michael barbaro

From The New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.” Today: A secret trove of government documents offers an unprecedented look inside China’s highly organized crackdown on Uighur Muslims. In one of them, China’s president orders his subordinates to show, quote, “absolutely no mercy.” It’s Tuesday, December 10.

archived recording Well, now The New York Times has obtained leaked Chinese government documents it says reveal new details about the crackdown on Muslim Uighurs in the Xinjiang region. They include instructions to local —

michael barbaro

Paul Mozur, tell me about these leaked documents from inside the Chinese government.

archived recording Troves of classified documents reportedly leaked from within China’s Communist Party. The New York Times —

paul mozur

So the thing you have to understand is, China is one of the most powerful countries in the world, but we know very little about the top politics and how the country works, in so many ways. It’s a great secret. You have the Chinese Communist Party, which rules over the country but doesn’t really let anybody get behind the curtain to understand what’s going on. And so this leak —

archived recording 403 pages of documents about the concentration camps there.

paul mozur

You just don’t see this kind of thing happen.

michael barbaro

So somebody took a tremendous risk in making these documents available to The Times.

paul mozur

Yes, untold risk, not just to themselves — to their family, to their friends.

michael barbaro

And beyond the unusualness of the scale of this leak, what is significant about the fact that this is coming directly from the government?

paul mozur

So prior to this, the best proof we had of what was happening was mostly anecdotal. So you would talk to relatives of people who had been imprisoned, like, for instance, Ferkat, and maybe you’d be able to talk to somebody like his mother, who had been through the system, but you had no real hard proof. And Beijing used that to its benefit to basically come up with a very different version of reality, one in which this was an attempt to very gently teach Uighurs Chinese and to guide them away from extremism, and that this was a beneficial act by the government to raise up a minority that was lost in poverty and radical Islam. And with these documents, in these 403 pages, we see that even as the government is saying this, internally, they have a completely different calculus. And it’s one of punishment, and it’s one of indoctrination, to bring an entire ethnic minority to heel.

michael barbaro

O.K., so take us through how these documents lay all that out.

paul mozur

So there’s basically three major takeaways from these documents. And the first and probably the most important is that the architecture and the ideas behind this crackdown come from the very top. They come from Chinese President Xi Jinping himself. Long before any camps had opened in the region, in 2014, Xi Jinping goes to Xinjiang. And in the documents, what we see is, in secret speeches and internal discussions, he lays the groundwork for a truly ferocious crackdown.

michael barbaro

And what would be the instigation for that crackdown? What would be the rationale in 2014?

archived recording Xinjiang has seen a spate of deadly attacks recently, where Muslim Uighur separatists seek autonomy from Beijing.

paul mozur

So 2014 is a particularly bloody year in what has been just a longtime conflict between Uighurs and Han Chinese.

archived recording 43 people killed when a bomb detonated in a market in the regional capital of Urumqi.

paul mozur

Just weeks before Xi Jinping makes this trip —

archived recording China’s state media reports 27 people are dead after mass stabbings at a train station.

paul mozur

— There is a Uighur militant attack at a train station in southern China, where Uighurs go in with knives and stab 150 people. And then on the last day of Xi’s visit to Xinjiang —

archived recording It’s the second time this station’s been targeted in two months.

paul mozur

— there’s a car bomb that goes off at the train station in Urumqi, the capital of the region.

michael barbaro

Hm.

archived recording Beijing blames this violence on separatists from the mainly Muslim Uighur minority.

paul mozur

So you have these attacks, and they’re getting larger in scale. And so as a leader, he’s watching this happen and trying to figure out how to deal with it. And so he does something that I think would be surprising to a lot of people, but what happens a lot within China and its leadership. He looks to the United States.

michael barbaro

Hm.

paul mozur

He says that Chinese officials should study the American response to the September 11 attacks. And I think this gives you a sense of the sense of crisis he felt, even though, in comparison, the 9/11 attacks are so much of a larger scale than what’s happening in China at that moment. And so what he says is, basically, we are going to have an all-out war against terrorism, infiltration and separatism. And he says this very chilling thing. He says, we must use the “organs of dictatorship” and show “absolutely no mercy” in how we fight back against this. He likens Islamic extremism to a virus and a contagion, and one of the quotes goes, basically, “people who are captured by religious extremism” have “their consciences destroyed.” They “lose their humanity and murder without blinking an eye.” And he calls for treating the contagion with a period of painful interventionary treatment.

michael barbaro

Hm.

paul mozur

So effectively, this is a doctor or a surgeon going in and cutting something out that is a problem.

michael barbaro

So Xi Jinping is making the intellectual case, basically, for camps, for detention, for active repression.

paul mozur

Right. And within months, we see indoctrination sites start to open. And these hold dozens or maybe a couple hundred people.

michael barbaro

Hm.

paul mozur

And they have classes, which basically teach people to disavow Islam, or profess their gratitude for the Chinese Communist Party. Which brings us to the second big takeaway from these documents, which is how these small camps evolve into this tremendously complex and large-scale system of concentration camps and prisons that we see scattered across the region today.

michael barbaro

And how is that? What do the documents show?

