Xinjiang is an area that has become associated around the world with detention camps. The facilities are referred to by Beijing as vocational education and training centers. But critics say they are used to indoctrinate Uyghurs and other minority ethnic groups with the goal of transforming them into devotees of the Chinese Communist party.
After unrest in the region and a series of riots and violent attacks by Uyghur separatists between 2014 to 2017, the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping (習近平), launched his Strike Hard Campaign Against Violent Terrorism, leading to the establishment of the camps. The UN has estimated that since then about one million people have been detained in these extrajudicial centers.
People who have spent time in the camps have reported a litany of abuses, including beatings and sexual violence. According to their testimonies, several of the centers also have forced labor facilities in the form of factories.
Photo: AFP
But forced labor in Xinjiang takes many forms, say experts, and is not just confined to the “re-education centers.” Prisoners are co-opted into labor — a feature of the criminal justice system across China. In 2019, a six-year-old girl in south London found a message that was apparently from a prisoner in Shanghai in a box of Tesco Christmas cards. In Xinjiang, the majority of prison labor happens in the agricultural sector, including cotton planting, harvesting and ginning, according to evidence submitted by Laura Murphy and Nyrola Elima, researchers at Sheffield Hallam University, to the UN.
The risk uncovered by the Guardian and Follow the Money in relation to the Bachu biomass facility concerns a third type of forced labor, which is not as widely understood in the west: state-sponsored labor transfers.
Beijing describes these transfers as a poverty alleviation tool and they predate the Strike Hard campaign. The programs work by identifying unemployed people in rural areas and transferring them to farms or factories in different locations where there is a need for workers. This happens within Xinjiang and from Xinjiang to other parts of China.
Photo: AFP
According to research by Murphy and Elima, in impoverished areas at least one person per household is expected to participate in a labor transfer program. The Xinjiang regional government says that about 2.6 million people have been employed through these initiatives. Many of these programs, particularly in southern Xinjiang, are linked to the cotton industry. More than 80 percent of China’s cotton comes from Xinjiang.
In 2020, the Chinese government published a white paper defending many of these policies. Between 2018 and 2019, 155,000 people from poor households and farms “found employment outside of their hometowns and subsequently emerged from poverty,” said the government. The white paper also said that between 2014 and 2019, the average annual disposable income for rural residents increased from 8,724 yuan (US$1,196) to 13,100 yuan (US$1,796).
However, last year, the UN rapporteur on slavery said that “indicators of forced labor” were present in “many” of China’s poverty alleviation programs in Xinjiang.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The labor transfer program has links to the more recent Strike Hard campaign. According to a 2017 government document about how to identify religious extremism in Xinjiang, refusal of government subsidies or assistance is a red flag. Being identified as a potential extremist is grounds to be sent to an internment camp. Uyghurs who have left Xinjiang and academics who study the region say that these programs are not voluntary.
According to a report published by the UN’s human rights chief last year, “the close link between the labor schemes and the counter-‘extremism’ framework, including the VETC [Vocational Education and Training Centre] system, raises concerns in terms of the extent to which such programs can be considered fully voluntary.” The Chinese government said the UN’s report was based on “disinformation and lies fabricated by anti-China forces.”
The Chinese government says the re-education centers were closed in 2019 and most of the students have graduated into stable employment. Journalists who have visited the region have found that many of the facilities appeared to be closed, but there are concerns the detainees have been transferred into the formal prison system rather than being released. In 2018, the number of criminal cases in Xinjiang increased by 25 percent compared with the previous five years; in 2019 the increase was just over 19 percent.
That US assistance was a model for Taiwan’s spectacular development success was early recognized by policymakers and analysts. In a report to the US Congress for the fiscal year 1962, former President John F. Kennedy noted Taiwan’s “rapid economic growth,” was “producing a substantial net gain in living.” Kennedy had a stake in Taiwan’s achievements and the US’ official development assistance (ODA) in general: In September 1961, his entreaty to make the 1960s a “decade of development,” and an accompanying proposal for dedicated legislation to this end, had been formalized by congressional passage of the Foreign Assistance Act. Two
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at
Last week the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said that the budget cuts voted for by the China-aligned parties in the legislature, are intended to force the DPP to hike electricity rates. The public would then blame it for the rate hike. It’s fairly clear that the first part of that is correct. Slashing the budget of state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) is a move intended to cause discontent with the DPP when electricity rates go up. Taipower’s debt, NT$422.9 billion (US$12.78 billion), is one of the numerous permanent crises created by the nation’s construction-industrial state and the developmentalist mentality it
Experts say that the devastating earthquake in Myanmar on Friday was likely the strongest to hit the country in decades, with disaster modeling suggesting thousands could be dead. Automatic assessments from the US Geological Survey (USGS) said the shallow 7.7-magnitude quake northwest of the central Myanmar city of Sagaing triggered a red alert for shaking-related fatalities and economic losses. “High casualties and extensive damage are probable and the disaster is likely widespread,” it said, locating the epicentre near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay, home to more than a million people. Myanmar’s ruling junta said on Saturday morning that the number killed had