Die Endlösung der Uigurischefrage

China’s Genetic Research on Ethnic Minorities Sets Off Science Backlash
Scientists are raising questions about the ethics of studies backed by Chinese surveillance agencies. Prestigious journals are taking action.
By Sui-Lee Wee and Paul Mozur

Kashgar, a city in East Turkestan, the colony where China has locked up more than one million people from predominantly Muslim minority groups.

BEIJING — China’s efforts to study the DNA of the country’s ethnic minorities have incited a growing backlash from the global scientific community, as scientists warn that Beijing uses its growing knowledge to spy on and oppress its people.
Two publishers of prestigious scientific journals, Springer Nature and Wiley, said this week that they would re-evaluate papers they previously published on Tibetans, Uighurs and other minority groups. The papers were written or co-written by scientists backed by the Chinese government, and the two publishers want to make sure the authors got consent from the people they studied.
Springer Nature, which publishes the influential journal Nature, also said that it was toughening its guidelines to make sure scientists get consent, particularly if those people are members of a vulnerable group.
The statements followed articles by The New York Times that describe how the Chinese authorities are trying to harness bleeding-edge technology and science to track minority groups. 

The issue is particularly stark in East Turkestan, a colony on China’s western frontier, where the authorities have locked up more than one million Uighurs and other members of predominantly Muslim minority groups in concentration camps in the name of quelling "terrorism".
Chinese companies are selling facial recognition systems that they claim can tell when a person is a Uighur. 

Chinese officials have also collected blood samples from Uighurs and others to build new tools for tracking members of minority groups.Western scientists and companies have provided help for those efforts.

That has included publishing papers in high-profile journals, which grants prestige and respectability to the authors that can lead to access to funding, data or new techniques.
When Western journals publish such papers by Chinese scientists affiliated with the country’s surveillance agencies, it amounts to selling a knife to a friend “knowing that your friend would use the knife to kill his wife,” said Yves Moreau, a professor of engineering at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium.
On Tuesday, Nature published an essay by Dr. Moreau calling for all publications to retract papers written by scientists backed by Chinese security agencies that focus on the DNA of minority ethnic groups.
“If you produce a piece of knowledge and know someone is going to take that and harm someone with it, that’s a huge problem,” said Dr. Moreau.

Yves Moreau, an engineering professor in Belgium, is calling for publications to retract papers written by scientists backed by Chinese security agencies that focus on the DNA of minority ethnic groups.

The scientific reaction is part of a broader backlash to China’s actions in East Turkestan. 

Lawmakers in the United States and elsewhere are taking an increasingly critical stance toward Beijing’s policies. 

On Tuesday, the House voted almost unanimously for a bill condemning China’s treatment of Uighurs and others.

Dr. Moreau and other scientists worry that China’s research into the genes and personal data of ethnic minorities is being used to build databases, facial recognition systems and other methods for monitoring and subjugating China’s ethnic minorities.
They also worry that research into DNA in particular violates widely followed scientific rules involving consent. 

In East Turkestan, where so many people have been confined to concentration camps and a heavy police presence dominates daily life, they say, it is impossible to verify that Uighurs have given their blood samples willingly.
China’s Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Science and Technology did not respond to requests for comment.
In September, Dr. Moreau and three other scientists asked Wiley to retract a paper on the faces of minorities it published last year, citing the potential for abuse and the tone of discussion about race.
“The point of this work was to improve surveillance capabilities on all Tibetans and Uighurs,” said Jack Poulson, a former Google research scientist and founder of the advocacy group Tech Inquiry, and another member of the group that reached out to Wiley. 

Even if the authors obtained consent from those they studied, he added, that would be “insufficient to satisfy their ethical obligations.”

“The point of this work was to improve surveillance capabilities on all Tibetans and Uighurs,” said Jack Poulson, a former Google research scientist.

Wiley initially declined, but said this week that it would reconsider. 

Last week, Curtin University, an Australian institution that employs one of the authors of the study, said it had found “significant concerns” with the paper.
Science journals are now setting different standards.
In February, a journal called Frontiers in Genetics rejected a paper that was based on findings from the DNA of more than 600 Uighurs. 

Some of its editors cited China’s treatment of Uighurs, people familiar with the deliberations said.
The paper was instead accepted by Human Genetics, a journal owned by Springer Nature, and published in April.

Philip Campbell, the editor of Springer Nature, said this week that Human Genetics would add an editorial note to the study saying that concerns had been raised regarding informed consent. 

Springer Nature will also bolster guidelines across its journals and is contacting their editors to “request that they exercise an extra level of scrutiny and care in handling papers where there is a potential that consent was not informed or freely given,” it said in an email.
The paper published in Human Genetics was a subject of a Times article on Tuesday that raised questions about whether the Uighurs had contributed their blood samples willingly. 

Those Uighurs lived in Tumxuk, a city in East Turkestan that is ringed by paramilitary forces and is home to two internment camps.
Scientists like Dr. Moreau are not calling for a blanket ban on Chinese research into the genetics of China’s ethnic minorities. 

He drew a distinction between fields like medicine, where research is aimed at treating people, and forensics, which involves matters of criminal justice.
But Dr. Moreau found that recent genetic forensics research from China focused overwhelmingly on ethnic minorities and was increasingly driven by Chinese security agencies.
Of 529 studies in the field published between 2011 and 2018, he found, about half had a co-author from the police, military or judiciary. 

