Some Aspects Of China's National Policy In Xinjiang In Xxi Century

Political and legal aspects of Beijing's national Policy in the XUAR

According to the 7th national census, at the end of October 2020, the population of the autonomous region reached 25.85 million people, of which 42.24% are Han, and 57.76% are representatives of national minorities, including 44.96% are Uighurs.

Growing tensions and discontent began to manifest themselves in the 1990s when peaceful protests began to turn into bloodshed. A major incident occurred on April 5, 1990, in the town of Bazhen, near Kashgar, where Uighurs started an uprising, which Beijing had to use regular troops to suppress. In the early 1990s, there were about 30 terrorist groups operating in the XUAR, whose main tactics were attacks on the Chinese military and police. Acts of intimidation against local authorities were carried out, and terrorist attacks on transport were organized. In February 1997 Uyghur Terrorists blew up several buses in Urumqi. As a result, 24 Chinese soldiers and 27 civilians were killed. Later, on March 3, several explosions were organized and several dozen people were killed, and hundreds were injured. At the end of the year, on November 27, three more explosions were staged in Urumqi, killing or injuring 70 more people. On July 5, 2009, riots broke out in the capital of XUAR – Urumqi, which lasted for about a week. They have become the most widespread in the last fifty years. As a result of clashes between Uighurs and Han Chinese, about 200 people were killed and several thousand were injured.

In the 2000s Chinese authorities increased the presence of security forces across the region, reinforcing Beijing's narrative that Turkic-speaking Muslims pose an ethno-nationalist threat to the Chinese state, and that Xinjiang serves as a base for "three forces of evil": separatism, terrorism, and extremism. But the Chinese government not only began to fight the terrorist threat from within but also to limit the national identity of the Uighurs (Finnegan, 2020).

In 2014, the Chinese government launched a "Campaign against Serious Criminal Elements"("Y ānlì dà jīyán zhōngxīn shì fànzuì huódòng") or Strike Hard ("Strike Hard") in Xinjiang after high-profile attacks carried out by Turkic Muslims in XUAR and at the railway station in Kunming in Yunnan Province (Millward, 2019). Of course, this policy was aimed at the Uyghur minority (Li, 2016). In mid-2014, the XUAR government demanded that Turkic migrants staying in Urumqi and other cities be returned to their native rural localities for the alleged purpose of obtaining a new identity card – the People's Convenience Card. As a result, most of them were denied these documents at home, which prevented them from returning to work in the cities.

Under the leadership of current Chinese President Xi Jinping, stricter security laws were put in place, as it was claimed that China was also exposed to growing threats to national security in the form of terrorist attacks. The CCP has taken advantage of the rise of global terrorism to label China's Muslim minorities, particularly Uighurs, as the source of these "terrorist" threats. Back in 1993, China passed a National security law to protect against "external" influences, such as intelligence leaks or espionage. But in 2015, All-China the Assembly of People's Representatives adopted a new Law on National Security (Cai, 2017). This law is aimed at what the CCP has declared to be internal threats to China's national security, including the activities of the Uighur minority. This reorientation of national security concerns from external to internal threats in legislation illustrates the increasing crackdown on the activities of Muslim minorities in China in recent years. Article 2 of the new Law on National Security defines "national security" as:

A status in which the regime, sovereignty, unity, territorial integrity, people's welfare, sustainable development of the country's national security, economic and social development and other core interests of the State are relatively free from any danger or threat from inside or outside, and the ability to maintain a permanent security status. (Cai, 2017, pp. 78-80).

This formulation allows us to interpret it very broadly.

Also in 2015, The National People's Congress of China adopted the Anti-Terrorism Law and the Ninth Amendment to the Criminal Code, and the Supreme People's Procuratorate, together with the Supreme People's Court, the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Justice, issued guidelines in 2018 on the application of the law in cases involving terrorism and extremism, which clarified the definitions of terrorism-related crimes, conviction criteria, Together with the criminal procedure law, these laws and regulations have formed the basis for China's relatively solid legal framework for combating terrorism (Shohrat, 2018). These laws were also supplemented by legal norms at the level of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

In 2016, Chen Quanguo, who previously led the Tibet Autonomous Region, was appointed as the new head of the XUAR CPC Party Committee. In his previous position, Chen was quite tough on Tibetans who defended their rights to land and access to Tibetan-language education in schools. Some of the methods he began to use in Xinjiang, including increased surveillance, as well as forcing religious citizens into political education, were developed in Tibet.