paul mozur

They show a trajectory that is led by a single man, Chen Quanguo. This official, Chen Quanguo, is known as a hardliner, and he’s been in Tibet for about five years. And during this period, he installs police stations across the major cities and across the region to gain really strong control over the ethnic minority Tibetan population there. So he’s seen as a guy who had a solution to a problem in another part of China that has a similar issue with an ethnic minority that resents Chinese rule. And the idea is, he could do it once, maybe he can do it again.

michael barbaro

Hm.

paul mozur

In August of 2016, this official is transferred from his post in Tibet to take over in Xinjiang. And he calls for local officials to carry out an obliterating offensive. And one of his orders, I think, is very telling and also very chilling. He says, “Round up everyone who should be rounded up.” Any kind of sign of religious devotion becomes something that you can be rounded up for. So issues like people who would pray regularly, people who have a Quran at home, men who grow long beards or who advise against smoking or drinking, people who study Arabic, and also, importantly, people who have ties overseas or relatives who are studying overseas. So that’s the plan, but it doesn’t go all that smoothly. As these orders come down, lower-level officials aren’t implementing them the way Chen Quanguo wants. In some cases, they are helping shelter Uighurs and letting them out of camps. In some cases, they’re not putting as many in the camps as Chen Quanguo would want. And so there’s a real resistance in some ways to the severity and strictness of what’s coming from the top.

michael barbaro

And why would that be? Given everything that you have explained, why would these lower-level officials not carry out the orders that they have been given?

paul mozur

So China is very authoritarian, but it’s also not a monolith. And what I mean by that is that the top officials will set goals, and then lower officials have to carry them out. But oftentimes, lower officials are judged by a different set of metrics — in particular, economic growth. And so in this case, a lot of local officials were looking at these new guidelines that said to throw a fifth of the population into camps and saying, well, there’s no way I can grow the economy at the level I need to and also do this. This is just unrealistic. And so they started to undermine what these rules were. And so we see very specific examples laid out in the documents of how officials grumble privately about this exact problem.

michael barbaro

And so how does this new leader in the region respond to all this resistance, basically this failure to carry out this crackdown?

paul mozur

He punishes the officials that aren’t seen to be carrying out his orders. He opens up investigations into thousands and thousands of them. Many are sent to jail, and they’re made to sign confessions before they go. And then he takes those confessions, and he spreads those around to the officials as a warning, saying, these guys, they didn’t listen to my orders, and now they’re in jail. And it’s breathtaking, the level of fear, not just in the Uighur population but in the population of officials that are having to enact it. Because even if they don’t want to enact it, they no longer have a choice. They’re stuck.

michael barbaro

So now, with all of this opposition essentially wiped away, what happens to the camp system in Xinjiang?

paul mozur

It begins to grow utterly unimpeded. So you started with small camps in cities, maybe schools that were repurposed to hold people. Now we see large concentration camps going up outside of cities, where you have maybe a dozen buildings, each possibly holding thousands of people. And we see new lots that are then filled in again and again, to the point where you just have probably more than 1,000 of these camps around the region.

michael barbaro

Wow.

paul mozur

The prison system as well starts to fill up, and so the prison system is expanded, and there’s overcrowding there. We see hundreds of thousands of convictions, with people being thrown into prisons. And ultimately, the last phase of this is the labor camp. So either a factory goes in, or a fence and a road is built to a factory. And we start to see people being siphoned out into these factories. And this is the idea of how you would graduate from one of these camps is, you would eventually return not to your hometown but to a factory town, where you work in a factory in compulsive labor. And so all of this together, by 2018, is just taking a tremendous toll on the entire region. When you go there, the streets are empty. People are clearly scared. Businesses are shut down. Mosques are all locked up. Nobody dares go near them, and they’re closed anyway. People are being taken away at night. And ultimately, a million to 3 million people have been swept up into this system.

michael barbaro

Hm. I mean, Paul, what’s staggering about that number is that even in a country as big as China, it’s hard to fathom more than a million people suddenly disappearing from their homes and their streets. What is the story that China tells to explain that?

paul mozur

Yeah, and that leads us to the third major takeaway from the documents, which is how the Chinese government methodically tried to hide that all of this was happening.

michael barbaro

We’ll be right back. So Paul, what do these secret documents show us about how the Chinese government somehow hides this all from its own people?

paul mozur

One of the biggest things they’re worried about is actually students. So a large number of Uighur students go out from Xinjiang each year to go to college all over China. And so within the documents, they’re specifically worried about those children returning home for the summer, seeing their home just transformed and their relatives missing, and then spreading news about it across apps like WeChat and other social media, and talking about the problem. And so what they do is they come up with this incredibly bureaucratic guide. It’s basically a manual for how to deal with these kids who have a lot of questions about the missing relatives, and the empty streets, and the locked mosques.

michael barbaro

And what does the manual say should be done? I wonder if you could read from it.

paul mozur

Yeah, sure. So it’s called “Tactics for Answering Questions Asked by the Children of Concentrated Education and Training School Students.” And the first question is a very simple one. “Where are my family members?” And the answer goes, “They’re in a training school set up by the government to undergo collective systematic training, study and instruction. They have very good conditions for studying and living there, and you have nothing to worry about. Tuition for their period of study is free, and so are food and living costs. And the standards are quite high.”

