By Peter Tozzi, First Place Winner of our 2024 Human Rights Essay Contest
In some 380 internment camps, over one million Uyghurs—a predominantly Muslim, Central Asian people—are held captive by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).1 Both in and out of the camps, the CCP commits a slow and chilling genocide against the Uyghurs through enforced population control, systematic rape, family separation, and forced marriages. These atrocities inflicted upon the Uyghurs are an attempt to eradicate and sinicize their population.
The implications of this genocide go well beyond East Turkistan/Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.2 The CCP seeks to upend the current rules-based international order by subverting human rights norms while exerting transnational repression over diaspora communities that speak out against the genocide. Thus, while the CCP’s genocide poses an immediate threat to the Uyghurs, it also threatens Americans, and the values America stands for.
Genocide: Double Persecution
The CCP’s crimes against the Uyghurs satisfies the criteria for “genocide” as articulated in Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, or “Genocide Convention.”3 Although the CCP’s assaults target both Uyghur men and women, women are “key” to the CCP’s genocide. Therefore, the genocide is a “double persecution” of Uyghur women—for their sex and their faith.4
Eradicate the Population: Forced Abortions, Mass Sterilizations, & Systematic Rape
Claiming “power over life,” the CCP enforces abortions and mass sterilizations to curb population growth. While the CCP has a long tradition of population control, in 2014 the party declared a “People’s War on Terror” against the Uyghurs, linking population growth with
“religious extremism.”5 Common strategies include forced abortions, the insertion of intrauterine devices (IUDs), and chemical sterilizations. This has caused noticeable declines in birthrates.
According to research by Dr. Adrian Zenz, a senior fellow in China Studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, natural population growth rates decreased by 84% in the two largest Uyghur prefectures between 2015 and 2018.6 Furthermore, he estimated that growth rates in Southern Xinjiang were “trending near or below zero.”7
Within the internment camps, guards systematically rape Uyghur women. Mihrigul Tursun recalls guards dragging her cellmates into their offices and raping them in the middle of the night. Tursunay Ziawudun is haunted by memories of guards gang-raping her, punching her in the stomach, and electrocuting her in the genitalia.8 These examples of state-sponsored violence demonstrate that the CCP shows no mercy, especially to the most vulnerable.9
Destroy the Family: Family Separation and Forced Marriages
The family has always been the ultimate enemy of the CCP because it stands as a bulwark between the people and the party.10 For Uyghurs, families are the bedrocks of their communities. Uyghur women are the primary caretakers and instructors of their families: they inculcate an understanding of core Islamic tenets and a sense of cultural pride within their children. When Uyghur men would pray at the mosques, Uyghur women would convene within each other’s homes to pray and read the Quran, often bringing their children with them.11
However, these religious practices have been outlawed, and violations of “Religious
Affairs” regulations often result in internment.12 As the CCP incarcerates Uyghurs, it tears apart
wife from husband, mother from child, and sibling from sibling, thus uprooting the family. Moreover, the CCP attempts to “sinicize” Uyghurs by forcing Uyghur women into marriages with ethnic Han Chinese men. In some cases, Uyghur women are forced to divorce their husbands and marry Han men instead.13
A Call to Action: How Americans Can Support the Uyghurs
Americans can and should help the Uyghurs.
First, we must identify the threat—the CCP and its totalitarian rule threaten both the Uyghurs and Americans. CCP-sponsored attacks against dissidents on American soil during the recent Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in San Francisco demonstrate that the party’s repression does not respect sovereign borders and poses a clear threat to our national security.14
Second, we should reflect on the values of our Declaration of Independence: equality, freedom, and “unalienable rights” granted by God.15 If we truly believe that human rights are “self-evident” and universal, we should recognize the importance of safeguarding the rights of Uyghurs.