In general, it should be recognized that since Xi Jinping came to power in 2013, the Chinese government has adopted a strict policy of assimilation in ethnic minority regions, increasingly insisting on "Sinicization". Such a course is necessary for the central and regional governments to curb the growth of separatism and more active economic use of the region. At the same time, China does not officially speak about the use of force in national politics. XUAR Prime Minister Shohrat Zakir stated in October 2018: that China is "effectively curbing religious terrorism" extremism has also laid a good foundation for fully addressing the deep-rooted problems that affect the long-term stability of the region (Shohrat, 2018). In reality, officials and law enforcement agencies are taking quite tough measures to stabilize the situation and organize the autonomous region, including total surveillance, re-education camps, and comprehensive cultural assimilation.

Vocational education centres

Today, most of the population of Xinjiang still has a much lower command of the state Chinese language, is characterized by an insufficient level of education, sometimes legal illiteracy and low professional qualifications, which is due to a complex of socio-economic problems. In this direction, the Chinese authorities began to implement a course on mastering three and getting rid of one – mastering the common language – Putonghua, legal literacy, professional skills and getting rid of radical sentiments. In 2017, special facilities were created in the XUAR camps for the re-education and socialization of unreliable citizens. In the People's Republic of China, they became known as centres of training, professional retraining, etc., and abroad as internment camps for Uighurs. The placement of representatives of the Turkic-speaking population of the region in these camps was usually forced. They began to place those who were suspected of minor criminal offences, suspected of links with terrorism and extremism. At the same time, there was no direct evidence against these citizens, and the authorities only suspected them. Over the past few years, detainees have been provided with professional training. In addition to acquiring professional skills, those in the camps also study the Chinese language, current legislation, and the political programme of the Communist Party of China. According to the authorities, this is being done to decriminalize citizens who are prone to extremism and their subsequent social adaptation. At the same time, "trainees", as Chinese officials call the detainees, are engaged in tailoring, assembling mobile phones and catering Chinese national cuisine (Shohrat, 2018). Most likely, this is forced labour.

In 2017, Chen Quanguo called on officials to arrest anyone who should be detained. Most of the detainees were never charged. Local authorities told relatives of the detainees that their loved ones are not criminals, but are being held for their own good because they are infected with unhealthy thoughts. It is not known for certain, but it is widely believed that in the period from April 2017 to December 2018, up to 2 million people passed through the "centres" (Ramzy & Buckley, 2019). The official mission of these centres continues to provide vocational education as part of an anti-poverty policy to reduce the economic gap between the Uighur minority and the Han Chinese (Zenz, 2019).

At the same time, although the XUAR government claimed that the political education camps were simply vocational training centres, police harassed many Uighur scientists, writers, journalists, doctors, and artists – people with higher education and high professionalism (including professors from Xinjiang and Kashgar Universities), as well as elderly people. The real reason for the arrests was suspicion of separatism and excessive religiosity (Testimony of Rushan Abbas, 2019). Muslims were detained for their religious practices, including fasting, performing public prayers or attending unauthorized religious events, studying Islam, running a household with strict observance of religious rites, and wearing a hijab. There were even mass detentions of men with long beards and Islamic names, which were interpreted as religious extremism. People were also arrested for refusing to conduct public patrols, raising the national flag, or violating the state's birth planning policy. Besides, relatives of Uighur journalists and activists, especially those working abroad, have been harassed (Ideological Transformation, 2020).

Those placed in camps appear to fall into different categories and are subject to different types of restrictions and lengths of detention. Detainees are placed on the basis of an initial check-in the general administration, in a strict zone. There, they are awarded appropriate points in accordance with their behaviour before and after the arrest. These points determine potential transfers of detainees between zones, the treatment of detainees within the camp, as well as rewards, punishments, and opportunities. family visits. To be released, detainees must have good performance and have worked in the camp for at least one year, although there have been cases when the administration has released detainees before.

