Tag: Uighurs (Chinese Ethnic Group)

Volkswagen and BASF Are Reconsidering Ties to Xinjiang, China

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Volkswagen Group is reviewing the future of its joint venture in the Xinjiang region of northwestern China and another German industrial giant is starting to sell its stakes there following new international scrutiny of forced labor by predominantly Muslim ethnic groups. Volkswagen said last week that it was in discussions with one of its main joint venture partners in China, the state-owned Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, in the wake of allegations of human rights violations at their joint venture in Xinjiang. The companies are examining “the future direction of the…

Shein, the Fast-Fashion Giant, Is Said to Have Filed for an I.P.O.

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Shein, the ultrafast-fashion retailer founded in China more than a decade ago, has filed confidentially for an initial public offering in the United States, according to a person familiar with the plans for the deal, who was not authorized to speak publicly about it. Some companies keep their paperwork for an initial public offering temporarily under seal so they can prepare for the offering out of the public spotlight. Investors had largely expected Shein to make the move this year, after the historically tight-lipped company began to address a range…

Star Uyghur Scholar Who Vanished Was Sentenced to Life in China

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She was a trailblazing professor and ethnographer from the Uyghur ethnic group in far-western China who documented the religious and cultural traditions of her people. She was at the height of a career that the Chinese government had once recognized with awards and research grants. But it was not enough to keep her safe. Rahile Dawut, who nurtured a generation of academics and scholars, disappeared in 2017, along with other prominent intellectuals and academics targeted by the Chinese government in its campaign to crush the Uyghur cultural identity. Details about…

A Poet Captures the Terror of Life in an Authoritarian State

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Tahir Hamut Izgil watched as parks emptied of people, naan bakeries boarded up their windows and, one after another, his friends were taken away. The Chinese government’s repression of Uyghurs, the predominantly Muslim ethnic minority to which he belonged, had gone on for years in Xinjiang, the group’s ancestral homeland in China’s northwest. But in 2017, it morphed into something more terrifying: a mass internment system into which hundreds of thousands of people were disappearing. Millions lived under intense and growing surveillance. Izgil, a prominent poet and film director, feared…

Book Review: ‘Waiting to Be Arrested at Night,’ by Tahir Hamut Izgil

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But their departure is no triumph. When Izgil calls his mother after arriving in the United States, the police in China confiscate her cellphone and ID card, returning them only after Izgil’s father and brother sign an affidavit promising never to speak to Izgil again. His friends delete his contact info on WeChat. Despite these precautions, some of his relatives are swept up in the mass detentions that have ensnared more than one million Uyghurs. Izgil cannot enjoy the uneasy freedom of life in the United States. With little English,…

What Americans Don’t Understand About China

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Keyu Jin is in the West but not entirely of it. She’s fluent in English and French, studied at Harvard and teaches at the London School of Economics. She knows her way around Goldman Sachs and the World Bank. But she is still a proud Chinese. She lived with her parents in Beijing during two recent maternity leaves. And she has just written a book about what she calls “reading China in the original.” Unfiltered, that is, by a Western perspective. It sometimes comes as a surprise to Europeans and…

Canada Expelling Chinese Diplomat Amid Influence Concerns

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Canada said on Monday it was expelling a Chinese diplomat amid reports he had been intimidating and gathering information on a Canadian lawmaker who had been critical of Beijing’s treatment of its Uyghur Muslim minority, a decision likely to increase tensions between Beijing and Ottawa. Mélanie Joly, Canada’s foreign minister, said in a statement that the diplomat, Zhao Wei, had been declared “persona non grata.” Ms. Joly said the decision has been taken “after careful consideration of all factors at play.” “Diplomats in Canada have been warned that if they…

US Cracks Down on Chinese Companies for Security Concerns

Chin@Strategy

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration on Thursday stepped up its efforts to impede China’s development of advanced semiconductors, restricting another 36 companies and organizations from getting access to American technology. The action, announced by the Commerce Department, is the latest step in the administration’s campaign to clamp down on China’s access to technologies that could be used for military purposes and underscored how limiting the flow of technology to global rivals has become a prominent element of United States foreign policy. Administration officials say that China has increasingly blurred the…

Global Car Supply Chains Entangled With Abuses in Xinjiang, Report Says

Chin@Strategy

Many of those suppliers run through China, which has become increasingly vital to the global auto industry and the United States, the destination for about a quarter of the auto parts that China exports annually. Xinjiang is home to a variety of industries, but its ample coal reserves and lax environmental regulations have made it a prominent location for energy-intensive materials processing, like smelting metal, the report says. Chinese supply chains are complicated and opaque, which can make it difficult to trace certain individual products from Xinjiang to the United…

Why China’s Crimes in Xinjiang Cannot Go Unpunished

Chin@Strategy

Horrifying allegations poured out: children separated from parents, Uyghurs punished when relatives spoke out overseas, women forcibly sterilized or sexually abused and what the U.N. report called an “unusual and stark” decline in Uyghur birthrates. In leaked documents on the Xinjiang crackdown, President Xi Jinping called in 2014 for “absolutely no mercy.” Denying abuses, China sought to prevent global action. The U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet repeatedly postponed publishing the investigation and during a visit to Xinjiang in May recited Chinese talking points. Her office released its report just…