A new leak of top secrets documents shows that the Chinese president Xi Jinping, and other Communist leaders have been linked directly to Uyghur Muslims’ atrocities.
Analysts believe the trove includes transcripts of speeches by Xi and Li Keqiang, Chinese Premiers. These speeches directly contributed to Uyghur reeducation camps and forced sterilization.
It’s the first instance that Xi is directly connected to what Western governments refer to as ‘genocide” in China’s western Xinjiang. Also, it’s the first release of any top secret’ Communist Party documents.
Secret speeches made by Xi Jinping in conjunction with other top Chinese officials appear to have led in 2014 to what Western leaders called a genocide’ against Uyghurs living in Xinjiang.
The papers, which run to 317 pages, were first handed to the Uyghur Tribunal currently underway in London and were passed to a panel of experts led by German academic Adrian Zenz for analysis.
On Saturday, he published his summary, which included translations, for the first time.
Dr Zenz lays out how speeches given by Xi, Li and other officials in the wake of terror attacks in China in 2013 and 2014 – blamed on Uyghur separatists – led to the creation of a regime which now represses and persecutes Muslims in Xinjiang.
This analysis outlines how words spoken in Xi’s presence were later cited – sometimes verbatim – as a result of the development and implementation of the regime.
He cites as an example Xi’s 2014 speech, in which he said that ‘those should be seized should also be seized’ and that ‘those should be sentenced should likewise be sentenced’.
A very similar phrase was then used by Cheng Quanguo, a party official overseeing the Uyghur crackdown in Xinjiang, when he gave an infamous 2017 speech in which he said ’round up everyone who should be rounded up.’
Tens to thousands of Uyghurs were forcibly sterilized, forced into reeducation camps, and then thrown in forcible sterilization. This was part of the Chinese crackdown on minority rights.
Quanguo’s speech was given in the context of rounding up Uyghur’s to be sent to forced ‘re-education’ camps.
A second speech is available here Xi referred religion extremism as a poison’ which had to be removed with’medicine’ in order to’support and remove the wrong.
2017 work report of a camp for reeducation used exactly the same phrase:’support correct, eliminate the evil’. It also assessed the purpose of the work.
Xi’s speeches in 2014 seem to have inspired forced sterilization campaigns and birth control campaign targeting Uyghur females in Xinjiang. He said, “After he had spoken that, ‘The foundations of stability and long-term peace are population percentage and population security.
In July 2020, a top Xinjiang official quoted the statement verbatim to support his argument that Xinjian had a low number of ethnic Han Chinese.
Xi also stated that birth control policies should be made ‘equal for all ethnic groups’, a phrase that was later used by the Xinjiang Health Commission as its stated aim while it tried to reduce birth rates among Uyghur populations.
The leaked documents show the speeches of Xi. Officials responsible for overseeing the reeducation camps (pictured below) and other birth control programs later quoted them verbatim.
Another speech linked Xi’s ideas to policies that made Uyghurs move for work, required children to go to Han boarding school, repressed religious ceremony such as marriages and caused Han and Uyghur families to merge.
Dr Zenz said that files revealed that Premier Li Keqiang, Xi Jinping, and another ex-official from the central government demanded that policies be implemented.
Senior Chinese leaders are not alone in being linked to Uyghurs at Xinjiang.
In 2019, the New York Times published its own trove of information that Dr Zenz said includes many of the same documents he was asked to analyse.
He said that the NTY papers didn’t include key documents and links. They also didn’t reveal the level of secrecy surrounding Xi’s speeches.
Beijing has consistently and vehemently denied that its policies regarding Xinjiang amount to ‘genocide’. It argues instead it is conducting antiterrorism operations.