China replicates Xinjiang strategy, turns Tibetans into factory workers

China is pushing growing numbers of Tibetan rural labourers off the land and into recently built military-style training centers where they are turned into factory workers, mirroring a program in the western Xinjiang region that rights groups have branded coercive labour.

 

Beijing has set quotas for the mass transfer of rural laborers within Tibet and to other parts of China, according to over a hundred state media reports, policy documents from government bureaus in Tibet and procurement requests released between 2016-2020 and reviewed by Reuters. The quota effort marks a rapid expansion of an initiative designed to provide loyal workers for Chinese industry.

 

A notice posted to the website of Tibet’s regional government website last month said over half a million people were trained as part of the project in the first seven months of 2020 — around 15 per cent of the region’s population. Of this total, almost 50,000 have been transferred into jobs within Tibet, and several thousand have been sent to other parts of China. Many end up in low paid work, including textile manufacturing, construction and agriculture.

 

“This is now, in my opinion, the strongest, most clear and targeted attack on traditional Tibetan livelihoods that we have seen almost since the Cultural Revolution” of 1966 to 1976, said Adrian Zenz, an independent Tibet and Xinjiang researcher, who compiled the core findings about the program. These are detailed in a report released this week by the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based institute that focuses on policy issues of strategic importance to the US.  Reuters corroborated Zenz’s findings and found additional policy documents, company reports, procurement filings and state media reports that describe the programme.

 

Xi critic jailed for 18 years

 

China jailed outspoken property tycoon Ren Zhiqiang for 18 years on graft charges, months after he was linked to an article criticising President Xi Jinping’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak.

 

The former chairman of Huayuan Property Co. was sentenced Tuesday after pleading guilty to four charges including corruption and abuse of power, the No. 2 Beijing Intermediate People’s Court said.

Ren was found to have amassed some $19 million in bribes and other ill-gotten personal benefits between 2003 and 2017, the court said, adding that he had agreed not to appeal. The allegations also included causing some 117 million yuan of economic losses at unspecified state-owned companies, according to the court, which provided no details about the crimes.            

 

Bloomberg