The East Turkistan Government in Exile (ETGE) categorically condemns Beijing’s unilateral and illegal proclamation of the so-called “Cenling County” in the Kashgar region of occupied East Turkistan. Beijing’s creation of “Cenling County” constitutes illegal colonial domination, the forced restructuring of East Turkistan’s demographics, and the erasure of historic Uyghur and Turkic names, governance, institutions, and communities, replaced by Chinese colonizers and colonial administrative control.

Seventy-six years after China’s invasion of East Turkistan, more than seventy years since imposing the so-called “Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region” colonial administrative label to deny our people the right to self-determination, and twelve years into an ongoing genocide, Beijing continues to divide our homeland, militarize strategic locations, and annihilate Uyghur and Turkic political, administrative, cultural, and even physical existence.

The proclamation of “Cenling County” follows the creation of so-called “He’an” and “Hekang” counties in 2024 to administer Occupied Aksai Chin. These actions are not administrative reforms. They are mechanisms of Chinese occupation designed to consolidate colonial rule and prepare for further expansion into South and Central Asia.

The ETGE calls on governments, parliaments, international organizations, and civil society to reject China’s colonial actions, recognize East Turkistan as occupied territory, and support decolonization and full restoration of independence as the only path to ending decades of colonial rule, genocide, and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other Turkic peoples.