Thread by @ReasonablyRagin

How does Xi Jinping command policy in #China? This report analyses the #Xinjiang Papers and new evidence of #Uyghurs mass detention. 🧵

sheffield.ac.uk/seas/news/xinj…

1.

The report analyses Xi’s thinking and the centralised decision-making behind Xinjiang policy, institutional shifts to ensure policy implementation, and the arbitrary nature of mass detention of Turkic-speaking Muslim communities.

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It explains how China’s political system operates and analyses the thinking behind genocide in Xinjiang. The PRC is moving towards totalitarianism: personalised rule, mass mobilisation and surveillance, and ideological education.

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Under Xi’s rule, over a million Uyghurs & Kazakhs have been extralegally detained, subjected to sexual violence, child-separation, and trauma. Outside the camps, they navigate security checkpoints, hi-tech surveillance, & forced labour.

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Xi’s Xinjiang policy targets signs of everyday Uyghur identity as security threats. The goal is cultural destruction of Uyghur communities and the rewriting of their history as a Chinese minority, termed “Sinicisation” policy.

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Central party documents dismiss Uyghurs’ Turkic and Islamic identities as inauthentic: “Uyghurs’ ancestors were oppressed by Turks,” and “Uyghurs are not descendants of the Turks and have no relationship with Turkey.”

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Cadres and security personnel study these narratives of history and culture in ideological education sessions and are given long lists of potential signs of identity or minor misbehaviours to round people up for mass detention.

7.

Regular party meetings and education sessions for cadres and security personnel outline Xi’s ideological principles and the severe punishments for alternative thought or failing to implement central orders (e.g., Wang Yongzhi's punishment for"violations of discipline").

8.

Xi’s “People’s war on terror” links party institutions, security, & neighbourhoods to monitor identities and guard against signs of everyday dissatisfaction, using mass mobilisation and human surveillance.

xinjiang.sppga.ubc.ca/chinese-source…

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The report also provides new evidence of local implementation of mass detention and dispersal of Uyghurs. Cadres are examined on implementation of central policy & signs of danger to report, particularly people who want to go abroad.

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The report analyses the Konasheher list, showing how “population optimisation” policy disperses Uyghur communities and mass detention is conducted on a door-to-door basis.

uk.style.yahoo.com/china-database…

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Many heavy sentences include those given for the vaguely defined “picking quarrels.” One of the best documented cases of arbitrary detention included is Memeteli Abdureshit.

xinjiang.amnesty.org/case/sr100-mem…

12.

The Xinjiang victims database @shahitbiz documents 63 cases from the list. Their work is vital to our continuing understanding of life in the region.

shahit.biz/eng/

13.

Policymakers must now grapple with the reality of the PRC’s power and its totalitarian institutional structure under Xi, which shapes its diplomacy towards the political goals of repression of Turkic and Islamic identities at home and abroad.

14.

Thank you to @ShefUniSEAS for their support in the writing of this report and to @HannahTheaker1 and the @UyghurJustice for their vital contributions to this research.

15. And huge gratitude to the @UniShefAH for supporting this research and helping make @sheffielduni a hub for innovative, multidisciplinary research.

16. CORRECTION: the correct version of the report has now been uploaded. The correct version has a white and blue university logo, NOT the black logo.