For decades, the Uyghur people have been subject to diverse and immense human rights violations by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The crisis has been ongoing since May 2014, when China launched its “Strike Hard Campaign Against Terrorism”, though oppression had been present in Xinjiang long before that as well. Abuse worsened in 2017 upon the passing of the “Regulation on De-extremification”, and these regulations were again tightened in 2024 when surveillance was increased. Several countries have declared China’s treatment of Uyghurs a genocide, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Lithuania, and the Netherlands.

The Uyghur population, concentrated in Xinjiang, a province in northwest China, numbers around 12 million and is the largest ethnic minority in the country. Its collective identity is defined by the Islamic faith, the Uyghur language, diverse art and culture, and deep cultural and spiritual ties to the region of Xinjiang. Since Islamic faith is a crucial part of Uyghurs’ collective identity, the Marxist secular nature of the CCP is particularly focused on harsh oppression of the population’s religious practices and traditions, such as banning practices like prayer and growing beards. At the feet of the CCP, Uyghurs are enduring forced labour (particularly cotton production), arbitrary detention, forced sterilization of women (leading to a decline in natural population growth of 84 percent in some counties and 90 to 100 percent in others), torture, separation of families, and abuse in many more forms. Uyghur women are subject to coercive birth control by the CCP, including forced abortions, sterilization surgery, IUD fitting, and implantation of other contraceptive devices. Additionally, Uyghurs are subjugated by extreme, arbitrary tracking. The arbitrary nature of this behaviour– and Uyghur treatment at large– is stressed, as the CCP abuses its power to its fullest extent in order to demonize Uyghur people and frame their behaviour as dangerous, attempting to justify its abuse and oppression as necessary and rational measures. The CCP also engages in severe propaganda to fuel its agenda and conceal the realities Uyghur people face. Uyghurs are forced to “validate the violence being done against them” by sending footage and messages to their loved ones outside of Xinjiang borders that they are safe and well. Uyghurs are suffering an array of severe human rights violations which they are unable to truthfully speak out about.  

Motives of the CCP

The Uyghur genocide is indisputably rooted in Islamophobia. Though it was an ongoing issue and motive of repression long before, this hatred was worsened by the transnational wave of islamophobia following the attacks of September 11, 2001. This tied into an ongoing “otherization” in China of Muslims, who were increasingly associated with terrorism and national security threats, and the CCP began implementing more extreme measures to repress and eradicate them. Uyghur women have reported forced marriage to Han Chinese by the CCP, an effort to forcefully assimilate Uyghurs and eliminate their cultural affiliations. In this sense, the CCP’s goal is ethnic cleansing, as it continues to systematically remove Muslim culture from across the country.

In a different light, the CCP’s treatment of Uyghurs fits into a larger agenda of colonization mirroring European imperialism in the seventeenth century. The national motives of this persecution follow accordingly, including economic gain, cultural unification, national consolidation, and Chinese expansion. From this perspective, the Uyghur people are to the CCP what Native Americans were to European powers during the colonial era: “little more than obstacles to growth”.  In addition, communism is a key characteristic of the CCP. Given the unification of most Uyghurs around muslim beliefs and their large population, it is relatively more feasible for them to mobilize against the Chinese government. Thus, the CCP seeks to control and cleanse this group in part to protect its communist agenda. 

The International Community’s Involvement

International actors have spoken on this crisis, but many argue that efforts to stop the CCP from committing genocide are insufficient. The Canadian, American, and British governments and the European Union have also sanctioned goods whose production is suspected to rely on forced Uyghur labour. In May 2025, a joint civil society investigation found evidence of more widespread abuses against Uyghurs than previously reported, primarily more widespread coercive labour transportation. However, a few months later, in September, an investigation by the Associated Press found that the United States was partially responsible for designing the Chinese system used to track and repress Uyghurs. Findings like this illustrate the potentially performative nature of international involvement in ending this genocide. 

It is difficult to gauge the relative success of these efforts. Many international organizations have attempted to report on this issue and take action. However, it is objectively difficult to take direct action against the CCP and provide immediate protection to Uyghurs. The CCP rejects investigation efforts by the UN and blocks journalists from reporting directly on the genocide. The primary information on the genocide – the information coming directly out of Xinjiang – is monitored and filtered by the CCP. This means that the rest of the world receives a narrative of the story altered in favour of the CCP, not the raw truth. It is difficult to mobilize against a large-scale genocide in and of itself, much more so against one that cannot be clearly understood by the world. Nonetheless, many are outraged at the lack of attention from global powers and inadequate international response to such atrocities, and argue that more action can and should be taken moving forward, despite the complexity of the situation.  

With this intrinsic difficulty in mind, the international community’s relative lack of attention and urgency towards the Uyghur genocide must be examined. Powerful states and international actors, including the UN Human Rights Council, have maintained a very passive attitude towards the reality of the Uyghurs, which “translates to tacit approval of China’s actions against the Uyghurs”. Many attribute this passiveness to political complexities associated with Chinese opposition because China is economically and politically powerful, but others argue it is a direct result of the “otherization” discussed earlier, where the Islamic faith is the “other” on a global scale and faces collective exclusion and discrimination. The latter approach explains this international legitimation of the Uyghur genocide as a feature of international realism, which values economic and political power over human rights and therefore accepts inappropriate behaviour when the perpetrator is a dominant power. In this light, the international community’s inattention to this human rights crisis is intentional and aligns with its values. Moving forward, this would suggest a need for higher prioritization of human rights protection on a global scale. 

So far, most actors concerned with the Uyghur genocide have centered efforts around detailed monitoring of the situation, and associate further progress with closer and tighter monitoring. It is debatable whether this is productive and impactful. While it is evident that there have not been enough eyes on the Uyghur genocide, there is not so much confirmation that “close monitoring” will lead to change. First, this monitoring would need to ultimately reveal the truth about this situation, and it is clear that the CCP will not easily relax its modification of information to fit its agenda. Receiving testimonies directly from Uyghur victims would only be possible if the international community found a way through the tight regulations and restrictions of the highly suspicious CCP. Second, even if outstanding progress is made on uncovering the realities of the genocide, this clarity would not automatically generate change. Action needs to be taken directly against the CCP, and support needs to reach the Uyghur population directly; there is no clear, unified international plan for this solution yet. 

Moving Forward

What can be generally agreed upon as necessary for further progress is increased pressure on the UN and the larger international community to investigate the situation of the Uyghurs and prioritize it in its agenda directly. Following a number of meetings in 2018 regarding the genocide, the Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development (the Subcommittee) warned that “if the international community does not condemn the human rights abuses in Xinjiang province by the Government of China, a precedent will be set, and these methods will be adopted by other regimes. Complacency is entrenched by a lack of access to Xinjiang; by the lack of free press; and through the silencing and harassment of Uyghurs living abroad”. Though the methods through which it is to be achieved is widely debated, the overall consensus – and all that can be almost uniformly agreed upon – is the need for increased international pressure moving forward to put an end to the Uyghur crisis.

Edited by Olivia Moore

Disclaimer: This is an article written by a Staff Writer. Catalyst is a student-led platform that fosters engagement with global issues from a learning perspective. The opinions expressed above do not necessarily reflect the views of the publication.