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

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 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

https://twitter.com/Lingling_Wei/status/1529460485350989826

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

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. 🧵 In many images including this one, you see detainees in the background, behind bars.

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. 🧵 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