The US watches the actions of China and North Korea 3:55
(CNN) - The
United States and its allies are intensifying pressure on China in a unified show of force against Beijing's alleged crackdown on the Uighurs, a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority, in the western Xinjiang region.
The US State Department estimates that up to 2 million Uighurs and other Muslim minorities have passed through an extensive network of detention centers throughout the region, where former detainees allege they were subjected to intense political indoctrination, forced labor. , torture and even sexual abuse.
Human rights groups and Uighur activists abroad have also accused the Chinese government of forced cultural assimilation and forced birth control and sterilization against Uighurs.
The former Trump administration officially determined that China is committing genocide and crimes against humanity against Uighur Muslims.
China vehemently denies allegations of human rights abuses, insisting that the camps are voluntary "vocational training centers" designed to crack down on religious extremism and terrorism.
This week, the United States along with the European Union, Canada and the United Kingdom announced sanctions on Chinese officials for human rights violations in Xinjiang.
In a joint statement, the group condemned China's alleged "use of forced labor, mass detention in internment camps, forced sterilizations and the concerted destruction of Uighur heritage".
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China responded almost immediately by imposing tit-for-tat sanctions, travel and business bans against ten EU politicians and four entities.
Both sides have redoubled, with European leaders accusing China of "confronting" and Beijing accusing the EU of "greatly interfering" in its internal affairs.
Here's what you need to know about Xinjiang and the atrocity allegations.
Where is Xinjiang and who lives there?
Xinjiang, officially the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, is a large and remote region in the far west of China.
Spanning 1.6 million square kilometers from the Tibetan Plateau in the southeast to Kazakhstan on its northwestern border, it is by far the largest administrative region in China, but one of the least densely populated.
An ethnically diverse region, it is home to a variety of ethnic minority groups, including the Hui, Kazakhs and the largest group, the Uyghurs, who speak a language closely related to Turkish and have their own distinctive culture.
Xinjiang is rich in natural resources, especially oil and natural gas.
The central government has made a concerted effort to develop the region's economy, prompting a large-scale influx of the majority Han ethnic population from China in recent decades.
Historically, Uyghurs had been the majority in the region.
Now, they make up just under half of Xinjiang's total population of 22 million, and many of them live in rural southern Xinjiang.
The region is geographically strategic for Beijing.
Xinjiang is China's gateway to Central Asia, bordering Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan, as well as Mongolia and Russia in the north and Pakistan and India in the south.
LEE
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What led to the repression?
Survivors narrate rapes and horror in Xinjiang 4:35
Minority groups in Xinjiang have long felt marginalized and excluded from the economic boom, citing widespread job discrimination in state-controlled industries that have dominated the local economy.
Government-backed restrictions on religious practices and customs that are central to their Islamic identity since the 1990s have also served to fuel inter-ethnic tensions and occasional violence.
In recent years, Beijing has tightened its grip on the region.
A turning point came in 2009, when ethnic unrest in Urumqi, the region's capital, resulted in the deaths of at least 197 people, leading to a government crackdown that saw widespread and long-lasting restrictions placed on groups. Muslim minorities.
The government has also linked the Uighurs to the attacks in Xinjiang and other parts of China.
Beijing has blamed Islamist and separatist militants for the violence, although it is disputed how many of these incidents are linked to or led by foreign militant groups.
In recent years, Beijing has stepped up restrictions on Islam in the name of fighting terrorism.
The crackdown includes banning Islamic names, long beards and veils, cracking down on Quran study groups and preventing Muslim officials from fasting during Ramadan.
The crackdown has escalated further after Communist Party hardliner Chen Quanguo was put in charge of Xinjiang in 2016. Chen, the former head of the Party in neighboring Tibet Autonomous Region, unleashed a series of security measures , installing a network of manned checkpoints and surveillance cameras powered by artificial intelligence to track people's daily routines.
Authorities also collected biometric data from residents and ran random checks on their phones for content deemed problematic or suspicious.
What are the detention camps?
Persecution of Uighurs does not stop at the Chinese border 4:18
The biggest step China has taken in its crackdown is its network of detention camps throughout the region.
Former detainees have described experiencing political indoctrination and abuse within the camps, such as food and sleep deprivation, forced injections, forced sterilizations, abortions and gang rapes.
They were chained and forced to live in poor conditions;
one detainee said she was put in a cell with 20 other women and was only allowed to use the bathroom once a day for three to five minutes.
Those who took the longest were shocked with shock batons, he said.
In a report published in March, Amnesty International estimated that there may be thousands of Uighur children who have been separated from their parents for years as a result of the government's increasingly strict control over Xinjiang.
Initially, Beijing strongly denied the existence of the camps.
But he later claimed that the facilities are voluntary "vocational training centers" where people learn job skills, Chinese language and law.
The government now insists that the camps are necessary to prevent religious extremism and terrorism.
Leaked Chinese government documents, however, revealed that people can be sent to a detention center simply for "wearing a veil" or growing "a long beard."
Among those missing in the camps are also Uighur intellectuals and artists, people who would not need professional training, as the Chinese government has claimed.
The documents, along with other first-hand reports, paint an alarming picture of what appears to be a strategic campaign by Beijing to strip the Uighurs of their cultural and religious identity and crack down on behavior deemed unpatriotic.
The Chinese government has questioned the authenticity of the leaked records.
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How has the world responded?
The treatment of Uighurs and other minorities in Xinjiang has been widely condemned by the international community.
In July 2019, 22 countries signed a letter urging China to end its "mass arbitrary arrests and related violations" and called on Beijing to allow UN experts access to the region.
But many Muslim-majority countries have been silent on China's crackdown on Xinjiang, with some even voicing support for Beijing.
Just four days after China's letter condemning Xinjiang policies was sent to the United Nations, 37 countries, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Syria, Russia and North Korea, wrote to the UN and praised China for its "remarkable achievements in the fields of human rights" in Xinjiang.
In January this year, the United States officially determined that China is committing genocide and crimes against humanity against Uighurs.
A month later, the Dutch and Canadian parliaments passed similar motions despite opposition from their leaders.
The United States also banned imports of cotton and tomato products produced in Xinjiang on the grounds of forced labor.
In March, a non-governmental organization carried out an independent legal analysis of the genocide allegations - and the responsibility that Beijing may bear - for the first time.
The report, carried out by more than 50 world experts, concluded that the alleged actions of the Chinese government have violated each and every one of the provisions of the United Nations Genocide Convention.
Days before the report was released, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the genocide allegations "could not be more absurd."
The Chinese government has repeatedly defended its actions in Xinjiang, saying that citizens now enjoy a high standard of living and calling the allegations a smear campaign by foreign forces.
LOOK
: The Parliament of Canada accuses China of genocide against Muslim minorities;
Beijing denies it
The sanctions declared this week are some of the strongest and most unified actions taken in protest at the treatment of Uighurs, apparently aimed at isolating and putting pressure on Beijing.
The United States targeted Wang Junzheng, secretary of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps Party Committee, and Chen Mingguo, director of the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau.
Meanwhile, the EU sanctioned Zhu Hailun, former head of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and three other senior officials, for overseeing the detention and indoctrination program.
But none of the sanctions so far has mentioned Xi Jinping, China's most powerful leader in decades, who has called his government's Xinjiang policy "completely correct."
CNN's Ben Westcott contributed to this report.
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