The Uyghurs are a Turkic, mostly Muslim practicing ethnic group primarily living in the Xinjiang region in China. There are an estimated 12 million Uyghurs in this region of China. In 2017 China rolled out a reeducation and detention policy on the Xinjiang region, targeting the Uyghur population. Since 2017, an estimated 1.3 million Uyghurs have been detained. The   Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide has said that China may be committing crimes against humanity with this detainment. There is mass surveillance in this area, with the goal of the government spotting religious engagement and other actions that can result in detention. The alleged crimes committed against them have been forced labor, forced assimilation, and enforced sterilization.

It has been reported that the condition for many of the detainees to gain freedom again is labor with little to no pay, leaving them with little to no other options. There has been evidence cited that factories have been built within and around Uyghur detention camps. There is reason to believe that this is also part of the assimilation project to break apart cultural bonds.

China has established harsh birth limits in the Xinjiang region as well that are punished severely for the breaking of it. On the grounds of high birth rates promoting religious extremism, the Chinese government has also implemented the forced contraception method of IUD on Uyghur women. In leaked government files, the most likely reason a women was detained was breaking of these limits or not accepting the contraception.

As part of the forced assimilation that China is attempting, and under the “United as One” policy, it has moved millions of Han Chinese (the majority group in China) into the region and set to live with the Uyghur families. Forced assimilation is used to erase a people’s culture and identity, but is not considered as genocide or a crime under international law.

All this adds to region where the Uyghur people have little to no human rights and under constant threat and surveillance. It is also hard to get information out of this area and from the Uyghurs because of China’s extensive internet surveillance. Hopefully this will get recognized more internationally and China faces judgement from the international community.

Sources:

Chinese Persecution of the Uyghurs. United States holocaust memorial museum. (n.d.). https://www.ushmm.org/genocide-prevention/countries/china/chinese-persecution-of-the-uyghurs

China is the world’s largest producer, which comes with it a large amount of responsibility when it comes to environmental impact. A little known fact is that China is actually one of the most biodiverse places in the world, but with it comes the most to be lost. It was measured in 2022 that 90% of China’s grasslands have degraded as well as 53% of the coastal wetlands. It has also lost 80% of it’s coral reefs and 73% of it’s mangroves in the last 70 years. This degradation and loss leads to the loss and endangerment of the many species that call that habitat home. This has lead to many species going extinct to which there is no recovery.

China has put many measures in place to try and stop this such as building the world’s largest amount of protected area. They have also spent upwards of 40 billion USD on incentives for people to live on and rebuild the degraded parts of their environment. However at the same time they have had very environmentally harming projects such as the “Belt and Road Initiative” which has lead to deforestation and degrading of the environment to put pipelines and roads across the world. China has pledged that they will make this initiative “green” but it has yet to be seen what this amounts to.

Overall in the last few years China has done a lot to try to recover from it’s loss of biodiversity and has offered many incentives for its recovery. But at the same time it actively encourages the degradation of other environments. It has a long way to go, especially as being the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter to do better in the environmental department.

Sources:

Hull, V. (2022, December 4). Analysis: Is China ready to lead on protecting nature at the upcoming UN Biodiversity Conference?. PBS. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/analysis-is-china-ready-to-lead-on-protecting-nature-at-the-upcoming-un-biodiversity-conference#:~:text=Biodiversity%20in%20China&text=It%20is%20home%20to%20nearly,nowhere%20else%20in%20the%20world.

   According to the Japan times article “No one is safe from climate change after hottest 12 months,” on November 10, 2023, average temperatures between the begging of November 2022 and October 2023 were 1.32 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels in Japan. Andrew Pershing, vice president for science at Climate Central said “while climate impacts are most acute in developing countries near the equator, seeing climate-fueled streaks of extreme heat in the U.S., India, Japan and Europe underscores that no one is safe from climate change.” This year will be the warmest ever, the EU’s climate change service said earlier this week because June, July, August, September and October were each the hottest on record. The researchers said, “this is the hottest temperature that our planet has experienced in something like 125,000 years, the hottest temperatures that humans have experienced for the time when we’ve decided to write down things, build cities and live together in large groups,” World will have to face terrible drought, storms, wildfires, floods and heat waves in near future. So far, extreme weather has killed about 15,700 people in Africa this year, and a recent drought in the Horn of Africa has left over 23 million people suffering food insecurity. 

Source: ‘No one is safe from climate change’ after hottest 12 months – The Japan Times

Writer: Sakura