Turkistan Times, Istanbul- September 25, 2025: The recent visit by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping to East Turkestan was a blatant declaration that the Beijing government, disregarding strong condemnation from the global community and international sanctions, will resolutely continue its repressive policies in the region. This visit coincided with the so-called 70th anniversary of the founding of the "Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region," once again demonstrating the bitter irony of the word "autonomy." Chinese state media extensively propagated images of Xi receiving a "warm welcome from the masses," with Uyghur youths dancing and presenting flowers. However, behind the curtain of this staged theater lies a dark reality: a region under the world's most intense surveillance, where armed police patrol every street, and a boundless fear reigns in people's hearts. Although this visit was wrapped in appealing slogans like "economic development," "social stability," and "ethnic unity," its essence is a crucial component of a sinister plan to culturally annihilate a nation, colonize its homeland, and plunder its resources. This article will provide a deep and multi-layered analysis of the political stage of this visit, the nature of the false "economic development" narrative, and the systematic human rights abuses and genocidal policies being carried out under this guise.

1. The Political Stage: Ideological Cleansing in the Name of "Stability"

Xi Jinping's visit was not a simple inspection or commemorative event, but a strategic move aimed at consolidating the "achievements" of the large-scale suppression campaign underway since 2017 and setting the direction for future policies. During his visit, Xi repeatedly emphasized "resolutely safeguarding social stability." In the CCP's lexicon, the word "stability" signifies the suppression of any dissenting opinion, religious belief, national consciousness, and cultural identity. He instructed local officials to "firmly build a people's defense line against terrorism" and "guide cadres and the masses of all ethnic groups to establish a correct view of the state, history, ethnicity, culture, and religion."

It is crucial to understand the true meaning of these instructions. "Establishing a correct view" means completely negating the Uyghurs' own understanding of their history, culture, and identity, and replacing it with a fabricated history written by the CCP and the ideology of the "community for the Chinese nation." This is tantamount to erasing a nation's historical memory and spiritually disarming it. Xi Jinping's words signal a further deepening of the ideological cleansing in the region and a tightening of the CCP's control over every aspect of education, culture, and daily life. This visit is, in fact, Beijing's resolute declaration to both the internal and external world of its intention to permanently colonize East Turkestan and eliminate the Uyghurs as a nation.

2. Deconstructing the "Economic Development" Narrative: Colonial Economy and Modern Slavery

In Chinese government propaganda, the root of all problems in East Turkestan is attributed to "poverty," and "economic development" is presented as a magical cure-all. During this visit, Xi Jinping again emphasized "cultivating competitive industrial clusters." But who is the real beneficiary of this "development"? What is its essence?

First, it is a typical colonial economic model. East Turkestan's abundant strategic resources—such as oil, natural gas, coal, gold, cotton, and polysilicon (a key raw material for global solar panel production)—have become the lifeblood that powers the industrial machinery of China's inner provinces. Massive projects like the "West-East Gas Pipeline" are designed to systematically extract the region's resources and transport them to industrial cities on China's eastern coast. In this process, the local Uyghur people not only fail to receive even a drop of benefit from the income of these resources but also suffer the direct impact of environmental pollution and ecological destruction caused by their extraction. This is a vivid manifestation of "internal colonialism," which aims to control the local population by depriving them of their homeland's wealth and impoverishing them.

Second, it is a system of modern slavery under the name of "poverty alleviation." Reports from international research institutions have revealed that the Chinese government, under the guise of "transferring surplus labor" and "assisting the poor," has forcibly removed hundreds of thousands, even millions, of Uyghurs from their homes and traditional farming and pastoral lifestyles, sending them to forced labor in textile, clothing, and high-tech factories within the region or in inner China. These "workers" have no freedom to choose their jobs; they work under semi-military management, their daily lives and thoughts are strictly monitored, and their wages are extremely low. This is, in essence, a state-organized system of modern slavery integrated into the industrial supply chain, and it has been revealed that many famous Western brands are directly or indirectly implicated in this criminal chain. Xi Jinping's call to "develop industry" is an attempt to further expand and normalize this system of slavery.

