Adrian Zenz

Over the past year, the world has become aware of the Chinese government’s extralegal detention of hundreds of thousands of ethnic minority Muslims, especially Uyghurs, in China’s far-western Xinjiang region. For “offenses” ranging from having family members living abroad to appearing too devoted to Islam – as determined by a Chinese Communist Party minder – Uyghurs can be forced to spend months in “re-education camps.” Those who have returned from the camps and spoken to the media describe being forced to recite praises for the CCP and its top leader, Xi Jinping, and denounce their family members, friends, and religion.

Adrian Zenz, a lecturer in social research methods at the European School of Culture and Theology, Korntal, Germany, was one of the first researchers to provide an in-depth look at the system of re-education camps in Xinjiang. The Diplomat spoke with Zenz about the human rights crisis in Xinjiang and what China might have planned next.

What is China’s goal with the re-education camps? What would Beijing’s ideal outcome in Xinjiang look like?

Beijing’s ideal outcome are Muslim minorities who are strongly assimilated, firstly in terms of ethnocultural identity, secondly in terms of ideological convictions. Minorities must be firmly integrated into the Han majority culture and language. They can maintain some of their “acceptable” cultural customs and speak their languages as long as they are also fluent in Chinese and culturally close to the mainstream.

Additionally, Beijing wants religious minorities to pledge primary allegiance to the Communist Party and its underlying ideology. Competing ideologies such as religions must only form a secondary part of the identity of a citizen of China. Superficial religious and other customs may be practiced as long as they are subservient to the tenets of the Party.

Finally, restive minorities such as the Uyghurs are being thoroughly intimidated to the extent that they won’t even dream of disobeying the Party or engaging in even symbolic acts of resistance. The re-education camps are specifically designed to achieve all of these objectives with unprecedented intensity.

Why is this happening now? Is there a new political or security impetus for the increased government control, or has new technology just made these steps feasible?

New technology facilities greater control, and economic growth has made it more feasible to shoulder the enormous costs associated with China’s police state and re-education drive in Xinjiang. However, Xi Jinping’s signature initiative, the Belt and Road, plays a major role in this unprecedented securitization drive. China’s president is seeking to portray a picture of complete stability and control. Outward stability is taken as a prime indicator of the regime’s power.

New security technology and policing methods were extensively deployed and tested in Tibet, along with a number of pilot cities and regions throughout China. However, Xinjiang’s re-education campaign represents a qualitatively new level of securitization and repression that is not found anywhere else in China at this point.

The state must have felt that its police state methods are woefully inadequate to promote lasting ethnic unity. Ironically, these methods increase the divide between the minorities and the Han. You cannot control people by placing security personnel next to each of them. The most intense form of control is to instil a profound fear within people, even when no police are in sight. This embedded fear produces anticipatory obedience and will likely permit the state to eventually scale down its expensive security apparatus to an extent.

China has defended the camps by saying they are necessary parts of counterterrorism efforts in Xinjiang. How bad was the terrorism problem in Xinjiang prior to these new policies?

It is easy to label perpetrators of violence as “terrorists,” which cognitively dehumanizes them and simultaneously blends out the complex contexts within which discontent, hate, and violence arise. Xinjiang’s Uyghur population has long harbored an underlying sense of discontent since the Chinese formally occupied the region in 1949. This discontentment has been caused by various forms of discrimination, typically worst during the Cultural Revolution, but also before and after that chaotic period. These underlying tensions erupted in 2009 when suppressed dissent suddenly became visible, just as flows of magma under the earth go unnoticed until a volcano forms and erupts.

Since then, a minority of Uyghurs have opted for violent resistance against the state. Also, a growing although limited number of Uyghurs have become influenced by religious extremism with the rise of global jihad, while others have simply become religiously more conservative. In a number of ways, China’s Islamic terrorism problem in Xinjiang is a self-fulling prophecy that is likely to worsen considerably as a result of the present securitization and re-education approach. Currently, China is indeed in need of effective deradicalization strategies, but they are certainly not found among its current practices.

When you first began writing about the re-education camps, China’s government was denying that such a thing existed. What do you make of Beijing’s recent efforts to justify the camps as “vocational training centers,” including having officials give detailed explanations to state media? Is this a sign that international pressure is having some impact?

The fact that China suddenly went on the offensive and is seeking to portray the camps as a necessary and “good” measure to combat extremism was certainly caused by growing international pressure. In particular, the scrutiny that Beijing faced during the hearings of the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in August this year forced it to provide an explanation.

