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.

China’s economy has been growing rapidly over the past decades and depending on what statistic you measure (particularly nominal GDP) is either the first or second biggest economy in the world behind only the United States. This is in large part to China being the largest goods exporter in the world, with China’s 2022’s exports measuring in the 3 trillions, and second only behind the US in imports. As part of this, China and the US are also each other’s biggest sources of export and importing. (Visual Capitalist, 1)

However China’s growth has been slowing down and doubt has been building within China’s economic sectors. Much of this is due to growing rivalry and discord between China and Western countries that, as seen with the US, are China’s biggest sources of income and purchases. (CSIS, 2)

Because of this growing tension between the West, countries world wide are trying to stop their reliance on China’s market, which may further slow down the Chinese economy, with some sources such as The Financial Times (3), saying it may not be as certain that China will overtake the US as the biggest economy anymore due to several reasons such as China’s strict zero-covid policy and a large amount of debt at the local level. Some have also blamed China’s centralized economy (state owning enterprises) and inefficient government owned companies as part of the problem with The Financial Times stating that China should allow it’s private sector to grow.

El-Erian, M. (2023, September 8). It’s no longer a given that China will become the world’s largest economy. Financial Times. https://www.ft.com/content/20a14331-d282-4039-97d2-71d777359733

Every year a poll is done by “Genron NPO” a Japanese think tank comparing responses between Chinese and Japanese respondents who are asked to answer with their opinion or sentiment towards an ongoing world event. Every year they are also asked about their impressions on each other, and the 2023 poll was not good news.
Respondents to the poll could answer either poor or relatively poor impression or good to relatively good. The 2023 poll had Japan’s second
lowest impression of China at 92.2% respondents answer towards having a poor to relatively poor impression towards China, an increase from last year’s 87.3%. The responses in China towards Japan were similarly low at 62.9% reporting a low impression towards Japan. Along with these, respondents were asked the reasoning of their response, and 40.7% of the Japanese respondents said their response was this low to due to anti-Japanese reporting in China. For China’s low impressions towards Japan, the highest selected reasonings were Japan not supporting the One China principle (37.3%), and Japan’s acceptance of US policies.

Respondents were also asked what potential regions of conflict in East Asia, and the most common response of both the Chinese and Japanese responders was the Taiwan Staite at 27% of Japanese responders, and 32.9% of the Chinese responders, a high decrease from last year’s response of 48.6%.

This poll has shown over the years the increasing tensions between the countries of East Asia. However the scope and population size of this poll were relatively small at about 1000 Japanese Respondents and 1500 Chinese respondents, so how this reflects these populations as a whole is unknown.

Source:
“Japan-China Opinion Poll 2023 Mentions the Possibility of Nuclear War for the First Time.” The Genron NPO, 10 Oct. 2023, www.genron-npo.net/en/opinion_polls/archives/5628.html.