He also found that Tibetans were over 40 times more frequently studied than China’s ethnic Han majority, and that the Uighur population was 30 times more intensely studied than the Han.
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A paper from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2014 looked at “Learning race from a face.”

Over the past eight years, he wrote, three leading forensic genetics journals — one published by Springer Nature and two by Elsevier — have published 40 articles co-authored by members of the Chinese police that describe the DNA profiling of Tibetans and Muslim minorities.
Tom Reller, a spokesman for Elsevier, said the company was in the process of producing more comprehensive guidelines for the publication of genetic data. 

But he added that the journals “are unable to control the potential misuse of population data articles” by third parties.
The principle of informed consent has been a scientific mainstay after forced experiments on inmates in Nazi death camps came to light. 

To verify that those standards are followed, academic journals and other outlets depend heavily on ethical review committees at individual institutions. 

Bioethicists say that arrangement can break down when an authoritarian state is involved. 

Already, Chinese scientists are under scrutiny for publishing papers on organ transplantation without saying whether there was consent.
In its own review of more than 100 papers published by Chinese scientists in international journals on biometrics and computer science, The Times found a number of examples of what appeared to be inadequate consent from study participants or no consent at all. 

Those concerns have also dogged facial recognition research in the United States.
One 2016 facial recognition paper published by Springer International was based on 137,395 photos of Uighurs, which the scientists said were from identification photos and surveillance cameras at railway stations and shopping malls. 

The paper does not mention consent.
A 2018 study, focused on using traffic cameras to identify drivers by beard, uses surveillance footage without mentioning whether it got permission from the subjects. 

The paper was also published by Springer.
A second 2018 Springer article that analyzes Uighur cranial shape to determine gender was based on “whole skull CT scans” of 267 people, mostly Uighurs. 

While the study said the subjects were “voluntary,” it made no mention of consent forms.
The latter two papers were part of a book published by Springer as part of a biometrics conference in East Turkestan’s capital, Urumqi, in August 2018, months after rights groups had documented the crackdown in the region. 

In a statement, Steven Inchcoombe, chief publishing officer of Springer Nature, said that conference organizers were responsible for editorial oversight of the conference proceedings. 

But he added that the company would in the future strengthen its requirements of conference organizers and ensure that their proceedings also comply with Springer Nature’s editorial policies.

A 2018 study published by Springer, on identifying drivers by beard, used surveillance footage without mentioning whether it got permission.

Two papers assembled databases of facial expressions for different minority groups, including Tibetans, Uighurs and Hui, another Muslim minority. 

The papers were released in journals run by Wiley and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. 

Wiley said the paper “raises a number of questions that are currently being reviewed.” 

It added that the paper was published on behalf of a partner, the International Union of Psychological Science, and referred further questions to it. 

The engineers institute did not respond to an emailed request for comment.
The science world has been responding to the pressure. 

Thermo Fisher, a maker of equipment for studying genetics, said in February that it would suspend sales to East Turkestan, though it will continue to sell to other parts of China. 

Still, Dr. Moreau said, the issue initially received little traction among academia.
“If we don’t react in the community, we are going to get more and more into trouble,” he said. 

“The community has to take a major step and say: ‘This is not us.’”

Chinazism

China Sharpens Hacking to Hound Its Minorities, Far and Wide
By Nicole Perlroth, Kate Conger and Paul Mozur

Uighur teenagers on their phones in Kashgar in China’s East Turkestan colony. Chinese hackers have secretly monitored the cellphones of Uighurs and Tibetans around the globe.

SAN FRANCISCO — China’s state-sponsored hackers have drastically changed how they operate over the last three years, substituting selectivity for what had been a scattershot approach to their targets and showing a new determination by Beijing to push its surveillance state beyond its borders.
The government has poured considerable resources into the change, which is part of a reorganization of the national People’s Liberation Army that Xi Jinping initiated in 2016, security researchers and intelligence officials said.
China’s hackers have since built up a new arsenal of techniques, such as elaborate hacks of iPhone and Android software, pushing them beyond email attacks and the other, more basic tactics that they had previously employed.
The primary targets for these more sophisticated attacks: China’s ethnic minorities and their diaspora in other countries, the researchers said. 

In several instances, hackers targeted the cellphones of a minority known as Uighurs, whose home region, East Turkestan, has been the site of a vast build-out of surveillance tech in recent years.
“The Chinese use their best tools against their own people first because that is who they’re most afraid of,” said James A. Lewis, a former United States government official who writes on cybersecurity and espionage for the Center for Strategic Studies in Washington. 

“Then they turn those tools on foreign targets.”
China’s willingness to extend the reach of its surveillance and censorship was on display after an executive for the National Basketball Association’s Houston Rockets tweeted support for protesters in Hong Kong this month. 

The response from China was swift, threatening a range of business relationships the N.B.A. had forged in the country.
In August, Facebook and Twitter said they had taken down a large network of Chinese bots that was spreading disinformation around the protests. 

And in recent weeks, a security firm traced a monthslong attack on Hong Kong media companies to Chinese hackers. 

