In China’s far northwestern Xinjiang province, the razor wire that once encircled public buildings has practically vanished.
The middle school uniforms in military camouflage, as well as the armored personnel carriers rumbling around the Uyghur heartland, have vanished. Many of the surveillance cameras that, formerly gleamed down like birds from above poles, as well as the eerie perpetual screech of sirens, have vanished in Kashgar, the ancient Silk Road city.
Teenage Uyghur lads, long uncommon, are now seen flirting with girls at rollerblading rinks while listening to pounding dance music. Shakira was being blasted by a cab driver as she raced through the streets.
Beijing’s control over Xinjiang has entered a new phase, four years after launching a harsh crackdown that swept up to a million or more Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim minorities into detention camps and jails. Many of the harshest and conspicuous parts of the region’s high-tech police state have been dialed back by Chinese authorities. The terror that engulfed the region a few years ago has dissipated, and a sense of normalcy is returning.
However, there is no ambiguity about who is in charge, and traces of the fear of the previous four years can be found everywhere.
Many ancient cores in Xinjiang’s cities have been destroyed, and the Islamic call to prayer no longer rings forth. It may be observed in Kashgar, where one mosque has been converted into a café and another has been converted into a tourist restroom. It can be found in the countryside, where Han Chinese officials administer villages.
Fear was ever-present, barely beneath the surface, on rare journeys to Xinjiang, another on a state-guided tour for foreign journalists.
When a bike salesman realized the reporter was a foreigner, his eyes widened with surprise. He took out his phone and dialed the police department.
The mysterious individuals following us paid a visit to the convenience store cashier, who mumbled something about diminishing sales. When we returned, she didn’t say anything and instead made a zipping motion over her mouth before rushing past us and out of the store.
The reporter was followed by a convoy of a dozen cars at one point, an unsettling parade through the quiet streets of Aksu at 4 a.m. The minders would close in, whenever the reporter tried to converse with someone, straining to hear every word.
It’s unclear why Chinese authorities have switched to more subtle ways of regional control. It’s possible that harsh Western condemnation, as well as punitive political and financial sanctions, have prompted officials to loosen up. It’s also possible that China believes it has progressed far enough in its goal of subjugating the Uyghurs and other primarily Muslim minorities to lessen its grip.
Uyghur groups around the world accuse the Chinese government of genocide, citing low birth rates and widespread detentions as evidence. The authorities claim that their purpose is to assimilate Uyghurs rather than exterminate them and that strong measures are required to combat extremism.
Whatever the motivation, many of the behaviors that constituted Uyghur culture a living entity — loud gatherings, stringent Islamic customs, fierce debate – have been curtailed or banned. Authorities have created a sanitized version in their place, one that is ready for marketing.
Officials from Xinjiang led us on a tour of Urumqi’s Grand Bazaar, which, like many other cities in Xinjiang, has been rebuilt for visitors. A large plastic bearded Uyghur man and a giant plastic Uyghur instrument can be found here. Small plastic naan keychains, Uyghur hats, and fridge magnets are sold in a local museum dedicated to traditional naan bread. Selfies are taken by throngs of Han Chinese.
The “museumification” of Uyghur culture, according to James Leibold, a famous expert of Xinjiang ethnic politics. Officials in China call it progress.
The Uyghurs, a historically Muslim minority of 13 million people with significant linguistic, ethnic, and cultural ties to Turkey, have long struggled to integrate into China. Beijing’s officials have debated whether stronger or softer methods are more efficient in absorbing the enormous area, which is half the size of India since the Communist Party assumed control of Xinjiang in 1949.
Xinjiang’s policies have swung back and forth for decades. Glass ceilings, bigotry, and religious restrictions alienated and infuriated many Uyghurs, even as the state provided special benefits to minorities, including as hiring quotas and additional points on admission tests.
The more the government tried to suppress the Uyghurs, the more they clung to their ethnic identity with tenacity. A small number of people turned to violence, carrying out bombings and stabbings against a government they believed would never treat them with respect. Hundreds of civilians, both Han Chinese and Uyghur, have died as a result of more lethal attacks.
After President Xi Jinping’s ascension to power in 2012, the discussion came to an end. The authorities chose forced assimilation, detaining hundreds of Uyghurs and other minorities without cause and labeling them as suspected “terrorists.”
