The collapse of the Syrian government under Bashar al- Assad has created a volatile political atmosphere not only in Syria, but across the West Asia region. The ripple effects of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) takeover have already become apparent, one example being the emboldening of the Uyghur rebels. 

The East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), comprised primarily of the Uyghur ethnic group seeking to establish an Uyghur separatist state across Xinjiang, China, was among the several insurgent factions that ousted President Assad.

Recent video footage has shown Uyghur rebels in Syria uncovering a cache of long-range missiles and stating their intention to use them against China. 

Turkestan Islamic Party Emir Sheikh Abdul Haq al-Turkestani also said in a statement, “With the permission of God, his power and strength, the Chinese infidels will soon taste the same torment that the infidels in the Levant tasted.” 

As such, it is worth revisiting the Uyghur issue from a new perspective: one that recognizes the historic roots of the Uyghur ethnic group in the region and its gradual evolution into present-day political realities and rivalries.  

While it is commonly painted as a black-and-white human rights issue, the Uyghur conflict is a much more complex reality that must be examined from a historic, geopolitical, and international perspective. 

Historical roots of the Uyghurs

The northwestern region of Xinjiang in China is home to a Turkic ethnic minority commonly known as the Uyghurs. While there are roughly 12 million Uyghurs living in what is officially known as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), they make up less than half of the total population in Xinjiang.

In recent years, China has been accused by world leaders and human rights groups for committing ethnic genocide against the Uyghur population and detaining mostly-Muslim ethnic groups in a large network of “re-education camps.” 

The Uyghurs are among the oldest Turkic-speaking peoples of Central Asia. Chinese records indicate their presence in the region as early as the third century CE, and they rose to prominence in the eighth century after establishing a kingdom along the Orhon River in current day north-central Mongolia.

This state was overrun in 840 by the Kyrgyz, and the Uyghurs migrated southwestward to an area near Tien Shan, which straddles the border between China and Kyrgyzstan, bisecting the ancient territory of Turkistan. This area corresponds to present-day northern Xinjiang.

The Uyghurs formed another kingdom in this region, and were recognized for their rich culture, diverse population, and economic prosperity. They maintained independent statehood until 1759, when the region was conquered by the Qing Dynasty and named Xinjiang, Chinese for “new frontier.”

The Qing established a military administration in the region, while a government composed of local Turkic and Mongol officials.

Numerous periodic attempts at armed insurrection against Chinese rule took place into the 20th century by Muslim ethnic groups in the region. Several rebellions by local Muslim leaders in Xinjiang sought independence from Chinese rule following the collapse of the Qing Dynasty and the official establishment of the Republic of China in 1912.

These uprisings often brought together the interests of several factions, including Turkish nationalists and Muslims from Xinjiang’s various oases.

Two short-lived, semi-autonomous East Turkestan Republics were established between 1933 and 1944 following rebellions in the region, but both were once again absorbed into the Xinjiang province. In 1955, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) was formed, and according to its first national census, Uyghurs made up more than 70 percent of the population. 

While they were once the predominant ethnic group in the region, the Uyghurs now make up less than half of the 26 million people who inhabit the area. This is partly because the Chinese government provided economic incentives for the Han Chinese to migrate to Xinjiang.

The percentage of ethnic Chinese in the region has increased from six percent in 1949 to 42.24 percent in 2021. About 45 percent of the population is made up of Uyghurs, and another 12.8 percent are other ethnic minorities.

Recent ethnic activities in the XUAR 

The past decade has witnessed an increase in ethnic activity in the XUAR, ranging from expressions of discontent with the Chinese government, to violent efforts to establish an independent state in rebellion against Chinese rule.

These have included bombings, terrorist attacks, and other forms of sabotage by small groups of XUAR extremists.

These incidents were often motivated by growing economic disparities and ethnic tensions between the Uyghur and Han populations, resulting in occasional protests and disturbances. One major instance of a violent outbreak occurred in Urumqi in July 2009, where nearly 200 people, mostly Han, were killed and over 1,700 were injured.

A number of other violent incidents included armed attacks and bombings by assailants and suicide bombers.

It was around this time that Chinese authorities responded by cracking down on Uyghurs suspected of being separatists with extremist ideologies. This was also done with gathered evidence pointing to a fringe extremist current within the larger Uyghur nationalist movement that framed acts of terrorism in a radical Islamist context.

There has also been much concern that Uyghur extremists have connections with other transnational terrorist organizations such as ISIS and Al-Qaeda, which would threaten China’s territorial integrity and disrupt safety and social order.

China’s primary response to the rising threats of domestic and international terrorism in Xinjiang has been to strengthen its internal counter-terrorism capabilities by stepping up national security and policing. This has included setting up cameras, checkpoints, and police patrols in Uyghur-dominated areas.

It also featured the establishment of heavily fortified buildings now commonly referred to as “re-education camps” that Western governments and human rights groups claim are political training centers. 

The re-education camps: entering the international spotlight

In the summer of 2018, the United Nations officially released a report claiming that at least a million Uyghurs had been detained in “counter extremism centers” in Xinjiang. This thrust the Uyghur issue into global headlines and raised international attention to the once-obscure Muslim ethnic group in China. 

The UN report also asserted that another two million Uyghurs had been “forced into so-called re-education camps for political and cultural indoctrination” starting in mid-2017.

