China Supersizes Detention Camps In Xinjiang Despite International Criticism (#GotBitcoin)

Satellite Imagery Shows Footprint Of 28 Internment Centers Has Increased Significantly Since 2016: Report. China Supersizes Detention Camps In Xinjiang Despite International Criticism (#GotBitcoin)

Chinese authorities aggressively expanded the scale of internment camps in Xinjiang this year, according to a new study, even as China’s program of mass detentions of Muslims in the region started to draw international scrutiny.

China Acknowledges Re-Education Centers for Uighurs (#GotBitcoin?)

An examination of satellite imagery released Thursday by intelligence analysts from an Australian security think tank mapped the expansion of 28 detention camps in the restive frontier region. Their analysis found that total floor area of these facilities grew more than 465% from early 2016, with the greatest growth occurring in the three months ended this September.

The report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, which provides research for Australia’s military, adds new details to a growing body of evidence about one of China’s largest suppression campaigns in recent years. It shows that the building of detention facilities accelerated at a time when former detainees or their family members began to speak out and international media, including The Wall Street Journal, reported details of the program.

U.S. officials and United Nations experts estimate that hundreds of thousands of people, mainly from the largely Muslim Uighur ethnic group, may have been incarcerated in the detention centers.

Uighurs living outside China have reported disappearances of family members, with some saying relatives have died in detention or soon after their release.

While Chinese officials denied the existence of the mass detention program as recently as this summer, in recent weeks, Xinjiang’s governor and other officials have portrayed the detention centers as well-equipped vocational schools that are part of a program to eradicate the extremist violence that buffeted Xinjiang for years.

A spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry declined to comment on the Australian report’s findings but denied that people were being “detained” in the Xinjiang camps. At a routine news briefing Thursday, Lu Kang described the facilities as “training centers” that support local development and help maintain social stability.

China’s human rights record comes up for review next week by a U.N. panel in Geneva. Ahead of that hearing, the U.S. government, as well as other countries including the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, and the U.K. have all raised questions about the situation in Xinjiang. Britain’s foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, told British lawmakers on Tuesday that he raised Xinjiang with his Chinese counterpart after British diplomats visited the region in August and found that reports on detentions there are “broadly accurate.”

The Australian think tank likened the rapid expansion of detention centers in Xinjiang to China’s island-building project in disputed areas of the South China Sea. “The Chinese state has changed the facts on the ground in Xinjiang so dramatically that it has allowed little time for other countries to meaningfully react,” its report said.

The report analyzed satellite data and cross-referenced findings with construction-tender documents, as well as evidence collected from other official sources, activists, academics and nongovernment organizations. While German researcher Adrian Zenz has estimated that Xinjiang may have as many as 1,200 facilities, the Australian researchers focused on a sample of 28 camps.

As of the end of September, those facilities sprawled over an area more than 40 times as large as the Los Angeles Coliseum, the researchers said, covering almost 700 acres.

One facility in Hotan, a city in southern Xinjiang, expanded by more than 2,469%, from 1.7 acres in early 2016 to almost 43 acres, the report said. Another facility in Shule County had more than doubled in size since March, the report said.

Satellite imagery of all 28 facilities showed high-security features resembling prisons, with significant fencing to restrict the movement of people inside, watchtowers, and strategic barricades with only a small number of entry points. These camps, the report concluded, are “punitive in nature and more akin to prison camps than what the Chinese authorities call ‘transformation through education centres.’”

Updated: 4-5-2021

Japan Calls On China To Improve Conditions For Uyghurs, Hong Kong

Unusually strong criticism from Tokyo comes ahead of Japanese prime minister’s trip to Washington.

Japan’s foreign minister called on his Chinese counterpart to take action to improve human-rights conditions for Uyghurs and stop a crackdown in Hong Kong, according to an official Japanese account of a call between the officials.

The unusually strong message from Tokyo comes shortly before Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga travels to the U.S. for a summit with President Biden on April 16.

Japan is typically wary of angering Beijing, which is its largest trading partner. Tokyo is a close ally of Washington but didn’t join the U.S. and several other nations in March in imposing sanctions on China over its repression of its mostly Muslim Uyghur majority.

During the 90-minute phone call on Monday, Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi also raised concerns with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi about the continued presence of armed Chinese coast guard vessels around islands in the East China Sea controlled by Tokyo but claimed by Beijing.

In a statement after the call, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said Mr. Wang objected to Japan’s interference in matters involving the Xinjiang region, where rights groups have alleged repression of Uyghurs, and Hong Kong and urged Japan to respect China’s internal affairs.

The statement said Mr. Wang warned Japan against being influenced by countries with “prejudices against China” and reminded his counterpart that while Japan has an alliance with the U.S. it also has signed a peace and friendship treaty with China.

China has rejected allegations of human-rights violations against its Uyghur population and says its actions in Hong Kong are an internal matter. Beijing also says it has the right patrol around the islands in the East China Sea, known as the Senkakus by Japan and as the Diaoyu by China. Mr. Wang elaborated on its position on the islands in the call, the Chinese Foreign Ministry statement said.

Japan’s Ministry of Defense said on Sunday that a Chinese aircraft carrier and five other naval vessels sailed between two of Japan’s southern islands into the Pacific Ocean during the weekend, the first passage through the area since April last year.

Mr. Suga’s visit to Washington is part of an effort by the Biden administration to coordinate with one of its closest allies in Asia as it tries to build a consensus over its approach to China. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin recently held talks in Tokyo with Mr. Motegi and Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi that focused heavily on China.

