In the northwest corner of China, there lies a province called Xinjiang. This province borders Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India, making it both a hub of culture in central Asia and a region geographically and politically important to the PRC. Xinjiang is the home of the Uyghur people, an ethnically Turkish minority in China, and is a disputed region, as most of the people who live there refer to the area as “East Turkestan.” The Uyghur Muslims are two things that the Chinese government has major problems with: not ethnically Han Chinese or even vaguely Han Chinese looking and Muslim. The Chinese government thus labels the Uyghur minority as a population rife with religious extremism (hint: it’s not) and through decades of persecution and propaganda, had been able to create an us vs. them mentality against the Uyghur population with Chinese citizens. Most of the government officials in Xinjiang are not Uyghur; they are often Han Chinese or another ethnic majority placed by the government in Beijing, as evidenced by a recent “anti-halal” campaign and prohibition of wearing face coverings and long beards.
You might have heard of Xinjiang in the news recently; The Chinese government just legalized Muslim “reeducation camps” in the region. While these camps started earlier this year and China vehemently denied their existence to other countries who began to question reports they were hearing out of the region, they have now reversed and are fully claiming the camps. At least 1 million Uyghurs could be in these camps, of which the official purpose is to encourage “vocational skill education”, and the unofficial purpose is to force these people to believe that the Communist Party is above any god and that they must adhere to (Han) Chinese culture. The only faith they are allowed to follow is Marxism and Leninism. Many are held in cells without any trial or charges in order to “counter terrorism and religious extremism.” There are police checkpoints littered throughout the streets of Xinjiang, and security guards at every imaginable establishment.
What’s almost morbidly fascinating to view, and why I bring up this subject in the context of this class, is the updated state of prison camps since 1945. Advancements of technology have made it possible for China to keep an even stronger hold on Xinjiang province, with cameras on every street corner and an upcoming system that will require all citizens in the province to wear GPS trackers at all times. Uyghur Muslims are already forced to wear GPS trackers when going on the Hajj, the important pilgrimage to Mecca, and all vehicles are required to have GPS trackers. All Uyghurs in China are in a database with other “dangerous” ethnic minorities, and each person has an ID number in this database that includes information about their ethnic background, the ethnic background of their friends, relatives abroad, and one’s biometric data.
Xinjiang and the ongoing humanitarian crimes there demonstrate how governments can use fear and technology to rule over their people. Now, perhaps more than ever, China has access to everything they could possibly want on their citizens. The government knows what you search, what you read, what you talk about at school, at work, at home, and even what music you listen to. Most of this could never have been possible without the technology most of us perceive as a blessing- the cell phone. Thus, Chinese citizens have become afraid to talk about something viewed as disrespectful to the government even if a phone is sitting a few feet away from them or in someone’s backpack, as they know the government will be able to pick up their voice. To provide an example of this fear, an American friend of mine in China once interviewed his host mother for a project on Chinese people’s experiences abroad and used his Chinese phone (created by Huawei, who have also been in the news recently) to record the interview. When he asked her what countries she had been to, she said “Thailand, Australia, Cambodia…..oh, and Taiwan.” My friend said there was a noticeable expression of fear on her face as soon as she carelessly said Taiwan; she had just said, in the presence of a phone sending all her words to the Chinese government, that she believed Taiwan was a different country from China.
The education camps are not something most in mainland China are aware of, except perhaps for the few Uyghurs who do not live in Xinjiang. (I say mainland China because Taiwanese citizens are very aware of the issue, as most of the journalism and research that’s being done in Xinjiang stems from Taipei, and Hong Kong’s citizens have access to most of these sources.) In fact, many people in mainland China do not seem to have any issues with the Uyghur people. On a night in Xi’an’s tourist market, upon viewing a troupe of Uyghur dancers, my host mother said, “I have always wanted to visit Xinjiang and learn this style of dance. It seems like a beautiful place.” For a final project I had to complete for the program I was on, I did research on Chinese beauty standards, and many women claimed that Dilireba, a Uyghur actress, was one of the most beautiful women in China. This does, however, raise the point that people can think a culture is beautiful and still seek to oppress those people, but the only question that ran through my mind when these positives about Xinjiang were mentioned was, “Do you know what’s going on there?” The short answer is that they really don’t, and there’s no way to know how many know due to the government’s tight hold on information about the issue. This may be changing as China has officially admitted to the existence of the camps.
This crisis is ongoing, and I would encourage everyone to learn more about it, as more and more people are being placed in these camps every day. However, I would also wish we could use this issue as an example of being aware of the potential dangerous uses of the technology we as engineers create. I’m sure the inventor of GPS tracking never intended for their technology to be used for such horrible purposes, but it is important to consider what the impacts of our technologies can be on the world.