Security experts say Chinese hackers are very likely targeting protesters’ phones, but they have yet to publish any evidence.

A security checkpoint with facial recognition technology in Hotan in East Turkestan.

Security researchers said the improved abilities of the Chinese hackers had put them on a par with elite Russian cyberunits. 

And the attacks on cellphones of Uighurs offered a rare glimpse of how some of China’s most advanced hacking tools are now being used to silence or punish critics.
Google researchers who tracked the attacks against iPhones said details about the software flaws that the hackers had preyed on would have been worth tens of millions of dollars on black market sites where information about software vulnerabilities is sold.
On the streets in East Turkestan, huge numbers of high-end surveillance cameras run facial recognition software to identify and track people. 

Specially designed apps have been used to screen Uighurs’ phones, monitor their communications and register their whereabouts.
Gaining access to the phones of Uighurs who have fled China — a diaspora that has grown as many have been locked away at home — would be a logical extension of those total surveillance efforts. Such communities in other countries have long been a concern to Beijing, and many in East Turkestan have been sent to camps because relatives traveled or live abroad.
The Chinese police have also made less sophisticated efforts to control Uighurs who have fled, using the chat app WeChat to entice them to return home or to threaten their families.
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to a request for comment. 

Security researchers recently discovered that the Chinese used National Security Agency hacking tools after apparently discovering an N.S.A. cyberattack on their own systems. 

And several weeks ago, a Chinese security firm, Qianxin, published an analysis tying the Central Intelligence Agency to a hack of China’s aviation industry.

Xi Jinping visiting President Barack Obama in 2015. Their agreement to halt certain cyberoperations gave China time to hone its abilities.

Breaking into iPhones has long been considered the Holy Grail of cyberespionage. 

“If you can get inside an iPhone, you have yourself a spy phone,” said John Hultquist, director of intelligence analysis at FireEye, a cybersecurity firm.
The F.B.I. couldn’t do it without help during a showdown with Apple in 2016. 

The bureau paid more than $1 million to an anonymous third party to hack an iPhone used by a gunman involved in the killing of 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif.
Google researchers said they had discovered that iPhone vulnerabilities were being exploited to infect visitors to a set of websites. 

Although Google did not release the names of the targets, Apple said they had been found on about a dozen websites focused on Uighurs.
“You can hit a high school student from Japan who is visiting the site to write a research report, but you are also going to hit Uighurs who have family members back in China and are supporting the cause,” said Steven Adair, the president and founder of the security firm Volexity in Virginia.
The technology news site TechCrunch first reported the Uighur connection. 

A software update from Apple fixed the flaw.
In recent weeks, security researchers at Volexity uncovered Chinese hacking campaigns that exploited vulnerabilities in Google’s Android software as well. 

Volexity found that several websites that focused on Uighur issues had been infected with Android malware. 

It traced the attacks to two Chinese hacking groups.
Because the hacks targeted Android and iPhone users — even though Uighurs in East Turkestan don’t commonly use iPhones — Mr. Adair said he believed that they had been aimed in part at Uighurs living abroad.

An analyst at FireEye. “If you can get inside an iPhone, you have yourself a spy phone,” said John Hultquist, the company’s director of intelligence analysis.

“China is expanding their digital surveillance outside their borders,” he said. 

“It seems like it really is going after the diaspora.”
Another group of researchers, at the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, recently uncovered an overlapping effort, using some of the same code discovered by Google and Volexity. 

It attacked the iPhones and Android phones of Tibetans until as recently as May.
Using WhatsApp messages, Chinese hackers posing as New York Times reporters and representatives of Amnesty International and other organizations targeted the private office of the Dalai Lama, members of the Tibetan Parliament and Tibetan nongovernmental organizations, among others.
Lobsang Gyatso, the secretary of TibCERT, an organization that works with Tibetan organizations on cybersecurity threats, said in an interview that the recent attacks were a notable escalation from previous Chinese surveillance attempts.
For a decade, Chinese hackers blasted Tibetans with emails containing malicious attachments, Mr. Lobsang said. 

If they hacked one person’s computer, they hit everyone in the victim’s address books, casting as wide a net as possible. 

But in the last three years, Mr. Lobsang said, there has been a big shift.
“The recent targeting was something we haven’t seen in the community before,” he said. 

“It was a huge shift in resources. They were targeting mobile phones, and there was a lot more reconnaissance involved. They had private phone numbers of individuals, even those that were not online. They knew who they were, where their offices were located, what they did.”
Adam Meyers, the vice president of intelligence at CrowdStrike, said these operations were notably more sophisticated than five years ago, when security firms discovered that Chinese hackers were targeting the phones of Hong Kong protesters in the so-called Umbrella Revolution.

The attacks on iPhones, which Uighurs in East Turkestan don’t typically use, suggested that Uighurs abroad were among the targets, said Steven Adair, president of Volexity.

At the time, Chinese hackers could break only into phones that had been “jailbroken,” or altered in some way to allow the installation of apps not vetted by Apple’s official store. 

The recent attacks against the Uighurs broke into up-to-date iPhones without tipping off the owner.
“In terms of how the Chinese rank threats, the highest threats are domestic,” Mr. Lewis said. 