Updated: 7-14-2021

China Locks Up Xinjiang’s Uyghur Businessmen; ‘In Their Eyes, We Are All Guilty’

Encouraging entrepreneurs used to be a key part of economic development in Xinjiang, but priorities have shifted with Xi Jinping’s security crackdown.

In the summer of 2018, Sadir Eli, a Uyghur businessman, was in high spirits. His real-estate firm was pulling in strong profits, and he told his daughter he would buy a house for her in Massachusetts.

Then, Mr. Eli was accused of being a separatist and disappeared into the black box of China’s prison system in the northwest Xinjiang region.

“He did not engage in politics,” said Maria Mohammad, who last heard from her husband in June 2018, shortly before he was detained. Instead, she believes, Mr. Eli was targeted in part because he was a rich businessman, giving him influence that the authorities viewed as a threat.

The Xinjiang government didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Eli’s fate brings to life an overlooked element of China’s suppression of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang: the arrests of elite Uyghur business owners whose wealth and commercial interests enabled them to act as a bridge between Chinese authorities and Uyghur civil society.

Some scholars saw them as helping narrow the economic gap between China’s Han majority and Xinjiang’s mostly Muslim ethnic minorities—a disparity that has fueled tensions in the strategically vital but fractious northwestern region.

The predecessor of Chinese leader Xi Jinping had envisioned economic development as the “foundation to solving all problems” in Xinjiang, a view more or less held by Beijing for more than a decade. But under Mr. Xi’s drive for national unity and assimilation, Chinese authorities have changed tack, making security and social control the region’s top priorities.

In recent years, the Xinjiang regional government has enacted a slew of draconian policies aimed at subduing the region’s minorities, including extrajudicial detention of as many as one million people. Lawmakers in the U.S., the U.K. and other countries have described China’s policies as genocide—a charge that Beijing vehemently denies.

The Chinese government has defended its measures as necessary to provide stability to preserve lives and economic development and to combat terrorism, pointing to sporadic attacks that it attributes to separatists and militant Islamic terrorists.

Nearly one-fifth of 4,572 people tracked in a database of individuals who have disappeared into Xinjiang’s internment camps and prisons made their livings in private business, according to nonprofit Uyghur Hjelp. The research and advocacy group, which shared its data with The Wall Street Journal, compiled the information through interviews with relatives and friends.

Even in the span of one generation, “the impact of increasing the number of Uyghur-owned businesses can be tremendous,” said Reza Hasmath, a professor at the University of Alberta who has studied wage imbalances and hiring biases against ethnic minorities in Xinjiang.

Now, he argues, Beijing’s “one-size-fits-all” security measures, which appear to treat all Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims as potential security threats, risk widening the economic gap between Han Chinese and Uyghurs by fostering greater distrust between the two groups.

While such measures have cast suspicion on Uyghurs in general, it couldn’t be determined why some businessmen have been targeted while others have been spared. Information about arrested Uyghurs, including details about alleged crimes, is rarely provided to the public. Sometimes even family members don’t know why relatives have been arrested.

Accounts from former detainees, scholars who have visited the region and leaked documents from Chinese authorities point to religious practice, overseas financial transactions or even personal grudges and rivalries, settled under the guise of national security measures, as possible reasons for the detentions.

Model City

Before the Chinese government’s broad suppression of minority groups in Xinjiang, Mr. Eli and his hometown, the business-friendly city of Atush, showed how Uyghur business people could cultivate friendly ties with the Chinese government while earning the trust of their own community.

Located within driving distance of China’s border with Kyrgyzstan, the city had a reputation for cultivating entrepreneurs who like Mr. Eli cared more about trade than politics, according to former Atush and Xinjiang residents.

The businessman left a stable job at a municipal bank in the early 2000s to start his own export business, a venture that he hoped would generate enough profit to send his children overseas for university, according to his wife.

Like other wealthy Uyghurs in Atush, Mr. Eli donated money to less affluent members of the community and pooled his money with others to fund the construction of a mosque, she added.

In addition to direct donations, which were sometimes a form of Islamic almsgiving, the city’s well-off raised money through lamb auctions and sporting events to cover wedding or school fees for those who couldn’t afford them. Many became patrons of Uyghur cultural projects, including calligraphy competitions and art exhibitions.

Atush authorities regarded the city as a model region where community and government interests were more aligned, said Rune Steenberg, a postdoctoral researcher at Palacký University Olomouc in the Czech Republic, who conducted anthropological fieldwork in Atush between 2010 and 2016.

“The government felt they could give them a certain amount of freedom,” said Mr. Steenberg, adding that it was relatively easy for residents to get passports compared with other parts of Xinjiang.

Silk Road Closure

Controls began to tighten across the region in 2014, when the Xinjiang government nearly doubled arrests in the span of a year. Three years later came the internment camps and mass detentions, including of Uyghur business owners.

In 2018, Mr. Eli was arrested for inviting around 10 people to his home during Ramadan, where they allegedly discussed separatist topics, said his daughter, citing information from her father’s friend in Atush. A relative later confirmed her father’s arrest and said he had been sentenced to 20 years in prison, she said. Both she and her mother deny that Mr. Eli was a separatist.

The Atush government didn’t respond to a request for comment.

“Without Uyghur businessmen, Uyghur society is paralyzed,” said Abduweli Ayup, a Uyghur activist based in Norway, who founded Uyghur Hjelp. Cut off from their charity, he said, poor families, bankrupt business owners and other Uyghurs in need are now totally dependent on the Chinese Communist Party for support.

