Xinjiang residents under tight control

[Randy W]

from China Daily Editorial on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/chinadaily/posts/10157767006156291

China Daily

21 hrs ·

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Maintaining #peace and stability in the #Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region is in the interests of the people of all the 47 ethnic groups who live there. Which is why that is the government's bottom line. And why it has introduced measures, with vocational education and training centers as the core, to prevent vulnerable Uygurs living in remote areas from being brainwashed by secessionists and terrorists.

Edited January 2, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

. . . and a response to the leaked documents and Mike Pompeo from ChinaDaily on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/chinadaily/posts/10157856396001291

China Daily

·

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Xinjiang's clean record of no violent attacks and dazzling record of economic growth and poverty alleviation since the anti-extremism measures were introduced proves they have been successful in pulling it back from the brink of becoming another source of global terrorism.

No matter how the US tries to exploit the documents, China will not alter its will to fight against terrorism in the most effective ways it can

 

Quote

The false and sensationalist impression given by the reports, however, is that the education and training centers are a tool used to "torture" the Uygurs. This is far removed from the reality that they are an effective education program tailor-made for anti-extremism and pro-stability in the region — something visitors to Xinjiang from home and abroad have confirmed.

 

The centers enable young Uygurs, who would otherwise be living in remote, isolated and poor regions, where they have proven to be susceptible to being brainwashed by religious fundamentalists, terrorists and separatists, to socialize with their peers and acquire an education and practical skills to make a living.

 

And the public security surveillance system in Xinjiang, which is portrayed as a tool of oppression, is, as such systems are elsewhere in the world, a guarantee for quick response in an emergency and a deterrent to evildoers. That such a comprehensive system is needed in the region speaks volumes about the potential threat it faces from terrorism.

 

Xinjiang's clean record of no violent attacks and dazzling record of economic growth and poverty alleviation since the anti-extremism measures were introduced proves they have been successful in pulling it back from the brink of becoming another source of global terrorism.

 

No matter how the US tries to exploit the documents, China will not alter its will to fight against terrorism in the most effective ways it can.

 

 

Edited January 2, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

A CGTN production - 50 minutes

Fighting terrorism in Xinjiang

46,961 views

•Dec 11, 2019

 

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Between 1990 and 2016, thousands of terrorist attacks shook the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in northwestern China, killing large numbers of innocent people and hundreds of police officers. Horrific stabbings and bombings rocked the land once known as a commercial hub on China's ancient Silk Road.

The damage to local communities was incalculable while stability in the region quickly deteriorated. Authorities have been trying hard to restore peace to this land.

In this exclusive CGTN exposé, we show you never-before-seen footage documenting the frightening tragedies in Xinjiang and the resilience of its people.

 

 

Edited February 21, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

ChinaDaily - "it's a pity that YouTube has now banned the video" - Fighting terrorism in Xinjiang

on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/chinadaily/posts/10157923239181291

China Daily

12 hrs ·

 

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CGTN recently released a documentary film on fighting terrorism in #Xinjiang, which registered close to 200,000 views on YouTube.

It's a pity that YouTube has now banned the video.

Xinjiang is just one example which shows how the Western media fail, rather refuse, to give a truthful account of China to the global audience. (China Daily)

 

 

To know China better, make more efforts

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The New York Times published a report titled "Tanks, missiles and no pigeons: China to celebrate 70th birthday of the People's Republic". The report highlighted the events only to emphasize the military threat China poses to other countries. The journalist apparently filed the report too soon, because toward the end of the Oct 1 celebrations, China did release 70,000 pigeons.

 

Many domestic media outlets, however, reported in detail how the pigeons were loaned from pigeon keepers across Beijing, how all of them returned home safely and that each of them was rewarded for participating in the Oct 1 festivities with a commemorative leg band. Such facts are integral to the National Day celebrations and demonstrate the sense of patriotism inherent in every Chinese national.

 

The military parade was meant to display China's defense capability, but the Western media, thanks to its prejudice, used it to paint an aggressive and menacing picture of China's military. No Western media outlet bothered to even mention that China follows a defensive defense policy, and that capability and intention are two totally different things.

 

Edited January 2, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Greg.D.]