The regime decided to focus on the vocational training component because this is an aspect that can potentially be depicted as a benevolent alternative to incarceration. Party officials have almost given the impression that these “training camps” are like well-equipped pleasure parlors that offer luxuries such as air-conditioned rooms and a wide range of exciting spare time activities.

However, all the evidence is clearly stacked against Beijing’s propaganda, which is not unlike the Nazi’s attempts to portray the sprawling detention facility of Theresienstadt as a luxurious Jewish resort town.

Government bid documents describe the prison-like security features of these camps, confirmed by satellite images. Public recruitment notices indicate that these “training centers” are guarded by hundreds of police officers, a fact that was recently confirmed by an ex-police guard who worked at such a camp. Also, a recent amendment to Xinjiang’s de-extremification ordinance refers to “vocational skills training centers” as “re-education institutions.” Re-education (Chinese: jiaoyu zhuanhua, literally meaning “transformation through education”) has been used for the “therapy” forced upon Falun Gong practitioners as well as for the coerced isolated detoxification treatments given to drug addicts. In fact, local government documents reveal that the state considers Islamic belief to be a form of drug addiction.

My latest research, based on official budget figures, shows that Xinjiang’s spending on vocational education actually decreased since the onset of the re-education drive. Instead, spending on clandestine security budget categories multiplied, especially in counties with high minority concentrations. Xinjiang’s spending on the formal prosecution of criminal suspects actually stagnated or declined in 2017, which is not surprising given that re-education is an extralegal form of detention.

Moreover, the government’s own data shows that its so-called “vocational training” campaign has not actually improved employment outcomes among the campaign’s designated target population (the “rural poor”). This is not surprising. After all, most of those undergoing “training” are basically detained for an indeterminate time and consequently would not be listed as “employed.” Also, recruitment notices show that the “teachers” of these “training centers” are not required to hold professional degrees or to possess relevant experience in what they teach. Even a junior middle school degree is often enough. The actual employment benefits of this “training” for competitive private sector jobs are questionable. Also, among those put into “training” are elderly and retired persons, mothers caring for little children, and highly educated Uyghur cadres and intellectuals.

Clearly, the aim of most of these facilities is the involuntary detention of large Muslim population shares in prison-like facilities for the purpose of intense political indoctrination. Xinjiang’s re-education campaign is essentially comparable to the former national re-education through labor system. This system was abolished by the Chinese government itself as it was deemed to be no longer appropriate for a society governed by the rule of law.

Some analysts have speculated that Xinjiang’s present is China’s future. What is the likelihood of this tight system of surveillance and/or the re-education camps being expanded to China as a whole?

Orwellian surveillance systems are already being piloted in cities throughout China, and a recent Global Times editorial even suggested that the United States learn from Xinjiang’s anti-extremism “education” in order to prevent incidents such a the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. The state is learning from its securitization experiences in Tibet and Xinjiang. The coerced securitization and “Han-ification” of Xinjiang’s Muslim minorities is an unprecedented attempt to change entire ethnic groups. The state is likely to carefully study and learn from this social experiment in order to apply the results in adapted ways throughout the rest of the nation.

Throughout China there are significant pockets of ideological resistance to state-sponsored atheism and the dominance of Han culture. Why are the minorities tenaciously holding on to their distinct religious and ethnic identities? Why is even the Han population actively pursuing alternative ideologies (such as religions) despite all material progress? Human beings tend to put their faith into something. The state wants to make sure that the Party comes first in everyone’s allegiance, just as the early Christians had to first bow to the Roman emperor or else face persecution. It is likely that the Chinese state will use adapted forms of re-education (along with other methods) on those who do not put the Party first.

Given the tight government controls over information in Xinjiang, researching this region poses special challenges. What sources of information do you use for your research, and where would you recommend readers turn to learn more?

Because of the difficulty of undertaking field research I have mainly focused on public sources of information, such as recruitment notices, bids, government reports, or official statistics. Many of these data sources have received little attention by academics.

Despite the obstacles, both journalists and anthropologists have managed to obtain valuable information and produced excellent reports. In-depth media reports have been produced by the Agence France Press, the Associated Press, the Wall Street Journal, Buzzfeed News, and most recently the BBC. Anthropologists such as Darren Byler or Gene Bunin have published insightful ethnographic accounts. Satellite evidence of the camps can be found on Shawn Zhang’s page on Medium. Detailed accounts of my own findings have been published through the China Brief of the Jamestown Foundation, and my full-length academic paper on the re-education camps is available for free on the website of the Central Asian Survey journal. Finally, the @XJScholars Twitter account is a good source for information on Xinjiang that may not be published elsewhere.