https://uyghurtribunal.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/The-Xinjiang-Papers-An-Introduction-1.pdf
The Xinjiang Papers: An Introduction
Dr. Adrian Zenz^[This introduction to the Xinjiang Papers, along with the transcripts of and introductions to the related documents, were peer reviewed by Dr. James Millward, professor at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., and Dr. David Tobin, lecturer in East Asian Studies at the University of Sheffield. The author expresses his gratitude for their detailed feedback, and also would like to thank Mishel Kondi from the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation for her very extensive and dedicated assistance with transcription, research and translation.] Senior Fellow in China Studies Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation Washington, D.C.
November 27, 2021
The Uyghur Tribunal and this author kindly request that this introduction and the related PDF files with the document transcriptions are only to be hosted on the website of the Uyghur Tribunal at https://uyghurtribunal.com, and not hosted or reposted elsewhere. Users are also requested to not separate out contents from these files for separate distribution, but to preserve their integrity, ensuring that transcriptions are published in the same file as their respective introductions and authentication accounts.
1. Introduction
The “Xinjiang Papers” are a cache of government documents from the People’s Republic of China (PRC), most of them classified, that were originally leaked to the New York Times by a “member of the Chinese political establishment” and published on November 16, 2019.^[Ramzy, Austin and Buckley, Chris. “‘Absolutely No Mercy’: Leaked Files Expose How China Organized Mass Detentions of Muslims.” The New York Times. November 16, 2019. http://web.archive.org/web/20191116135003/https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/16/world/asia/chinaxinjiang-documents.html] (The Xinjiang Papers are not to be mistaken with the China Cables, a set of classified documents published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and by the author of this introduction on November 24, 2019).^[See ICIJ. “Read the China cables documents.” ICIJ. November 24, 2019. https://www.icij.org/investigations/chinacables/read-the-china-cables-documents/. AND Zenz, Adrian. “‘Wash Brains, Cleanse Hearts’: Evidence from Chinese Government Documents about the Nature and Extent of Xinjiang’s Extrajudicial Internment Campaign.” Journal of Political Risk. Journal of Political Risk, November 24, 2019. https://www.jpolrisk.com/wash-brains-cleanse-hearts/.] The New York Times only published a small number of transcribed pages from the Xinjiang Papers and quoted from several but not all documents. It never released the originals into the public domain.
In September 2021, a set of digital files was leaked to the Uyghur Tribunal based in London during their second set of hearings (September 10th to 13th), by a person who wishes to remain anonymous. Nothing further is known about the origin of these files. A careful comparison of the files to the evidence published by the New York Times in 2019 performed by this author and the peer reviewers shows that they are identical to the Xinjiang Papers. Consequently, it was decided to refer to them as the “Xinjiang Papers.”
The files contain highly sensitive and pertinent material in relation to Beijing’s policies in Xinjiang. Nearly all the material is classified as confidential. One document containing three speeches by Chinese President (more accurately: General Secretary) Xi Jinping is classified as “top secret” (绝密), China’s highest State Secret Classification Level (国家秘密的密级) for government documents, denoting material that if leaked “will cause particularly serious damage to the security and interests of the country.”^[“中华人民共和国保守国家秘密法 Law of the People’s Republic of China on the Protection of State Secrets.” 中华人民 共和国保守国家秘密法中国人大网 (China’s National People’s Congress ). Accessed November 27, 2021. http://web.archive.org/web/20191127023402/http://www.npc.gov.cn/wxzl/wxzl/2000-12/10/content_4509.htm] For comparison, the classification level specified on the main cable (or telegram) of the China Cables was “secret” (the second-highest classification level).^[See Zenz. “‘Wash Brains, Cleanse Hearts’: Evidence from Chinese Government Documents about the Nature and Extent of Xinjiang’s Extrajudicial Internment Campaign.” https://www.jpolrisk.com/wash-brains-cleanse-hearts/. Or AllenEbrahimian, Bethany et al. “Exposed: China’s Operating Manuals for Mass Internment and Arrest by Algorithm.” ICIJ. November 25, 2019. https://www.icij.org/investigations/china-cables/exposed-chinas-operating-manuals-for-massinternment-and-arrest-by-algorithm/.] Overall, this appears to be the first-ever instance that material with “top secret” statements made by a Chinese head of state have leaked into the public domain – a fact that was not mentioned in the original New York Times report.^[The so-called “Tiananmen Papers” purported to contain top secret government documents related to the 1989 massacre. However, there has been no verification of the originals or of the original Chinese classification designation, and the papers’ authenticity has been challenged (See Ching, Frank. “The Other Tiananmen Controversy.” South China Morning Post. June 3, 2004. https://www.scmp.com/article/458154/other-tiananmen-controversy.).]