Except that the YouTube link still works?

[Randy W]

Except that the YouTube link still works?

 

 

Exactly - but I think it was temporarily taken down for a copyright violation (copyrighted music inadvertently playing in the background), and subsequently restored

[Randy W]

"fake news" in the Western media, about China (specifically Xinjiang), of course - from China Daily and CGTN

 

How fake news has become the norm for the US

 

 

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The per capita income in Xinjiang jumped last year by 7.5 percent, to 21,500 Yuan (3,073 U.S. dollars) per year. To fight against poverty, the Chinese Central Government is pursuing a policy of industrialization in this region, building transport and communications infrastructures, while developing e-commerce and tourist attractions. As a result, from January to October this year, Xinjiang had received nearly 200 million domestic and foreign tourists.

 

All these facts are easy to touch and taste if desired. But it is not visible that the West is interested in this. On the contrary, the United States and its allies in their anti-Chinese campaign are tightening their stance. The main topic of criticism and international censure of Beijing is the so-called "re-education camps," where, according to the American report, Xinjiang Muslims are forcibly driven away, turned into the Chinese communists, forced to change their faith and so on.

 

At the same time, there is also a real fake attack in the Western media, operating with data of unknown origin, information from some informed sources and mythical leaks. Relevant information is also scattered through social networks.

 

The spread of lies at times finds its refutation. For example, the story of a 67-year-old man named Henimhan Tudi, who allegedly was for a long time in a "re-education center" and was subjected to all kinds of humiliations there. But in the end it turned out that Tudi was not held in any "camp."

. . .

Such allegations outrage Beijing. Because there are no "re-education camps", but there are simply vocational education and training centers where the population of a rapidly developing region learns the title language of the country and gets professional skills that allow them to get a job.

 

Over the past two years, nearly one and a half million new jobs have been created in Xinjiang, and more than eight million peasants have received specialties in such schools and found jobs in other areas. That is, millions of people thanks to the above schools have become active participants in economic processes, and have been divorced from negative trends, in particular, from being drawn into extremist activities.

 

 

Edited January 2, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

The latest issue faced by companies wishing to import goods from China is the increasing use of forced labor from Xinjiang through assimilation into the factories along the East Coast.

From the ChinaLawBlog - replacing the cheap migrant labors

China’s Other Supply Chain Infection — Forced Labor

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Estimates are that over 4,400 Chinese enterprises established “satellite factories” in Xinjiang to take advantage of the slaves being provided by the Xinjiang government. These factories are mostly in labor intensive industries, dominated by clothing and footwear. As would be expected, this pool of forced labor has already infected the supply chain for foreign buyers. The ASPI Report lists 54 large and well-known foreign companies that are purchasing goods manufactured by forced labor.

. . .

As reported by ASPI, in Stage Two of the infection, the Chinese government organized a program where hundred person “batches” of Muslims from Xinjiang get shipped around China to work in prison-like conditions. The impact of these mobile forces of involuntary servitude is significant: the number of forced laborers is large and the infection of China’s supply chain is widespread.

. . .

Factories around China engage in this program because it makes economic sense for them to do so. The export led, high labor content, low value added factories of China have been under intense economic pressure over the last decade. The supply of cheap migrant labor has dried up. So without a new source of super-cheap but hard working laborers, they cannot survive.

. . .

Now that Stage Two has spread forced labor all over China, China’s supply chain has become completely infected. The ASPI Report documents more than 80 well-known foreign companies purchasing their products from factories that use forced labor that can be traced to Xinjiang. ASPI Report, Appendix 1, pages 31 — 37. As the Appendix shows, China’s forced labor infection has now moved beyond labor intensive industries to virtually all of China’s export industries. No foreign company is safe from this.

. . .

But for many foreign companies, there is a much more significant problem. It is a violation of their own country’s law to import product from a foreign country manufactured with forced labor. So the moral decision for the importer has been supplanted by a clear legal ban.

 

Edited February 26, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Greg.D.]

They're taking the young women of marriage and child bearing age.

