China Uses Financial Repression to Suppress, Erase Uyghur Identity and Community
China employs widespread financial repression alongside physical detention to control, suppress, and attempt to erase the Uyghur people in the region.
Despite nominal autonomy, the Uyghur Region remains under strict Chinese Communist Party (CCP) control, Human Rights Foundation revealed in an article recently. Home to approximately 12 million Uyghurs who speak their own language and maintain distinct cultural practices, the region is rich in resources such as oil, gas, and cotton—producing about 20% of the world’s cotton. It serves as a strategic gateway to Central Asia, the Middle East, and Europe.
The Chinese government has built at least 380 detention camps in what is the largest mass incarceration of an ethnic group since the Holocaust, with estimates suggesting over one million Uyghurs have been detained. The regime aims to forcibly assimilate Uyghurs through mass surveillance, forced labor, torture, and concentration camps, systematically erasing their language, religion, and culture through beatings, enforced disappearances, targeted killings, sexual violence, and sterilizations.
Financial repression is a key component of this strategy. Rushan Abbas reports that the entire region functions as a police state where every space, property, and financial transaction is monitored. Uyghurs are forced to install spyware apps on their phones, allowing authorities to track their communications and financial activity. Banks are required to comply with government demands, often resulting in frozen accounts, confiscation of assets, and property seizures. Abbas notes that if authorities request bank balances of Uyghurs, banks must provide this information, leading to asset freezes and property confiscation, especially for those detained or displaced.
Land rights are forcibly transferred as rural Uyghur farmers are coerced into surrendering their land to the state, displacing thousands and pushing them into forced labor. Between 2001 and 2021, land transfers in the region surged nearly 50-fold, displacing many Uyghur farmers. Homeownership is also under threat; Uyghur homeowners are given 12 months to re-register properties or lose ownership, a process impossible for those detained. Many homes and farmland have been claimed by Han Chinese settlers.
The regime’s Poverty Alleviation Program, which Abbas describes as a form of modern slavery, relocates Uyghurs into low-wage, coercive industries under the guise of economic development. Research shows that this scheme aims to reduce Uyghur demographics and assimilate them into Han Chinese culture through forced labor. Overall, China’s financial repression aims to erase Uyghur identity and control their livelihood, making resistance nearly impossible.