The original New York Times report noted how the words of Xi Jinping “laid the groundwork for the crackdown,” but only identified a small number of conceptual linkages between Xi’s words and the subsequent policies – in line with our still evolving understanding of the atrocities back in 2019.
The present analysis, however, shows that the linkages between statements and mandates made by Xi and other central government figures and policies that were implemented after 2016 are far more extensive, detailed and significant than previously understood. In addition, the original Times report did not mention several documents issued by the central government that are part of the leak, and which contain crucial additional evidence for such linkages.
The material provides substantial evidence linking numerous aspects of Beijing’s crackdown in Xinjiang to explicit statements and demands made by central government figures in 2014, including:
- Mass internments in re-education camps
- Poverty alleviation through coercive labor transfers
- “Optimizing” the ethnic population distribution by increasing Han population shares
- Criminalizing customary religious practices
- Forcing hundreds of thousands Han officials to “become family” with ethnic populations
- Implementing Chinese language-focused education in centralized boarding schools.
Appendix A provides a detailed comparison of related statements with policies implemented after 2016/2017.
First, the documents state that in 2014, Xi Jinping himself authorized the Xinjiang government to draft a local legal regulation to address the issues of religious extremism and violent resistance. The resulting “De-Extremification Regulation” came into effect in April 2017 and is intimately linked with the re-education campaign.^[Zenz, Adrian. “Evidence of the Chinese Central Government’s Knowledge of and Involvement in Xinjiang’s Re-Education Internment Campaign.” The Jamestown Foundation. September 24, 2021. https://jamestown.org/program/evidence-ofthe-chinese-central-governments-knowledge-of-and-involvement-in-xinjiangs-re-education-internment-campaign/.] Its October 2018 revision constituted the first official acknowledgement that so-called Vocational Skills Education and Training Centers (VSETCs, 职业技能教育培训中心) perform “re-education” (literally “transformation through education”, 教育转化).^[“新疆维吾尔自治区第十三届人民代表大会常务委员会公告 （第 7 号）Announcement of the Standing Committee of the 13th People’s Congress of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (No.7).” 新疆维吾尔自治区人大常委会. October 9, 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20181010124647/http://www.xjpcsc.gov.cn/1009/t4028e49c665347630166588b8cf400010 01.html.] VSETCs are a state euphemism for what are in effect high-security re-education internment camps. In its original report, the New York Times famously cited Chen Quanguo’s mandate to “round up everyone who should be rounded up.” However, its report did not mention that Xi Jinping himself issued an arguably very similar demand when he mandated in 2014 that “those who should be seized should be seized, and those who should be sentenced should be sentenced.”^[The relevant sections from the original documents with transcript page numbers for this and subsequent quotes can be found in the Introduction, Authentication and Transcription for documents no.1 and 2 (some of them are also found further below in this Introduction to the Xinjiang Papers).] Xi’s statements that religious extremism is like a “powerful psychedelic drug” and that acts of terror will “multiply like cancer cells” if extremist thought is not eradicated are quoted verbatim (and attributed to Xi) in a widely cited March 2017 government document that likens re-education to free medical treatment for “sick thinking.”^[“宣讲稿: 到教育转化班学习是对思想上患病群众的一次免费住院治疗 Presentation: Studying in the Educational Transformation Facilities Is Free Hospitalization for the Ideologically Ill Individuals.” 壹读. March 31, 2017. http://web.archive.org/web/20211119192652/https://read01.com/zh-sg/n3L6Do.html.] At the very time when Xi demanded that people’s “immunity” against extremist ideology must be increased, Uyghur regions were actively carrying out early forms of re-education and reported that these re-education efforts were “increasing the immunity…of ‘susceptible’ groups of people.”^[潘 从武 and 刘琰. “新疆司法厅实施‘土壤改良计划’，主攻‘去宗教极端化.’” The Paper (法制日报, May 20, 2016). http://web.archive.org/web/20211014204208/http://m.thepaper.cn/renmin_prom.jsp?contid=1471896&from=renmin.] In two separate speeches, Xi called religious extremism a “poison.” He argued that Xinjiang was stricken with a “heart sickness” that could only be cured by “heart medicine” in order to “support the correct, remove the evil.” A 2017 work report on re-education in a Uyghur region quoted the latter expression verbatim when stating that re-education must “support the correct, remove the evil.”^[“新源县司法局 2017 年工作计划.” 新疆新源. 新源县人民政府网, May 26, 2017. http://web.archive.org/web/20190630195027/http://www.xinyuan.gov.cn/info/egovinfo/1001/common/inf_content/xy0 22-02_A/2017-0526003.htm]