michael barbaro

Hm.

paul mozur

“Our officials accompany them at study every day, offering counseling and assistance, and they eat the same food and live in the same dormitories. So you have absolutely no need to worry about how they’re doing. If you want to see them, we can arrange for you to have a live video meeting.”

michael barbaro

Wow. That’s positively Orwellian.

paul mozur

Yeah.

michael barbaro

So in this telling, these re-education camps, they’re a gift to the people in them. Their life is good. The food is wonderful. The tuition is free.

paul mozur

Right. Everything is great. There’s nothing to worry about. This is a school, and things are good. And so then, as you go down the list, it anticipates people pushing a little bit. So question number four is, “Since it’s just training, why can’t they come home?”

michael barbaro

Mm-hmm.

paul mozur

And the answer is, “It seems that you’re still misunderstanding how concentrated education is run. Usually, you would return home for winter or summer vacation without any problem. But if you were careless and caught an infectious virus, like SARS, you’d have to undergo enclosed isolated treatment, because it’s an infectious illness. If you weren’t thoroughly cured, as soon as you returned home, you would infect your family with the virus, and your whole family would fall ill. The party and government would not be so irresponsible that they would let a member of your family go home before their illness was cured and thinking thoroughly transformed, a situation in which they would do harm to others.”

michael barbaro

So here the mission is being described with a little bit more candor. We think something is wrong with these people, and we will not return them home until it’s been fixed.

paul mozur

Exactly. And again, we come back to that language of illness, the idea that this is infectious, and that people have to be isolated and the problem with them eradicated. And then, as you go down, it starts to deal with, well, if the students are pushing harder, if they seem like they suspect something’s up, then you start moving more towards threats.

michael barbaro

Hm.

paul mozur

And that becomes apparent in one of the questions: “When can my family member graduate and leave school?” And the answer says that the family members must be diligent in their studies, abide by the school rules, and do outstandingly in morning exercises, chores, dining, study and so on. And family members, including you, must abide by the state’s laws and rules, and not believe or spread rumors, and take an active part in collective life. Only then can you add points for your family member. And after a period of assessment, they can leave the school, if they meet course completion standards.

michael barbaro

And Paul, what are these points that this passage refers to?

paul mozur

So another really important thing that comes from the documents, it lays out how there is a point system for getting through the camps, and that if you act out or if there are problems, you lose points. And if your family members act out, you can also lose points. And if you go below a certain threshold, then one year of study — quote, unquote, “study” — turns into two, or turns into three.

michael barbaro

Hmm. So the concept here is, complain too loudly about your missing relative, and your missing relative may be missing for even longer. You have the power to make this better, or you have the power to make this worse for them.

paul mozur

Exactly. And this is why Ferkat is so unique, because he goes the opposite way. He speaks out, and continues to speak out. And many people in his community in the United States are afraid to speak out. And they’re not afraid for themselves. They’re in the United States. They’re afraid for their family members, and they’re afraid the punishments that will come down on them or that other family members could be thrown into camps for what they’re saying and doing. And Ferkat’s point in all this is that this whole system is bogus, that you should not sit back and hope that silence will secure a release for your family members, because it won’t. This is just an intimidation tactic. And all along, the kind of punitive measures are going to be worked out anyway. So you might as well go out and talk.

michael barbaro

Right, because this system hinges on silence, on people’s belief and their fear that unless they are anything other than silent, it will all get worse.

paul mozur

Exactly. And that’s why, I think, Ferkat told us that once he had no more fears, he felt like he had power, because that was when he could speak up and speak out and say, this is what’s happening, and it needs to stop.

michael barbaro

Paul, what has happened since The Times published these 400 or so pages of internal documents? What has been the response from the international community that has consumed everything that you’ve just described?

paul mozur

Not a lot. You get some condemnations from some quarters, but the rest of the world is basically quiet about this, because China is such an important global player, and they fear the consequences. And so I talked to Ferkat about that.

ferkat jawdat We have been speaking the same things for a couple years, but many of them, they still trust the Chinese government, even though there are really strong facts.

paul mozur

And I think for him, it’s just both baffling and infuriating. Because he’s fighting this propaganda war where the Chinese government keeps saying these things don’t exist or aren’t as we’ve described them, and now you have the proof. You have it.

ferkat jawdat And then the first feeling I had is, just bring the document and then slap on the face of country leaders, and then tell them, this is the proof that you needed.

paul mozur

He wanted to take this pile of documents and basically use it to slap the faces of the leaders who continue to do nothing about this across the globe.

ferkat jawdat It is the time that you have to speak out.

paul mozur

He said, what more does the world need?

ferkat jawdat Like, what else do you need? Do you need — do you want to see the pile of bodies piled up as a mountain and then you’re going to speak up? What are you waiting for?

paul mozur

Do they need a pile of bodies in front of them in order to act? What are they waiting for?

michael barbaro

Paul, thank you very much.

paul mozur

Thanks, Michael.

michael barbaro