Many Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang who used to travel to Central Asia to sell goods from China found themselves in trouble, as Xinjiang authorities began to scrutinize visits to Muslim-majority countries. This clampdown came despite a broader push by Beijing to boost cross-border trade with many of the same countries through Mr. Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative, which envisions Xinjiang as a central trading hub.

Hesenjan Qari, a Uyghur textile seller originally from Atush, was arrested after a routine trip in February 2017 into Xinjiang from his home in Kazakhstan—a border that traders used to cross freely, said his wife, Gulshan Manapova.

Mr. Qari was later sentenced to 14½ years in prison for “participating in terrorist organizations” and “using extremism to undermine law enforcement,” according to a document Mrs. Manapova received from a relative in 2019. The letter, which was issued by a prison in Tumshuq, where her husband is held, didn’t include any details about his crimes or the evidence that led to his conviction.

The Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, which administers Tumshuq, didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Now, the 45-year-old Mrs. Manapova is on her own, juggling her business and caring for their six children, four of whom still live at home with her.

The shop is “just barely covering our life expenditures,” she said.

‘We are all guilty’

As access to routine trade routes tightened, Xinjiang authorities also arrested prominent business people who sold jade, halal food and other goods.

A few months ago, Atush-born business tycoon Musa Imam, who co-founded Ihlas, one of Xinjiang’s best-known supermarket franchises, was sentenced to 17.5 years in prison, though it isn’t clear what he is accused of, according to his son, Mustafa Musa, citing news from relatives.

“Our family is all business people and has no history of committing crimes, much less involvement in politics or disturbance of public order,” the 28-year-old, who lives in Virginia, wrote last May in a letter, seen by the Journal, to the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Musa said the embassy confirmed receipt of the letter, but hasn’t said anything about his father’s situation.

The Chinese Embassy in the U.S. didn’t respond to a request for comment.

In the pre-Xi era, elite Uyghur businessmen like Mr. Musa wanted others in their community to figure out how to live in a Han-dominated society, instead of hating the government, said Tyler Harlan, a professor at Loyola Marymount University who interviewed Uyghur entrepreneurs in Xinjiang’s capital in 2008, including the Ihlas co-founder.

At the time, part of their role in reducing ethnic tensions was hiring Uyghurs who couldn’t easily get jobs in state-owned enterprises or in Han-owned firms, he said.

Some of the businessmen now being punished were only a few years earlier being lauded with government accolades. Xinjiang’s government named Abdujelil Helil, a wealthy Uyghur exporter, an “excellent builder of socialism with Chinese characteristics” in 2015.

In July 2018, Mr. Helil was sentenced to 14 years in prison for allegedly providing financial support for terrorist activities, according to a court document viewed by the Journal. The Kashgar court also fined his firm $770,000 (5 million yuan) and stripped the 57-year-old of personal assets worth approximately $11 million, though Mr. Helil is currently waiting for a fresh legal judgment following a retrial in March, according to an overseas relative.

The Kashgar Intermediate People’s Court and Kashgar city government didn’t respond to a request for comment.

“When your conscience is clear, you’re not afraid of anything happening,” said the relative. “Now we know it’s because we’re Uyghur.”

“In their eyes, we are all guilty,” he said.

Updated: 7-18-2021

China Locks Up Xinjiang’s Uyghur Businessmen; ‘In Their Eyes, We Are All Guilty’

Encouraging entrepreneurs used to be a key part of economic development in Xinjiang, but priorities have shifted with Xi Jinping’s security crackdown.

Then, Mr. Eli was accused of being a separatist and disappeared into the black box of China’s prison system in the northwest Xinjiang region.

The Xinjiang government didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Sometimes even family members don’t know why relatives have been arrested.

Model City

Like other wealthy Uyghurs in Atush, Mr. Eli donated money to less affluent members of the community and pooled his money with others to fund the construction of a mosque, she added.

Silk Road Closure

The Atush government didn’t respond to a request for comment.

“Without Uyghur businessmen, Uyghur society is paralyzed,” said Abduweli Ayup, a Uyghur activist based in Norway, who founded Uyghur Hjelp.

Cut off from their charity, he said, poor families, bankrupt business owners and other Uyghurs in need are now totally dependent on the Chinese Communist Party for support.

The Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, which administers Tumshuq, didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Now, the 45-year-old Mrs. Manapova is on her own, juggling her business and caring for their six children, four of whom still live at home with her.

The shop is “just barely covering our life expenditures,” she said.

‘We Are All Guilty’

As access to routine trade routes tightened, Xinjiang authorities also arrested prominent business people who sold jade, halal food and other goods.

Mr. Musa said the embassy confirmed receipt of the letter, but hasn’t said anything about his father’s situation.

The Chinese Embassy in the U.S. didn’t respond to a request for comment.

At the time, part of their role in reducing ethnic tensions was hiring Uyghurs who couldn’t easily get jobs in state-owned enterprises or in Han-owned firms, he said.

The Kashgar Intermediate People’s Court and Kashgar city government didn’t respond to a request for comment.

“When your conscience is clear, you’re not afraid of anything happening,” said the relative. “Now we know it’s because we’re Uyghur.”

“In their eyes, we are all guilty,” he said.

Updated: 9-24-2021

China’s Xinjiang Crackdown Reaps Millions Of Dollars In Assets For The State

Courts sell off property and company shares once belonging to jailed Uyghur business owners.

Chinese authorities have seized and sold at auction tens of millions of dollars in assets owned by jailed Uyghur business owners amid a broad government campaign to assimilate ethnic minorities in the country’s northwest Xinjiang region.

