Since the release of secret documents, detailing the Chinese treatment of Uighur community in detention cells, it has attracted global attention.
This is the story of a police state beyond any vulnerabilities that usually bring down following a gradual process, like that happened during the Arab Spring.
Qaddafi might be a ruthless leader, but he lacked a systematic mechanism to curb dissent as China has in its “reeducation centers”.
With the propaganda mechanism, so precise, and so targeted, and with such a strict implementation, such a system of oppression is bound to stay for an indefinite period.
Chinese communist propagandists could boastfully claim the ideological patrimony of their patron, Karl Marx. The messengers of the communism had suggested such a ruthless mechanism to perpetuate the ideology. The detention centers seem to be serving only the laboratories for experimenting it.
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But the question remains: are ideologies worth-dying for? Or worse, are they worth killing for?
Indeed, the Chinese treatment of Uighur community answers in the affirmative.
The Chinese government is filled with pragmatists as it knows it cannot drive ten million out of China, so it has resolved to hold them in. The way to hold them is based on simple, but the most shameful mechanism. It is by “expunging their ethnonational characteristic” in reeducation centers.
Background
As described above, China wants to hold in ten million Uighurs, who live in an autonomous region of Xinjiang in China’s northwest. The region, bordering Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Mongolia, came under Chinese control in 1949, with the establishment of the Communist People’s Republic of China.
The Uighurs speak a distinct language, an Asian Turkic accent, something akin to Uzbek. The predominant religion is a moderate form of Sunni Islam. However, those activists who seek independence from China refer to the regions as East Turkestan.
Why China Wants to “Reeducate” Uighurs!
Xinjiang is a strategic route along the historical Silk Road, with abundant oil and resources. It is also a major logistic hub for China’s trillion-dollar Belt and Road infrastructure.
For its economic potential, the region has been attracting Han Chinese, a migration encouraged by the Chinese government, and resented by the local population.
Inevitably, such demographic shifts inherently tend to inflame ethnic tensions, which it did in 2009. That year, riots broke out in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, killing 200 people.
China’s “De-extremification” Policy
Following the de-extremification drive, China began using these camps for “re-educating” the Uighur minority. According to experts, around two million of them have been picked up for “re-education” in the various internment camps set up for this purpose. Currently, at least a million are serving in those camps to conform to the Chinese definition of a “gentleman”.
However, experts believe the “de-extremification” policy is a deliberate Chinese attempt to change people’s identity.
In the camps, the detainees are awarded points for their ideological transformation, training, and compliance.
They are also considered for release after four Communist party committees approve that they are “transformed”.
Will it Ever End?
Apparently, such an organized system of oppression is destined to last as long as China wants. There are various reasons for this. The first and foremost, and which no other explanation is necessary, is that China is not a democracy.
And Perhaps, it is one of the only few instances when I tend to tacitly believe in the superiority of democracy compared to any other system.
Due to strict state censure of media, these kinds of matters are shrouded in secrecy as the entire episode is full of blind spots.
Still, the leaks of these documents could provide the world in general and the United Nations, in particular, to force China to stop these human rights violations.
