The Last Correspondent by Michael Smith

Author:Michael Smith [Michael Smith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ultimo Press
Published: 2021-04-05T00:00:00+00:00

I never expected to find the ‘real’ re-education camps on my Chinese government-sponsored ‘fact-finding’ mission to Xinjiang. After some moral soul-searching about whether going was the right thing to do or not, my editors and I concluded that it was the closest I was going to get to what was happening there. At the very least, it would be interesting to see how the Chinese government wanted to present the situation. I boarded a flight for Urumqi with little information about the week ahead. The State Council refused to release the itinerary until I landed. As in most dealings with the Chinese government, it was all about control. I was part of a group of 24 journalists from all over the world, including Saudi Arabia, Russia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Iran, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan. We were ferried around the city in two large coaches and treated like visiting dignitaries. On the first day, we started noticing there was no traffic on the six-lane highways around the city. The roads had been closed off. There were police cordons everywhere. It was unclear whether this was for our personal safety or to keep us away from the general population. We were repeatedly assured there had not been a terrorist incident for 30 months, but the local authorities were still clearly taking no chances.

Our first stop was the Exhibition on Cases of Major Terrorist Attacks and Violent Crimes in Xinjiang. It was a macabre museum housed inside a giant convention centre filled with thousands of seized guns, explosives, and knives. Disturbingly, the walls were lined with images of mutilated children and screens showing videos of beheadings and slow-motion footage of bullets piercing skulls. There was no holding back on the shock value and the message was clear. ‘Extremism, separatism and terrorism have severely jeopardised the national security, and become the immediate and realistic threats to the social stability of Xinjiang,’ a placard on the wall read. This was China’s way of justifying the mass indoctrination of one million people. But our hosts were also hammering home another message. Ethnic Uighur culture was alive and well. It was not being stamped out. The next destination was the enormous domed lobby and stadium-sized worship hall of the Xinjiang Islamic Institute. We were taken into a classroom where rows of men were studying Islamic theology. They were all wearing the traditional doppa caps originating from Central Asia. One of the other journalists noted all the hats looked brand-new. It was a common theme on the trip. We visited a succession of textile factories where rows of women sat behind gleaming new sewing machines next to neatly stacked piles of tracksuits. I had visited dozens of factories in China before and these places felt like a film set. One day, we went to a factory and asked if there were any Uighurs working there we could interview.

‘Only one, but it is her day off,’ the factory boss replied.

‘Could we go and interview her?’

‘Yes, you can. She lives close by.

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