 

But there is new evidence to show that the Chinese authorities are moving Uighurs into government-directed labor around the country as part of the central government’s “Xinjiang Aid” initiative. For the party, this would help meet its poverty-alleviation goals but also allow it to further control the Uighur population and break familial bonds.

 

“We can walk around, but we can’t go back [to Xinjiang] on our own,” said one Uighur woman in broken Mandarin as she browsed the street stalls at the factory gate on a recent afternoon. Nervous about being seen talking to a reporter, she quickly scurried away.

 

When their shifts end, the Uighur workers — almost all women in their 20s or younger — use hand gestures and rudimentary Mandarin to buy dried fruit, socks and sanitary pads at the stalls. Then they walk around the corner, past the factory’s police station — adorned with Uighur writing telling them to “stay loyal to the party” and “have clear-cut discipline” — to dormitories where they live under constant supervision.

 

The Uighur workers are afraid or unable to interact with anyone in this town, north of Qingdao, beyond the most superficial of transactions at the stalls or in local stores, vendors say. But the catalyst for their arrival here is well understood.

 

“Everyone knows they didn’t come here of their own free will. They were brought here,” said one fruit-seller as she set up her stall. “The Uighurs had to come because they didn’t have an option. The government sent them here,” another vendor told The Washington Post.

[Randy W]

from the SCMP

 

How many of us wear clothing made by forced Uygur labour?

 

• Hundreds of global companies buy cotton and make goods in Xinjiang, China, where over 1 million Uygurs are estimated to be detained, some doing forced labour
• Proposed US legislation targeting forced labour, and recent disruption to Chinese manufacturing, give brands leverage to effect change, labour rights body says

 

Hundreds of global companies buy cotton and make goods in Xinjiang, China, where over 1 million Uygurs are estimated to be detained, some doing forced labour

Proposed US legislation targeting forced labour, and recent disruption to Chinese manufacturing, give brands leverage to effect change, labour rights body says.

Another bill – the Uygur Forced Labour Prevention Act – which is making its way through the House, would place the burden of responsibility on brands to ensure they aren’t producing goods made with indentured Uygur labour. Among companies cited in the draft legislation are the Esquel Group, a Hong Kong-based textile manufacturer with factories in Xinjiang, and Esquel customers including Calvin Klein, Esprit, Nike, Patagonia and Tommy Hilfiger.

. . .

Reports of widespread detentions at internment camps in Xinjiang have been circulating since 2018. Beijing has said that the “vocational training centres” are used to combat violent religious extremism, but evidence shows people being detained simply for expressing their Muslim faith or having connections in the Middle East.

That there are human rights abuses is widely agreed – but how do we know labour in the region is forced? Factories there are using government-recruited labour, and have government-subsidised facilities – which human rights groups believe is effective proof of forced labour. In some cases, goods are being made inside internment camps.

ASPI believes that as well as being forced into labour in Xinjiang, more than 80,000 Uygurs have been transferred out of the region to work in factories across China. Its report said some were sent directly from detention camps to factories associated with Nike, Apple and Dell.

 

 

 

 

[Randy W]

from the NY Times

 

China’s Software Stalked Uighurs Earlier and More Widely, Researchers Learn

A new report revealed a broad campaign that targeted Muslims in China and their diaspora in other countries, beginning as early as 2013.

 

 

In 2015, as Beijing pushed to crack down on sporadic ethnic violence in Xinjiang, the authorities grew “desperate” to track fast-growing Uighur communications online, Mr. Byler said. Uighurs began to fear that their online chats discussing Islam or politics were risky. Savvier Uighurs took to owning a second “clean phone,” said Mr. Byler, who lived in Xinjiang in 2015.

On the streets of Xinjiang, the police began confiscating Uighurs’ phones. Sometimes, they returned them months later with new spyware installed. Other times, people were handed back entirely different phones. Officials visiting Uighur villages regularly recorded the serial numbers used to identify smartphones. They lined the streets with new hardware that tracked people’s phones as they walked past.

The authorities dragged Uighurs off to detention camps for having two phones or an antiquated phone, arbitrarily dumping a phone, or not having a phone at all, according to testimonials and government documents.

