers to the suppression of tradition, writers report for the New Statesman on China’s campaign against the Uyghurs, “and what will be lost if it succeeds.”
UN Labor Head Candidate Sees Space to Talk to China About Forced Labor
There is “space” to work with China, International Labor Organization (ILO) director general candidate Kang Kyung-wha said, after the organization released a report that voiced “deep concern” over China’s “discriminatory” policies in Xinjiang, per Bloomberg.
Olympic Torchbearer Evokes Memories of 2008 for Fellow Uyghur
An ethnic Uyghur carried the Olympic torch last Friday, sparking another round of controversy over Beijing’s choice of torchbearers and human rights abuses. Dilnigar Ilhamjan (Dinigeer Yilamujiang), a cross-country skier born in Xinjiang, was a similar pick to fellow Uyghur athlete Kamaltürk Yalqun, who carried the torch at the Beijing Summer Games in 2008, the Wall Street Journal reports. China’s ambassador to the UN has since said that China “sternly refutes” earlier comments made by his U.S. counterpart that the choice was an attempt to distract from China’s alleged rights abuses against ethnic minorities, per Reuters.
Uyghur kids recall physical and mental torment at Chinese boarding schools in Xinjiang
Two Uyghur kids returned “malnourished and traumatized” after coming home to Turkey from boarding schools in Xinjiang. As China rounds up the Muslim ethnic minority group in “re-education” centers, Uyghur children have often been separated from their parents. NPR interviewed two of them in the first report of its kind.
China open to U.N. rights chief visiting Xinjiang, as long as she doesn’t do any investigating there
The UN rights chief can visit Xinjiang, “as long as she doesn’t do any investigating there,” the Washington Post reports. Beijing used the word “exchange” rather than “investigation” to describe the potential upcoming visit by Commissioner Michelle Bachelet, which might “go forward but only after the [Winter Olympic] Games have concluded, thereby delaying the release of a long-awaited UN report on alleged abuses in the region.” See also reports from the South China Morning Post and Reuters.
French parliament passes motion condemning China 'genocide' against Uyghurs
France is now the eighth country to declare China is committing “genocide” against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. “France’s parliament passed an opposition-led motion asking the government to condemn China for ‘crimes against humanity and genocide’ against its Uyghur Muslim minority and to take foreign policy measures to make this stop,” Reuters reports. The other countries to have made official statements or pass parliamentary measures calling China’s actions genocide are the U.S., Canada, the Netherlands, the U.K., Lithuania, the Czech Republic, and Belgium.
Human Rights Watch, the New York–based NGO, released its 32nd annual report on human rights conditions worldwide. Here is what it had to say on a few key China topics:
On the internet: “The once-cacophonous internet is now dominated by pro-government voices that report to the authorities on people whose views they deem insufficiently nationalistic.” On Hong Kong: “Authorities devastated human rights protections and civil liberties in Hong Kong, recasting much of the peaceful behavior that had undergirded Hong Kong life, such as publishing news, as acts of subversion.” On Xinjiang: “The Chinese authorities are committing crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang.”
China Names Former Xinjiang Commander to Lead Troops in Hong Kong
Péng Jīngtáng 彭京堂, the new Hong Kong garrison commander, was “previously chief of staff for the armed police in the far western region of Xinjiang,” where he was tasked with counterterrorism, the Wall Street Journal reports. Bloomberg notes that Peng’s appointment, which was personally signed by Xí Jìnpíng 习近平, continues a trend of the Hong Kong and Beijing governments promoting “career policemen” to key posts in the city.
U.S. signals displeasure as Tesla opens Xinjiang showroom
U.S. backlash to Tesla’s Xinjiang expansion: “I can’t speak to the specific situation of one company, but as a general matter, we believe the private sector should oppose the P.R.C.’s human rights abuses and genocide in Xinjiang,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said yesterday in response to reports that Tesla had opened a showroom in Urumqi, Xinjiang. The New York Times and Associated Press also have reports on criticism from activists and human rights groups.
It’s China vs. Walmart, Latest Western Brand Entangled in Human Rights Dispute
American companies navigate Xinjiang sensitivities: Walmart was warned to “respect the feelings of the Chinese people” by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection after the company’s Sam’s Club chain stopped selling items from Xinjiang. The incident comes barely a week after Chinese officials “chastised Intel for asking suppliers not to source goods from the region,” and could presage further controversy for international companies during the Beijing Olympics next month, the Wall Street Journal reports.
UK independent body: China committed genocide in Xinjiang | AP News
A U.K. independent panel has concluded that China “committed genocide” in Xinjiang: The Uyghur Tribunal, led by lawyer Geoffrey Nice, heard about 30 witnesses and experts give evidence in public hearings in London earlier this year. The judgment “largely rested on the suppression of births” among Uyghurs, Nice said, per the Guardian. The Chinese Foreign Ministry gave a statement (in English, Chinese) in response to the ruling, alleging that the tribunal “hired liars to make false statements and falsify evidence” and its judgment is “nothing but a political farce staged by a handful of contemptible individuals.”
House Passes Bill to Punish China Over Oppression of Uyghurs
The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation yesterday to punish China for its treatment of Uyghurs, demonstrating broad bipartisan support for a harder line against China. The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which would ban the import of goods produced by ethnic Muslims in internment camps, was passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority of 428 to 1. Shares of Chinese solar equipment manufacturers operating in Xinjiang, including JA Solar Technology, fell on the news.
