Asklemmy

Yogthos, Cowbee etc. have given very detailed answers below. From what I know, the things they said are mostly correct. However, one point to note is that a very small minority of Uyghur people, who were influenced by fundamentalist Wahhabi teachings, carried out terrorist attacks against non-Uyghur people in the 2010s. So there was an atmosphere of fear and suspicion against all the Uyghurs, and many innocent people were subjected to searches, arrests, and so on. This has been documented by the UN. Of course, this is not dissimilar to the way Muslims were treated in France or the US after terrorist attacks. In fact, representatives from Muslim countries who visited Xinjiang praised the government's response, as it included a lot of job creation and infrastructure projects to turn people away from extremism.

The whole conspiracy theory started with a claim of millions of Uyghurs being supposedly imprisoned story is based on two highly dubious “studies.”. However, this claim is completely absurd when you stop and think about it even for a minute. That figure 1 million is repeated again and again. Let's just look at how much space would you actually need to intern one million people.

This is a photo of Rikers Island, New York City's biggest prison. The actual size of a facility interning ten thousand people.

According to Wikipedia, "The average daily inmate population on the island is about 10,000, although it can hold a maximum of 15,000." Let's assume this is a Xinjiang detention camp, holding ten to fifteen thousand people. How many of these would it take to hold one million people?

Let's do some math:

In reality, one million people would probably take more space; all the supposed detention camps we see are much less dense than Rikers.

For comparison, San Francisco is 47 square miles. Amsterdam is 64 square miles. You'd literally need detention camps that total the size of San Francisco or Amsterdam to intern one million Uyghurs. It'd be like looking at a map of California. There's Los Angeles. There's San Diego. And look, there's San Francisco Concentration City with its one million Uyghurs.

Literally visible to the naked eye from space.

CHRD states that it interviewed dozens of ethnic Uyghurs in the course of its study, but their enormous estimate was ultimately based on interviews with exactly eight Uyghur individuals. Based on this absurdly small sample of research subjects in an area whose total population is 20 million, CHRD “extrapolated estimates” that “at least 10% of villagers […] are being detained in re-education detention camps, and 20% are being forced to attend day/evening re-education camps in the villages or townships, totaling 30% in both types of camps.” Furthermore, it doesn't even make sense from logistics perspective.

Practically all the stories we see about China trace back to Adrian Zenz is a far right fundamentalist nutcase and not a reliable source for any sort of information. The fact that he's the primary source for practically every article in western media demonstrates precisely what I'm talking about when I say that coverage is divorced from reality.

Zenz is a born-again Christian who lectures at the European School of Culture and Theology. This anodyne-sounding campus is actually the German base of Columbia International University, a US-based evangelical Christian seminary which considers the “Bible to be the ultimate foundation and the final truth in every aspect of our lives,” and whose mission is to “educate people from a biblical worldview to impact the nations with the message of Christ.”

Zenz’s work on China is inspired by this biblical worldview, as he recently explained in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. “I feel very clearly led by God to do this,” he said. “I can put it that way. I’m not afraid to say that. With Xinjiang, things really changed. It became like a mission, or a ministry.”.

Along with his “mission” against China, heavenly guidance has apparently prompted Zenz to denounce homosexuality, gender equality, and the banning of physical punishment against children as threats to Christianity.

Zenz outlined these views in a book he co-authored in 2012, titled Worthy to Escape: Why All Believers Will Not Be Raptured Before the Tribulation. In the tome, Zenz discussed the return of Jesus Christ, the coming wrath of God, and the rise of the Antichrist.

The fact that this nutcase is being paraded as a credible researcher on the subject is absolutely surreal, and it's clear that the methodology of his "research" doesn't pass any kind of muster when examined closely.

It's also worth noting that there is a political angle around the narrative around Xinjiang. For example, here's George Bush's chief of staff openly saying that US wants to destabilize the region, and NED admitting to funding Uyghur separatism for the past 16 years on their own official Twitter page. An ex-CIA operative details US operations radicalizing and training terrorists in the region in this book. Here's an excerpt:

US has been stoking terrorism in the region while they've been running a propaganda campaign against China in the west. In fact, US even classified Uyghur separatists as a terrorist group at one point https://www.mintpressnews.com/us-was-at-war-uyghur-terrorists-now-claims-etim-doesnt-exist/276916/

Here's an interview with a son of imam killed in Xinjiang https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-06-19/Son-of-imam-assassinated-in-Kashgar-s-2014-mosque-attack-speaks-out-RqNiyrcRuo/index.html

Here's an account from a Pakistani journalist who has been all over Xinjiang (which borders Pakistan) claims that western media reports on "atrocities" are lies. https://dailytimes.com.pk/723317/exposing-the-occidents-baseless-lies-about-xinjiang/

It's also worth noting that the accusations originate entirely from the west while Muslim majority countries support China, and their leaders have visited Xinjiang many times.

• https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/on-eid-xinjiang-imams-defend-china-against-u-s-criticism-1.5425967
• https://www.bolnews.com/latest/2023/07/pak-religious-leaders-nurture-bonds-of-cooperation-with-xinjiang/
• https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/w/islamic-envoys-say-china-is-protecting-minorities-in-xinjiang-after-five-day-visit

Also notable that whenever western media actually deigns to visit Xinjiang, which is not often, they're unable to produce support for any of their claims of mass imprisonment and oppression, so they opt for insinuations instead https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-lifestyle-china-health-travel-7a6967f335f97ca868cc618ea84b98b9

There's a further list of debunking here if you're interested https://redsails.org/the-xinjiang-atrocity-propaganda-blitz/

The whole thing is very clearly a propaganda blitz that US is cynically using to manipulate impressionable people in the west.