Many roadblocks and police posts have since been removed, and the bombs have ceased, but the racial barrier remains.
Uyghurs are enslaved by an impenetrable apparatus that controls their every action. It’s nearly impossible for them to obtain passports, and the majority of passengers on planes flying to and from Xinjiang are Han Chinese.
Outside of Xinjiang, Uyghurs are required to register with local authorities and report to an officer on a regular basis, with their movements being tracked and monitored. Many Uyghurs in Xinjiang are unable to leave the province.
Xinjiang information is severely suppressed within China, and official media now advertises the province as a safe, unique tourism destination. As a result, many Han Chinese outside of Xinjiang are uninformed of the restrictions imposed on Uyghurs, which is one of the numerous reasons why many Chinese support Beijing’s persecution.
Han Chinese and Uyghurs coexist in Xinjiang, with an unwritten but visible divide between them. A Han woman at a sewing business in Kashgar’s suburbs informed reporters that most Uyghurs were not allowed to leave their houses.
“Isn’t that correct?” The woman asked an Uyghur seamstress, “You can’t leave this shop?”
Reporters saw Lunar New Year banners with statements in Chinese characters like “The Chinese Communist Party is good” displayed on every storefront along the street from the tailor shop. Local officials printed the banners by the hundreds, handed them out, and ordered them to be put up, according to an elderly Han Chinese shopkeeper, despite the fact that Uyghurs typically celebrate Islamic holidays rather than the Lunar New Year.
She agreed with the stringent measures. She stated Xinjiang was considerably safer now than when she originally came there with her son, a Bingtuan (Xinjiang’s paramilitary corps) soldier.
She told me that the Uyghurs “don’t dare to do anything around here anymore.”
City centers are once again a hive of activity, with Uyghur and Han children screeching and chasing each other around the streets. Some Uyghurs even approach me and ask for my phone number, which has never happened before.
Many residences in rural villages and quiet neighborhoods, on the other hand, are abandoned and padlocked. Every third or fourth house in one Kashgar area is spray-painted with the words “Empty House.” On a half-hour walk through a village an hour away, reporters saw dozens of “Empty House” placards, red text on yellow slips blowing in the breeze on door after door.
Control is even tougher in rural areas, away from the bazaars that the government wants visitors to see.
When reporters arrived in one of the villages, an elderly Uyghur guy wearing a square skullcap answers only one question – “We don’t have the coronavirus here, everything is fine” – before a local Han Chinese cadre demands to know what we’re up to.
“If he asks you anything, simply pretend you don’t know anything,” he instructs the people in Uyghur.
A drunken Uyghur man was ranting behind him. For practicing Muslims, alcohol is prohibited, especially during the holy month of Ramadan.
“I’ve been drinking booze and am a little inebriated, but that’s not an issue.” “Now we can drink as much as we want!” he exclaimed. “We’re free to do whatever we want!” Things are looking up now!”
Reporters observed booze bottles crowding the shelves of a local store. Reporters saw an intoxicated Uyghur man sprawled out in front of a trash bin in another town. Though many Uyghurs in big cities like Urumqi have long indulged in alcohol consumption, such spectacles were once unthinkable in Xinjiang’s conservative rural communities.
Officials brought us on a government-sponsored tour to meet Mamatjan Ahat, a truck driver who stated that after a spell at one of Xinjiang’s famed “training centers,” he had recanted religion and extremism and was back to drinking and smoking.
As officials listened in, Ahat said, “It made me more open-minded.”
Officials in Xinjiang claim they are not forcing atheism on the Uyghurs, but rather preserving religious freedom against extremism. A recurrent complaint is that “not all Uyghurs are Muslims.”
The state’s grip on religious activity has loosened, but it remains tight. Some mosques, for example, have been allowed to reopen, albeit hours are carefully controlled. Small groups of elderly worshippers come in and exit in small groups.
The Xinjiang Islamic Institute, a government institution for imams, is the best example of Xinjiang’s peculiar form of state-controlled Islam.
Young Uyghur males chant Quran verses and pray five times a day here. Officials tell us that they receive scholarships and opportunities to study in Egypt as they show us around. Thousands of people have graduated, and the university has recently established a new campus — although one with a police station at the entrance.
