Internment camps for Muslims will lead them to ‘modern’ life: Beijing

beijing — China on Tuesday characterised its mass internment of Muslims as a push to bring into the “modern, civilised” world a destitute people who are easily led astray — a depiction that analysts said bore troubling colonial overtones.

The report is the ruling Communist Party’s latest effort to defend its extrajudicial detention of Central Asian Muslim minorities against mounting criticism.

China’s resistance to Western pressure over the camps highlights its growing confidence under President Xi Jinping, who has offered Beijing’s authoritarian system as a model for other countries.

A UN panel and a human rights group have estimated that around 1 million Uighurs, Kazakhs and other minorities have been arbitrarily detained in internment camps in China’s far west Xinjiang region. The report indicated that key to the party’s vision in Xinjiang is the assimilation of the indigenous Central Asian ethnic minorities into Han Chinese society — and in turn, a “modern” lifestyle.

Xinjiang Governor Shohrat Zakir said the authorities were providing people with lessons on Mandarin, Chinese history and laws.

Such training would steer them away from extremism and onto the path toward a “modern life” in which they would feel “confident about the future,” he said.

“It’s become a general trend for them to expect and pursue a modern, civilised life,” Zakir said, referring to the trainees.

He said the measures are part of a broader policy to build a “foundation for completely solving the deeply-rooted problems” in the region. China has long viewed the country’s ethnic minorities as backward, said James Leibold an expert on Chinese ethnic polices at Melbourne’s La Trobe University. —

It’s become a general trend for them (trainees) to expect and pursue a modern, civilised life

Shohrat Zakir, Xinjiang Governor