Since 2019, Xinjiang courts have put at least 150 assets—ranging from home appliances to real estate and company shares—belonging to at least 21 people and valued at a total $84.8 million up for auction on e-commerce sites.

The listings were compiled by the Uyghur Human Rights Project, an advocacy group partially funded by the U.S. government, and were corroborated by The Wall Street Journal, which reviewed court documents and corporate records. The Xinjiang government didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The Uyghur group said it recorded seizures that were clearly linked to court cases involving charges related to terrorism and extremism. It also included cases of people identified by Chinese state media as extremists, or whose families reported they had been accused of such activities.

Western scholars and rights groups say Chinese authorities level these types of charges as a pretext to implement policies targeting minorities in Xinjiang more broadly. China says it is fighting terrorism and separatism. Uyghur activists say Beijing is intent on destroying Uyghurs’ culture and ethnic identity.

In recent years, China’s government has clamped down on the predominantly Muslim and Turkic-speaking Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, razing mosques and other religious sites and confining hundreds of thousands of people in a network of internment camps.

The auction entries also shed light on what Uyghurs say is another aspect of China’s campaign: the dismantling of companies and personal wealth belonging to Uyghur business leaders.

Some auction entries identified by the Uyghur Human Rights Project described group arrests tied to allegations of “helping terrorist activities” without elaborating, such as one involving 16 people, including two septuagenarians and an 81-year-old.

Others involved well-known Uyghur businessmen in the region, such as Abdujelil Helil, a wealthy exporter who was once praised by the Xinjiang government as an “excellent builder of socialism with Chinese characteristics.”

In 2017, Mr. Helil was arrested and charged with financing terrorist activities before being sentenced to 14 years in prison and stripped of $11 million in personal assets, according to a court document viewed by the Journal. Mr. Helil appealed and his case was heard earlier this year, his family said.

“This is probably just the tip of the iceberg,” said Nicole Morgret, project manager at the Uyghur Human Rights Project.

As in the U.S., Chinese law enables authorities to confiscate and sell assets for certain civil disputes and criminal charges. Many of the auction entries found by the Uyghur Human Rights Project were on Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. ’s Taobao e-commerce site. Alibaba didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Before the crackdown, Uyghur business owners often served as a bridge between the government and their communities, with some scholars arguing that they helped mitigate socioeconomic disparities between the Han Chinese majority and ethnic minorities, which have long fueled interethnic tensions.

Now, Uyghur activists argue, they have become targets.

A Wall Street Journal analysis of corporate records of companies in Hotan city—home to several prominent Uyghur real-estate developers—indicates that orders by municipal authorities to freeze Uyghur entrepreneurs’ assets increased sharply in 2018, about a year after Xinjiang authorities began interning local Muslim minorities en masse.

In 2017, one Uyghur business owner had company shares frozen following orders from a local court. The next year, the number jumped to 22, accounting for more than half of all individuals and firms who had shares frozen due to criminal or civil cases in Hotan city since 2013.

The auction records also shed light on the unraveling of Uyghur business legacies like that of the Hemdul family, who owned a number of properties in Korla, a central Xinjiang city, including twin towers that overlooked a river running through the city, according to Omerjan Hemdul, a 31-year-old Uyghur businessman now living in Turkey.

Mr. Hemdul’s two brothers, Ruzi and Memet, oversaw the family’s businesses until both were detained in 2017. Mr. Hemdul said he hasn’t heard from either since. In 2019 and 2020, a local Xinjiang court listed several of Ruzi Hemdul’s properties for auction.

One was an apartment unit in Urumqi. Another was a restaurant in Korla, which was listed at $1.6 million but didn’t win any bids. The brick-faced restaurant had been adorned with traditional Uyghur art and chandeliers, according to photos included in its auction entry.

Also listed for auction was Ruzi Hemdul’s 40.5% stake in the real-estate company that built the two towers in Korla, which was sold for $300,000.

In September, a Journal reporter visited Ruzi Hemdul’s long-closed restaurant in Korla, with its name erased from the building’s facade. The two towers were unoccupied and fenced off by green barriers, though construction of the exterior appeared to have been completed.

Omerjan Hemdul doesn’t know what allegations were leveled against his brothers. He said he believes the Chinese government targets rich Uyghurs by accusing them of sponsoring terrorism.

Donations to mosques in Korla and a project to build a hospital in Turkey could have also made his brothers a target, he said. “They catch wealthy people so that they can retake their wealth,” he said.

The Korla city government didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Updated: 12-9-2021

China’s Treatment Of Uyghurs Amounts To Genocide, U.K.-Based Panel Finds

Beijing pursues a “deliberate, systematic and concerted policy” to reduce the population of Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities, says panel of lawyers, academics and activists.

An independent panel wrapped up its yearlong examination of China’s treatment of Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, concluding that China’s policies in the region amounted to a form of genocide.

The Uyghur Tribunal, a U.K.-based panel of lawyers, academics and activists, said Thursday it found that the Chinese government, through policies including what it described as forced birth control and sterilizations, intends to partially destroy the predominantly Muslim Uyghur community and its way of life; and that Chinese President Xi Jinping and other senior officials bore “primary responsibility for acts in Xinjiang.”

Human-rights activists and some scholars say Chinese authorities have locked up a million or more Uyghurs and other minorities in internment camps as part of a sweeping ethnic-assimilation campaign.

Beijing, which didn’t take part in the proceedings, has called them a provocation by anti-China forces. On Thursday, a Chinese Foreign Ministry statement said the panel’s finding was “a political farce staged by a handful of contemptible individuals.”

The Chinese government has rejected allegations of mistreatment of Uyghurs, saying it is fighting terrorism and separatism and that the camps have been used for “vocational education.”

