Controversies surrounding the Beijing Winter Olympics 2:38
(CNN) - The
United States confirmed on Monday that it will not send any diplomatic representatives to the Beijing Winter Olympics "given the ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity of the People's Republic of China in Xinjiang," according to the secretary of White House Press, Jen Psaki.
What is happening in Xianjiang?
Here are the answers to four key questions.
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 northwest 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, the 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.
Whistleblower explains how Uighur prisoners are tortured 7:31
Historically, Uighurs 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.
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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.
What led to the repression?
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 minority.
The government has also linked 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.
CNN finds Uighur children trapped in China 12:31
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?
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.
The US State Department estimates that up to 2 million Uighurs and other Muslim minorities have passed through this extensive network of detention centers.
Initially, Beijing flatly denied the existence of the camps.
But then he claimed that the facilities are voluntary "vocational training centers" where people learn job skills, Chinese language and laws.
The government now insists that the camps are necessary to prevent religious extremism and terrorism.
Persecution of Uyghurs does not stop at the Chinese border 4:18
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 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.
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 "massive 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 about China's crackdown on Xinjiang, with some even voicing support for Beijing.
Just four days after China's letter condemning Xinjiang's 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, meanwhile, the United States along with the European Union, Canada and the United Kingdom announced sanctions on Chinese officials for human rights violations in Xinjiang.