Third, Americans should fight the CCP’s odious narrative that Chinese values are not conducive to respecting human rights. In fact, one of the key architects of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was a Chinese statesman, P.C. Chang, who introduced Confucian values into the UDHR.16
Fourth, the U.S. government has an extensive toolkit—and it should use it. Already, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) bans goods produced with forced labor. By
implementing a “rebuttable presumption,” the UFLPA shifts the burden on importers to prove that their supply chains have not been implicated with the forced labor of Uyghurs and others.17 The U.S. government has also sanctioned several CCP officials complicit with the genocide.18
However, greater enforcement is needed, such as by adding more Chinese companies to the UFLPA’s entity list and sanctioning more officials involved in egregious crimes against the Uyghurs.19 Additionally, the government should implement both the Women Peace and Security (WPS) Act and the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA). Since the Uyghur genocide is a double persecution, a coordinated effort would promote peacebuilding, the safeguarding of religious freedom abroad, and the meaningful participation of Uyghur women to tell their stories.20 Congressional committees, like the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, should also continue to hold hearings that shine a light on CCP human rights abuses.
—
After the Holocaust, former generations appalled at what happened and their failure to stop it said, “Never Again.”21 Today, our generation is again witnessing a genocide. We must stand in solidarity with the Uyghurs, and ensure that “Never Again” is more than just a slogan.
Endnotes
1 Emma Graham-Harrison, “China Has Built 380 Internment Camps in Xinjiang, Study Finds | China | The Guardian,” September 24, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/24/china-has-built-380-internment- camps-in-xinjiang-study-finds; Lindsay Maizland, “China’s Repression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang,” Council on Foreign Relations, September 22, 2022, https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/china-xinjiang-uyghurs-muslims- repression-genocide-human-rights.
2 Referring to the essay prompt, although Uyghurs would not consider themselves ethnically Chinese, their current plight is indicative of grave human rights abuses perpetuated by the CCP. Thus, this genocide must be addressed. Regarding the discrepancy between “East Turkistan” and “Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region,” or “Xinjiang,” Uyghurs prefer to call their home East Turkistan because it bears historical and geographic significance independent of Chinese control. Xinjiang, which means “new territory,” was the Chinese name given to this region by the Manchu rulers of the Qing Dynasty. See “About East Turkistan,” Campaign For Uyghurs, accessed April 3, 2024, https://campaignforuyghurs.org/about-east-turkistan/.
3 Article II of the Genocide Convention defines “genocide” as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” See United Nations General Assembly, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 9 December 1948, 78 UNTS 277, https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity- crimes/Doc.1_Convention%20on%20the%20Prevention%20and%20Punishment%20of%20the%20Crime%20of%2 0Genocide.pdf.; The CCP has violated each of these prongs, according to detailed analysis provided by Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy and the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights. See Yonda Diamond et al.,
“The Uyghur Genocide: An Examination of China’s Breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention,” Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy and Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, March 2021, https://newlinesinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/Chinas-Breaches-of-the-GC3-2.pdf
4 Susan Yoshihara and Peter Tozzi, “Recognize the CCP’s Double Persecution in Xinjiang,” Providence, October 24, 2023, https://providencemag.com/2023/10/recognize-the-ccps-double-persecution-in-xinjiang/.
5 In 1979, Deng Xiaoping introduced the “one-child” policy to limit China’s population. Common strategies of population control included forced abortions, the insertion of intrauterine devices (IUDs), and chemical sterilizations. 6 Adrian Zenz, “Sterilizations, IUDs, and Mandatory Birth Control: The CCP’s Campaign to Suppress Uyghur Birthrates in Xinjiang,” Jamestown, July 21, 2020, 2, https://jamestown.org/product/sterilizations-iuds-and- mandatory-birth-control-the-ccps-campaign-to-suppress-uyghur-birthrates-in-xinjiang/.
7 Adrian Zenz, “‘End the Dominance of the Uyghur Ethnic Group’: An Analysis of Beijing’s Population Optimization Strategy in Southern Xinjiang,” Central Asian Survey 40, no. 3 (July 3, 2021): 295, https://doi.org/10.1080/02634937.2021.1946483.
8 Nury Turkel, “Chapter 11,” in No Escape: The True Story of China’s Genocide of the Uyghurs, 2022; “‘Their Goal Is to Destroy Everyone’: Uighur Camp Detainees Allege Systematic Rape,” BBC News, February 2, 2021, sec.
China, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-55794071.
