THE BIG STORY
Just as the US-led ‘war on terror’ pro-
duced ‘blowback’, is Beijing not worried
that its clampdown may lead to violence?
I imagine that many people in the
administration are worried, though this
is not something they would say publicly.
What they say over and over again is
that it’s working, it’s a model for dealing
with extremism. Many people working
in the apparatus that I’ve interviewed –
Han intelligence workers, police – see
it as a success. They feel they have a lot
more power. They feel as though Uyghurs
have become docile and productive in
the economy. But if you look a little bit
closer and talk to people who are more
candid you hear concerns. One elderly
Han woman from this region told me that
she’s worried about what will happen if
or when they let people out of the camps.
She thinks there will be a major rise in
violence.
In response to these kinds of concerns,
the state is controlling everyone as they
come out. They’re not fully ‘released’,
they’re simply transferred into facto-
ries. These are meant to be Chinese-
language environments that teach the
skills required for industrial work... [and]
pay below the minimum wage. The
factories are still part of the camp system.
In some cases, the workers are not per-
mitted to contact their families and
movement is controlled. Most Uyghurs
at this point are under arrest of some
kind: house, village, and neighbourhood.
They’re often forced to carry a smart-
phone to track their movements or wear
a bracelet. They’re not permitted to travel
outside certain routes or their home
county without special permission.
But you haven’t noticed an increase in
separatist sentiment?
A lot of the sentiments – terrorism,
extremism, separatism, as the Chinese
state refers to them – are a misrecogni-
tion of what Uyghurs actually believe.
Mostly, Uyghurs want to have freedom
to make choices themselves as people, a
better life for their families... Most people
that I know don’t necessarily want inde-
pendence in a strong sense. They’re not
organizing in an insurgency. Like I men-
tioned, there were attacks but those were
isolated and localized. It is too soon to tell
how they will respond to the abuse they
are experiencing in the camp system.
Is there any solidarity between Han
Chinese people – such as labour or
pro-democracy activists – and the
Uyghurs?
The Han people who express most soli-
darity with the Uyghurs are the long-
term residents of Xinjiang. Those locals
grew up in or around Uyghur communi-
ties and identify with the way Xinjiang
used to be before the 1990s, when the new
folks arrived; they often see what’s hap-
pened to the Uyghurs as a real travesty.
Many of them are working as allies in
small ways – through forms of individual
resistance like not co-operating as well as
they should. They let Uyghurs use their
phones to contact people on the outside
and get messages out. So there is a level of
risk they’re willing to take, but it’s small
and not organized.
Across China itself, what’s happen-
ing in Xinjiang is seen as a positive: the
Chinese state standing up for the Han
people against the perceived threat of
Uyghur terrorism. There’s a widespread
perception among most middle-class
Han people that Xinjiang is now ‘safe’
and the problem has been taken care of.
They’re willing to send their children as
tourists to the region.
Labour solidarity? I think it’s a nascent
part of that movement. There’s still a lack
of information, so many Han labour-
rights activists don’t know the specifics of
what’s happening to the Uyghurs. There
are also, among some Chinese democracy
advocates or activists, various forms of
Islamophobia. Many people actually are
in agreement with the government that
something needed to be done against the
Uyghurs. Those are some of the things
that need to be pushed back against.What needs to be done?
It’s instructive to compare the way in
which nations have responded to what
has been happening to the Rohingya in
Myanmar compared with what’s hap-
pening to the Uyghurs in China. Many
more nations were willing to condemn
the former than the latter. EvenMuslim-majority nations are reluctant
to condemn what is happening to the
Uyghurs for three main reasons. One
is that they themselves may be auto-
cratic states with dissidents that they
want to crack down on and they don’t
want UN intervention when they do
so. Two, they’re major trading partners
with China – the Belt and Road Initia-
tive targets 60 to 70 per cent of places
where the world’s Muslim population
lives. Third, China is a strategic coun-
terweight to the United States and other
Western nations; Muslim-majority states
don’t want to cut off relations with China
because that will make them more of a
target for the West. They’re playing the
great power game.
There are things the West could do,
mostly, I think, through economic ties as
the camp system is turned into a factory
space for consumer durables and cotton.
There’s an immense supply chain bring-
ing cotton, yarn or thread from these
factories into the production of products
for companies like The Gap and H&M.^1
These things could be targeted quite
easily. There are government sanctions
that could be levelled against key political
operators and those in positions of power
in the corporations, particularly in tech-
nology firms doing the surveillance. But,
I think, if we want to have a grassroots
movement, we need to be looking at the
supply chain. ODARREN BYLER IS A LECTURER IN THE DEPARTMENT
OF ANTHROPOLOGY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF
WASHINGTON IN SEATTLE. HE HAS PROVIDED
EXPERT TESTIMONY ON UYGHUR COLONIZATION
FOR THE CANADIAN PARLIAMENT AND WRITES
A REGULAR COLUMN ON THESE ISSUES FOR
SUPCHINA.
1 ‘Western companies get tangled in China’s Muslim
clampdown’, The Wall Street Journal, 16 May
2019, nin.tl/UyghurLabour; ‘Cotton On and Target
investigate suppliers after forced labour of Uyghurs
exposed in China’s Xinjiang’, ABC Australia, 17 July
2019, nin.tl/UyghurLabour230 NEW INTERNATIONALIST
Uyghurs tell
me that their
communities have
been turned into
open-air prisons