structural:scholar_edition
Xinjiang

Following several terrorist attacks in Xinjiang in 2013 and 2014, the CCP leaders held a secret meeting to find a solution to the attacks, leading to Xi to launch the Strike Hard Campaign Against Violent Terrorism in 2014, which involved mass detention, and surveillance of ethnic Uyghurs there. The campaign included the detainment of 1.8 million people in internment camps, mostly Uyghurs but also including other ethnic and religious minorities, by 2020, and a birth suppression campaign that led to a large drop in the Uyghur birth rate by 2019. Human rights groups and former inmates have described the camps as "concentration camps," where Uyghurs and other minorities have been forcibly assimilated into China's majority ethnic Han society. This program has been called a genocide by western observers, while a report by the UN Human Rights Office said they may amount to crimes against humanity.

Internal Chinese government documents leaked to the press in November 2019 showed that Xi personally ordered a security crackdown in Xinjiang, saying that the party must show "absolutely no mercy" and that officials use all the "weapons of the people's democratic dictatorship " to suppress those "infected with the virus of extremism." The papers also showed that Xi repeatedly discussed about Islamic extremism in his speeches, likening it to a "virus" or a "drug" that could be only addressed by "a period of painful, interventionary treatment." However, he also warned against the discrimination against Uyghurs and rejected proposals to eradicate Islam in China, calling that kind of viewpoint "biased, even wrong." Xi's exact role in the building of internment camps has not been publicly reported, though he's widely believed to be behind them and his words have been the source for major justifications in the crackdown in Xinjiang.

During a four-day visit to Xinjiang in July 2022, Xi urged local officials to always listen to the people's voices and to do more in preservation of ethnic minority culture. He also inspected the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps and praised its "great progress" in reform and development. During another visit to Xinjiang in August 2023, Xi said in a speech that the region was "no longer a remote area" and should open up more for tourism to attract domestic and foreign visitors.