“The No. 1 threat, as the Chinese see it, is the loss of information control on their own population. But the United States is firmly No. 2.”
Chinese hackers have also used their improved skills to attack the computer networks of foreign governments and companies. 

They have targeted internet and telecommunications companies and have broken into the computer networks of foreign tech, chemical, manufacturing and mining companies. 

Airbus recently said China had hacked it through a supplier.
In 2016, Xi Jinping consolidated several army hacking divisions under a new Strategic Support Force, similar to the United States’ Cyber Command, and moved much of the country’s foreign hacking operation from the army to the more advanced Ministry of State Security, China’s main spy agency.
The restructuring coincided with a lull in Chinese cyberattacks after a 2015 agreement between Xi and President Barack Obama to cease cyberespionage operations for commercial gain.
“The deal gave the Chinese the time and space to focus on professionalizing their cyberespionage capabilities,” Mr. Lewis said. 

“We didn’t expect that.”
Chinese officials also cracked down on moonlighting in moneymaking schemes by its state-sponsored hackers — a “corruption” issue that Xi concluded had sometimes compromised the hackers’ identities and tools, according to security researchers.
While China was revamping its operations, security experts said, it was also clamping down on security research in order to keep advanced hacking methods in house. 

The Chinese police recently said they planned to enforce national laws against unauthorized vulnerability disclosure, and Chinese researchers were recently banned from competing in Western hacking conferences.
“They are circling the wagons,” Mr. Hultquist of FireEye said. 

“They’ve recognized that they could use these resources to aid their offensive and defensive cyberoperations.”

China's crimes against humanity

China Must End Its Campaign of Religious Persecution

By SEN. CHUCK GRASSLEY Concentration Camps Construction is Booming in East Turkestan

The United States was founded on the premise that all individuals are created equal, with certain unalienable rights. 

Throughout our history, Americans have fought and died for these rights. 

They are ingrained in the fabric of our society and regularly debated, whether in coffee shops on Main Street or the halls of Congress.
Those fundamental rights and freedoms are part of our national identity, but that’s not the case in other parts of the world. 

That’s why for more than a century, the United States has been a vocal supporter, not just rhetorically but financially, as well, of global humanitarian efforts.
Over the past two decades, religious persecution in China has become a larger and more pressing issue. 

The Department of State’s annual International Religious Freedom report has included the People’s Republic of China as a particularly concerning offender since 1999.
Disturbing reports have surfaced out of China of late detailing the imprisonment of Christian pastors, Bible burning, and demolishing of Christian churches. 

The Chinese government has rounded up more than one million Uighur and Kazakh Muslims into concentration camps. 

The state has long suppressed the freedom of Tibetan Buddhists, as well as those who practice Falun Gong.
The Chinese government has removed crosses from 1,200 to 1,700 Christian churches as of a 2016 New York Times report, and has instructed police officers to stop citizens from entering their places of worship. 

There have been violent confrontations between government authorities and worshipers, and communist leaders have implemented restrictions prohibiting children 18 years old and younger from participating in religiously-focused education.
A piece published in Forbes earlier this year describes how Chinese authorities have bulldozed homes belonging to Uighur Muslims, collected passports to restrict travel and collected Uighur DNA and fingerprints in order to track its own citizens.
Communist leaders in China try to explain away these abuses by reiterating their commitment to preserving the Chinese culture, a practice known as sinicization. 

Approximately 100 million people in China belong to religious groups that are outside what the Chinese government deems acceptable. 

That’s approximately 100 million people who are subject to persecution by communist leaders in China, and even those that practice an officially sanctioned religion have not been spared harassment. That persecution stems from religious differences and has spread to other areas of daily life, including the restriction of social media.
The United States doesn’t have the singular authority to stop the religious persecution occurring in China, but it can apply significant pressure to Chinese leaders by linking the need for religious freedom to the economic and political aspects of our bilateral relationship that are important to China. As China’s largest trading partner, the United States is in a powerful position to influence Chinese leaders and stand up for human rights. 

Fighting for religious liberty should be a central part of the United States’ relationship with China. Senator David Perdue and I, with a bipartisan group of senators, recently introduced a resolution condemning violence against religious minorities in China and reaffirming America’s commitment to promote religious freedom and tolerance around the world. 

It also calls on China to uphold its Constitution and urges the President and his administration to take actions to promote religious freedom through the International Religious Freedom Act of 1988, the Frank R. Wolf International Religious Freedom Act, and the Global Magnitsky Act.
No matter where they live, everyone should be able to freely express their religious beliefs. 

The United States has been a beacon of freedom since before its founding. 

We must continue that tradition by doing what we can to promote human rights and freedoms both here and around the globe.

Religious suppression creates ‘black market’ for believers in China

“Security forces across the country detain, torture, or kill believers from various faiths on a daily basis.” -- Freedom House

By NATHAN VANDERKLIPPE

China's ongoing destruction of churches and removal of crosses from church buildings. 

BEIJING — Beijing’s tightening grasp on religion has “created an enormous black market” for the fast-growing ranks of Chinese believers.
Under Xi Jinping, followers of many faiths have been pushed “to operate outside the law and to view the regime as unreasonable, unjust, or illegitimate,” says The Battle for China’s Spirit, a lengthy report released this week by Freedom House, a Washington-based NGO that advocates for civil liberties.
The report documents Christians barred from gathering for Christmas, Muslims jailed for praying outdoors and Tibetan Buddhists forced into “patriotic re-education.”
“Chinese officials have banned holiday celebrations, desecrated places of worship, and employed lethal violence,” the report finds. 

