China stung into a hard sell on Uighur re-education camps

The Chinese government has launched a public relations exercise that confirms its widespread detention of Muslim Uighurs.

FILE - In this March 12, 2017, file photo, Shohrat Zakir, chairman of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, speaks on the sideline of the National People's Congress in Beijing, China. The senior Chinese official is describing the mass internment of ethnic minority Muslims in the country’s far west as a system of training centers that saves Muslims from religious extremism by teaching them to speak Mandarin and accept modern science. It was a rare instance of the ruling Communist Party publicly detailing its vision of what the extrajudicial detention of an estimated 1 million ethnic minority Uighur and Kazakh Muslims is setting out to achieve. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, File)

The Chinese government has launched a public relations exercise that confirms its widespread detention of Muslim Uighurs in the western region of Xinjiang, describing them as holiday-camp- like training centres where people learn to “resist the infiltration of extremist thought”.

In an interview with the official Xinhua News Agency this week, Xinjiang governor Shohrat Zakir, himself a Uighur, described the camps as part of a security campaign to stamp out “terrorist attacks” in the region.

The lengthy interview describes the camps as places where poor Uighurs can learn Mandarin and new vocational skills while also teaching them to “reflect on their mistakes and see clearly the essence and harm of terrorism and religious extremism”.

It makes it clear that the “vocational and educational training program” is part of a campaign to “get rid of the environment and soil that breeds terrorism and religious extremism and stop violent terrorist activities happening”.

Zakir makes it clear that the security crackdown in the region, which he argues has succeeded in preventing terrorist attacks for the past 21 months, has been carried out under the direction of President Xi Jinping.

He paints a rosy picture of dormitories equipped with radio, television, airconditioning, venues for basketball, volleyball and table tennis and computer labs and cinemas. The governor’s lengthy justification for the camps is the first time the government has sought to acknowledge the widespread detention of Uighurs.

China has been under increasing pressure after news of the mass internment camps filtered out despite strict domestic censorship and security controls.

A UN Human Rights panel reported in August that China had detained more than a million Uighurs in re-education camps where they were cut off from their families and forced to denounce their faith. The US congress is lobbying for sanctions against the officials involved.

The confirmation and coverage in the Chinese media does not estimate how many Uighurs have been detained.

The painting of the camps as being benign places has been greeted with scepticism by human rights groups.

Maya Wang, a senior China researcher at Human Rights Watch, described the interview and media coverage as “clumsy justifications” of the mass detention of Uighurs. “The fact that the Xinjiang authorities appear to be feeling the heat shows that international condemnation is working,” she said. “What we need now is for foreign governments and international organisations to step up their efforts and take meaningful actions.”

Zakir said the crackdown had helped underwrite economic growth of 7.6 per cent in the region — significantly higher than the national average of 6.5 per cent — as well as rising incomes for urban and rural residents. He said tourism had grown by 32 per cent over the year with more than 100 million trips by Chinese and foreign visitors to Xinjiang.

A follow-up editorial in the China Daily said the interview was “meant to tell the world what the government has done and achieved” in Xinjiang.

Zakir indicated some of those interned were coming close to completing their “courses”and could be released by the end of the year. Just how many will be released remains to be seen and may be an indication of what level of concessions China feels it needs to make to international criticism.

But their existence and China’s motivation is now well and truly laid out for the world to see. Even if critics may not be taken in by the governor’s stories of thankful detainees, including one who said he could “stand tall and start receiving praise from my elders” with the added advantage “my wife has become more considerate”.