In the summer of 2024, this author participated in a media tour of China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), at the invitation of the State Information Council Office of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
And what was found?
That despite the Western narrative of genocide, cultural repression and forced labor, the people of Xinjiang are living through a period of continued cultural and economic development. At the moment there is a strong internal security situation after a crackdown in the late 2000s and 2010s, but evidence of egregious human rights abuses is lacking.
The cultural development in Xinjiang has already been detailed in this The Canada Files article.
The U.S. continues to seek destabilization of Xinjiang in a bid to damage China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) has poured in millions of dollars for Uyghur separatism since 2004 as just one-part of these efforts, that have been ongoing for many decades, according to FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds.
Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to United States Secretary of State Colin Powell, said in a 2018 speech at the Ron Paul Institute:
“Well, the CIA would want to destabilize China, that would be the best way to do it, to form an unrest and join with those Uyghurs [fighting with ISIS and ISIS break-away group now governing Syria, HTS] in pushing the Han Chinese in Beijing from internal places rather than external.”
As this author explained for The Canada Files:
“While China sought to develop the autonomous region, separatist forces engaged in subversion and eventually terrorism there – including multiple murders of Imams (14:00-15:30). It came to a head after brutal riots in 2009, which Li Wei of the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR) described – in a 2020 CGTN documentary – as ‘a classic example of a terrorist attack’. The riots saw 197 killed, forcing the PRC and XUAR leadership to step in to cut down the roots of terrorism, via policing, economic and education efforts. And to the PRC’s great credit, the roots of terrorism were indeed cut down, so much so that an economy, science and technology-oriented individual, Ma Xingrui, could be appointed as the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR) Party Secretary in 2021.”
The Uyghurs in Syria, who helped ISIS-birthed Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham overthrow the Syrian government in December 2024, have made it clear those dreams are not dead, despite the dramatic collapse of terror attacks in Xinjiang by 2018.
The UN terror-listed group, Turkistan Islamic Party, after assisting the Syria coup, promised to “continue the fight in East Turkistan [the separatist manner of referring to China’s Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR)]” on December 8, 2024.
Two days earlier, TIP’s emir, Abd Haq al-Turkistani, said “Through God’s support, the Chinese disbelievers will soon taste the same torment that the disbelievers in al-Sham have tasted, if God wills.”
The U.S.’s more overt side of the destabilization efforts comes through legislation in the U.S. House and Senate, including among others, targeting of all imports originating from Xinjiang.
This is done under the guise of concern about “slavery/forced labour” and “genocide” claims parroted by the first Trump administration, but in fact is focused on damaging Xinjiang’s economy in a bid to create poverty which ensures prime conditions for revival of terrorism in the region.
Yet Xinjiang carries on.
If Adrian Zenz had his way, the only economy a Westerner would think about in Xinjiang would be “slaves” picking cotton in the fields (despite the staggering degree of automation in this industry making this a ridiculous concept).
Instead, during the trip, this author visited the Xinjiang Software Park that included Mandarin-other language software devices (capable of back-and-forth translations between dozens of languages and Mandarin), drone technology and more, which attracted many companies across China to Xinjiang.
Technologies advanced at this location also include virtual anchor technology with translation capabilities, traffic patrol and monitoring via drone, along with cattle tracking for shepherds.
The Xinjiang Yinduolin Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd was also visited on the tour. The overarching company has three divisions: pharmaceutical, central heating and architecture.
Among other medical advances, the company has designed tablets that can assist with urinary problems. The company is focused on gathering people with expertise concerning ethnic medicine and becoming the center of ethnic medicine in China. The manager of the pharmaceutical division told us, “practice and knowledge should be accompanied together.”
The automotive industry is another where China continues to surge forward. This author got to see just one part of Xinjiang’s contribution to the national effort at Xinjiang Branch of Guangzhou Automobile Group Co., Ltd. The degree of automation at the factory was astounding.
The factory produces electric and hybrid vehicles with AI integration, with 40 cars produced daily as of June 2024. There are six technicians from Guangzhou, while all other staff are locals. The company will reward workers who provide improvement proposals that produce economic benefits for the company, and provides workers a $1k RMB ($198 CAD) subsidy plus a 20% discount to buy a car from the company.
