The report, which was accompanied by a video of Uyghurs using the Uyghur language and Mandarin Chinese to discuss how the CCP had improved their lives in the region, quoted four Uyghurs praising the government and telling Washington to butt out of China\u2019s affairs.<\/p>\n
\u201cPompeo is a liar. What he said is opposite to what I see with my own eyes every day,\u201d the report cited Alinur, a \u201cgrassroots civil servant,\u201d as saying.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a Uyghur living in Xinjiang, I have more rights to say whether it is good than a U.S. politician,\u201d said the resident of Ghulja (in Chinese, Yining)\u2014the seat of Ili Kazakh (Yili Hasake) Autonomous Prefecture and the XUAR\u2019s third largest city.<\/p>\n
The report also said that in recent days authorities in China and the XUAR have \u201cexpressed strong opposition\u201d to Pompeo\u2019s designation. It cited a statement released by the Standing Committee of Xinjiang Regional People’s Congress on Sunday, which said that Pompeo\u2019s \u201cslander severely violated international laws and hurt the feelings of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang.\u201d<\/p>\n
The regional legislature trumpeted achievements in \u201cpoverty alleviation, anti-terrorism, employment and improving local residents\u2019 living standards in recent years,\u201d and said members of the international community who have been invited to the XUAR \u201chave applauded Xinjiang’s improvements in protecting human rights.\u201d<\/p>\n
The report quoted \u201cChinese analysts\u201d as saying that countries \u201cshould be cautious\u201d about following Pompeo\u2019s lead \u201cas it would jeopardize bilateral ties,\u201d noting that Canadian Conservatives on Sunday called on the federal government to also label Beijing\u2019s policies in the region as \u201cgenocide\u201d and \u201ccrimes against humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.rfa.org\/english\/news\/uyghur\/farmer-10022020164136.html\/uyghur-campfence-100220.jpg\/@@images\/23c6a52e-2c07-46d2-999e-26573d86243b.jpeg\")
A guard tower rises along the fence of an internment camp in Urumqi’s Dabancheng district in Xinjiang in a Sept. 4, 2018 photo. Reuters<\/p>\n
Sweet-talking Washington<\/strong><\/p>\n German researcher Adrian Zenz, a leading expert on China\u2019s policies toward Uyghurs whose research provided critical evidence of abusive policies in the XUAR, told RFA\u2019s Uyghur Service on Monday that China is trying to promote a counternarrative both internationally and domestically about the Uyghurs. And while that narrative may be largely successful on the nation\u2019s majority Han Chinese, \u201cthere’s a good chance that the Uyghurs will interpret this in light of their entire and past experience with the regime and its propaganda and might come to opposite conclusions.\u201d<\/p>\n Reports suggest that amid increasing international scrutiny, authorities in the XUAR have begun to send detainees to work at factories as part of an effort to label the camps \u201cvocational centers,\u201d although those held in the facilities regularly toil under forced or coerced labor conditions.<\/p>\n Former President Donald Trump\u2019s administration in July leveled sanctions against several top Chinese officials deemed responsible for rights violations in the region, including regional party secretary Chen Quanguo, under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act.<\/p>\n The move, which marked the first time Washington had sanctioned a member of China\u2019s powerful Politburo, followed Trump\u2019s enactment in June of the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2020 (UHRPA), which passed nearly unanimously through both houses of Congress at the end of May. The legislation highlights arbitrary incarceration, forced labor, and other abuses in the XUAR and provides for sanctions against the Chinese officials who enforce them.<\/p>\n The Biden administration has yet to lay out its foreign policy approach to China and Zenz, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, said Beijing may be trying to test the waters with state media reports such as the one published Monday.<\/p>\n \u201cI think they’re now being very careful because of the new Biden administration and I think there is some hope on the side of the Chinese that they can sweet talk the Biden administration into being more compromising\u2014taking a more compromising or lenient stance on China which, from what I gather, is unlikely \u2026 at least on Xinjiang and human rights,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cChina is obviously hoping to sweet talk them and is trying to sort of blame individuals like Pompeo. It is always easy to blame individuals for a wider problem.\u201d<\/p>\n Adrian Zenz (R) speaks with RFA during an interview in Washington, July 17, 2019. RFA<\/p>\n Targeting individuals<\/strong><\/p>\n In June, Zenz published a report documenting a dramatic increase in recent years in the number of forced sterilizations and abortions targeting Uyghurs in the XUAR. The report concludes that such measures may amount to a government-led campaign of genocide under United Nations definitions.<\/p>\n China did not make a spokesperson available for comment on this report, but when Zenz\u2019s study on forced birth control came out in June, official media vilified him and said Beijing is \u2018considering suing\u2019 him for libel, while the foreign ministry denounced him.<\/p>\n Zenz said he is \u201cvery used to\u201d being vilified in China these days for speaking out about rights violations in the XUAR and elsewhere in the country.<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s become very normal for the Chinese foreign ministry to attack me by name, which kind of shows their desperation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThey’re quite desperate, quite on the defensive, because there’s been so much evidence on the terrible atrocities they’re committing, and so that seems to be their solution to try to attack and discredit individuals.\u201d<\/p>\n He said Chinese propaganda has a certain value in that \u201cthere are always going to be people who are going to read between the lines.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnybody with any experience knows that they often say the very opposite of what is true, and so there might be some benefit in their propaganda falsehoods, as long as people know how to interpret it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Zenz acknowledged that such reports by state media give nations that benefit from Chinese investment the ability to appoint their version of the truth, saying that Beijing is denying rights abuses in the XUAR and that there isn\u2019t enough evidence, and thus construct an alternative narrative.<\/p>\n But he warned China against becoming too overconfident about its ability to continue its policies of repression there without being held to account.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the Chinese at this point just trust that they’re not going to pay a heavy price for the atrocities and in that sense, maybe they think it doesn’t matter … [They say] \u2018We can do whatever we want to and internationally there\u2019s enough countries who are at least quiet or are on our side,\u2019\u201d Zenz said.<\/p>\n \u201cThey might feel just confident about this, but people who are very confident also tend to make mistakes, so this could be very interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n