“Security forces across the country detain, torture, or kill believers from various faiths on a daily basis.”
In the last two weeks alone, authorities have required the installation of GPS monitoring devices on private cars in one prefecture of China’s heavily-Muslim western Xinjiang region, and then marshalled a huge display of military force in the capital, Urumqi, where more than 10,000 armed troops gathered for what local media called an anti-terror rally.
A recent report by United Nations human rights investigators, meanwhile, called attention to “severe restrictions of religious freedom” in Tibet, noting mass evictions from two monasteries, the demolition of monastic homes and mining at a holy mountain. 

The Freedom House report documents many other measures in China.
“Extensive surveillance, ‘re-education’ campaigns, and restrictions on private worship affect the spiritual lives of millions of people,” the report finds. 

“And increasingly, economic reprisals and exploitation have become a source of tension and a catalyst for protests,” the report finds.
Religion has, from the time of Mao Zedong, existed uncomfortably in a state run by the formally atheist Communist Party. 

But for much of the past two decades, authorities have taken a more lenient approach to religious observance, allowing underground places of worship into the open. 

Religion has flourished, with hundreds of millions of people flocking to beliefs of all stripes.
Some of this has been encouraged under Xi, too, whose administration favours Buddhism and Taoism, religions the Communist Party sees as domestic belief systems that can help to instill a common sense of moral value and purpose.
At the same time, however, China has embarked on a broad effort to squeeze out foreign influence and civil society in order to reassert the authority of the state.
In a landmark speech on religion last spring, Xi urged monks, imams and pastors to “interpret religious doctrines in a way that is conducive to modern China’s progress,” and called on cadres to “guide and educate the religious circle and their followers with the socialist core values.”
Communist Party leadership sees “religion as a kind of existential threat to the party state. It creates a counterideology that can mobilize people quite quickly and quite passionately to oppose the party state,” said James Leibold, an expert on Chinese ethnic policy at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia.

Draconian repression of some beliefs, like Falun Gong, is long-standing. 

But under Xi, religious suppression has grown broader and deeper, Prof. Leibold said. 

“As a result, we’re seeing increasing controls across the board, from Catholicism to Tibetan Buddhism to Islam.”
China’s religious policies are not uniform, and deeply entangled with its treatment of ethnic groups.
In Tibetan areas, for example, Buddhist monks face heavy restrictions on travel and religious instruction. 

Elsewhere in China, officials are erecting new Buddhist and Taoist temples. 

The treatment of Islam, too, is not uniform across the country. 

Muslims in Xinjiang live under restrictive rules on dress, facial hair and observance of important religious occasions, such as Ramadan. 

Hui Muslims observe their faith with more freedom, although Hui, too, are facing more severe treatment, Prof. Leibold said.
The treatment of Tibetans and Uighurs offers a glimpse of the downward spirals that can emerge under harsh policies.
In Xinjiang, what’s needed is de-escalation, “some kind of a peace process like the British had in Northern Ireland,” said Ian Johnson, a Pulitzer-winning journalist and author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao. 

But that’s difficult to do when strict government policies have largely eliminated moderate voices and civil society.
“It’s a tough hole for them to climb out of there,” he said. 

“And this is going to be the largest conflict area for religion and state in China going forward.”
Elsewhere, China has so far been more lenient. 

Though hundreds of crosses were removed from churches in Zhejiang province, such action has barely been seen elsewhere – and virtually all Zhejiang churches remain open.
There are signs, however, that China is preparing for stronger action. 

Draft rules released last fall threaten fines for those who rent space to unregistered religious organizations, and new restrictions on contact and financial transactions between Chinese believers and foreign groups.

Mr. Johnson warned that such a strategy could “create a lot more problems for them than they think. They’re essentially picking a fight with people who are not likely to back down.” 

Under Mao, he noted, the Christian church roughly quadrupled in size despite the imprisonment and death of pastors and priests.

The Chinese church enjoys far more freedom today than it did then. 

Still, some religious leaders, worried about the changes they are seeing, have begun to discuss how they might adapt. 

Authorities have refused to allow the commercial publication of Christian books and told philosophy professors to expunge discussion of Christianity, which poses problems to the teaching of Western thinking influenced by the church.
“We do see efforts to limit the influence of religion among youth, and in educational situations,” said Brent Fulton, president of ChinaSource, a resource site for Christianity in China, and author of several books on the Chinese church. 

“There have been Christians who have been questioned extensively about their relationships with foreigners.”
In response, some pastors have talked about rethinking their religious organizations, which might include splitting large congregations into smaller family churches. 

Others see no reason to change, Mr. Fulton said.
“They would say, ‘We’re used to having our phones tapped. We’re used to having our meetings monitored. We’re used to being called in to drink tea with the police. So that’s normal. We just deal with that and we continue to do what we do.’”

Hundreds of Tibetans defy China, gather at birthplace of Buddhism in India

By Annie Gowen

Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama is assisted by his aides as he prepares to perform rituals during the inauguration of a Mongolian Buddhist temple in Bodh Gaya, India, Jan. 9, 2017. 

