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EXPLAINER: What makes China so angry over UN human rights report on ethnic Uighur Muslim of Xinjiang?
By AP News - Sep 01, 2022, 03:31 PM ET
Last Updated - Jun 24, 2023, 12:10 PM EDT
Xinjiang has a wealth of natural resources, including oil, gas and rare earth minerals, but its most important value is as a strategic buffer that extends China's influence westward
China has responded furiously to a United Nations report
on alleged human rights abuses in its northwestern Xinjiang region
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targeting Uyghurs and other mainly Muslim ethnic minorities.
The report has been in the works for years and was released
despite Chinese efforts to delay or block it, aware of how it could validate
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claims that more than 1 million ethnic minority members were forcibly sent to
centers it says were for vocational training.
Those who were held, their relatives and monitoring groups
describe them as prison-like reeducation centers where inmates were forced to
denounce Islam and their traditional culture, while swearing fidelity to the
ruling Communist Party.
The camps have been part
of a widespread campaign of repression in Xinjiang, allegedly including
involuntary sterilizations of women, forced labor, the demolition of mosques
and other religious sites, the separation of Muslim children from their
families and the harassment of minority members living abroad.
IMPORTANCE OF XINJIANG
Xinjiang is a vast but sparsely populated region of
mountains, forests and deserts in far northwestern China that borders Russia,
Pakistan and several Central Asian nations. The ancient Silk Road ran through
parts of it and various nationalities and Chinese empires controlled its cities
and oases over the centuries, with the Communist Party taking complete control
following its 1949 victory in the Chinese civil war.
normal"> 
normal">Residents walk past a statue of the
late Chinese leader Mao Zedong near billboards reading "Welcome 19th
Congress" "Patriotism" and "Democracy" near a square
in Kashgar in western China's Xinjiang region on Nov. 4, 2017. China has
responded furiously to a United Nations report on alleged human rights abuses
in its northwestern Xinjiang region targeting Uyghurs and other mainly Muslim
ethnic minorities. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, File)
The region contains a wealth of natural resources, including
oil, gas and rare earth minerals, but perhaps its most important value is as a
strategic buffer that extends China's influence westward. While China and
Russia have largely aligned their foreign policies in recent years, Xinjiang
was on the front line of their Cold War rivalry and remains important as an
assertion of Chinese influence in Moscow's back yard.
CHINA'S CRACKDOWN ON MINORITIES
Xinjiang's Uyghurs, along with the closely related Kazakh
and Kyrgyz, are predominantly Turkic Muslims who are culturally, religiously
and linguistically distinct from China's dominant Han ethnic group. Repression
under Communist rule, particularly during the violent and xenophobic 1966-1976
Cultural Revolution, stirred deep animosity in Xinjiang toward the government,
aggravated further by the migration of Han to the region and their domination
of political and economic life.
Uyghurs established two short-lived independent governments
in Xinjiang prior to the Communist Party's seizure of power, and the desire for
self-rule endured and was nurtured by resentment against heavy-handed Chinese
rule. A protest movement began in the 1990s and remained at a relatively low
level until simmering anger exploded in a 2009 riot in the regional capital of
Urumqi that left an estimated 200 people dead. More violence followed within
Xinjiang and as
far away as Beijing, prompting Chinese leader Xi Jinping to order a massive
crackdown starting in 2014.
BASIS OF UN ACCUSATIONS
With Xi's blessing, Xinjiang's hard-line leader, Chen
Quanguo, who took office in 2016, began sending Uyghurs and others into a vast
network of fortified camps without legal due process. It remains unclear what
criteria were used to determine if a person needed to be sent for what the
authorities called retraining or de-radicalization, but those who showed
religious tendencies, the well-educated and anyone with foreign connections
were especially susceptible.
Conditions in the camps have been described as overcrowded
and unhygienic, with those inside forced to renounce their religion and culture
and praise Xi and the Communist Party. Harsh punishments were meted out for
those who refused to comply and the length of sentences were indeterminate.
While China says it has closed the camps, many of those held have since
received lengthy prison terms within a system that remains overwhelmingly
opaque. The U.S. and others have labeled China's policies against Xinjiang
targeting Uyghurs and others for their religion and culture, denouncing the
accusations as a confection of lies by the West and saying its crackdown was
aimed at quashing separatism, terrorism and religious extremism. It has said
camp attendance was voluntary and no human rights were abused, although
internal Chinese documents have frequently contradicted such claims.
Beijing has also cited carefully choreographed visits by
journalists, diplomats and, most recently, U.N. High Commissioner for Human
Rights Michelle Bachelet, as validating its claims. Some observers say the tide
of criticism may have prompted Beijing to wind down the detentions earlier than
planned to salvage its reputation among Muslim nations and in the developing
world.
normal"> 
normal">A security guard watches from a
tower around a detention facility in Yarkent County in northwestern China's
Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region on March 21, 2021. China has responded
furiously to a United Nations report on alleged human rights abuses in its
northwestern Xinjiang region targeting Uyghurs and other mainly Muslim ethnic
minorities. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, File)
In a note accompanying the U.N. report, China's diplomatic
mission in Geneva registered its strong opposition to the findings, which it
said ignore human rights achievements in Xinjiang and the damage caused by
terrorism and extremism to the population.
"Based on the disinformation and lies fabricated by
anti-China forces and out of presumption of guilt, the so-called 'assessment'
distorts China's laws, wantonly smears and slanders China, and interferes in
China's internal affairs," the note said in part.
LIKELY OUTCOME FOR CHINA
China's authoritarian leaders have outwardly defied
criticism of their policies in Xinjiang, but have been unsuccessful in
thwarting international sanctions on officials who were involved and bans on
cotton and other commodities from the region. The report's release comes
despite China's growing influence within the U.N. and its pressure campaign
against critics in the human rights community.
China has maintained
its defiance and appears to believe its policies have been effective and
should continue, despite any costs to its international reputation. On
Thursday, its Foreign Ministry scoffed at the U.N. report, saying it was
"orchestrated and produced by the U.S. and some Western forces and is
completely illegal and void."
"It is a patchwork of false information that serves as
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