Image Source Feb 26, 2021 17:40 IST · 1 min read
What's the issue ?
Since 2015, it has been estimated that over a million Uyghurs have been detained in internment camps established under Xi Jinping's administration with the main goal of ensuring adherence to national ideology.There is evidence of Uighurs being used as forced labour and of women being forcibly sterilised.
The Chinese government maintains its actions in Xinjiang as justifiable responses to a threat of extremism. Critics of China's treatment of Uyghurs have accused the Chinese government of propagating a policy of ethnocide or a genocide.
Who are Uighurs ?
Uighurs are a Muslim minority community concentrated in China's northwestern Xinjiang province. They claim closer ethnic ties to Turkey and other central Asian countries than to China.Uighurs are considered to be one of China's 55 officially recognized ethnic minorities. There are about 12 million Uighurs living in north-western China, making less than half of the Xinjiang population.
Xinjiang Province
Xinjiang the country's biggest region, is technically an autonomous region (like Tibet) within China, it is mostly desert but rich in mineral, soil, natural gas etc.It is in close proximity to Central Asia and Europe and share borders with eight countries, including Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.
The rugged Karakoram, Kunlun and Tian Shan mountain ranges occupy much of Xinjiang's borders.
History
In 1912, the Qing Dynasty was replaced by the Republic of China.Twice, in 1933 and 1944, the Uyghurs successfully gained their independence backed by the Soviet Communist leader Joseph Stalin.
Mao declared the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949. Uyghurs was incorporated by China in 1949 and has since been under Chinese occupation.
Anti-Han and separatist sentiment rose in Xinjiang from the 1990s, flaring into violence on occasion. In 2009 some 200 people died in clashes in Xinjiang, which the Chinese blamed on Uighurs.
In recent decades, there's been a mass migration of Han Chinese (China's ethnic majority) to Xinjiang, and the Uighurs feel their culture and livelihoods are under threat.