9 Under direct orders from General Secretary Xi Jinping, internment guards are instructed to show no mercy towards the Uyghurs. See Austin Ramzy and Chris Buckley, “‘Absolutely No Mercy’: Leaked Files Expose How China Organized Mass Detentions of Muslims,” The New York Times, November 16, 2019, sec. World, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/16/world/asia/china-xinjiang-documents.html.
10 The “family unit” posed a threat to Mao Zedong’s aspirations for turning China into a communist country. Thus, he separated Chinese families by collectivizing them during the Great Leap Forward. During the Cultural Revolution, Mao “sent down” millions of youths to the countryside to indoctrinate them with Chinese Communism. See Jisheng Yang, “The Communal Kitchens,” in Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958-1962, 2008, 174; Yanjie Huang, “A Revolution Domesticated: Negotiating Family Life in Urban China, 1959-1984,” ProQuest Dissertations and Theses (Ph.D., United States — New York, Columbia University, 2021).
11 Sarah Cook, “Islam: Religious Freedom in China,” Freedom House, 2017, https://freedomhouse.org/report/2017/battle-china-spirit-islam-religious-freedom.
12 Article 37 of the 2015 Religious Affairs Regulations in Xinjiang outlaws the practice of Islam for children. See Cook; As of February 2024, the CCP implemented a new “Regulations on Religious Affairs,” specifically targeting the East Turkistan/Xinjiang region. The new regulations impose harsher restrictions and punishments for practicing
Islam. See Ma Wenyan, “Coming in February: Harsher Religious Regulations Just for Xinjiang,” January 8, 2024, https://bitterwinter.org/coming-in-february-harsher-religious-regulations-just-for-xinjiang/.
13 Andrea Worden et al., “Forced Marriages of Uyghur Women State Policies for Interethnic Marriages in East Turkistan,” Uyghur Human Rights Project, 2022, 1, 31.
14 McCartney, Micah, “Police Accused of Inaction As Anti-CCP Activists Assaulted in San Francisco.” Newsweek, November 23, 2023, https://www.newsweek.com/china-ccp-san-francisco-police-department-assault-xi-jinping-joe- biden-apec-1846143; “HRIC Statement on CCP-Organized Attacks and SFPD Inaction During APEC Meeting in San Francisco.” Human Rights in China, 2023. HRIC, https://hrichina.substack.com/p/press-release-hric-statement- on-ccp.
15 “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” See National Archives, “Declaration of Independence: A Transcription,” National Archives, https://www.archives.gov/founding- docs/declaration-transcript.
16 P.C. Chang was a statesman from the Republic of China, who was one of the principal drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). He was a “bridge-builder” between Confucian and Western liberal notions of human rights. Notably, Chang bore responsibility for defining humans as having a “conscience” in the beginning of the UDHR, an idea influenced by the Confucian ideal 仁 (ren). Ren is typically defined as “humaneness” or “benevolence,” but Chang used it to denote a sense of “sympathy” or “consciousness” of the rights of others. See
Frédéric Krumbein, “P. C. Chang—The Chinese Father of Human Rights,” Journal of Human Rights 14, no. 3 (July 3, 2015): 332, 336, https://doi.org/10.1080/14754835.2014.886953.
17 “Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Statistics | U.S. Customs and Border Protection,” accessed April 9, 2024, https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/trade/uyghur-forced-labor-prevention-act-statistics.
18 “Treasury Sanctions Chinese Entity and Officials Pursuant to Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act,” U.S. Department of the Treasury, March 19, 2024, https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm1055. 19 Michael Martina, “U.S. Committee Demands Reasons for Lack of Xinjiang Sanctions,” Reuters, September 19, 2023, sec. China, https://www.reuters.com/world/china/us-committee-demands-reasons-lack-xinjiang-sanctions- 2023-09-19/.
20 Yoshihara and Tozzi, “Recognize the CCP’s Double Persecution in Xinjiang.”
21 Courtney Mares, “Catholic Cardinals Speak out over China’s ‘Potential Genocide’ of Uyghurs,” Catholic News Agency, August 10, 2020, https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/45448/cardinals-condemn-chinas-potential- genocide-of-uyghurs.