Since 2014, the government of the People's Republic of China has committed a series of ongoing human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim minorities in Xinjiang which has often been characterized as persecution or as genocide. There have been reports of mass arbitrary arrests and detention, torture, mass surveillance, cultural and religious persecution, family separation, forced labor, sexual violence, and violations of reproductive rights. In 2014, the administration of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) general secretary Xi Jinping launched the Strike Hard Campaign Against Violent Terrorism, which involved surveillance and restrictions in Xinjiang. Beginning in 2017, under Xinjiang Party secretary Chen Quanguo, the government incarcerated over an estimated one million Uyghurs without legal process in internment camps officially described as "vocational education and training centers", in the largest mass internment of an ethnic-religious minority group since World War II. China began to wind down the camps in 2019, and some detainees were transferred to the penal system, while others were transferred to forced labor and factory work programs. In addition to mass detention, government policies have included suppression of Uyghur religious practices, political indoctrination, forced sterilization, forced contraception, and forced abortion. An estimated 16,000 mosques have been razed or damaged, and hundreds of thousands of children have been forcibly separated from their parents and sent to boarding schools. Since 2017, preferential family planning exemptions previously available to Uyghurs have reportedly been reduced or removed. Chinese government statistics reported that from 2015 to 2018, birth rates in the mostly Uyghur regions of Hotan and Kashgar fell by more than 60%. In the same period, the national birth rate decreased by 9.7%. According to CNN, Chinese authorities acknowledged that birth rates dropped by almost a third in 2018 in Xinjiang, but denied reports of forced sterilization. Birth rates in Xinjiang fell a further 24% in 2019, compared to a nationwide decrease of 4.2%. The Chinese government denies having committed human rights abuses in Xinjiang. International reactions have varied, with its actions being described as the forced assimilation of Xinjiang, as ethnocide or cultural genocide, or as genocide. Those accusing China of genocide point to intentional acts they say violate Article II of the Genocide Convention, which prohibits "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part", a "racial or religious group" including "causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group" and "measures intended to prevent births within the group". At the United Nations, several countries, predominantly North American or European, signed letters condemning China's policies. Whilst other countries, predominantly Asian or African, signed letters supporting the policies as an effort to combat terrorism in the region. In 2020, a case brought to the International Criminal Court was dismissed because China is not a party to the Rome Statute, meaning the ICC could not investigate them. In 2021, the United States Department of State declared China's actions as genocide, and legislatures in several countries have passed non-binding motions doing the same, while other parliaments, condemned the policies as "severe human rights abuses" or crimes against humanity. In a 2022 assessment, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) stated that China's policies and actions in the Xinjiang region may constitute crimes against humanity, though it did not use the term genocide. In 2026, the OHCHR described China's policies toward the Uyghurs as potentially amounting to "forcible transfer and/or enslavement as a crime against humanity."
Background
Uyghur identity
Uyghurs are a Turkic ethnic group native to Xinjiang. They are distinct from the Han Chinese, the predominant ethnic group in China. Uyghurs are the second-largest predominantly Muslim ethnicity in China, after the Hui, and Sunni Islam is an important aspect of Uyghur identity. The Uyghur language has around 10 million speakers and is shared with other minority groups in the region.
Xinjiang conflict
Both Uyghur and the predominantly Han government lay claim to Xinjiang. This prompted an ethnic conflict featuring resistance and sporadic violence as Uyghurs sought greater autonomy. Sinologists Anna Hayes and Michael Clarke have described Xinjiang as undergoing a process of transition as the Chinese government attempts to transform it from a frontier region to an "integral" province of a unitary Chinese state.
Imperial China
Historically, certain Chinese dynasties exerted control over parts of modern-day Xinjiang. The region fully came under Chinese rule as a result of the westward expansion of the Manchu-led Qing dynasty during the 1700s, which also saw the conquests of Tibet and Mongolia. Xinjiang was a peripheral part of the Qing empire and briefly regained independence during the Dungan Revolt (1862–1877). The Uyghur population participated in the Dzungar genocide, resulting in the Qianlong emperor granting them permission to resettle in the former territories of Dzungaria.
Republican Era (1912–1949) The region was semi-autonomous during the Republic of China's Warlord Era (1916–1928), with parts controlled by the Kumul Khanate, the Ma clique and later the warlord Jin Shuren. In 1933, the breakaway First East Turkestan Republic was established in the Kumul Rebellion, but was conquered the following year by warlord Sheng Shicai with the help of the Soviet Union. In 1944, the Ili Rebellion led to the establishment of the Second East Turkestan Republic, which was dependent on the Soviet Union until it was absorbed into the People's Republic of China in 1949.
People's Republic of China (1949–present)
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