Policy Reports

Making Islam Chinese: Religious Policy and Mosque Sinicisation in the Xi era

By Hannah Theaker and David R. Stroup

Open Access Download (February 2025)

Abstract

This report lays out a comprehensive survey of the impacts of the Sinicisation of Islam programme on Hui communities from 2017 to the present. As detailed in the report, this slate of policies makes the ruling party-state the sole arbiter for correct observation of religion and allows it to exert near total authority on matters of religious belief, practice and expression. Further, because of the broad powers they give to the party-state to suppress religious activity falling outside its own narrowly construed parameters, the measures identified in this report present a profound threat to Muslim identity and practice within the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The concealed nature of much of the policies in question means that, to date, the impacts of these policies have been systematically under-estimated by observers. 

Keywords: Islam in China, Sinicisation, People's Republic of China, Hui, ethnic politics, authoritarian governance

Funder Statement: this work was supported by an Impact Acceleration Award from the University of Plymouth AHRC Impact Acceleration Account.

Forced Labor, Coercive Land-Use, Transfers, and Forced Assimilation in Xinjiang's Agricultural Production

By Adrian Zenz and I-Lin Lin

Open Access Download (December 2024)

Abstract

This report on forced labor in Xinjiang’s agricultural supply chains reveals how agricultural products from Xinjiang—including tomatoes, peppers, marigolds, and stevia—are tainted by forced labor, coercive land-use transfers from Uyghur peasants to Chinese agribusinesses, and forced assimilation. Major Chinese corporations implicated represent over 50% of China’s tomato production and 65% of global red pepper pigment. Uyghur forced labor and related rights violations now contaminate global food supply chains: Xinjiang produces approximately 15% of the world’s tomato paste, 10% of chili peppers, and two-thirds of paprika oleoresin. Up to 2.5 million Uyghurs and other minorities risk forced labor in the region. This report identified 90 companies with links to Xinjiang agriculture, including multinationals like Kraft Heinz, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Unilever, and L’Oreal. Products frequently enter global supply chains through intermediaries in other countries, obscuring their origins.

Keywords: People's Republic of China, Xinjiang, Uyghurs, forced labor, agriculture, land dispossession, political economy, economic development.

"We know you better than you know yourself": China’s transnational repression of the Uyghur diaspora

By David Tobin and Nyrola Elimä

Open Access Download (March 2023)

Abstract

Transnational repression has expanded in Xi Jinping’s 'new era,' but its tactics have gradually changed since 2017, with increased use of Uyghur informants to gather intelligence while backing off from harassing those who resist pressure. These tactics have evolved to avoid international attention by harassing isolated individuals, placing community figures under surveillance, quietly intimidating Uyghurs from speaking publicly and even enlisting them to create positive images of China. The PRC’s transnational repression globally exports its domestic model of governance and genocidal oppression to target all Uyghurs and their family members through enforced family separation, mobility restrictions, and surveillance. The party-state’s transnational repression, therefore, undermines both human rights and the organising principle of sovereignty in international relations. The UK’s democratic political environment gives Uyghurs space to exercise their civil rights though many request support to assist with integration and information on their rights when facing transnational repression. However, in Turkey, there are growing dangers of deportations of Uyghurs with humanitarian visas, surveillance, and restrictions on civil rights. Transnational repression is less visible in Thailand because it is used as a transit stop for Uyghurs escaping persecution through human trafficking routes from southwest China. This report finds that the scale of transnational repression in the Uyghur diaspora is universal, and its impact severely restricts their rights to free speech and associations, and the capacity to maintain their culture.

Keywords: transnational repression, authoritarianism, human rights, security, China, Xinjiang, Uyghurs, Turkey, U.K., Thailand, ethnicity, policy.

The “Xinjiang Papers”: How Xi Jinping commands policy in the People’s Republic of China

By David Tobin

Open Access Download (March 2022)

Abstract

Under Xi Jinping’s rule of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), at least one million Turkic-speaking Muslims in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) have been extralegally detained in camps, subjected to invasive surveillance, sexual violence, child-separation, and psychological trauma. Nearly 10 million Uyghurs and Kazakhs outside the camps navigate networks of checkpoints, interpersonal monitoring, hi-tech surveillance, and forced labour. This report reveals the centralised decision-making processes behind mass mobilisation, mass detention, and dispersal of Uyghur and other Turkic-speaking Muslim communities in Xinjiang. This report explains the thinking and mechanisms behind Xi Jinping’s Xinjiang policy, which targets signs of everyday Uyghur identity as security threats. It provides new evidence of centrally directed local implementation of mass detention (section 4.2) and arbitrary dispersal of Uyghur communities (4.3). The report shows how Xi is transforming the PRC’s political system towards a totalitarian model based on personalised rule, mass mobilisation and surveillance, ideological education, and transformation of thought. Xi’s micro-managed policy implementation prevents any opposition to genocidal practices, including cultural destruction (section 3: “Sinicisation” policy), arbitrary mass detention, and community dispersal. Mass human surveillance links party institutions, security services, and neighbourhoods in the “People’s war on terror” (4.1).

Keywords: authoritarianism, human rights, security, China, Xinjiang, Uyghurs, ethnicity, policy, politics.