By Patrik Meyer
What you need to know
China has been accused of interning millions of innocent ethnic minorities in mass detention camps, pursuing ethnic policies aimed at erasing Uyghur identity and implementing extensive “forced labor” programs that deeply infringe workers’ rights.
In recent years, the majority of western scholars and media outlets have accused the Chinese government of the most horrendous human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang. China has been accused of interning millions of innocent ethnic minorities in mass detention camps, pursuing ethnic policies aimed at erasing Uyghur identity and implementing extensive “forced labor” programs that deeply infringe workers’ rights.
Given the difficulty of fact-finding in China and the near impossibility to conduct research on minority issues in Xinjiang, western scholars relay on numerous poignant witness statements and extensive data gathered online. An example of the data found online are the “Xinjiang Police Files,” a massive trove of confidential documents shading light on Beijing’s alleged forceful assimilation of ethnic minorities in the region. These files are being systematically analyzed by the German anthropologist Dr. Adrian Zenz to document Beijing’s alleged crimes against the Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, crimes that include ethnic genocide and forced labor.
Beijing’s playbook to counter these serious accusations is to simply dismiss them as fabrications and lies. When Xinjiang’s governor Shohrat Zakir was asked about the existence detention and re-education camps in the region, he replied by saying that “these kinds of statements are completely fabricated lies, and are extraordinarily absurd." Moreover, he argued that there were no camps, but rather boarding school type of centres where the “personal freedoms of the students were guaranteed.”
Also, when Foreign Minister Wang Yi was confronted about evidence that China was committing genocide in Xinjiang and that there was forced labour and religious oppression in the region, he dismissed the accusation by saying: "Such inflammatory accusations are fabricated out of ignorance and prejudice, they are simply malicious and politically driven hype and couldn't be further from the truth." Beijing’s refusal to engage with anyone accusing it of human rights abuses and dismissal of the accusations as ignorant fabricated lies has resulted in China being perceived as untrustworthy in the West.
Well aware of its failure to convince western audience about the appropriateness of its policies in Xinjiang, Beijing has recently invited a number of western scholars and officials to visit Xinjiang to counter the numerous accusations of alarming human rights abuses in the region. It is so that recently a small group of German sinologists visited the region under Beijing’s auspices. After their visit, they angered western scholars by presenting a positive view about the current situation in Xinjiang. They declared that “everywhere they went and everyone they talked to said that things had returned to ‘normal’” and that “Xinjiang was much better now after a ‘successful’ campaign against ‘terror’.”
The headline “Sinologists on Xinjiang: German China experts are horrified” summarizes the reaction of most German experts to the sinologists’ report on Xinjiang. Western scholars reacted very much like Beijing would have when confronting dissenting voices: by dismissing the two sinologist as ignorant and labeling them as “naïve” and their article as “pure propaganda.” In some instances, they accused the sinologists of “following the line of China's Communist Party.” Furthermore, Dr. Zenz criticized them for not using the scientific method in their analysis and dismissed their findings as “uncritical opinions of two sinologists who have not researched and do not possess a professional understanding of Xinjiang.”
To be “horrified” about the opinions of two prominent German sinologist exposes a deep-rooted anti-China bias that often weakens western experts’ analysis of issues involving ethnic minorities in Xinjiang. As for Dr. Zenz’s criticism of the sinologists for not following the scientific method is not relevant in this case because they did not intend to write an academic paper, but rather wanted to share what they saw during their short visit to Xinjiang. These experiences cannot simply be dismissed as “uncritical opinions,” “naïve” or “pure propaganda” given that they were written by two prominent sinologists who described their personal experiences in the field.
This labelling of dissenting voices as being pro-China propaganda also applies to any western media outlet that does not systematically criticize Beijing’s policies in Xinjiang. The Berliner Zeitung, Berlin’s larges daily newspaper, published a piece arguing that Beijing "intensively supports Xinjiang's population" with numerous effective development policies that are driving the economic growth of the region. The staunch anti-China media did not engage in the substance of this report and simplistically dismissed it as “arguably one of Beijing's more notable propaganda successes since the start of the atrocities in 2017.” In other words, any reports shining a positive light on the situation in Xinjiang are not credible and unworthy of analysis.
Furthermore, in the last two years, numerous western multinationals have come under fire from western scholars and NGOs for doing business in Xinjiang. Volkswagen is one of them and its plant in Xinjiang has been under increasing scrutiny for allegedly benefiting from “forced labor.” To prove the incorrectness of this accusation, Volkswagen invited an independent auditor visit its factory. The findings of the audit showed that there was “no sign of forced labour at the Xinjiang site.” This independent audit did not satisfy German scholars. Dr. Zenz argues that “Volkswagen Group's newly-published Xinjiang Audit is a form of 'audit-washing'” that does not absolve the company from the potential violations of workers’ rights in the region even if it is not happening on its own site.
This refusal to engage with dissenting voices seems replicate Beijing’s own playbook on dissent. Any western scholar, media outlet, or multinational company presenting a positive perspective on Xinjiang is swiftly dismissed as being the product of China’s propagandistic machinery, if not accused of knowingly propagating Beijing’s lies for self-serving interests. The fact, however, is that most researchers who disagree with the mainstream anti-China scholars and media are neither mouthpieces of the Chinese government nor stupid, and not everything that the Chinese government is doing in Xinjiang is destructive and malicious. Given that this biased negativity does not reflect the reality in Xinjiang, western scholars risk to gradually erode their own credibility and hamper their efforts to improve the lives of the minorities in the region.
Yes, numerous unacceptable events might have happened in Xinjiang between 2017 and 2022 and they should be fully investigated. Nevertheless, western scholars and media should refrain from borrowing Beijing’s simplistic playbook against dissent voices and, instead, proactively engage them to develop a better understanding of Xinjiang’s present reality and realistic ways to contribute to make it a better place for its ethnic minorities.
Patrik K. Meyer has conducted extensive research and published on the Uyghur issue. He currently is a lecturer at Halic University in Istanbul and a Research Associate at the Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding. Graduate Institute Geneva.
