What the Uyghurs' situation in China has to do with you
Cloistered… in concentration camps
While we complain about the Coronavirus confinement, the US State Department reports that more than 1 million Uyghurs and Muslim minorities are being held in more than 85 concentration camps in China.
The official speech of the Chinese government is that the detainees are undergoing “vocational training”. Unofficial reports point out that, in fact, they are being forced to give up their traditions, cultures and language, including being subject to physical and sexual abuse, forced labor and, in the most extreme cases, death.
Why do these camps exist?
The minorities in question are from Xinjiang, a region that has officially been part of China’s eastern end since 1949 and is of interest to the power for the following reasons:
- it is rich in natural resources, especially oil and natural gas;
- it connects China to several other Central Asian countries, including Mongolia to the north, several countries that were Turkish colonies (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan) and India to the south.
In fact, “Xinjiang” means “new frontier” in Mandarin, which is a name inherited from Chinese colonization.
Chinese leaders have made several efforts to popularize Xinjiang with the “Han” ethnic group, the dominant group in China, and to develop the region economically. Among other incentives for their migration, they were promised positions of relevance.
With these movements, segregation between the original local population and the Han group increased, as well as political movements questioning the situation, which culminated in violent actions and real massacres, were emerging and strengthening.
China’s current president, Xi Jinping, was in the region in 2014 and, on the last day of his visit, suffered a terrorist attack. Since then, it has established a massive and severity monitoring system alleging efforts against terrorism.
“We must be as strict as they are and show absolutely no pity.” said Xi Jinping as widely exposed by the New York Times in November 2019 with the release of more than 400 pages of Chinese internal documents.
The camps represent the most recent and structured effort to maintain stability in the region. The Uyghurs, whose current population is approximately 10 million individuals, are disappearing one by one from the streets and the government is taking care to inform family members that everything is fine, to avoid a major social rebellion.
In the words of the New York Times: “The document warned that there was a “serious possibility” students might sink into “turmoil” after learning what had happened to their relatives. It recommended that police officers in plain clothes and experienced local officials meet them as soon as they returned “to show humane concern and stress the rules.”
A social and personal matter, which is of your direct interest
While this text is being written, a true cultural genocide is taking place.
Uyghur monitoring includes biometric recognition. In 2017, the non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch already warned of the authorities’ efforts to collect DNA samples, fingerprints, iris data, and blood types from residents of the region, all supported by alleged efforts by a public health program.
It is a clear situation of use of personal data for authoritarian interests; this highlights the risk to which we are exposed even to those who are supposed to protect us, the government.
On June 17, U.S. President Donald Trump signed the Uighur Human Rights Policy Act, a federal-level rule requiring US government agencies to report information on the treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang and providing for sanctions on Chinese officials.
Heroes? Former national security adviser John Bolton reported, in a book yet to be published (and whose near-final version was obtained by the Washington Post), that in a meeting held in 2019 Trump would have told Xi Jinping that what he was doing was "exactly the right thing to do". At the meeting, they would also have discussed potential trade deals, in particular as a way of sustaining a partnership for Trump’s re-election.
Authorized government actions, repression of minorities, disputes over territories, economic interests, political interests … None of this is new.
The novelty is to use new technological instruments to enhance all these actions. In particular, in this case, the monitoring and repression system has as one of the main pillars or the use of personal data and biometrics, to bring precision and scalability to the efforts.
This case is more evidence of exposure of personal data in digital scope, a phenomenon that, in addition to legal and legal actions, exposes individuals to forces and actions that are often inconvenient, even putting their freedom and security at risk.
Norms for the protection of the individual will emerge around the world, but some important questions remain open:
- among so many economic and social priorities (health and others), what is the priority given to data protection standards?
- will regulatory oversight be effective?
- is there a risk of reaching an inflection point, in which norms will be fully defined for the protection of the individual?
- what if the “lawmen”
(even the least unlikely) turn against you?
We may not have all the answers, but one thing is certain. The Uyghurs’ drama anticipates that we will need to be increasingly aware of the new risks that the digital world can pose.
Sources:
Washington Post (1)
Washington Post (2)
Wikipedia — Xinjiang re-education camps
Wikipedia — Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act
(+others specifically mentioned in the text