The panel, chaired by Geoffrey Nice, an international human-rights lawyer, was launched last September at the urging of Uyghur activists and based its judgment on reports, newspaper articles and testimonies from dozens of victims and experts over two hearings in June and September.

The panel’s nine members—three academics, two lawyers, two doctors, a businessman and an ex-diplomat—also said they found “without reasonable doubt” that the Chinese government has committed crimes against humanity against the Uyghur ethnic minority, citing testimonies of rape, torture and forced abortions as well as evidence of mass internment and family separation.

Their conclusion was also based on leaked Chinese government documents that shed additional light on the role Mr. Xi played in directing the Communist Party’s campaign in Xinjiang.

The documents show Mr. Xi warning about the dangers of religious influence and unemployment among minorities, and emphasizing the importance of “population proportion,” or the balance between minorities and Han Chinese, for maintaining control in the region.

Mr. Nice said that the panel had repeatedly written to the Chinese government and invited it to take part in the hearings.

He said the inquiry recognized different political cultures between China and Western democracies, focusing only on the “clearest breaches of international standards and law to which [China] is fully committed, acting with caution and care to reach its decisions.”

Genocide, as defined by the United Nations’ Genocide Convention, encompasses “the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”

Using the term to describe China’s policies in Xinjiang, home to roughly 14 million Turkic-speaking Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim minorities, has been a flashpoint in legal and public debate.

“The word genocide has a certain shock value because most people tend to associate the word with the mass killings of the Holocaust,” said Björn Alpermann, a Chinese-studies professor at Würzburg University in Germany, who prefers describing China’s policies in Xinjiang as “cultural genocide” and “crimes against humanity.”

Mr. Nice acknowledged that designating government policies in Xinjiang as genocide could devalue the term in the absence of evidence of mass killings and that comparisons with the Holocaust, evoking images of people sent off on trains to extermination camps, were “unhelpful.”

Mr. Alpermann said one value of the panel’s process was that it publicly and transparently explained how it arrived at its verdict. By contrast, he said, when the Trump administration during its last days in office in January also described China’s policies in Xinjiang as genocide, it didn’t provide a full accounting of how it reached that conclusion, he said.

The Communist Party’s policies in Xinjiang have also led to sanctions from the U.S. and other Western countries.

On Wednesday, the U.S. House passed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, banning imports from Xinjiang over concerns over the use of forced labor in the production process.

On Monday, the Biden administration announced a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics, with Australia and Canada shortly after following suit.

Updated: 12-16-2021

U.S. Blacklists Dozens of Chinese Entities Over Surveillance, Military Work

The targets will be restricted from accessing U.S. investment and technology for their alleged support of China’s surveillance of mainly Muslim ethnic groups.

The Biden administration added dozens of Chinese companies and research institutes to blacklists restricting access to U.S. investment and technology for their alleged support for China’s military and the mass surveillance of mainly Muslim ethnic groups.

The Commerce and Treasury departments targeted an array of Chinese businesses, from a company that lays undersea fiber-optic cables to developers of facial-recognition technology to the world’s largest commercial drone-maker, DJI Technology Co. The Commerce action also took aim at China’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences and a complex of research institutes under its control.

Control of critical technologies is on the front lines of the global rivalry between Washington and Beijing.

All told, more than 40 Chinese companies and other entities were added to either the Commerce Department’s entity list, which restricts access to U.S. exports, or to a Treasury list banning American investment in companies supporting China’s military.

The agencies and White House officials said the targets were engaged in actions inimical to U.S. interests, including for assisting China’s surveillance and detention of Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic groups in the Xinjiang region.

“Today’s actions demonstrate the U.S. government’s vigilance against the PRC’s misuse of U.S. technology and investments that undermine U.S. national security,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, referring to the People’s Republic of China, the country’s official name.

The Commerce Department said it was also restricting exports to some of the Chinese companies plus other entities operating in Georgia, Malaysia, and Turkey for diverting or attempting to divert U.S. items to Iran’s missile and other military programs.

China’s Foreign Ministry has criticized the blacklisting of Chinese companies, with a spokesman in Beijing on Thursday accusing the U.S. of exerting “unwarranted suppression on Chinese companies.”

DJI declined to comment. Last year, when placed on the Commerce entity list, the company said, “DJI has done nothing to justify” the penalty.

The Biden administration has accelerated its actions against Chinese technology companies in recent weeks, though officials have sometimes differed over how to proceed.

In a Thursday meeting of multiple agencies, officials failed to agree on a Defense Department proposal to further restrict China’s largest semiconductor maker from access to U.S. chip-making technology, according to people briefed on the meeting.

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp., known as SMIC, is already included on the Commerce entity list to restrict its access to U.S. tools to produce smaller, cutting-edge chips. But, the people said, the language in the listing isn’t broad enough to be effective.

Officials with the State and Energy departments, as well as the National Security Council, supported the Pentagon proposal to close the loophole while Commerce Department officials remained opposed, the people said.

Instead, some officials proposed pursuing talks with allies to see if they would agree to block their own companies from selling additional technology to SMIC, the people said.

Representatives from the Defense, State, Energy and Commerce departments didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment, and the National Security Council declined to comment. SMIC didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

China’s activities in biotechnology have been a particular concern for the Biden administration, officials said.

Thursday’s blacklisting of the Chinese academy and its research institutes was because of their support for the Chinese military, including research into “purported brain-control weaponry,” a Commerce Department statement said. The Treasury Department also pointed to biometric surveillance in its blacklisting of eight companies.

