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BEIJING: Chinese President Xi Jinping has redoubled China’s policies toward Uighurs in the western Xinjiang region, despite international condemnation.
“The facts prove that the party’s policies in Xinjiang in the new era are completely correct and must be adhered to in the long term,” Xi was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua news agency during a working meeting in Beijing on Friday and Saturday. .
The international community has put pressure on China for its treatment of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang, where the United Nations estimated that hundreds of thousands of members of the ethnic minority could be held in “re-education camps.”
Beijing has defended the camps as “vocational education centers” aimed at “purging ideological diseases,” including terrorism and religious extremism.
The Trump administration has already sanctioned several dozen Chinese companies and high-ranking officials for the forced detentions of Uighur Muslims.
Current and former suppliers to major international clothing brands such as Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger and Nike have been hit by sanctions, while Walt Disney Co. has faced boycott calls to shoot part of its live-action film. “Mulan” in Xinjiang.
French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday called on the United Nations to lead a mission to China to inspect human rights practices in the region.
China has questioned estimates of the camps’ external population, without providing its own figures. The facility was built after a series of deadly attacks involving Uighurs in 2013 and 2014, prompting President Xi to order the authorities to “strike first” against Islamist extremism.
A report from the Australian Institute for Strategic Policy (ASPI) showed last week that China continues to invest in detention camps, despite officials previously saying that all students have “graduated.”
In total, the research institute identified 380 alleged detention centers built since 2017 in the region, which is roughly the size of Alaska and is home to some 10 million Turkish-speaking Uighurs.
The Chinese state diplomats and media have frequently attacked the credibility of ASPI, which was established by the Australian government in 2001 and has revealed additional funding from global defense contractors and Western diplomatic missions.
Xi also promised to accelerate the economic development of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region while calling for a stronger understanding of Chinese identity.
The country will include the region’s opening-up strategy on the broader growth agenda of China’s western areas, Xi said during the meeting. It will also promote the improvement of local industries to increase income and boost development in southern Xinjiang, he said.
“An understanding of Chinese identity should be incorporated into the education of officials, the younger generation and society in general in Xinjiang,” Xinhua quoted Xi as saying. This “will allow the Chinese sense of identity to take root in the people,” he said.
