China sells assets belonging to detained Uyghurs; raised over $84B: Report

Chinese authorities have been auctioning off the property of Uyghur refugees and raising millions of US dollars amid the mass internment of its own citizens in Xinjiang province. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has already attracted a lot of flak for mishandling and allegedly torturing thousands of Ugyghurs- a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority community with a distinct culture. Now, a report published in Taiwan News disclosed that Chinese officials have auctioned Uyghur assets valuing over US$84.8 billion since 2019. 

It further added that real estate made the majority of the assets, all of which were sold on online platforms. All the property came from at least 21 people, including Abdujelil Helil, an exporter detained for what the CCP said was terrorism financing in 2017. Subsequently, he was coerced into surrendering the US $1Billion of assets. Notably, the report stated that the auction primarily targeted business people and aimed to destabilise the Uyghur trade. 

Ethnic cleansing?

China has detained more than a million Uyghurs, reasoning that it needs to 'eliminate extremism.' Earlier, the European Parliament had observed that Chinese authorities were deliberately sending Uyghur women of childbearing age into forced abortions, intrauterine injections and sterilisation. However, Beijing has consistently denied allegations of forced labour and other claims of human rights abuses in the area, which is home to about 11 million Uyghurs, a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority that speak a language closely related to Turkish and have their own distinct culture. The US State Department estimates that since 2017, up to two million Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other ethnic minorities could have passed through the camp system, which China calls vocational training centres designed to fight extremism.

This comes as a discreet report stated that China was wary about the Taliban’s promises to crack down on the Uyghur separatist group East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM). Last week, Afghan Taliban spokesperson Suhail Shaheen had said in an interview with Global Times that several ETIM members had been told to leave the war-torn country because the Taliban had categorically told them that Afghanistan couldn’t be used to launch attacks against other nations. Shaheen’s comments then immediately caught China’s attention, which had already raised concern over the fate of ETIM following the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. 

Image: AP