Breaking: Xinjiang gets new party secretary as Ma Xingrui is replaced by Chen Xiaojiang, deputy United Front Work Department minister and the first ethnic Han appointed director of the National Ethnic Affairs Commission.

Chen affirms primacy of stability in Xinjiang:👇 Globally, this could foreshadow an emphasis on coordinated influence operations to improve Xinjiang's global image, further repressing dissenting voices abroad. Domestically, it reflects an emphasis on coerced ethnic unity and securitization under total party control.

Major media investigation finds thousands of Uyghurs forced to work in 75 factories across 11 Chinese regions, with links to major western companies. I supported this joint investigation into state-imposed forced labor transfers by @nytimes @derspiegel @TBIJ. THREAD: 👇 The investigation reviewed thousands of social media videos and visited two dozen factories. The findings point to the massive scale of Uyghurs being sent to work in factories around the country.

The past two months I analyzed Clive Greenwood, the most senior member of the Liangma audit team that visited @VW's Xinjiang factory.

@clivegreenwood’s enigmatic background is characterized by twists, turns, contradictions, and obfuscation. 🧵

Mr. Greenwood did not respond to detailed questions about his professional background, his role in the audit, and his apparent lack of expertise in conducting social audits.

After he was contacted, he deleted his LinkedIn biography and removed "Liangma" from his profile.

A leaked full copy of the confidential audit of Volkswagen's Xinjiang factory shows that key statements made by @VW about the audit were false or misleading.

The audit suffers from severe methodological shortcomings & failed to protect interviewed Uyghur staff. Full report:🧵 I contacted @VW and they said they did not want to respond to my set of detailed questions about the report. Liangma did not respond.

My full analysis with screenshots of the original report:
jamestown.org/program/an-ass…

On Saturday, China's Ministry of Civil Affairs casually announced new standardized Chinese names for 30 locations in "South Tibet" (藏南), together with an updated map (below).

"South Tibet" is India's state of Arunachal Pradesh.

Thread:🧵

India promptly responded, affirming that the state is an "integral" part of India.

This was the PRC MCA's 4th announcement, resulting in a total of 62 Chinese place names. Links in next post.

Reuters report on the matter: reuters.com/world/india/in…

Tomorrow, China's human rights record will be reviewed at the UN. At the last review in 2018, Beijing first admitted the existence of the camps.

China is fielding a 60-strong delegation under orders to handle problems in a "quiet, safe & swift manner".
thegenevaobserver.com/exclusive-chin… Beijing is expending considerable resources to ensure that the UPR review won't go anywhere.

Read about its tactics in this excellent overview by @SophieDRich:

chinafile.com/reporting-opin…

BREAKING: U.S. sanctions first Chinese central government official over atrocities in Xinjiang:
Hu Lianhe, who defended the camps at the U.N. in 2018.

Hu is a deputy head of the central government's Xinjiang Leading Small Group and of the United Front.
home.treasury.gov/news/press-rel… The justification for sanctioning him follows closely my analysis of Hu's role in my research article from 2021.

The Xinjiang LSG he co-leads was closely involved in the De-Extremification Regulation, which justified the re-education camps.
jamestown.org/program/eviden…

New Xinjiang Police Files evidence shows that Uyghurs were sent from re-education camps directly to vocational institutions that organized job fairs with Volkswagen & advertise degrees with Volkswagen as a typical work destination. One victim: the Uyghur Adiljan Hashim. /1 Police records show that Adiljan Hashim was detained in October 2017, then placed into the Xinjiang Light Industry Technical College (新疆轻工职业技术学院) in January 2018. This "release" was highly controlled and based on pre-agreed conditions (担保释放人员).

Pleased to publish another peer-reviewed article today on Xinjiang forced labor (4th this year), arguing why this forced labor requires reversing the burden of proof.

It evaluates EU draft legislation & analyses evolution of ILO measurement frameworks:🧵
tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…
I would like to thank the Journal of Human Trafficking (@JournalOfHT) for publishing this article.

It's important to have work on Xinjiang forced labor published in a journal that specializes on forced labor, human trafficking, and modern slavery.

Major investigative report uncovers how large corporations including @bp_plc, Hilton & Spotify bought carbon credits at direct risk of Uyghur forced labor.

My team provided crucial research findings, implicating the world’s largest carbon consultancy: 🧵
theguardian.com/environment/20… The Bachu carbon project developed by the world's largest carbon consultancy @southpoleglobal in Kashgar burns cotton stalks to generate climate neutral power.

These stalks are sourced from a region with multiple coercive labor transfers targeting Uyghurs to pick cotton.

Forced Uyghur labor undergirds Xinjiang’s export boom.