Second, the material shows that the transfer of nearly 3 million rural surplus laborers into full-time employment through a “vigorous” development of labor-intensive industries was designed to prevent Uyghurs from “having nothing to do” and therefore being “easily exploited by evildoers.” Xi Jinping similarly suggested that unemployed persons are liable to “provoke trouble”, and that employment in companies promotes ethnic mixing and helps workers to “resist religious extremism.” He argues that such employment will lead ethnic workers to “imperceptibly study Chinese culture” (i.e. without them realizing it).^[Chinese: 潜移默化学习中华文化 (Document no.2, p.20)] The stated reasons for Xinjiang’s labor transfers are therefore more political than economic: while the promotion of employment through labor transfers into labor-intensive industries was not expected to make a greater contribution to the economy or government revenue than other industries, it was considered a “matter of vital importance” to “Xinjiang’s long-term peace and stability.” In a classified May 2014 speech, a leading central government figure announced a plan to “drive at least one million people into employment”^[Full sentence: 比如，对发展纺织服装产业提出了一系列的扶持政策和要求，是要带动至少一百万人就业，这件事 对新疆社会稳定和长治久安至关重要。(Document no.2, p.76).] through developing the textile and garment industries – a plan that was formalized in February 2018.^[“《新疆纺织服装产业发展规划(2018-2023 年)》印发实施.” 新疆维吾尔自治区人民政府. March 2, 2018. http://web.archive.org/web/20180825053820/http://www.xinjiang.gov.cn/2018/03/02/148047.html.] Xi himself called for a systematic expansion of ethnic citizens from Xinjiang going to eastern China for “education, employment and residence.” China’s premier Li Keqiang notes that Chinese companies have struggled to recruit ethnic workers in Xinjiang due to the latter’s maladaptation to modern society. He argues that Xinjiang must therefore “transform [people’s] way of thinking about employment,” language that was soon after mirrored in official directives on the forceful promotion of labor transfers.^[Chinese: 转变就业观念 (document no.2, p.40). Subsequent Xinjiang directives from 2016 are found for example at “关于开展自治区脱贫攻坚转移就业专项行动的通知（新人社发〔2016〕74 号）.” 中国就业 . 人社部农民工司, July 4, 2016. https://archive.is/iQUUt.] In sum, the mandates contained in the Xinjiang Papers quite directly undergird the implementation of significantly more coercive labor transfer mechanisms between 2015 and 2017.
Third, the documents show that plans to optimize the ethnic population composition, which are connected to Xinjiang’s campaign of suppressing births, can be linked to statements and demands made by the central government. In a top-secret speech, Xi argued that “population proportion and population security are important foundations for long-term peace and stability.”^[Chinese:人口比例和人口安全是长治久安的重要基础 (document no.1, p.40).] This statement was later quoted verbatim by a senior Xinjiang official in July 2020, who then argued that southern Xinjiang’s Han population share was “too low.”^[“刘以雷老师参加‘中国区域经济 50 人论坛‘专题研讨会并作为代表发言.” 新疆大学经济与管理学院. July 14, 2020. http://web.archive.org/web/20210220221018/http://ems.xju.edu.cn/info/1055/1661.htm AND Zenz, Adrian. “‘End the Dominance of the Uyghur Ethnic Group’: An Analysis of Beijing’s Population Optimization Strategy in Southern Xinjiang.” Central Asian Survey 40, no. 3 (August 24, 2021): 291–312. https://doi.org/10.1080/02634937.2021.1946483. (Open access version at Zenz, Adrian. “‘End the Dominance of the Uyghur Ethnic Group’: An Analysis of Beijing’s Population Optimization Strategy in Southern Xinjiang.” (June 8, 2021). Central Asian Survey. Available at SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3862512.)] Other classified documents lament “severe imbalances in the distribution of the ethnic population” and a “severely monoethnic” population structure (an overconcentration of Uyghurs) in southern Xinjiang. They mandate that by 2022, 300,000 settlers (mostly Han from eastern China) are to be moved to regions in southern Xinjiang administered by the Xinjiang Construction and Production Corps (XPCC), also known as ‘bingtuan’, a paramilitary colonial settler entity, with the explicitly stated aim of increasing Han population shares in the region. Xi himself ordered the abolishment of preferential birth control policies for ethnic groups in southern Xinjiang that had previously allowed them to have more children than the Han. His demand that birth control policies in this Uyghur heartland were to be made “equal for all ethnic groups” – a euphemism that since 2017 undergirded policies that drastically reduced birth rates of ethnic groups. To name just one pertinent example, Xinjiang’s Health Commission established a set of performance targets in 2019 that employed the exact same expression – “implement a birth control policy that is equal for all ethnic groups” – as the stated overall goal behind a new mandate to reduce birth rates in southern Xinjiang by “at least 4 per mile,” to provide free birth control surgeries that included female sterilization procedures, and to achieve an adoption rate of “longterm effective birth prevention” measures of at least 90 percent in rural regions.^[在南疆实行各民族平等的计划生育政策 (Document no.2, p.22).2019 Xinjiang Health Commission planning document: wjw.xinjiang.gov.cn/hfpc/yjsgk/201901/e99e758857c0417dbf8e76377efc4f11/files/35885e0814254402bd1b71c7062d31f 0.xls (since deleted), archived download: “2019 年自治区卫生健康委员会机关及直属（管）单位绩效目标.” Accessed November 26, 2021. https://bit.ly/3kYC94i.] A central government directive from December 2017 (document no.7) that is part of the leak makes a similar demand, to “enact birth control policies that are equal for each ethnic group”, yet bluntly adds that this measure is specifically designed to “promote equal population growth for each ethnic group.”^[Chinese: 落实各民族平等的计划生育政策 and 促进各民族人口均衡发展 (Document no.7, p.20). Note that 均衡 can be translated as either “equal” OR “balanced,” and likely here refers to both (with “equal” constituting an important aspect in official perceptions of “balanced”).] Xi further mandates that the XPCC is to “bring into play [it’s] role in optimizing population resources and become a staging area for optimizing the population” in the Uyghur heartlands.^[Chinese:成为优化人口的中转站 (Document no.1, p.40)] Another leaked classified central government document indicates that this goal is to be achieved by 2030.^[Document no.7.] All of these mandates is precisely in line with recommendations made by numerous Xinjiang academics and experts on population growth and “population optimization,” who have unilaterally called for such measures.^[See Zenz. “‘End the Dominance of the Uyghur Ethnic Group’.” https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02634937.2021.1946483#metrics-content. (Open access alternative: Zenz. “End the Dominance of the Uyghur Ethnic Group.” SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3862512.).]
Fourth, the classified material shows that numerous other policies designed to assimilate and control the region’s ethnic groups including a Chinese (Mandarin) language focused education in centralized boarding schools, more intensive forms of predictive policing through the analysis of big data, or sending Han officials to live with Uyghur families, can be directly linked to statements or explicit demands made by Xi Jinping. For example, Xi demanded that rural children should be put into boarding schools so that they would “study in school, live in school, grow up in school.”^[Chinese:让适龄的孩子们学习在学校、生活在学校、成长在学校 Document no.2, p.21.] His observation that “some religious people interfere with matters of the secular life” was soon after formalized as the mandate that “religion is strictly forbidden to interfere with secular lifestyles.”^[Chinese:有一些信教的人干预世俗化生活的事情，如干预婚丧嫁娶、生活方式等，这个也是不能让它蔓延开来的 (Document no.1, p.33), and 张玉和常雪梅. “中共新疆维吾尔自治区委员会关于全面推进依法治疆建设法治新疆的意 见.” 人民网. 新疆日报, November 28, 2014.] By 2017, this policy then undergirded the internment of persons in re-education camps who had offered customary prayers at funerals or participated in customary religious wedding ceremonies.^[Zenz, Adrian. “The Karakax List: Dissecting the Anatomy of Beijing’s Internment Drive in Xinjiang.” The Journal of Political Risk 7, no. 2, (February 17, 2020). https://www.jpolrisk.com/karakax/.] In short, Xi’s remarks and requirements provided the basis for criminalizing most of the customary religious practices that are part of ethnic populations’ daily lives.
The files also show the motivation behind these unprecedented measures. In a top-secret speech, Xi argues that the Belt and Road Initiative, his signature foreign policy project, requires a stable domestic security environment. He asserts that the entire country’s national security and the achievement of China’s major goals in the 21st century are in jeopardy if the situation in southern Xinjiang cannot be brought under control. Xi demands that the region engages in an all-out battle to “prevent Xinjiang’s violent terrorist activities from spreading to the rest of China.” He notes that since violent acts have already spread to other regions of China, “[t]herefore we propose that Xinjiang is currently in … a painful period of interventionary treatment…”^[Chinese: 所以，我们提出，新疆正处于…干预治疗阵痛期… (Document no.2, p.6)]
The material divulges a wide range of other important information. Xinjiang’s Party Secretary Chen Quanguo personally commanded officials to “round up all who should be rounded up” and that the region’s vocational re-education facilities (VSETCs) are to be “unswervingly operated for a long time.”^[Chinese: 要把职业教育培训中心坚定不移长期办下去 (Document no.8, p.7).] The documents state that the state should show “absolutely no mercy” towards its “enemies,” plans by Beijing to sinicize Islam, and the construction of new high-security prisons, detention centers and military bases in the regions administered by the XPCC. They detail how officials in Xinjiang who did not fully obey their orders and failed to detain large numbers of the local Uyghur population in re-education facilities were severely punished.