Hours after yet another assessment by outside observers that China's crackdown in its far-west Xinjiang region may constitute crimes against humanity, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin stepped up to a podium to go on the offensive.
"The so-called assessment you mentioned is orchestrated and produced by the U.S. and some Western forces" and is a "a political tool" meant to contain China, he said.
Since the beginning of the crackdown, the Chinese government has sought to control the narrative. They have done so through secrecy and censorship. But they have also done so by tapping into powerful, deep-rooted anti-Western sentiment, born out of a century of humiliation at the hands of the West. "I felt it was ridiculous," Ayup said. "How could these foreign forces manipulate Uyghurs from far away?"
When a former Xinjiang resident gathered records on over 10,000 people detained in the region, a state spokesperson said the database was "created by anti-China figures" backed by the U.S. and Australia. As criticism mounted, Xinjiang authorities also moved quietly to scale down the most visible signs of repression. Though unclear whether it was due to global scrutiny or planned all along, the result was the same: It hid the intensity of the crackdown from outside visitors.
Though hundreds of thousands still languish in prison on secret charges, they're tucked away in facilities behind forests and desert dunes, far from city centers and prying eyes. Voices that cut against the party line are silenced, with fear and sometimes with prison sentences.
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