The best and most comprehensive resource I have seen so far is Qiao Collective's Xinjiang: A Resource and Report Compilation. Qiao Collective is explicitly pro-PRC, but this is an extremely comprehensive write-up of the entire background of the events, the timeline of reports, and real and fake claims.

I also recommend reading the UN report and China's response to it. These are the most relevant accusations and responses without delving into straight up fantasy like Adrian Zenz, professional propagandist for the Victims of Communism Foundation, does.

Tourists do go to Xinjiang all the time, yes. You can watch videos like this one on YouTube, though it obviously isn't going to be a comprehensive view of a complex situation like this.

I have been living in Chengdu which is in a way the door the geopolitical tibet. For some reason i used to be close to someone from the Tibetan spiritual leader AND close to one of the biggest Chinese real estate owner there. What surprised me most is that we got all wrong in the west about what is ok and not ok. The coward abandon of the west regarding tibet in fact did benefit the people, that is true. The political leaders stepped down and now they can not have high power, but it's okay since the position of powerthey have are the one that can make the most money. their childs are send in America and Europe for education and are given favorable seat in chinese university, which make the Chinese people actually quite angry. As a results i would say Tibetan like to be under chinese occupation, but they also know it's a genocide as they will not he able to live there. I got a ex girlfriend who were from xingjiang area and she explained me how she took some dead body identity to be able to travel and have a passport issued, how they are harassed, at a technological level, say that bank doesn't work well, plane ticket have trouble, police innocently are where they go, there is a clear racism from han to xingjiang people, considered nervous and irrational. I also have heard of the camp, but that is not to me to speak as honestly i don't know more than what the media said and some very angry son of a father who though he was in France in 1789.

Xinjiang is a large, multicultural region with millions and millions of people living there. There are many different experiences there, different industries, different ways of life. There are factory workers, industrialized farmersquitell-scale shepherds, nomads, tech workers, artists, performers, etc etc and often speaking different languages (though most speaking a good amount of Mandarin as well).

Regarding the state, I believe you are speaking specifically to the anti-terrorist policies (with wide applications) taken up in response to repeated deadly attacks by separatist extremists, primarily those influenced by a form of politicized islam not in any way native to the region, but imported from Afghanistan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, etc. Hundreds were killed, repeatedly, targeting transit centers, public events, markets, etc. Civilians were targeted, widely.

The state's response to this was, broadly, to:

1. Invest in economic "modernization" in Xinjiang. Namely, to raise thr economic floor in the region and change economic relations so as to be less amenable to these kinds of activities. Greater prospects for the people of Xinjiang and greater integration into China as a whole, i.e. moving away from economic isolation and personal experiences being isolated.

2. Increased monitoring of social media and movements to track down potential radicalization. Focused on that imported form of politicized idlam, again quite different from Uyghur traditional islamic practices.

3. The creation of hybrid deradicalization/vocational centers, sometimes with mandatory attendance. Those who attended learned civics, Mandarin, base skills for getting modernized jobs, and the opportunity for better job placement in or out of Xinjiang. They would attend on weekdays and generally did not actually live at these centers. When attendance was required it was sometimes due to flagging for radicalization, for which the justifications varied from attending meetinga with separatists to posting separatiat or violent rhetoric online to quoting Wahhabists or putting up Wahhabist pictures in their homes or just being a family member of someone who did such things - your social network could flag you.

This program has largely worked and the vocational centers have been wound fown as they do not have nearly as many people attending them anymore. Xinjiang's economy has modernized and industrialized to a larger extent and is increasingly integrated with both the rest of China and the world.

The West's response to this, which is to say, the imperialists who fund and arm people like those whose who did the terrorist attacks in the first place and who have repeatedly destrpyed entire Muslim nations, has been to cook up a host of faux-intellectual bullshit through its NGO pipelines, and to try and reverse China's approach to economic improvementa by sanctioning or boycotting Xinjiang products. They fundamentally agree that improving material conditions in Xinjiang will address this form of radialized, but they actually want to stoke it by making people there poorer. The NGO apparatus is actually wuite small and is full of charalatans that do not visit China, let alone Xinjiang, do not speak the relevant languages, and insulate themselves from criticism while promoting their work politically - to justify policies against China, against Xinjiang, against Uyghurs.

For one example, you may have heard about claims of the destruction of ancient mosques. None of this is ever verified, it comes exclusively from someone looking at blurry satellite images and making guesses. This comes from ASPI, part of Australia's equivalent of the state/war department, and has mostly been done by an amateur whosr published work was mostly done as a teenager. That's right, a random Australian teenager making things up is a large part of the basis for these claims and is published in the so-called UN human rights "report", itself just a laundering of these fmcharacters' work, as they were aware that only citing Zenz and ASPI was becoming conspicuous. And where is this "work" handled critically? Nowhere professionally, I can tell you that. It is not part of any real critical academic domain, it is only in the political, and you have to go find people who do speak the languages or otherwise expose this grifter behavior to tease it apart.

And what can we know about the region in the current time, like can a random tourist go and see with their own eyes the truth, and maybe film it ?

Yes, you can go there and film it, which plenty of people have done and posted them on RedNote, TikTok, YouTube, etc.

China and the Marxist forums deny anything harmful

We don’t deny anything harmful for which there is actual evidence. The US-backed Salafi/Wahhabi extremist terrorist attacks certainly were harmful[1][2], and if you would consider the prosecution of said terrorists to be harmful, then okay.

Be mindful to read the usernames in this discussion, it initially gives the appearance of diversity but there are only a few people weighing in. Make of that what you will.