BODH GAYA, India — The young Tibetan monk was taking his elderly aunt and uncle on a trip of a lifetime — a tour of holy Buddhist sites in India and a chance to meet the Dalai Lama. 

But halfway through, word came from China: The family was to return right away.
Chinese police had descended on the monk’s home five times in December, fingerprinting his parents and forcing them to sign documents guaranteeing his return.
But the monk and his family were determined to see the Dalai Lama speak at Bodh Gaya, the Indian city that many consider the birthplace of Buddhism. 

So they defied Chinese authorities and continued their journey, risking imprisonment, harsh questioning or loss of identity cards when they return home.
“I’m very worried,” the monk said on a chilly evening, sitting in a tent not far from a teaching ground where thousands have gathered each day since Jan. 3 to pray, meditate and hear their religious leader. “If we are put in prison, they will interrogate us: ‘Why did you go to India?’ This can be very dangerous.”
Authorities from the Tibetan government in exile say the Chinese government barred an estimated 7,000 Tibetan pilgrims from attending this month’s 10-day gathering in India, an unprecedented move that further erodes the rights of 6 million people who live in the Tibetan region of China. 

It was also a fresh reminder that the Chinese are threatening to control the selection of the next Dalai Lama after the eventual demise of the renowned religious leader, who is now 81.

An Indian fan takes a “selfie” photograph with actor Richard Gere in Bodh Gaya on Jan. 12, 2017. 

“It’s tragic,” said Lobsang Sangay, the head of Tibet’s government in exile in India. 

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime trip for Tibetans, like Muslims going to Mecca. It’s a sad commentary on the Chinese claim to have religious freedom — or any kind of freedom in Tibet.”
The Dalai Lama told reporters that the move was “unfortunate.”
China has denied that threatening pilgrims or blocking their departures, but local authorities in Tibet declared this ritual gathering, called the Kalachakra, illegal in 2012, the last time it was held in Bodh Gaya. 

Most of the 7,000 had already traveled legally to India and were forced to return early. 

Only 300 remain.
Since unrest broke out across the Tibetan plateau in 2008, the Chinese government has enacted sweeping measures that have curtailed freedom of expression, notably by prioritizing Chinese over the Tibetan language in schools, posting police in monasteries and increasing surveillance.
China’s Communist Party seeks to break the connection between Tibetans and their revered leader to ensure compliance with ambitious party objectives in Tibet, a region rich in mineral and water resources.
“What we’re seeing is new,” said Kate Saunders, of the International Campaign for Tibet. 

“It’s a systematic attempt to prevent Tibetans from having any access at all to the Dalai Lama.”

Buddhist monks participate in a special religious teaching prayer attended by the Dalai Lama during the Kalachakra event at Bodh Gaya on Jan. 6, 2017. 

An estimated 10,000 Tibetans attended the last such gathering in Bodh Gaya in 2012, but many were jailed or detained for “reeducation” in military camps when they returned, Saunders said.
Around 200,000 maroon- and saffron-robed monks and nuns and Buddhist devotees from around the world — including American actor Richard Gere — converged on the town in eastern India for days of chanting and lessons on Buddhist thought. 

As darkness descended, many of them performed prostrations and encircled the ancient stupa next to the tree — a descendant of the original — where the Buddha is believed to have attained enlightenment.
Since the Dalai Lama escaped over the mountains from Tibet to India in 1959, Indian governments have treated him as an honored guest in Dharamsala, a hill town in northern India, but they long kept him at arm’s length to avoid offending the Chinese. 

Now, that may be changing.
The Dalai Lama appeared prominently at an event with India’s president in Delhi last month. 

And Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made preserving India’s ancient heritage a priority, becoming the first prime minister in decades to visit Bodh Gaya.
“I don’t believe it’s a fundamental shift of position, but certainly what you’re seeing is trending towards perhaps a less self-conscious expression of our sentiments and our support for the Tibetan cultural identity and the high standing the Dalai Lama enjoys here in India,” said Nirupama Menon Rao, a former foreign secretary and ambassador to China.
The support is key, as the Tibetan exile community faces uncertain times. 

The Dalai Lama has said that when he dies, he may choose not to be reincarnated, as Buddhist belief holds, or that he could come back as a woman. 

But China has signaled it will control the search for the next Dalai Lama by anointing its own Panchen Lama, another important religious figure in Tibetan Buddhism.
Some of the attendees said they are worried it will be the last such ceremony the Dalai Lama will perform. 

The octogenarian moves and speaks more slowly now, and he had to be helped to the elaborate throne on the dais by two monks.
“He can’t go into top gear anymore,” said Gaden Tashi, a Tibetan from Kathmandu. 

“But he keeps saying he’s happy and healthy.”
One young Tibetan-language tutor who made the risky journey from China recalled that when he first unrolled his prayer mat at Bodh Gaya and got his first glimpse of the Dalai Lama, “I couldn’t control myself; I thought it was a dream.”
The tutor, 29, arrived Jan. 3, weeks after his trip began in a small village in the Tibetan area of Amdo. He paid a guide to take him to Kathmandu, where he then received legal papers from the Indian Embassy to make the pilgrimage.
Almost immediately, he said, frightening messages began appearing on his WeChat, China’s popular social media platform. 

