The Pulse：Uyghur and Kazakh intellectuals & professionals being detained in Xinjiang

China and Russia may have diverged over how to apply the tenets of Marxism almost 60 years ago, but in recent decades it’s capitalism, even if it is capitalism with Chinese (or Russian) characteristics, that’s dominated the links between the countries, and allowed them to boost trade and living standards in the Russian Far East and Northeast China, and co-operate on major infrastructural projects. With us in the studio is Marie Mendras, visiting scholar of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Department of Government and International Studies of Hong Kong Baptist University.

Our final report on Xinjiang’s “vocational training camps”. As we’ve been reporting over the past two weeks, in the name of combatting counter-terrorism and religious separatism, China is detaining Uyghurs and ethnic Kazakhs in what it calls, “vocational training camps” in Xinjiang. Among those included in those mass detentions are some of China’s most accomplished Uyghur intellectuals including scholars, academics, writers, poets, and musicians. Scholars such as anthropologist Rahile Dawut and poet Ablet Abdurishit Berqi have been detained. Economist Ilham Tohti, declared guilty of separatist activities in 2014, has been imprisoned for life. Human rights advocates say this is part of a deliberate attempt to weaken and even destroy the cultural identity of Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities.