– James Willard- professor of history at Georgetown University and author of Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang
This book, 100 Camp Testimonies, is a welcome, eloquent, though deeply disturbing contribution to our understanding of the dramatic and tragic failure of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to deal equitably and peacefully with the diversity that is the legacy of its imperial past. This collection assembles for the first time a powerful chorus of Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other victims of those policies in East Turkistan, the region known in the PRC as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Seven decades ago, when the Chinese Communist (CCP) party-state was established after its victory over the Guomindang (Nationalist) party-state, the CCP leadership followed the impulses of earlier 20th-century Han nationalists and moved to acquire as much of the former territory of the Qing empire as it could. The PRC could not take over the Mongolian People’s Republic or Taiwan, but it was able to annex East Turkistan and Tibet, thanks to begrudging help from the Soviet Union in Xinjiang and global confusion about the relationship between the Qing empire, the Chinese republics that followed Qing collapse in China, and analogous Tibetan, Mongolian and Turkic independence efforts in their own homelands.
The new Communist Chinese state recognized that its adherence to the international socialist cause sat uncomfortably with the new empire it had built by annexing Xinjiang and Tibet. It thus declared the PRC a “multinational state” and instituted a version of the Soviet nationalities system in the PRC—with two key differences. The PRC did not call non-Han homelands “republics,” as the Soviets did in places like Armenia, Ukraine or Kazakhstan, but rather instituted purported “autonomous regions” over which the party maintained close control, assuring that a non-Han apparat would not assume real power in the “Tibetan Autonomous Region” or “Uyghur Autonomous Region.” The second difference between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the PRC is apparent in the names: the USSR was not “Russia.” But in many ways, the CCP always maintained the PRC multi-national state was “China” and insisted even non-Han “minzu” (nationalities, ethnic groups) were also Chinese. Thus was an assimilationist seed planted from the start of the new People’s Republic. Twice in its history, the Chinese Communist Party has looked back on its minzu policies and declared them a failure. The first time was after the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” (1966–1976) in which Mao Zedong sowed chaos across the PRC in a bid to preserve his personal hold on power. Many older people in China still remember the Cultural Revolution: its hyper-ideological atmosphere, mistreatment of intellectuals, incessant political study, forced recitation of Maoist texts, chanting of Maoist anthems, psychological abuse to break individuals’ wills and enforce party line, Red Guards roaming the land and urbanites relocated to rural areas—including hundreds of thousands to Xinjiang. However, non-Han people, especially in East Turkistan, Tibet and Mongolia, remember something else: for them, the campaigns of the Cultural Revolution had a sharp, ethnic edge. Religion, culture, dress, food and personal lives that didn’t seem Chinese enough were attacked precisely because they were different. People who were not ethnic Chinese were persecuted, tortured and killed in the Cultural Revolution in ways unlike what most Han had to endure.
In the 1980s, after the Cultural Revolution, the post-Mao PRC leadership realized, even if they did not fully acknowledge, the failure of its policies and damage done by the Cultural Revolution in supposedly “autonomous” homelands of non-Han people. The party then made some efforts to redress the failings, promising more representation in the party and government for non-Han minzu, permitting somewhat freer practice of religion and education in native languages other than Chinese. The party promised economic development in previously neglected non-Han areas. General economic growth during the “reform and opening” era raised some standards of living for those natives of culturally non-Chinese areas who were permitted to take advantage of new opportunities, but top-down development projects in the 1990s–2000s tended to accelerate Han colonialism and exacerbate inequality between Han and non-Han peoples in “autonomous regions.”
More recently, since the mid-2010s, the PRC leadership has decided, once again, that its minzu policies must be turned on their head. This time the party is rejecting the original pluralist ideals of the “multinational state” that it itself enshrined, and lurching towards an impossible goal of a homogeneous cultural and national identity known as Zhonghua—a term composed of two Chinese characters each of which means “Chinese.” The key slogan of PRC ethnic policies was formerly “unity of the nationalities” (minzu tuanjie), which encouraged different peoples to work together while retaining their distinctive identities. Now, however, the new catchphrase “forge firmly the Zhonghua national collectivity consciousness” (zhulao Zhonghua minzu gongtongti yishi), aims to melt away all ethnic characteristics not fitting a Chinese mold. This time, the policy shift has brought back the assimilationist ethno-centric abuses and coercive indoctrination practices of the Cultural Revolution, though in more systematic fashion.
In keeping with the new Sino-centric agenda, the PRC leadership has retreated from its prior, limited tolerance of the diversity represented by Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Hui and other non-Han peoples in Xinjiang. Now, only state-sanctioned stereotyped expressions of “minority minzu” culture are permitted, while Islamic practice and belief is almost entirely illegalized and use of Uyghur and other non-Han languages banned from schools and official settings. To prove they are good Chinese citizens, everyone must speak Mandarin, celebrate the Chinese lunar new year, not be Muslim, worship Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party, and even smoke and drink. This narrow vision of “rejuvenation” of the Chinese people through forced Sinicization echoes the worst evils engendered by over-zealous nationalism in 19th and early 20th century Europe. At the same time, its crushing effects on the native people of East Turkistan clearly demonstrate “Chinese characteristics”: Cultural Revolution-era horrors proliferate again in the camps, with repeated forced self-confessions, “reeducation,” “reform through labor,” stress positions and other imposed bodily indignities including nudity, poor food, primitive sanitization, and worse. This time they are targeted at non-Han peoples. 100 Camp Testimonies is a crucial historical document. It should be read by everyone with empathy for humanity and anyone concerned about what a vengeful, chauvinist state can do when emboldened by economic clout and armed with digital technology. Amidst voluminous, incontestable reporting, from many global sources, about the crimes against humanity and genocidal policies in East Turkistan, this book stands out by letting us hear the voices of the victims themselves: farmers, teachers, cooks, students, businessmen, artists, scholars, journalists, wives, husbands, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, children. From their accounts, focused on the acute crisis since 2014 but revealing mistreatment and menace going back decades, we hear individual, distinct horror stories from which broader patterns clearly emerge. We see the abusive practices common in the hundreds of camps and detention centers, where no training or education takes place, but rather family separation, torture, beatings, food and sleep deprivation, exposure to cold, denying bathroom use, forced sterilization, sexual abuse and systematic rape. We learn of the PRC’s paranoia about mundane aspects of non-Han lives, paranoia that has driven it to lock up masses of people not only for religious belief or political dissent, but for dressing a certain way; for having once taken a foreign vacation; for having friends or family abroad; for receiving an international phone call; for a relative’s participation in a demonstration; for a Facebook post or WhatsApp download; or, in many cases, just to fulfill a local official’s mandated quota.
These are not the same indignities that Han Chinese citizens have faced when forced to participate in “political study,” censored on social media, locked down in a pandemic or even when subjected to birth limits or sent down during the Cultural Revolution. Even the worst of the CCP insults to China’s Han people have not demanded that they give up who they are, stop speaking their language, or denounce their own culture as inferior. The accounts in this volume testify to the state of exception into which the peoples of East Turkistan have been forced by the CCP party state, and to their bravery and spirit in enduring the unendurable.
