Uyghurs are a Turkic-speaking people, predominantly Muslim, the majority of whom reside in East Turkistan, or Xinjiang (‘new territory’ in Mandarin). After defeating the Guomindang (‘Nationalist’) party-state, the Chinese Communist (CCP) party-state occupied East Turkistan in 1949. The Chinese Communist regime, inspired by the early 20th century Han Chinese nationalists and assisted by the Soviet Union, was able to annex much of the former territory of the Qing empire, i.e., East Turkistan and Tibet, but it failed to occupy the Mongolian People’s Republic and Taiwan.

Right from the beginning, the People’s Republic of China, founded in 1949, was all set to rule over its newly annexed lands with its assimilationist policies by declaring that even non-Han “minzu” (‘nationalities or ethnic groups’) were also regarded as Chinese, foreshadowing its future genocidal policies toward the Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples in East Turkistan.

Since 1949, East Turkistan has been ruled with an iron fist, except for the 1980s, when relatively freer practice of religion and education in native languages other than Mandarin were permitted as the CCP leadership realized (without fully acknowledging) its utter failure of its policies and damage done by the Cultural Revolution toward the Turkic populations. Furthermore, the Chinese regime’s top-down development projects in the 1990s–2000s accelerated Han colonialism and exacerbated inequality between Han Chinese and non-Han peoples in East Turkistan.

Fast-forward to the mid-2010s, the CCP leadership has decided, once again, to intensify its assimilationist policies toward the Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples, with the aim of ultimately achieving the goal of a homogeneous cultural and national identity known as Zhonghua (‘Chinese’) and erasing all ethnic characteristics that do not fit the Han Chinese ethnocentric mold, which is reflected in the regime’s new catchphrase: “forge firmly the Zhonghua national collectivity consciousness” (铸牢中华民族共同体意识).

One of the state-approved measures to achieve this goal has been the mass internment of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims (ranging from 1 to 3 million people), the largest-scale detention of ethnic and religious minorities since World War II, forcefully sending them to so-called “reeducation/vocational training” centers (i.e. internment camps), where they are subjected to political indoctrination, repeated forced self-confessions of “wrongdoings,” various stress positions, physical/sexual and verbal abuses, near-starvation rations, food/sleep deprivation, appalling sanitary conditions, forced medications, torture, forced labor, and even rape.

There’s overwhelming evidence that the Chinese regime has committed crimes against humanity, including information gleaned from online governmental sources, leaked official CCP directives/documents that are classified as confidential or as top secret in the case of one document containing Xi Jinping’s three speeches, government tenders and bid contracts for the construction of internment camps across East Turkistan, satellite imagery showing the temporal construction of the camps, interviews with former internees, voluminous news reports, and research papers.

The Communist Chinese state has also subjected Uyghur and other Turkic women to forced IUDs (intrauterine devices for contraception), forced sterilization, and forced abortion, with the suppression of Uyghur birth going back decades.

After examining all available evidence that consisted of (but not limited to) confidential speeches by central CCP officials, expert witness statements, former detainees’ testimonies, various research papers/reports, and the Chinese regime’s birth suppression measures/policies toward Uyghurs, the Uyghur Tribunal issued its judgement on December 9, 2021—the Chinese regime has indeed committed crimes against humanity and genocide against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in East Turkistan, according to legal standards.

On August 31, 2022 in a long-overdue/long-delayed report, the UN also finds that the Chinese regime has committed “serious human rights violations” against the Uyghurs that may constitute crimes against humanity.

It may not be mass-killing on the spot type genocide, but nevertheless the endgame is the same.

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