Now We Know: Xinjiang, Xi Jinping Is Responsible

Is it any surprise? Xi Jinping is, after all, the Chief Slave Master of the CCP Slave Camp. The CCP must be destroyed! Boycott Chinese Goods!

From Bitter Winter

By Ruth Ingram

Elusive links that tie the President directly with mass internment of Uyghurs have come to light.

Blame for the vast network of extra judicial camps in Xinjiang lies right at the pinnacle of the CCP hierarchy with President Xi Jinping himself. He, rather than Xinjiang governor Chen Quanguo as was previously suspected, is responsible according to researcher Adrian Zenz, who presented evidence of highest level Politburo culpability to the Uyghur Genocide tribunal in London.

Any suggestion that lesser officials might have overstepped the mark and carried out atrocities without the knowledge of the highest powers in the land have been laid to rest by the researcher, who has traced lines of command to the very top.

Asked by members of the Tribunal’s adjudicating panel whether the President himself would have known about abuses carried out under his policies, Zenz replied they were ordered by him.

Xi was undoubtably the architect of the plans, he said, and central government to at least levels three and four of the Politburo would have known exactly what was happening in Xinjiang, he confirmed.

Careful analysis of Chinese government websites and the country’s own state media has revealed countless references attesting to an unabashed intent on behalf of Xi to build dedicated facilities as far back as April 2014 to tackle “extremism.” President Xi sits at their very heart, as attested by XUAR governor Shohrat Zakir who confirmed in 2019 that Xi was at the “core” of Xinjiang work. As reported by the China Daily, the “resolute implementation” of the “important instructions of General Secretary Xi Jinping,” which have “focused on the overall goal, played well in the ‘combined boxing,’ (sic) dared to gnaw hard bones, fought tough battles, and solved a series of problems in reform, development and stability.”

According to Zenz, President Xi Jinping laid the groundwork while visiting the region, demanding an all-out “struggle against terrorism, extremism and separatism” that showed “absolutely no mercy.” He likened Islamic radicalism to a virus, noting that its eradication would require “a period of painful, interventionary treatment” (New York Times, November 16, 2019, report on the leaked “Xinjiang Papers”).

This was followed by highest level draft legislation in 2015 on de-extremification, and measures to tackle ethnic dissent which were passed down the line to Chen to implement. “Xi was the architect of all this, not Chen,” said Zenz emphatically.

Now, previously unanalyzed PRC central government and state media commentary surrounding the introduction of the crucial March 2017 “XUAR De-Extremification Regulation” ([新疆维吾尔自治区去极端化条例], Xinjiang Weiwuer zizhiqu qu jiduanhua tiaoli), as well as its October 2018 revision show that several important central government institutions were closely and directly involved in the drafting of this key legislation, reported Zenz.

Politburo legislation giving the go-ahead for re-education began in 2017 and was fully legitimized in 2018, with the standing committee giving its full approval to revisions and amendments following a special trip to Beijing by Xinjiang officials in August 2018. An October revision ordered the setting up of Vocational Skills Education and Training Centers, aka transformation through education camps, a state euphemism for what are in effect high-security internment camps.

Subsequent legislation to “drastically reduce” the population of ethnic minorities by embedding substantial numbers of Han in the region followed suit, according to Zenz who estimates that together with a mass sterilization drive, there will be between 2.6–4.5 million fewer Uyghurs in the region by 2040.

At a high level Central Xinjiang Work Symposium in September 2020, Xi Jinping reported “Facts have fully proved that our nation’s work has been successful,” praising the “strong leadership of the Party Central Committee” and “the result of the joint struggle of the whole party,” adding that they were in this for the long haul.

“It must be adhered to for a long time,” he stressed.

“We must adhere to the direction of Sinicization of Islam in Xinjiang and realize the healthy development of religion. It is necessary to do a good job in the field of ideology and carry out the project of cultural invigoration,” he said.

Zenz uncovered repeated references to central government instigation of the plans to legitimize such radical measures, as the will of Xi himself. One month after the revised regulations were published Nurlan Abdumanjin, chairman of the XUAR People’s Political Consultative Conference emphasized the legitimacy of the Vocational Skills Education and Training work saying they were “an important measure to implement the CCP Central Committee’s strategy of governing Xinjiang, with Comrade Xi Jinping at the core.”

Eight lecturers of Xinjiang University, were despatched to review the camps, and their subsequent report in November 2018, “wasted no time portraying the ‘centers’ as benign and makes no effort to describe their conditions, instead focusing on their ‘urgent necessity’ for achieving de-extremification work,” according to Zenz.

“Everyone believes that the establishment of the Vocational Skills Education and Training Centers is a major measure taken by the Party Committee of the Autonomous Region to implement the CCP Central Committee’s strategy of governing Xinjiang,”  they reported.

Zenz suggests that Shohrat Zakir’s “carefully crafted framing of the internment camps as a local solution” has diverted responsibility away from central government hence allowing those higher up to avoid international sanctions.

“The most logical conclusion is that the responsibility and therefore culpability for this campaign rests primarily with the central government, most notably the Politburo Standing Committee,” concludes Zenz. “While Chen Quanguo may have substantially contributed to the precise implementation of the re-education internment drive, his role is probably best assessed as that of an executor—not originator—of central government policy decisions.”

Could the use of the so-called “Tiger Chair” as an instrument of torture in the camps, have been ordered by Xi Jinping? One of the questions asked by panelists of Adrian Zenz during his evidence on Xi Jinping’s complicity in Xinjiang’s atrocities. (Photo from Human Rights Watch website).

Questioned on the implications of his findings, Zenz concluded that the atrocities in Xinjiang have been systematically premeditated and executed with militaristic precision. Starting with experimentation in the early days, the plans were rolled out and scaled up dramatically, masterminded by central government and controlled by Chen Quanguo, whose draconian managerial style ruled the cadres with an iron fist. Backed with a colossal security budget that doubled between 2016–2017, and 70–80% of which came from Beijing, unconditional implementation was demanded. This could not have been rolled out without the intimate knowledge and consent of Beijing, he concluded.

Zenz was shocked by his own findings which were worse than he had originally anticipated. 90–95% of the measures taken to tackle the stated aim of extremism, he estimated, were excessive and targeted at those with no evidence of criminal activity. He could only conclude that even the severe psychological coercion, physical restraint, and corporal punishments during internment must have been approved by central government.

Chen’s appointment, he considered, “coincided directly with central government’s will and intention to upscale their policies.” It plays a significant role in assessing central government intent, he concluded.