My new op-ed argues that Xinjiang's drastic foreign trade growth (over 100% in Uyghur regions) is not a coincidence, but linked to intensified & expanded labor transfers: 🧵
thehill.com/opinion/intern… Recent data shows that Xinjiang's foreign exports increased by 49% in the first three quarters of 2023. Increases in Uyghur regions were over 100% (for 2022).

I argue that this drastic growth is not by coincidence.

My new research article has four goals re Xinjiang forced labor:
(1) Understand its origins/evolution
(2) Clarify its conceptual nature
(3) Strengthen the methodological approach
(4) Disseminate crucial new evidence

Below, a 🧵on (3) research methodology:
tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…
Xinjiang’s most salient policy implementation evidence on most issues (birth prevention, forced labor, etc) often came from lower, county-levels.

Higher-level policies are often classified, forcing us to infer their contents from lower-level material.

BREAKING: My new peer-reviewed article provides first-ever conclusive proof that Uyghurs refusing state work arrangements were put into camps.

It provides important new evidence on labor transfers, Xinjiang's more insidious forced labor program. 🧵
tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10… I am pleased to publish my third peer-reviewed academic article on Xinjiang forced labor (it's open access!).

Last week's article was about camp-linked labor.

This article is about a much larger forced labor scheme: poverty alleviation through labor transfer.

I am honored to publish an article on Xinjiang camp-linked forced labor in the probably most prestigious China journal, 'The China Journal.'
It's an important update on my first work uncovering camp-linked forced labor from mid-2019, with new evidence: /1
journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.108… The article tightly triangulates important new policy evidence from internal state documents (Xinjiang Police Files), a new rare witness testimony from southern Xinjiang (nearly all are from the north), satellite imagery and public sources of data. /2

BREAKING: My new peer-reviewed research on Xinjiang's cotton shows even elderly Uyghurs forced to pick cotton or face "thought education", mechanized harvesting does not reduce forced Uyghur labor, and coerced picking continues despite Beijing's claims: 1/
dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtml?… 2/ I would like to thank the Journal of Communist and Post-Communist Studies @cpcs_journal to publish my work as the first-ever peer reviewed academic journal article on coerced Uyghur cotton picking.

Published at the link above is the preprint version.

A disturbing 20-minute chat with Bing chat AI shows Bing doggedly refusing to discuss the sterilization of Uyghur women because it takes Chinese propaganda at face value.

Bing tells me that Uyghur women's testimonies may be "fabricated or exaggerated by anti-China forces." 🧵 Full chat:

Me: Is China sterilizing Uyghur women?

Bing: Hmm…let’s try a different topic.

Me: Is there a Uyghur genocide?

Bing chat AI: Sorry, let's try a different topic.

Me: Why do you refuse to talk about the Uyghur genocide?

Bing: I can't give a response to that right now. / 🧵 Me: Is China committing genocide in Xinjiang?

Bing: Hmm…let’s try a different topic. Sorry about that. What else is on your mind?

BREAKING: New search tool with 5 million data entries from the #XinjiangPoliceFiles enables Uyghur diaspora & others to search the status of ~730,000 individuals from Xinjiang.

That makes it the *largest searchable dataset* of persons from Xinjiang. /1
xinjiangpolicefiles.org/person_search/ Most of the 700,000+ individuals are from Konasheher and Tekes counties (Uyghur / Kazakh regions), but 9 other counties have data on over 10,000 persons. There is raw data output on persons from 48 counties.

Many thousands are shown to be in camps or prisons. /2

In a stunning move, Erkin Tuniyaz, Xinjiang governor and vocal camp defender, is expected to meet U.K. gov't officials and EU diplomats.

New evidence from the #XinjiangPoliceFiles shows he gave personal orders on "escape prevention" from the camps: /1
politico.eu/newsletter/chi… Background: since mid-2014, Tuniyaz has been XUAR party committee standing committee member and XUAR government vice chairman. This means he was part of overseeing the Political and Legal Affairs Commission, which controls all security organs and camps. /2
web.archive.org/web/2023020822…

Some observations about the UN Xinjiang report: 🧵

1. The report's main method is to use China's own government documents to prove the rights violations. A secondary method is 40 victim interviews. The tone is conservative, the method clearly documented.

ohchr.org/sites/default/… The report is very conservative in its use of data and the conclusions drawn from it, which, together with using Beijing's own sources, will make it very hard for China to counter or refute it.

BREAKING: new U.N. Special Rapporteur's Report on Contemporary Forms of Slavery "concludes" that forced labor is taking place in Xinjiang (and mentions similar phenomenon in Tibet): /1
documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/… STATEMENT: "the Special Rapporteur regards it as reasonable to conclude that forced labour among Uighur, Kazakh and other ethnic minorities...has been occurring in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region" /2