As officials looked on, a student, Omar Adilabdulla, stated, “Religious freedom is incorporated in China’s constitution.” “It is completely free.”
The reporter opened a textbook on another student’s desk while he speaks. According to the article, a good Chinese Muslim must study Mandarin, China’s primary language.
“Arabic is not the only language in which Allah’s classics are compiled,” the teacher explained. “Because we are all Chinese, learning Chinese is our responsibility and obligation.”
The reporter noticed other lessons as he read through the book.
One chapter reads, “We must be grateful to the Party and the government for bringing peace.”
Another adds, “We must try to construct a socialist Xinjiang with Chinese characteristics.” “Amen!”
Uyghur is still widely spoken, but its use in public places is dwindling. In some cities, entire blocks of newly built housing contain solely Chinese signs, not Uyghur.
Uyghur language books are consigned to “ethnic minority language books” sections in bookstores. The government claims that approximately a thousand Uyghur books are released each year, yet none are by Perhat Tursun, a lyrical modernist author, or Yalqun Rozi, a textbook editor and outspoken critic. They have been imprisoned, as have the majority of renowned Uyghur academics.
Instead, there are books on Xi Jinping’s philosophy, Mao biographies, communist values lectures, and Mandarin-Uyghur dictionaries on the shelves.
Many Uyghurs, from young men to ancient grandmothers, still struggle with Mandarin. Mandarin has just been designated a compulsory subject in schools by the government.
A headmaster told reporters during the state tour that the Uyghur language is still protected, pointing to their minority language courses. All other subjects, however, are taught in Chinese, and one school’s sign instructs students to “Speak Mandarin, use standard writing.”
The so-called “training centers,” which leaked papers suggest are actually extrajudicial indoctrination camps, have been the most heavily condemned component of Xinjiang’s crackdown.
Following international pressure, Chinese officials declared the camps closed in 2019. Many appear to be shut down.
They took reporters to what they stated was formerly a “training facility,” now an ordinary vocational school in Peyzawat County, on the state-led tour in April. The campus boundaries are marked by a simple fence, in sharp contrast to the barbed wire, high watchtowers, and police at the entry three years ago. Reporters observed at least three other places that used to be camps but are now residences or office complexes.
Permanent detention facilities have been developed in their stead, signaling a shift away from impromptu camps and toward a long-term mass incarceration regime. Driving down a country road, reporters came to a big facility with walls rising from the fields and men visible in high guard towers. The reporters were suddenly stopped by two men dressed in epidemic-prevention gear. A third is one of the world’s largest incarceration centers. Many are hidden away in the countryside, hidden behind forests or dunes, far from tourists and city centers.
The Chinese authorities have rewritten history in Urumqi, at an anti-terror display in a large, modernist complex near glass office towers and freshly built motorways. Despite the fact that Xinjiang has been under Chinese authority since the 1700s and was briefly autonomous in the last century, the territory’s history is simply overlooked.
“Although there were various kingdoms and khanates in Xinjiang in the past,” one display notes, “they were all local governments within the boundaries of China.”
The book is written in both English and Chinese. There is no Uyghur script anywhere in the show. Guns and bombs are displayed in glass cases that the exhibit claims were seized from extremists.
A prim Uyghur woman dressed in a Chinese traditional qipao suit shows a film showcasing Beijing’s vision for Xinjiang’s future, with pagodas and a futuristic skyline as the sunsets. Many scenes appear to have been shot anywhere in China.
In crisp Mandarin, she continues, “Our anti-terrorism and de-radicalization campaigns have yielded great results.”
Officials refuse to say how many Uyghurs were detained, despite records showing an unusually high number of arrests before the government ceased disclosing them in 2019. Instead, they tell us during the trip that they’ve devised the ideal anti-terrorism approach, one that protects rather than destroys Uyghur culture.
The reporter sat next to Dou Wangui, the Party Secretary of Aksu Prefecture, and Li Xuejun, the vice-chairman of the Xinjiang People’s Congress one night. Like the majority of Xinjiang’s powerful men, they are both Han Chinese.
The reporters saw Uyghurs clad in traditional costumes dance and sing while eating grilled lamb and yogurt.
“See,” Dou remarked, nodding to the performers, “we can’t have genocide here.” “We’re protecting their traditional culture,” says the narrator.