In addition to internment camps, the Strike Hard Campaign has also increased the number of arrests of Uighurs and other ethnic minorities in the penal system. According to official statistics, in 2017, arrests in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region accounted for almost 21% of all arrests in China, despite the fact that the autonomous region's population is only 1.8% of the country's total population (Ruser et al., 2020). Charges and subsequent convictions in the autonomous region accounted for approximately 13% of all indictments in China in 2017. The number of arrests and criminal charges in the XUAR increased by 306% and 237% between 2013 and 2018 (Feng, 2019). From 2014 to 2016, about 300,000 people were convicted as part of the Strike Hard campaign person (Bunin, 2020).

Total surveillance

Although the Chinese government uses mass surveillance throughout the country, it is more widely deployed in Xinjiang. The Government encourages universal control. For example, under the "ten households – one unit" policy, groups of 10 households are responsible for monitoring each other, and they face collective punishment for violations by one household (Ti hua lianhe zuozhan pingtai, 2017).

One of the main features of the Strike Hard Campaign is the creation and operation of groups "fanghuiju" (访惠聚 – "Visit Hui" (Chinese Muslims)) in Xinjiang, where thousands of government employees are stationed in villages, regularly visit and monitor the local population, and carry out political propaganda. In October 2016, the authorities initiated a similar campaign called "Become a Family" (结对认亲), during which more than one million employees spent at least five days every two months in the homes of XUAR residents, mostly in rural areas (Wang, 2018). Another innovation was the organization of police stations on street corners, known as "convenience police stations", which form a dense control complex, organized in a grid that divides neighbourhoods and populations into geometric units for more rigid and targeted surveillance.

Another method of total surveillance of Uighurs and other national minorities in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region is the mandatory collection of their biometric data (Xinjiang, 2017). Chinese authorities collect DNA samples, blood types, fingerprints, and iris scans from all Xinjiang residents aged 12 to 65, partly as part of the "Physical Health for All-health screening program. At the same time, biometric data of national minorities is collected without their consent. Even voice samples are recorded when issuing passports and at police checkpoints. This biometric data is collected to form a "multi-modal" biometric portrait of people, and the data can be linked in police databases with a person's identification number.

Networks of automated sensor systems have also been established in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, which include surveillance cameras with facial recognition, automatic license plate recognition, and infrared radiation capability; Wi-Fi sniffers that collect the identification addresses of network devices; and security checkpoints and visitor management systems that collect identifying information. Under special control is not only the turnover of cold weapons, but even kitchen knives, which are tracked using QR codes, including owner's identification number, photo, ethnicity, and address. In addition, vehicles are also subject to mandatory location tracking.

Much of this information is fed into the Integrated Operations Platform (IJOP), which aggregates data on individuals, focuses officials' attention on those deemed potentially dangerous, and determines who should be detained by the police and sent to political re-education camps or other places of detention. In December 2020, Human Rights Watch published a study based on a list of more than 2,000 detainees in Aksu Prefecture, which provided detailed evidence that the vast majority of people who were detained in Aksu Prefecture were not identified. IJOP systems were detained for everyday non-illegal behaviour (China, 2020).

After their release, former detainees are placed under even harsher control conditions. Not only are they reported to police stations, but they and their relatives are also regularly interviewed by local authorities, who regularly assess and record their mood and behaviour by indicators such as whether their thoughts are "stable"; whether they can "admit their mistakes"; and whether they have "sincere regret" for what they have done. Some released persons have to be registered daily in the morning and evening.

Uyghur complaints are also recorded that the surveillance also applies not only to the XUAR, but also to the Turkic Muslim diaspora outside of China. The Chinese authorities are allegedly pressuring them to provide detailed information about themselves, including their address, phone number, and place of work. There are allegations that Chinese intelligence agencies hack into the smartphones of Uighur migrants in other countries, embedding malware in apps and software often used in Chinese smartphones that can remotely turn on the phone's microphone, record calls, or send messages, export photos, phone locations, and chat apps.