He said police sent a warning through his parents that he should return by Jan. 3, the day the Kalachakra would begin. 

His mother cried and begged him to come home soon. 

Others sent photos of pilgrims who were met at the airport only to have their passports sliced into pieces by police.
He now feels he cannot return to China, but he believes his sacrifice has been worth it.
“Every Tibetan has a dream — to meet the Dalai Lama,” he said. 

“I told my parents I have no regret, even if I die.”

Tibetans in anguish as Chinese mines pollute their sacred grasslands

By Simon Denyer

Landscape along the road from Xining to Yushu in Qinghai Province, on May 29.

JIAJIKA, CHINA — High in western China’s Sichuan province, in the shadow of holy mountains, the Liqi River flows through a lush, grassy valley, dotted with grazing yaks, small Tibetan villages and a Buddhist temple. 

But there’s poison here.
A large lithium mine not only desecrates the sacred grasslands, villagers say, but spawns deadly pollution. 

This river used to be full of fish. 

Today, there are hardly any. 

Hundreds of yaks, the villagers say, have died in the past few years after drinking river water.
China’s thirst for mineral resources — and its desire to exploit the rich deposits under the Tibetan plateau — have spread environmental pollution and anguish for many of the herders whose ancestors lived here for thousands of years.
The land they worship is under assault, and their way of life is threatened without their consent, the herders say.
“Old people, we see the mines and we cry,” a 67-year-old yak herder said, requesting anonymity for fear of retribution. 

“What are the future generations going to do? How are they going to survive?”

A local environmentalist, who also declined to be named to prevent backlash from the authorities, said he had done an oral survey of local opinion and found that Tibetans would oppose mining projects even if companies promised to share profits with local communities, to fill in mines after they were exhausted, and to return sites to their natural state.
“God is in the mountains and the rivers, these are the places that spirits live,” he said. 

“When mining comes and the grassland is dug up, people believe worse disasters will come. It destroys the mountain god.”

Salt deposits at the Jiajika lithium mine in Tagong township in China’s western Sichuan province, seen on August 9, 2016. Local Tibetan herders have protested at least twice against the mine, saying it has polluted the Liqi river and killed fish and yaks downstream.

It was in 2009 that toxic chemicals from the Ganzizhou Rongda Lithium mine first leaked into the river, locals say, killing their livestock and poisoning their fish.
“The whole river stank, and it was full of dead yaks and dead fish,” said one man in the downstream village of Balang, who declined to be named for fear of retribution. 

Another pollution outbreak and a protest by villagers in 2013 forced the government to order production temporarily stopped, locals said.
“Then, during the past few months, officials came to the village to try to persuade people,” the man said. 

“They said we have to have the mine, but promised they would take time to fix the pollution problem before reopening it.”
But in April, just after mining restarted, fish began dying again, locals said. 

“That’s when we just knew they had lied,” the man said.

Dead fish are seen in May, 2016. A Free Tibet protest against the Jiajika lithium mine in Dartsedo County in May, 2016.

In May, residents gathered to stage a second protest, scattering dead fish on a road in the nearby town of Tagong, only to be surrounded by dozens of baton-wielding riot police. 

Again the government stepped in, issuing a statement to “solemnly” promise that the plant would not reopen until the “environmental issues” are solved.
But the problem at the Jiajika mine is not an isolated one. 

Across Tibetan parts of China, protests regularly erupt against mineral extraction, according to a 2015 report by Tibet Watch.
China is focused on copper and gold extraction from Tibet, but is also exploiting a whole range of minerals “with increasing intensity,” including chromium, iron, lithium, iron, mercury, uranium and zinc — as well as fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas, the report said.
Although China boasts of its development work in western regions where Tibetans live, the report argued that much of the transport and other infrastructure in the region is aimed at extracting minerals rather than benefiting residents. 

Projects usually import workers from other parts of China, seldom employing Tibetans in significant numbers.
When protests break out, China’s response has generally been heavy handed, with authorities seeking to politicize the protests.
Understanding those risks, Tibetan communities sometimes use creative ways to get their message across.
In August 2013, hundreds of people gathered in Zadoi county in Qinghai province to protest against mining on what they considered to be a holy mountain; they flew Chinese flags to demonstrate their loyalty to the state, and erected posters and placards quoting Xi Jinping’s words on the need to balance economic growth and environmental protection.
It didn’t help. 

Police and paramilitary forces arrived in large numbers, firing bullets above the crowd, arresting eight people and injuring many more.

A camp at a lead and zinc mine in the high altitude village of Xingniangda, southern part of Qinghai province, where only Han Chinese work.

The entrance of a lead and zinc mine in the high altitude village of Xingniangda, southern part of Qinghai province, where only Han Chinese work.

In the villages outside Xiaosumang township in Qinghai, residents blame a lead and zinc mine for the deterioration of the grasslands for miles around, and even for falling harvests of caterpillar fungus, a highly prized health cure that is the backbone of the local economy.
Contaminated water from the mine, residents said in a joint letter to the authorities in 2010, not only killed their livestock but alsocaused people who drank it to die of cancer, they said.