But economic growth in Xinjiang goes beyond the factory and glitzy cars. Go to the rural, and the growth still exists in different ways. At the Demin Co-op, founded in 2019, farmers rent land to the co-operative and get a yearly income depending on acreage (property size), and bring farmers in the county together. Farmers can either rent land to the co-op and be employed by the co-op, or they can give the land to the co-op in exchange for an annual payment plus dividends from overall co-op income based on acreage they gave (and still seek another job to bring in more income).
In the co-op, the farmers plant cotton and other economic crops which is mostly operated through machinery (90% machine/10% humans). The farmers themselves do not pay tax, only co-op employees pay it. If their income is below $5k RMB per month, they are not taxed. If it is above that level, then from $5 to 10k RMB per month, the tax rate is 17%.
The co-op brings real benefits to farmers, ensuring:
- Access to equipment required for cultivating and yielding, which farmers cannot otherwise afford to rent;
- Access to technology such as machinery and the knowledge needed to operate them;
- Reduction of costs for farmers, as the co-op can pay bulk prices;
- They can learn to plant through technology and get degrees useful for farming; and
- They are given three free meals per day.
The co-op sees its work as an example of the BRI on the grassroots level. Looking to the future, the co-op is looking to sell its produce in Central Asia, produce for factories in the town, and import furniture to bring more options for the town.
We went from the lands you can reap and sow, to those of sand and vast, formerly empty space. We visited the Shaya County Photovoltaic Industrial Park, in a county which enjoys, on average, more than 3,000 hours of sun every year.
It has 72 power-generating units which capture the sun’s energy, after which electricity is sent to a 200kw station approximately 45km away. It purchases materials from locals, and has helped improve the employment situation and, therefore, living standards for locals.
Combined with the embrace of solar power is an active greening process in the county. They have been working to plant—all in the sand—grass on a board-like shape, along with saxaul trees which prevent sand from moving, in a bid to reduce wind speed and limit sand movement. As of June 2024, there were more than 137, 000 acres of trees planted along Kuqa and to the north.
The goal is to continue building capacity, through using more panels, planting more trees and improving the irrigation system to use less water.
From the sands of Xinjiang to borders of the world, came the China-Kazakhstan International Cooperation Center in Khorgos, which opened in 2010. The center stretches on both sides of the China-Kazakhstan border.
Top left: A mural representing peace, communication and cooperation; top right: The area dividing China and Kazakhstan in the China-Kazakhstan International Cooperation Center; bottom left: A statue on the Kazakhstan side of the China-Kazakhstan International Cooperation Center; bottom right: An image of the front entrance of the “Khorgos Area of China (Xinjiang) Pilot Free Trade Zone.” [Source: Photo courtesy of Aidan Jonah]
Near the center, the Vice-Manager of Jinyi International Trade Group made clear that they were open to North American operations cooperation and happy to cooperate with all countries and companies.
Can North Americans push back against their governments’ cut-off of trade and cooperation under fabricated ‘atrocities’ and push toward a future of growth and development, instead of warmongering and threats? If so, the people of China’s XUAR, and the rest of the nation, will be waiting with an open hand.
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About the Author
Aidan Jonah is the Editor-in-Chief of The Canada Files, a socialist, anti-imperialist news site founded in 2019.
He has written about Canadian imperialism, federal politics, and left-wing resistance to colonialism across the world.
Aidan is a fourth-year Bachelor of Journalism student at Toronto Metropolitan University, who was the Head of Communications and Community Engagement for Etobicoke North (Ontario, Canada) New Democratic Party (NDP) Candidate Naiima Farah in the 2019 Federal Election.
He can be reached at aidanjonah.canadafiles@gmail.com.
China has made a lot of changes in Xinjiang, so when tourists come to visit Xinjiang, these tourists will only see wonderful things. This is what China wants the world to see, so China has worked very hard to present a wonderful picture of Xinjiang to the world, much like me cleaning my apartment whenever I have a visitor.