Over that same period, Lookout said China’s mobile hacking efforts accelerated. One type of Chinese malware, known as GoldenEagle after the words hackers littered throughout their code — an apparent reference to the eagles used for hunting in Xinjiang — was used as early as 2011. But its use picked up in 2015 and 2016. Lookout uncovered more than 650 versions of GoldenEagle malware and a large number of fake Uighur apps that function as a sort of Trojan horse to spy on users’ mobile communications.

Once downloaded, the apps gave China’s hackers a real-time window into their targets’ phone activity. They also gave China’s minders the ability to kill their spyware on command, including when it appeared to suck up too much battery life. In some cases, Lookout discovered that all China’s hackers needed to do to get data off a target’s phone was send the user an invisible text message. The malware captured a victim’s data and sent it back to the attackers’ phone via a text reply, then deleted any trace of the exchange.

 

 

 

[Randy W]

from Al Jazeera on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/7382473689/posts/10159172334043690/

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Despite China’s best efforts, journalists are finding innovative ways to tell the story of the mass internment of Uighur Muslims in the Xinjiang Province.

Edited January 2, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

A new documentary from CGTN

Lies and Truth: Vocational Education and Training in Xinjiang

https://www.facebook.com/565225540184937/posts/4888545737852874/

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Beginning in the 1990s, terrorism driven by religious extremism wrecked havoc across northwest #China's #Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

 

On the premise of creating a caliphate, terrorists committed bombings, stabbings and incited mass riots that saw hundreds of police officers killed in the line of duty and countless civilian lives lost.
 

Last August, China released a white paper that laid out detailed strategy in combating terrorism. The paper focused on the importance of vocational education and training centers, which were set up to redirect people away from religious extremism and provide trainees with the professional skills necessary to make a decent living.

 

However, the centers have been the topic of controversy in largely sensationalized news reports by Western media. They have been described as "concentration camps" where Chinese ethnic minorities are "indoctrinated."

 

So, what is vocational education and training really about? Watch this documentary to find out.

 

https://www.facebook.com/565225540184937/posts/4888545737852874/

Edited January 2, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

Chaguan - China uses tourism to smother Xinjiang’s culture | China | The Economist

 

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Officials have not demolished the Afaq Khoja shrine. Instead they are trying to neutralise its power as a place so sacred that pilgrims would collect dust from its grounds. Their tool: mass tourism by China’s ethnic-Han majority. Their method is to link the site to Xiang Fei, or the “Fragrant Concubine”. She was a Kashgar woman who, according to Chinese legend, enraptured the 18th-century Qianlong emperor with her mysterious natural scent, after being captured and delivered to his harem. Her story appeared in print in 1892 and inspired poems, operas and a television drama in the 1990s. Early accounts call Xiang Fei the wife (or daughter) of a descendant of Afaq Khoja. Drawing on Chinese traditions venerating chaste widows, they describe her resistance to the emperor, whom she planned to stab with tiny daggers hidden in her sleeves, and her death by execution. Anxious to promote ethnic unity, Communist-era writers insist that she loved the emperor and died of illness. For decades a sign has marked her supposed tomb at the Afaq Khoja shrine. Imperial archives record a simpler tale: a Kashgar woman who became the emperor’s consort and is buried near Beijing, notes Rian Thum of Loyola University in New Orleans, in his book “The Sacred Routes of Uyghur History”.

Unfussed by historical details, officials opened a tourist park called Xiang Fei Garden in 2015. At its far northern end lies the mausoleum, relabelled “Fragrant Imperial Concubine’s Tomb”. Signs point tour groups towards Uyghur folk-dance shows and praise “soft and humble” Xiang Fei. Her purported love for China’s emperor is called a symbol of “the reunification of the motherland”. Pilgrims are discouraged by the gates and guards that surround public buildings in Xinjiang. Outside the shrine’s perimeter, Chaguan saw an old man scooping dust into a bag, but did not ask why. It is unsafe for Uyghurs to speak to foreign reporters. The same unmarked Volkswagen followed your columnist all day.

 

 

[eseum]

Article from TheHill: Trump administration halting imports of cotton, tomatoes from Uighur region of China    https://thehill.com/policy/international/china/534087-trump-administration-halting-imports-of-cotton-tomatoes-from