“Over the years, many herders would sigh and say: ‘Life can’t go on like this anymore. Even drinking has become a big issue for people living on the grasslands,’ ” the letter said.
A May 2009 protest in Xizha village prompted a severe crackdown, the letter said, with guns and tear gas used, seven women severely beaten, and 12 men blindfolded, detained and tortured.
Authorities threatened to cancel poverty-alleviation grants, including income and housing subsidies, if anyone in the region brought up the issue of environmental protection again, the letter said, adding that the crackdown “caused great fear to spread in our hearts.”
Whether the mine is truly the culprit for all the grasslands’ ills is another matter – climate change, for example, is probably an important factor. 

But that doesn’t soothe local anger.
“When I was young, there was more grass, more flowers, it was really beautiful here,” said one 27-year-old man in a valley downstream from the lead and zinc mine. 

“Now you see it’s less beautiful every year. People see all this and they are not really sure what happened, so they think it must be the mine.”

A woman washes clothes near the Jiajika lithium mine in Tagong township in China’s western Sichuan province on August 9, 2016. Local Tibetan herders have protested at least twice against the mine, saying it has polluted the Liqi river and killed fish and yaks downstream.

In Jiajika, 300 miles to the southeast, the commercial pressure to reopen the lithium mine is mounting. 

The element is a vital component in rechargeable batteries used in cars, smartphones, laptops and other electronic and electrical items, and demand — and prices — are skyrocketing.
In January, Youngy Co. Ltd., the parent company of Ganzizhou Rongda Lithium, promised investors that the local government would step up efforts to reopen the mine in March.
That same month, an article in the local Ganzi Daily newspaper outlined the authorities’ dream of making the area “China’s lithium capital,” calling Jiajika the biggest lithium mine in the world with proven reserves of 1.89 million metric tons and even greater potential. 

Three companies, including Rongda, will invest 3.4 billion yuan ($510 million) in the site by 2020, the article said.
He Chengkun, Youngy’s media officer, said an official investigation had established that the plant was not responsible for killing fish in 2013 or this year.
“The local government has made it clear it is nothing to do with our company,” he said. 

“They are looking into it, and have already zoomed in on some suspects.”
He said the plant has been closed since late 2013 because of problems relating to land acquisition, and denied that it had restarted operations in April as locals claimed.
Nevertheless, across the Tibetan plateau, resource extraction, land grabs and environmental destruction remain flashpoints for conflict between Tibetans and the authorities, said Free Tibet director Eleanor Byrne-Rosengren, reflecting both local grievances and the wider problem that Tibetans do not have the right to decide what happens to Tibet and its resources.
“Those resources feed the demands of Chinese industry instead of the needs of the Tibetan people,” she said. 

“That is why their environment is put at risk and their rights are trampled upon, and why we can expect to see this conflict played out repeatedly in the future.”

China's crimes against humanity

Two Canadian lawyers take Chinese organ-harvesting claims to Australia 

By Rod Mcguirk

David Kilgour, former prosecutor and Canadian secretary of state for the Asia-Pacific, and David Matas, human rights lawyer

Two Canadian lawyers came to Australia’s Parliament House on Monday to persuade lawmakers to pass a motion urging China to immediately end the practice of organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience.
David Kilgour, a former prosecutor and Canadian secretary of state for the Asia-Pacific, and David Matas, a human rights lawyer, have published evidence they say shows that China performs an estimated 60,000 to 100,000 transplants a year, with organs primarily taken from Falun Gong practitioners, Muslim Uighurs, Tibetan Buddhists and Christians.
China says it performed 10,057 organ transplants last year and has not harvested organs of executed prisoners since January 2015.
The U.S. House of Representative passed a resolution in June calling on the State Department to report annually to Congress on the implementation of an existing law barring visas to Chinese and other nationals engaged in coercive organ transplantation. 

The resolution also condemns persecution of Falun Gong, a spiritual group China calls a cult and has outlawed.

The European Parliament passed a similar declaration in July calling for an independent investigation of “persistent, credible reports on systematic, state-sanctioned organ harvesting from non-consenting prisoners of conscience” in China.
Kilgour said the Australian government was reluctant to accept evidence of large-scale, forced organ harvesting in China. 

Kilgour blamed Australia’s close economic ties with China, its largest trading partner.
“The greatest amount of skepticism seems to be in Australia,” Kilgour said.
Kilgour and Matas first published a report on organ harvesting in China in 2006, which became the basis of their 2009 book “Bloody Harvest. The Killing of Falun Gong for their Organs.”
Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade First Assistant Secretary Graham Fletcher told a Senate committee last month that he had doubts about the credibility of Falun Gong reports of forced organ harvesting.
Amnesty International’s Australian spokeswoman Caroline Shepherd said the London-based organization had not done its own research into organ harvesting in China and supported United Nations’ calls for an independent investigation of such allegations.
The Australian Health Department said at least 53 Australians travelled to China for organ transplants between 2001 and 2014.
Matas said it was not possible for such a large organ-transplant industry to thrive without the support of the Communist Party.
“This is an institutionalized, party-driven scheme, with an institutionalized cover up,” Matas said.
Around 200 Falun Gong practitioners demonstrated outside Parliament House against forced organ harvesting on Monday as Matas and Kilgour addressed a meeting of lawmakers from several political parties.