“One of these companies developed customized software that supposedly recognizes specific ethnic minorities, including Tibetans and Uyghurs, and alerts authorities when it finds them,” Mr. Blinken said. “Another company produces software that includes a transcription and translation tool for the Uyghur language to enable authorities to scan residents’ devices for criminal content.”

Also targeted Thursday was the successor company to undersea cable company Huawei Marine Networks, which was acquired from Huawei Technologies Co. by Hengtong Group, as well as other Hengtong subsidiaries. Hengtong didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Biden administration has labeled China’s treatment of the Uyghurs as genocide and has previously taken action against Beijing, which denies any mistreatment.

Earlier this month, the U.S. said it would stage a diplomatic boycott of the coming 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, meaning no officials would attend, though American athletes would still participate. Several other countries announced similar boycotts. Mr. Biden is expected to sign legislation to ban imports from Xinjiang over concerns about the use of forced labor.

Updated: 12-23-2021

Biden Signs Bipartisan Law Punishing China For Uyghur Moves

* Bill Received Unanimous Backing In Both House And Senate
* Imports From Xinjiang To Be Banned On Slave-Labor Assumption

President Joe Biden on Thursday signed into law a bill banning goods from China’s Xinjiang region unless companies can prove they aren’t made with forced labor, in a move that will add to tensions over Beijing’s treatment of the nation’s Uyghur minority.

The bill passed with unanimous backing in both the House and Senate earlier this month, showcasing how Republicans and Democrats are largely aligned on China policy despite Washington’s deep partisan divisions on most major issues.

The measure is motivated by concern about the oppression of Uyghur Muslims in a region that holds a major place in global supply chains. Xinjiang is a source for cotton used in clothing and is a key location for producing polysilicon used in solar panels, which in turn are seen as crucial in the global shift away from fossil fuels.

The new law could pose a significant challenge for American and other firms that source items from Xinjiang for products used in the U.S. Even before Biden signed the bill, Intel Corp. found itself embroiled in controversy after the chipmaker asked suppliers not to use any labor or products sourced from Xinjiang and then apologized for the move.

“American companies should never feel the need to apologize for standing up for fundamental human rights or opposing repression,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday, while refraining from specific comment on the Intel development. “We call on all industries to ensure that they’re not sourcing products involve forced labor involved, including forced labor from Xinjiang,” she also said.

The bill requires the Department of Homeland Security to create a list of entities that collaborate with the Chinese government in the repression of the Uyghurs, a predominately Muslim ethnic minority, as well as other groups.

It also contains a “rebuttable presumption” that assumes all goods from the region were made with forced labor unless the commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection gives an exception.

Chinese officials deny that forced labor is used in Xinjiang and call the legislation interference in the nation’s domestic affairs — a line reiterated recently by Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian at a regular press briefing in Beijing.

“By fabricating lies and making troubles with such issues, some U.S. politicians are seeking to contain China,” he said. “Their vile scheme will never succeed.”

Asked whether the Biden administration was concerned about potential retaliation by the People’s Republic of China against U.S. firms, Psaki said, “The private sector and the international community should oppose the PRC’s weaponizing of its markets to stifle support for human rights.”

“The reality is that companies that fail to address forced labor — and other human rights abuses — in their supply chains face serious legal risk, reputational risk and customer risk, not just in the United States, but in Europe and other regions of the world.”

Bipartisan Backing

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Congress will continue to condemn and confront the Chinese government’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang, along with locations “from Hong Kong to Tibet to the mainland.”

“If America does not speak out for human rights in China because of commercial interests, we lose all moral authority to speak out for human rights any place in the world,” Pelosi said in a statement Thursday.

Republican Senator Marco Rubio, one of the bill’s sponsors, said its passage “will fundamentally change our relationship with Beijing.”

“This law should also ensure that Americans no longer unknowingly buy goods made by slaves in China. I look forward to working with the Biden administration and my colleagues to ensure the new law is implemented correctly and enforced properly,” Rubio said in a statement.

Rubio, of Florida, introduced the bill in the Senate along with Senator Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat. It was introduced in the House by Jim McGovern, a Massachusettes Democrat, and Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican.

Intel Apologizes To China Customers Over Xinjiang Stance

* Brand Ambassador Wang Junkai Cuts Ties With The U.S. Chipmaker
* Intel Asked Suppliers Not To Use Labor, Products From Xinjiang

Intel Corp. apologized after its opposition to Xinjiang labor sparked a backlash against the U.S. chipmaker in China, highlighting how multinational companies are increasingly getting caught up in a geopolitical spat between two global powers over issues such as human rights.

The chipmaker sent a letter asking suppliers not to use any labor or products sourced from Xinjiang “in order to ensure compliance with U.S. legal requirements,” it said in a WeChat statement Thursday. The company had no other intention and did not mean to express a position on the matter, according to the statement.

“We thank everyone for raising their questions and concerns and respect the sensitivity of the issue in China,” Intel said. “As a multinational company, we operate in a constantly evolving and complex global environment and should adopt a prudent attitude. For causing trouble to our esteemed Chinese customers, partners and the general public, we express our sincere apologies.”

Intel’s apology comes after social media users this week seized on the issue to criticize the U.S. firm. The lead singer of TFBoys — one of China’s most popular boy bands — Wang Junkai said it will terminate all partnerships with the U.S. company immediately, according to a statement by his studio Wednesday. The studio said it had repeatedly asked Intel to “express a correct stance,” but the chipmaker had yet to respond.

