Global blind spot: China’s Uyghur crisis and the smokescreen of anti-India propaganda

China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang region is not news for anybody; however, Beijing’s crackdown techniques, honed in Xinjiang, are now being used against the larger Muslim populations in mainland China as well. The Hui, a significant Muslim minority in Yuxi, face increased scrutiny under China’s Sinification campaign including restrictions on religious practices and heightened surveillance, signalling an expansion of measures initially used in in Xinjiang.

In 2018, President Xi Jinping chaired the national conference on education, where he urged teachers to prioritise identification with the party among the national youth. “If the first button is wrongly buttoned,” he said, “all the remaining buttons will be wrongly buttoned. Life must be buttoned up right from the beginning.” China’s assimilation policy seeks to integrate ethnic minorities into Han Chinese culture. This involves removing halal signs, altering mosque architecture, and now, monitoring religious practices among Hui youth. The campaign aims to create a unified national identity by diminishing cultural and religious distinctions among minorities.

The Hui community, partly descended from Arab and Persian traders, speaks Mandarin and is racially indistinguishable from the Han majority. Despite their long history of assimilation, the Hui community, often considered China’s “model Muslim minority", find themselves at the epicenter of a nationwide Sinification campaign that started in 2016.

During Ramadan this year, Muslims in Yuxi, China, received an alarming WeChat message from the Bureau of Ethnic and Religious Affairs. The notice authorised surveillance of fasting schoolchildren and instructed local authorities to investigate minors’ participation in fasting and other religious activities. “The Party Committee, governments, education, and sports bureaus of all levels should investigate the participation of minors in fasting and other religious activities,” the notice said. Yuxi’s notice reflects broader efforts to separate minority children from their cultural and religious heritage. Civil servants in Yuxi are forbidden from wearing headscarves, and veiled Hui teachers must submit new profile photos without headscarves. The policing of Islam in schools, under the guise of separating religion from education, restricts children from participating in religious retreats and activities. This surveillance and restriction have intensified since the 2014 knife attack in Kunming, linked to Uyghur separatists.