Third, this development marginalizes Uyghurs. Most of the investments and enterprises established in the region are state-owned or owned by Han Chinese migrants. Uyghur entrepreneurs face systematic discrimination and encounter numerous obstacles in areas like obtaining loans and market access. High-paying, technical, and managerial positions are predominantly filled by Han Chinese. This economic policy turns Uyghurs into second-class citizens in their own homeland and strengthens their economic dependence on Han migrants and the state. It is a classic example of achieving political control through economic means.

3. The Multi-layered Expressions of Genocide: Physical, Biological, and Cultural Annihilation

What is being carried out under the veil of economic development is a multi-layered and systematic genocidal campaign aimed at completely destroying a nation. This can be seen in the following aspects:

• Physical Annihilation:Camps, prisons, and enforced disappearances. The Chinese government has established a network of concentration camps under the name of "re-education," detaining millions of innocent Uyghurs. In these camps, crimes against humanity such as ideological brainwashing, systematic torture, sexual violence, forced injection of unknown drugs, and forced labor have occurred on a massive scale. Many people have died in the camps or have been returned to their families with severe physical and psychological trauma. In addition to the camps, hundreds of thousands have been sentenced to long prison terms, and numerous intellectuals, artists, and religious figures have disappeared without a trace.

• Biological Annihilation:Forced sterilization and demographic change. Reports by independent international researchers have proven that the Chinese government is carrying out a large-scale campaign of forced birth control, abortions, and sterilizations targeting Uyghur women. Simultaneously, the government has implemented policies encouraging Han Chinese migrants to settle in the region and have more children. As a direct result, birth rates in Uyghur-majority areas have plummeted. This perfectly aligns with the crime of "imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group," as explicitly defined in the UN's "Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide," and aims to deliberately alter the demographic structure of the Uyghur nation, turning them into a minority in their own homeland.

• Cultural Annihilation:Uprooting language, religion, and identity. The most insidious and long-lasting part of this genocide is being carried out in the cultural sphere.

• Eradication of Language:The Uyghur language has been completely banned in the education system, with all classes from kindergarten to university now taught in Mandarin Chinese. This aims to sever a new generation of Uyghurs from their mother tongue, literature, and history, cutting them off from their national roots.

• Eradication of Religion:Thousands of mosques and religious buildings have been demolished or converted for other purposes. Copies of the Quran and other religious texts have been burned. Normal religious practices such as growing a beard, praying, and fasting are deemed "religious extremism" and are met with harsh punishment.

• Destruction of the Family:Hundreds of thousands of Uyghur children have been forcibly taken to state-run boarding schools and orphanages because their parents were sent to camps or prisons. These children are completely separated from their families and cultural environment, indoctrinated from a young age to be loyal to the CCP, and assimilated into Han Chinese culture. This is equivalent to destroying a nation's future by stealing its children.

4. Conclusion: Truth and Responsibility Against Falsehoods

Xi Jinping's visit to East Turkestan is part of the genocidal policy the Chinese government is implementing in the region. His words about "economic development" and "stability" are nothing more than a veil of lies used to conceal these crimes. Just as the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) criticized China's white paper as "nonsensical sophistry concocted to whitewash 70 years of repression of the Uyghur people," the Beijing government is attempting to hide its crimes by distorting history and altering reality.

The root of the East Turkestan issue is not economic but political, ethnic, and cultural oppression. The only solution is not to provide economic aid but to compel the Chinese government to immediately stop this genocide; to close all concentration camps and prisons and release the innocent; and to restore all the fundamental rights of the Uyghur people, including their right to self-determination. The international community, especially democratic nations and the Islamic world, must no longer remain silent, must not turn a blind eye to this oppression for the sake of economic interests, and must take tougher, more concrete punitive measures against China to fulfill its historical responsibility to end the greatest humanitarian tragedy of the 21st century.