“National interests trump everything!” the studio wrote in its post.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian asked Intel to “respect facts” on Xinjiang, at a regular press briefing in Beijing on Thursday. “The so-called forced labor claim is totally fabricated by anti-China forces in the U.S. to harm China’s reputation,” he said, when asked if Intel’s apology satisfied the government. “The products manufactured in Xinjiang are good quality, and companies will suffer a loss if they refuse to use Xinjiang produced products.”

Hours later, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said, “American companies should never feel the need to apologize for standing up for fundamental human rights or opposing repression,” without commenting specifically on the Intel news.

“The private sector and the international community should oppose the PRC’s weaponizing of its markets to stifle support for human rights,” she said, referring to the People’s Republic of China.

Intel’s continuing access to the Chinese market is crucial to its growth as it struggles with increasing competition. China is the largest consumer of semiconductors in general and the biggest market place for personal computers, the main destination for Intel’s microprocessors. The chipmaker derived more than a quarter of its 2020 revenue from the country.

The Santa Clara, California-based company is increasingly dealing with geopolitical tensions that make its place in the global supply chain more difficult to maintain. Intel wants U.S. and European government money to help fund its expansion plans at a time when its home country is increasingly at odds with China.

As recently as last week, the Biden administration was considering options to increase sanctions against Chinese chipmakers as part of a push to prevent the world’s most populous country from strengthening its domestic chip industry.

Western governments including the U.S. have accused Beijing of employing forced labor in Xinjiang, including in the cotton industry, and imposed sanctions over alleged human rights abuses. China has repeatedly dismissed the allegations as lies and retaliated with sanctions of its own.

Before the spat erupted, Wang had been a brand ambassador for Intel. TFBoys have performed multiple times at CCTV’s Lunar New Year gala and at other national holiday celebrations, suggesting the band enjoys the government’s support.

The 22-year-old Wang, who also goes by the English name Karry, had cut ties with Dolce & Gabbana in 2018 after the Italian brand posted a video deemed by many to denigrate Chinese people. As of Thursday morning, Wang had more than 80 million fans on Weibo.

The Communist Party’s Global Times cited unnamed analysts as warning that while no official measures had been taken by China, the severing of ties by the pop idol “serves as a fresh warning siren” to Intel and other foreign companies that wanted to profit from the Chinese market, but were at the same time seeking to undermine the country’s core interests.

Updated: 1-17-2022

Warriors Co-Owner Sparks Fury After Saying ‘Nobody Cares’ About China’s Uyghurs

China Supersizes Detention Camps In Xinjiang Despite International Criticism (#GotBitcoin)

* Republican Senators Cotton, Romney Weigh In On Twitter
* NBA Already Finds Itself In Delicate Situation With China

The National Basketball Association found itself in a China-linked controversy once again after serial dealmaker Chamath Palihapitiya, a part owner of the Golden State Warriors, dismissed concerns over human rights abuses facing the Uyghur minority in China.

“Nobody cares about what’s happening to the Uyghurs, OK?” the Sri Lankan-born investor said during a Jan. 15 episode of the “All-In” podcast, reacting to a comment from co-host Jason Calacanis about the Biden administration’s “very strong” stance on the issue.

One of the owners of the Golden State Warriors says he doesn’t care about Chinese genocide of the Uighurs. pic.twitter.com/DTwNU6TFn5

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) January 17, 2022

“I’m telling you a very hard, ugly truth, OK? Of all the things that I care about, yes, it is below my line,” Palihapitiya continued, as Calacanis reacted with palpable surprise. He also called human rights a “luxury belief.”

The Warriors said in a statement that Palihapitiya’s views do not reflect those of the team. Palihapitiya later wrote in a statement that upon re-listening to the interview, “I recognize that I come across as lacking empathy.” As part of a refugee family, he said “human rights matter” anywhere in the world.

But as video of the exchange circulated on social media, Palihapitiya’s comments drew sharp rebuke. Many zeroed in on his role as a minority owner of the Warriors and on the NBA’s already delicate relationship with China.

In 2019, a tweet from then Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey in support of Hong Kong’s protest movement provoked a massive backlash in China. Since then, teams and players including LeBron James have been closely scrutinized for their stances on China.

More recently, China shut off Boston Celtics games after player Enes Kanter Freedom criticized the country’s human rights record on the predominately Muslim Uyghurs, as well as Tibet and Hong Kong.

When people apologize, they deserve a second chance. I don’t view this as an apology when @chamath can not even acknowledge how his comment was hurtful to the #Uyghur community. China takes comfort knowing that corporate executives have their back & will continue this #genocide. https://t.co/1VeSgMbnX8

— Rayhan E. Asat (@RayhanAsat) January 18, 2022

Reaction to the controversy spread to include comments from conservative politicians such as Republican Senators Tom Cotton from Arkansas, Mitt Romney of Utah and Rick Scott of Florida.

“Unless Adam Silver and the NBA want to be exposed as brazened hypocrites supporting religious genocide, they need to force woke billionaire Chamath Palihapitiya to sell his share of the Golden State Warriors,” Cotton wrote on Twitter.

Nury Turkel, a Uyghur-American lawyer who serves as vice chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, tweeted that Palihapitiya’s behavior is “emblematic across the board in the business and sports world, as well as Hollywood.” He said “this kind of unrepentant and unconscionable behavior should be met with consequences.”

Palihapitiya, 45, whose family fled Sri Lanka for Canada when he was a child, is no stranger to controversy. He has built a large following on social media, particularly among a certain type of gung-ho retail investor. He has criticized hedge funds while simultaneously praising Redditors/WallStreetBets’ financial abilities, even as he launched multiple SPACs that have since seen their shares collapse.