The detentions, forced training, and alleged abuses inside the government facilities were described by the US and other human rights groups as a form of “genocide and crimes against humanity.” 

The US State Department further accused China of crimes including the arbitrary imprisonment of Uyghur civilians, forced sterilization, rape, torture, forced labor, and restrictions on freedom of religion and expression. 

Officially, the camps are known as Vocational Education and Training Centers, and are informally referred to as schools. Inside them, the Uyghurs undergo physical training activities, Chinese classes, including language and history, and according to former detainees, “brainwashing” techniques to erase ethnic identity and replace it with loyalty to China.

Mainstream outlets like CNN, BBC, and the New York Times have published several articles from first-hand accounts that claimed the camps involved “torture and even death.”

These testimonies emphasized that while China claimed it would only detain extremists, many Uyghurs were sent to the re-education camps simply for wearing a face veil or having a beard. 

China, on the other hand, has fiercely defended itself. According to its government officials, the camps “are no different from the Desistance and Disengagement Programme (DDP) of the UK, or the de-radicalization centers in France,” with the goal to prevent the spread of extremism in the region and protect its citizens, including the Uyghurs.

Even further, China denies all allegations of human rights abuses in the camps, arguing that those who have spoken about their first-hand experiences are paid actors or “tools for anti-China forces.”

According to Chinese reports, these centers were instituted due to rising concerns about political domestic insurgency and the links between certain extremist Uyghurs in China with terrorist groups like ISIS and Al-Qaeda. This is particularly the case with the local East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), an Uyghur separatist organization that China has linked to terrorism in the larger region.

As such, China’s approach to the Uyghur issue is regarded as a national security matter – one that has frequently spiraled out of control to target innocent Uyghur Muslims who have become victims of a growing terrorism paranoia. 

An expert’s on-the-ground analysis

As part of this report on the Uyghur issue in China, TMJ spoke with Professor Barry Sautman, a political scientist and lawyer from Columbia University whose research focuses primarily on ethnic, political, economic, and social links in China.

He has conducted extensive field work in Xinjiang, and has dedicated much of his work to presenting a counter-narrative to the Western take on the Uyghur issue. Professor Sautman presented us with a perspective less explored in mainstream outlets, offering an in-depth analysis of the issue with several key questions. 

He started with the fact that growing terrorist activity in the Xinjiang region is well-documented in Western academia. For example, the University of Maryland Global Terrorism Database recorded that over 700 people were killed in Xinjiang due to terrorist attacks, and the main two culprits identified for the attacks are labeled as “Uyghur separatists” and “Turkistan Islamic Party.”

The most intensive period of terrorist activity in the region was between 2004 and 2016, and most of these terrorists were crossing over from Kazakhstan or Turkey. Some Uyghurs also went from Xinjiang to fight with ISIS or Al-Qaeda.

Over the course of a decade, the influence of religious extremism in Xinjiang increased, and according to Professor Sautman, it was closely connected to terrorist activity.

A majority of Uyghurs began demanding an independent East Turkestan state based on Islamic law, and they sought to expel the “outsiders,” which included not just the Han Chinese, but even some Muslim groups they did not get along with.

This included the Kazakhs, who are a Muslim population, but do not share the same politically motivated goals as the ETIM population. 

Religious extremism in the Xinjiang area was also very politically motivated. While conducting field work in Xinjiang, Professor Sautman noted that a significant portion of the Uyghur population was influenced by Wahhabist ideology, and this was directly fueled by scholars that had been trained in Saudi Arabia or Wahhabist mosques in Turkey.

He added that these religious scholars often spread ideas among the Uyghur population that stood in direct opposition to the Chinese government, including teachings that Muslims’ communication with non-believers was wrong. 

While Professor Sautman’s claims about the realities behind the Uyghur issue were backed by first-hand research and field work in Xinjiang, a key question remained: how were so many Uyghur victims speaking out about their first-hand experiences in the re-education camps and narrating stories of torture, brainwashing, and inhumane treatment?

Professor Sautman believed the people who were sent to these camps were not imprisoned, but rather subject to teaching and training. Many of them, he said, were charged with security crimes such as terrorism, but an even larger portion were charged with separatism and religious extremism. 

Professor Sautman confirmed the explanation by Chinese authorities that the re-education camps did not engage in human rights abuses, and served the purpose of protecting the larger society from violent extremism and separatism.

He added that the main reason the US and its allies have taken such a bold stance against China for its treatment of the Uyghurs is purely for political reasons, explaining that “the Western world is very hostile when it comes to differing perspectives on this issue despite claiming that China is the repressive entity.” 

Western double standards

Like most issues of international significance, the Uyghur issue in China is a complex reality with roots in history, politics, and religion. While China believes it has been taking measures to protect its citizens and its national sovereignty from danger, many Uyghur people believe it has abused its power to crack down on innocent victims who have nothing to do with extremism, separatism, or terrorism.

A considerable number of these first-hand testimonies are what have informed people around the world about the plight of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang. 

On another hand, there is much to unfold when studying the Uyghur issue outside of Xinjiang. Western nations were quick to speak out against Beijing’s treatment of the Uyghurs, especially amid mounting tensions between the U.S. and China. 

Government officials in the West remain silent about the oppression of Muslims globally, such as in Palestine, but are particularly outspoken about the Uyghur Muslims, and have even imposed sanctions on China for human rights abuses and authoritarianism.

As such, a key question remains: is this about protecting human rights or politics and propaganda?