Adrian Zenz Profile picture
May 26 19 tweets 8 min read
The #XinjiangPoliceFiles show that the mass internments in Xinjiang were carefully planned & executed w/ Beijing's knowledge, based on a 5-year plan: 2017 to 2021.

We can now ascertain this plan's precise execution until Chen Quanguo's removal in 2021:🧵
chinafile.com/reporting-opin…
This plan was closely built around the person of Chen Quanguo.

In the files, Chen Quanguo admits that Xi Jinping himself "sent me to Xinjiang in order to make a stable Xinjiang arise."

Chen told Xi that he would be willing to be in Xinjiang for 10 years if necessary.
I previously argued that in 2016, Chen immediately hit the ground running, preparing the mass internments through massive police recruitments, the construction of 1000s of police stations, and the expansion of the surveillance apparatus.

Internal files support this assessment.
The 5-year plan then logically began with "year one" in 2017: "stabilize" the region. This started the mass internments.

The mandate for "year two" of the plan (2018) was to "consolidate" the achievements of the first year, i.e. the mass internments and the crackdown.
From witness accounts and satellite image analysis we know that the internments peaked at that time, as did internment camp floor space construction (see @alisonkilling's chart below - with 2018 highlighted).
"Year three" was supposed to lead to a "normalization" of the resulting state. In fact, in 2019, many lower-security re-education camps were desecuritized. The region showed camps to journalists and boasted that Xinjiang was now "stable."

Everything was going according to plan.
By "year five" (end of 2021 when counting from start of 2017), Xinjiang was supposed to have achieved reach “comprehensive stability.”

It did. The 5-year plan had been executed.
In December 2021, precisely at the end of the 5-year plan, Chen Quanguo, an expert for intensive cadre mobilization was replaced with Ma Xingrui, a technocrat with expertise in economic development.

That means the most intensive and high-handed phase of the crackdown is now...
...over, and being replaced with a more long-term institutionalized approach.

Similarly, in the Nankai Report, Chinese academics described the mass internments as a “drastic short-term measure” that was “absolutely necessary and effective.”
jamestown.org/product/coerci…
But the academics argued that this "drastic" measure was not a long-term strategy. Instead, economic development, poverty alleviation & labor transfers were the long-term approach.

For this, Ma Xingrui will be well-placed.
In this speech marked "secret", Zhao Kezhi, China's minister of public security promised Beijing's support for the crackdown, which was ongoing and in its peak phase at the time.

Zhao bluntly said that the camps were "overcrowded."
But Xi Jinping had ordered regional authorities to:

“implement practical measures such as expanding the number of employed [staff in detention facilities], enlarging the capacity [of these facilities], and increasing investment [in these facilities] within the set time frame.”
Satellite images prove that this is exactly what happened: camp floorspace construction peaked - by a great margin - in the second half of 2018 (marked in red). [chart is same source as above]
Zhao said that thousands of police would be sent to Xinjiang from all over China. According to Han police witness Wang Leizhan, about 150,000 officers like him were brought to the region.
Zhao Kezhi also asserts in the speech that Beijing would “increase the strength of its support” for covering the “high costs” of operating and maintaining Xinjiang’s internment facilities.
Zhao also quotes Xi Jinping as charging the Xinjiang government with “bringing the Vocational Skills Education and Training Center management work into the orbit of legalization” (i.e., establishing them as legally operating facilities).
While the Xinjiang Papers contain secret speeches by Xi where he support the evolving crackdown and orientation towards securitization, the Zhao Kezhi speech directly implicates Xi and Beijing's leadership in the mass internments.
That makes this document the perhaps most important document of the entire #XinjiangPoliceFiles.
A big thank you to @susanjakes, Jessica Batke, @SegalWilliams for their helpful and very thorough fact-checking and editing of my work. It was a true pleasure to work with you. Thank you.
chinafile.com/reporting-opin…

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More from @adrianzenz

May 25
I really think we need to qualify interpretations about Xi vs. Li. Even domestically, the Chinese leadership can tweak messages for different audiences.

Here, having Xi show a different focus vs Li, who speaks to a very targeted foreign audience, is not unexpected. That is
because the state is dealing with conflicting aims and seeks to reassure respective and different constituencies.

While Li may in private disagree with Xi, what he does and says publicly is in line with his official role (focus on economy).

Xi exerts such control that
it is unlikely that in such sensitive times for his leadership, he would tolerate what could be interpreted as actual political dissent. More likely, Li has the blessing to talk differently to reassure related target groups. It is certainly very possible that this role is
Read 4 tweets
May 24
Images straight from police computers are powerful - especially when they contain so much raw information. Uncropped wide-angle shots show plenty of background, in this case a police officer in SWAT gear, with his baton at the ready. 🧵 Image
In many images including this one, you see detainees in the background, behind bars. Image
With many of the photographed women, you see female minders on their sides. This one wears a tag that says: Vocational Skills Education and Training Center (aka re-education camp). Image
Read 5 tweets
May 24
BREAKING: huge trove of files obtained by hacking into Xinjiang police / re-education camp computers contain first-ever image material from inside camps, reveal Chen Quanguo issuing shoot-to-kill orders, Xi Jinping demanding new camps because existing ones are overcrowded. 🧵 Image
The material is unprecedented on several levels:
1. High-level speeches, implicating top leadership and containing blunt language

2. Camp security instructions, far more detailed than China Cables, describe heavily armed strike units with battlefield assault rifles Image
3. Vivid image of police drills, and over 5,000 images of persons taken at detention centers/police stations, 2,884 of them are interned.

4. Spreadsheets showing vast scale of internments: over 12% of adult population of Uyghur county in 2018 shown in camps or prisons. Image
Read 10 tweets
Mar 16
A big shout-out to the WSJ (@joshchin @Chao_Deng ) for this article's framing.

The framing used in this article should be an example for all media, and I call on all outlets to imitate it.

Why? Read along. /1
wsj.com/articles/human…
Typically, media reports on Xinjiang refer to "allegations" by "activists" or "human rights groups".

That is such a disservice to the body of RESEARCH amassed by rights groups, journalists and researchers.

Now list to how the WSJ put it, and notice the difference:/2
"Human-rights activists say an assessment by the U.N. is an important step toward holding Beijing accountable for a campaign that independent researchers estimate has led to as many as a million people being detained in internment camps."
/3
Read 10 tweets
Dec 9, 2021
Applying the strictest standard of proof - "Beyond reasonable doubt" - the Uyghur Tribunal in London concludes that the PRC is committing Genocide in Xinjiang through imposing measures to prevent births - "match[ing] the revealed intention of the PRC leadership’s policies." /1
In a carefully nuanced statement, Sir Geoffrey Nice detailes not only key evidence, but the legal considerations and caveats, and the decidedly conservative approach pursued by the Tribunal in their findings. /2
"These policies will result in significantly fewer births in years to come than might otherwise have occurred. The population of Uyghurs in future generations will be smaller than it would have been without these policies. This will result in a partial destruction of the Uyghurs"
Read 12 tweets
Dec 3, 2021
A 中办通报 doesn't usually contain a red star. This is explained in my Introduction report (section 4). See examples from other 中办通报. /1
There are also many regional 党办通报 with a solid red line w/o star (some examples below are b/w copies but originals would be in color). See page 31 of my report. /2
The red star is typical of other document types, for example the 中共中央办公厅文件. /3
Read 5 tweets

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