Press Release – For Immediate Release
15 July 2022
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WASHINGTON – Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Occupied East Turkistan this week, according to Chinese state media reports. The visit was the first in eight years since he launched the so-called “People’s War” campaign of genocide against Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples of East Turkistan.

“Chinese communist dictator Xi Jinping’s visit to Occupied East Turkistan may be a precursor to a more brutal campaign against East Turkistan’s native Uyghur and other Turkic populations,” said Prime Minister Salih Hudayar of the East Turkistan Government on Exile. “The last time he visited East Turkistan in May 2014, the Chinese government launched its campaign of mass internment and genocide, which continues to this day,” he added.

Media reports stated that Xi Jinping visited different sites across East Turkistan, including a university, an Uyghur neighborhood in Urumchi, and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), also known as the Bingtuan. Xi Jinping told officials that the intense securitization of East Turkistan must be permanent and vowed to provide further massive funding to ensure “stability is achieved.”

The XPCC is a paramilitary organization that is had been set up in 1954 under Mao Zedong and was tasked with colonizing East Turkistan and suppressing any dissent against Chinese occupation. In recent years the XPCC has been responsible for implementing the forced labor schemes and other Chinese government policies facilitating the ongoing genocide of Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other Turkic people in East Turkistan. The XPCC was blacklisted by the EU, Canada, the UK, and the U.S. over its role in the ongoing atrocities against Turkic peoples in East Turkistan.

Immediately following Xi Jinping’s last visit to East Turkistan in May 2014, the Chinese government launched the “People’s War,” also known as the “Strike Hard Campaign against Violent Terrorism.” China’s “People’s War” campaign in East Turkistan officially marked the beginning of an ongoing campaign of genocide targeting Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other Turkic peoples. The Chinese government began to mass intern millions of Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other Turkic peoples into concentration camps, prisons, and slave / forced labor camps under the false pretext of “counter-terrorism.” The Chinese government claimed that the main objective of its genocidal policies in East Turkistan was to combat the so-called “Three Evils” of ethnic separatism, violent terrorism, and religious extremism to establish stability and “national and ethnic unity.”

“The fascist Chinese communist government is using the false pretext of “separatism, terrorism, and extremism” to legitimize its colonization and occupation of East Turkistan and the genocide of its people,” said President Ghulam Yaghma of the East Turkistan Government in Exile. “East Turkistanis are not so-called separatists; we are an occupied people striving to regain our lost freedom and independence,” he added.

Numerous condemnations, sanctions, and even recognition of China’s atrocities against Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples as genocide and crimes against humanity by global governments have failed to halt China’s campaign of genocide in East Turkistan.

“It’s been eight years since China has been continuing to carry out genocide in East Turkistan, in the 21st century, with impunity,” said Dr. Mamtimin Ala, the EU Representative of the East Turkistan Government in Exile. “Xi Jinping’s recent visit is a message to the world that China will not stop until it has finished off all the Uyghurs or assimilated them into becoming completely Chinese. Uyghurs may only have a decade left before China achieves its objectives,” he added.

The East Turkistan Government in Exile again calls on the international community to uphold its commitments under the UN Genocide Convention by taking meaningful action, including humanitarian intervention if necessary, to end China’s ongoing campaign of genocide in East Turkistan. The East Turkistan Government in Exile again reiterates that restoring East Turkistan’s rightful independence is the only solution to ensure the freedoms, human rights, and very existence of Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples.