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1 1 (October 05, 2020)

handle is hein.crs/govdcbj0001 and id is 1 raw text is: &~ ~ riE SE .$rCh &~ ~ ~ p\w -- , gnom goo mppm qq\ , q I as 11LULANJILiN, Updated October 5, 2020 Uyghurs in China Uyghurs (also spelled Uighurs) are an ethnic group living primarily in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in the People's Republic of China's (PRC's) far northwest. Uyghurs speak a Turkic language and practice a moderate form of Sunni Islam. The XUAR, often referred to simply as Xinjiang (pronounced SHIN-jyahng), is a provincial-level administrative region which comprises about one-sixth of China's total land area and borders eight countries. The region is rich in minerals, produces over 80% of China's cotton, and has China's largest coal and natural gas reserves and a fifth of its oil reserves. The XUAR is a strategic region for the PRC's Belt and Road Initiative, which includes Chinese-backed infrastructure projects and energy development in neighboring Central and South Asia. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::i ~ii::ii: : :ii : : : ::: :1i~ : : .: : i: ~i: .1- Uruinqi 'N,. .5 * * ,.~ . ~q.: K~493f CH NA Sources: CRS using U.S. Department of State Boundaries; Esri; Global Administrative Areas; DeLorme; NGA. All or parts of the area comprising Xinjiang have been under the political control or influence of Chinese, Mongols, and Russians for long spans of the region's documented history, along with periods of Turkic or Uyghur rule. Uyghurs played a role in the establishment of two short-lived East Turkestan Republics in the 1930s and 1940s. The PRC asserted control over Xinjiang in 1949 and established the XUAR in 1955. Uyghurs once were the predominant ethnic group in the XUAR; they now constitute roughly 450% of the region's population of 24 million, or around 10.5 million. The government long has provided economic incentives for Han Chinese, the majority ethnic group in China, to migrate to the region; Hans now constitute about 40% of the XUAR population. Since an outbreak of Uyghur demonstrations and ethnic unrest in 2009, and sporadic clashes involving Uyghurs and Xinjiang security personnel that spiked between 2013 and 2015, PRC leaders have sought to stabilize the XUAR through more intensive security measures aimed at combatting terrorism, separatism and religious extremism. PRC official data indicates that criminal arrests in Xinjiang increased from approximately 14,000 in 2013 to 228,000 in 2017. Since 2017, in tandem with a new national policy referred to as Sinicization, XUAR authorities have instituted measures to assimilate Uyghurs into Han Chinese society and reduce the influences of Uyghur, Islamic, and Arabic cultures and languages. The XUAR government enacted a law in 2017 that prohibits expressions of extremification and placed restrictions, often imposed arbitrarily, upon dress and grooming, practices of traditional Uyghur customs, and adherence to Islamic dietary laws (halal). Thousands of mosques in Xinjiang reportedly have been demolished or Sinicized, whereby Islamic motifs and Arabic writings have been removed. There have been reports of a government campaign to forcefully reduce birth rates among Turkic Muslims in the region. Beginning in 2016, Chen Quanguo, the newly appointed Communist Party Secretary of the XUAR, stepped up security and surveillance measures aimed at the Uyghur population. Such actions included the installation of thousands of neighborhood police kiosks, more intrusive monitoring of Internet use, and the collection of biometric data for identification purposes. The central government sent an estimated one million officials and state workers from outside Xinjiang, mostly ethnic Han, to live temporarily in Uyghur homes to assess their compliance with government policies. By some estimates, between 2017 and 2020, Xinjiang authorities have arbitrarily detained an estimated 1.5 million Turkic Muslims, mostly Uyghurs and a smaller number of ethnic Kazakhs, in reeducation camps. The facilities also have held many prominent Uyghur intellectuals. PRC officials describe the facilities as vocational education and training centers where trainees study Chinese, learn job skills, and undergo a process of de-extremization. Detainees, some of whom may have engaged in religious or ethnic cultural practices that the government previously tolerated but now deems as extremist, reportedly are compelled to renounce many of their Islamic beliefs and customs as a condition for their release. In the second half of 2019, PRC officials claimed that most detainees had been released, although many Uyghurs living abroad say that they still have not heard from missing relatives in Xinjiang. According to some reports, many detainees likely have been formally convicted of crimes and placed in higher security facilities. Some reeducation centers appear to have been decommissioned, while dozens of new or repurposed facilities resembling prisons have sprung up in the past year. The government reportedly has

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