Xinjiang Re-education Camps: China's High-Tech Penal Colony

In the Camps: China's High-Tech Penal Colony

Crucial research on understanding Xinjiang reveals the true conditions in the re-education camps

Exploring the re-evolution of totalitarian rule

Appearance, voice, behavior, emotions, high-tech surveillance grasps humans in unprecedented ways

All of this comes not only from China, but also from Silicon Valley and Seattle in the United States.

The distortion and dilemma of human nature under surveillance are exposed.



In Xinjiang, high-tech surveillance has become a part of daily life. Major cities are densely covered with surveillance cameras, like a "Skynet." Checkpoints are located every 200 meters, where people must scan their IDs and pass through ethnically divided passages. On the other side, faces on the screen are framed in green or yellow. Next to the frame are basic information about the person. A green frame indicates a "clear person," while a yellow frame indicates someone "needs attention." Police can demand your phone be handed over at any time to check for "suspicious" contact records and force you to install an official surveillance app.



The Chinese government's extensive surveillance system stems, in part, from the collection of biometric data from 25 million people in Xinjiang, including facial features, irises, voiceprints, blood, fingerprints, and DNA, all under the guise of national health checks. Furthermore, technology imported from Seattle and Silicon Valley has become a core component of state surveillance. Furthermore, the global counterterrorism narrative since 9/11 has also served to justify China's repression of Islam. Despite the government's claims of treating all ethnic groups equally, visiting a mosque more than 200 times constitutes a "predatory criminal," gradually depriving Muslims of their collective freedom to practice their religion and culture. Re-education camps are a concrete example of the forced transformation of Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Hui, and other ethnic groups in Xinjiang.



Darren Byler, a leading global expert on Uyghur society and China's surveillance system, has conducted a decade of research in Xinjiang. Through a review of official documents and extensive, in-depth interviews, he reveals how re-education camps have become a "daily reality" in Xinjiang—over 1.5 million Uyghurs have been forced into the camps and their affiliated factories. The book's diverse interviewees include former detainees, Hui American university students, Kazakh farmers, truck drivers, auxiliary police officers who assisted in arrests, and teachers forced to "teach" in the camps. These diverse perspectives offer a multifaceted understanding of the camps. Through solid research and personal stories, the author presents the current state of Xinjiang's re-education camps, China's surveillance and governance network, and transnational high-tech industry ties.



The Chinese edition features five new articles: an introduction by Uyghur scholar Eset Sulaiman, a foreword by Uyghur linguist and poet Abduweli Ayup, a foreword by the team that translated the book into simplified Chinese, an interview with the author of The Making of Truth and international journalist Liu Zhixin, and a new foreword for Taiwanese readers by Darren Byler.



International acclaim



“The structural racism manifested in China’s settler colonialism in Xinjiang is reminiscent of racism elsewhere in the world, but Darren Byler documents and analyzes how the new, digital racialization endured by China’s Muslim minorities—the automated racialization carried out through a vast system of internment camps—takes on a completely different dimension of dehumanization. This book is shocking and deeply tragic, yet it also presents the victims with empathy and nuance. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the struggle for racial justice around the world. Byler’s book shows us that the reality in China is also the reality around the world: when a colonial regime commits violence, the whole world is complicit.” —SHU-MEI SHIH), President of the American Comparative Literature Association and Edward J. Said Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).



"No matter how much the Chinese government denies it, the truth is this. Darren Byer's richly written book not only describes how Muslims in China are imprisoned in re-education camps simply for their religious beliefs, but also shows how Muslims outside the camps are stripped of their freedom by a web of electronic and human surveillance. Based on real people and real stories, this book is both fascinating and terrifying, documenting one of the worst human rights violations happening around the world today." - Andrew J. Nathan, Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science at Columbia University.



“‘Xinjiang Re-education Camps’ offers an urgent and deeply humane approach to a narrative often shrouded in nationalism and Sinophobia. Darren Byler unequivocally exposes the Islamophobic human rights abuses perpetrated by the Chinese government against Muslims in Xinjiang, while highlighting how these practices draw on a familiar settlor colonial mentality: the racialization of ‘others’ allows for wanton exploitation and harm.” — Meredith Whitaker, Middlebury Foundation Research Professor at New York University (NYU) and Director of the AI ​​Now Institute.



“This book’s most significant contribution is not only its interviews with Uyghurs who have been impacted by Xinjiang’s national security apparatus, but Darren Byler also intimately demonstrates the indispensable role that Silicon Valley companies—particularly Microsoft—played in shaping that apparatus.” —JACK POULSON, CEO of Tech Inquiry



"Is it fair to say that the combination of 'Chinese government' and 'surveillance' has become the defining characteristic of today's technologically dehumanized authoritarian tyranny? Darren Byler's brave and penetrating research, 'Xinjiang Re-education Camps,' is a chilling read. Even readers familiar with history and familiar with such stories will be struck by the scale, intensity, and sheer brutality of the control system he depicts. Byler tirelessly details a system that has become normalized in Xinjiang and forgotten elsewhere." —Evan Selinger, Professor of Philosophy at Rochester Institute of Technology.

2023-05-16

春山出版

296

9786267236284