Updated: 2-5-2022

What Message Did China Send By Choosing Uyghur Torchbearer?

As soon as a Uyghur athlete helped light the Olympic flame at the Beijing Olympics, the debate began: Was it a defiant signal from Chinese leaders, or proof that protests around the world were having impact?

The selection of Dinigeer Yilamujiang for the supreme honor of being a final Olympic torchbearer at the ceremony that opened the Winter Games in Beijing on Friday night was a huge surprise.

What it meant — because Olympic gestures like this always have meaning — wasn’t clear.

U.S.-based human rights lawyer Rayhan Asat — whose brother Ekpar Asat is among more than 1 million Uyghurs that China has imprisoned — was at first aghast.

The pictures of Yilamujiang, a 20-year-old cross-country skier, holding the torch with Zhao Jiwen, a skier from China’s dominant Han majority — both of them all smiles — reminded Asat of the half-Jewish fencer, Helene Mayer, who competed for Germany at the 1936 Summer Olympics that Adolf Hitler hosted in Berlin.

“I did feel like history is repeating itself,” Asat said in a phone interview. “This is like a new low. That is how I felt, initially.”

But on reflection, Asat saw crumbs of encouragement. China has steadfastly rejected international criticism of its crackdown on Uyghurs, treatment that the U.S. government and others have said is tantamount to genocide. China’s hosting of the Games has made many exiled Uyghurs feel that their voices aren’t heard.

But the selection of a relatively unknown athlete to light the flame couldn’t be a coincidence. Asat said, after her initial outrage had subsided, she figured China isn’t as immune to outside criticism as it pretends.

“It obviously cares profoundly about outside criticism. This is why it’s important that we keep criticizing,” she said. “I do feel like Beijing is very much scared that it has lost its international reputation.”

China says the detention centers in the western Xinjiang region were built to fight Islamic extremism. Leaders say the camps provided job training and have since been closed. Uyghurs overseas say their loved ones are still imprisoned.

Some saw the choice of Yilamujiang as a deliberate poke in the eye to critics.

“That was very, very much a deliberate choice,” said Darren Byler, an assistant professor of international studies at Canada’s Simon Fraser University who has written extensively about the camps.

“I think it should be read as China saying we are not backing away from our stance on what we’re doing in Xinjiang and we don’t really care what the world thinks about it,” Byler told The Associated Press by phone.

The Chinese public has been mobilized to support Xinjiang following an international campaign against the use of cotton from the region amid allegations of forced labor.

“I think that this was intended for an international audience primarily but certainly for the domestic audience as well as a sign of defiance and strength,” Byler said.

Officially, there has been little commentary on Yilamujiang’s role, although the Communist Party newspaper Global Times wrote Saturday that her Xinjiang background was “worth noting.”

International Olympic Committee spokesperson Mark Adams said it did not take a torchbearer’s ethnicity into consideration when giving its approval, but added; “I think it was a lovely concept.”

Among the multiple human rights issues overshadowing the Games, Xinjiang by far looms the largest.

Human rights groups have dubbed these the “Genocide Games,” and the U.S. and several other Western democracies have cited rights abuses in staging a diplomatic boycott of the event.

Uyghurs, who are culturally, linguistically and religiously distinct from Han Chinese, have long resented Beijing’s heavy-handed rule and the influx of migrants who have reaped economic benefits in the resource-rich region.

The resentment erupted into a series of violent incidents labeled terrorism by China, leading president and Communist Party leader Xi Jinping to demand a mass crackdown. The network of camps was established around 2017.

Critics and former inmates told of strict discipline and harsh living conditions inside. Other reports spoke of families separated by the authorities, mass surveillance and coercive birth control policies forced on Muslim women.

China dismisses accusations of abuses as “the lie of the century” and says its policies have resulted in an end to separatist violence. Critics say the result has been a traumatized population, cultural dislocation and continuing abuses.

China’s policies in Xinjiang should have elicited a stronger response from the international community, including a total boycott of the Games, said Kamaltürk Yalqun, a Uyghur was one of several students chosen to help carry the Olympic flame ahead of the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing.

“It should be a collective responsibility when such kind of atrocities are happening,” he said. “It’s heartbreaking for me to see such a cold response from people.”

Whether Yilamujiang sees a political role for herself isn’t clear. Her social media posts have focused entirely on her desire to compete successfully.

Born in Xinjiang’s far-northwestern Altay prefecture that borders Kazakhstan, Russia and Mongolia, she was first coached by her father, himself a pioneer in Chinese cross-country skiing. The practice of using felt-lined skis to travel and hunt in the region is believed to date back thousands of years.

In recent years, Yilamujiang has competed extensively abroad and began her Beijing Olympics campaign Saturday.

The fact her parents are both government employees provides the right sort of background to receive the government’s political and financial support required by virtually all elite Chinese athletes.

That, said Byler, “really protects the family.”

Among the Chinese public, information about Xinjiang is derived mainly from government propaganda that emphasizes economic development and social harmony, while dismissing all outside criticism.

At a park just north of the stadium Saturday, Beijing residents told The Associated Press they saw Yilamujiang’s participation as a show of ethnic unity devoid of any political message.

“When I saw two athletes, my first reaction was gender equality,” said Jiang Miya, adding she perceived no real link to the issue of Xinjiang or politics in general.

Another resident, Wang Yang, said the event sent a message of “unity and progress” that shouldn’t be tainted by politics.

“Don’t magnify or politicize this kind of issue,” Wang said. “We should separate sports and politics, enjoy the Olympics wholeheartedly, and talk less about politics.”

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