Cultural assimilation

One of the main goals pursued by the Chinese government in creating "education centres" and exercising total control is the cultural assimilation of Uyghurs and other Turkic-speaking minorities of the XUAR. The authorities consider the distinctive national culture and Islamic traditions of the indigenous peoples of the autonomous region as the basis for the development of separatism and religious extremism. Many government platforms claim that the purpose of the camps is "brainwashing" and "purifying hearts". Prisoners are forced to learn Chinese and banned from speaking Uyghur (Zenz, 2019). They should publicly endorse the CCP's political course and not show their religious beliefs.

According to the former detainees, they had to not only learn more than 1,000 characters and start speaking Chinese, as well as abandon Islamic religious practices, but also start judging their relatives and friends for their cultural and religious practices. At the same time, those who met these conditions were transferred to more comfortable conditions. Such treatment is in line with an internal directive that directs the administration of the "centres" to promote repentance and recognition of students so that they deeply understand the illegal, criminal and dangerous nature of their past behaviour.

Shortly after the start of the Uighur re-education campaign, reports began to appear that the children of parents detained twice were transferred to State custody. They were placed in boarding schools and special orphanages. In them, children from preschool to high school age learn Chinese, receive political education and undergo psychological correction. Thus, not only the separation of families is carried out, but also a comprehensive program of ethnic assimilation.

Outside of the camps, there are also ample examples of Han assimilation in everyday life. Representatives of national minorities in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region are required to attend weekly and sometimes daily Chinese flag-raising ceremonies, political education meetings, and sometimes Chinese language classes. They are also required to watch state TV programs or listen to radio programmes. The population is strongly discouraged from speaking or writing Uyghur. Chinese authorities have banned the use of educational materials in Uyghur and Kazakh languages, and state-run media outlets have banned the use of Uyghur and Kazakh languages. employees who use these languages are considered "unpatriotic" and can be called "duplicitous people," a charge that has led to hundreds of arrests (Kang, 2019).

Since March 2017, as part of a programme initiated by Chen Quanguo, public figures, including CCP members, officials, clergy, and minority intellectuals, have published letters expressing their gratitude and loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party. In these open letters, they renounced their Turkic roots, cultural and historical ties, and religious beliefs, as well as denouncing religious extremism and "two-faced" Turkic Muslims. In addition to the fear of ending up in vocational training centres, representatives of the Uyghur community are also afraid of being sent to work, intellectuals risk losing their jobs. For the purpose of special monitoring, Chinese universities have student informants who monitor any non-academic behaviour of the teaching staff.

Chinese authorities have banned the widespread Arabic greeting "al-salamualaikum", meaning peace to be upon you, and Arabic-language signs on restaurants, mosques, and street banners. A ban was introduced on "abnormal" (long) beards, wearing hijabs in public places and common Islamic names with religious overtones. However, private religious activities, such as regular prayer or fasting during Ramadan, can be considered signs of extremism.

All representatives of the Islamic clergy must be registered with the Chinese Islamic Association, which is under the control of the Government. Unregistered imams are subject to imprisonment. The regional government also requires that the pilgrimage to Mecca be carried out not individually, but centrally through state structures. The use of information materials that include anything that undermines national unity, social stability, economic development or scientific and technological progress or affects religious harmony is severely prohibited. In addition, burial management centres are being set up in XUAR to conduct cremation of provincial residents, which violates Muslim burial traditions.

One of the most odious actions of the authorities, which causes a sharp increase in discontent, should be considered the policy of reducing the number of Islamic places of worship. Since 2017, Chinese authorities have used various pretexts to damage or destroy two-thirds of Xinjiang's mosques; about half of them (approximately 8,000) have been demolished (Ruser et al., 2020). Many of the remaining mosques were "desecrated" in other ways, such as by removing the crescent moons from the domes of mosques or by putting banners with communist slogans on their walls.

As part of the policy of assimilation, the regional authorities of the autonomous region are increasingly promoting the programme of marriages between national minorities and Han Chinese, offering preferential university admission to children from mixed families and posting videos about happy interethnic couples on the Internet. Those who refuse or speak ill of these marriages risk being sent to political re-education camps. Some marriages between Muslim women and Han men are the result of the "Become Families" campaign, which places Han women in the homes of Uyghur women. In addition, officials periodically stay overnight in some families, while carrying out educational work, which, according to the authorities, contributes to ethnic unity.