Financial Warfare: Uyghurs Stripped of Autonomy Under CCP

Rushan Abbas of the World Uyghur Congress highlights China's financial repression of Uyghurs as part of its systemic persecution. Uyghurs face property seizures, monitored transactions, and forced labor. The CCP's economic tactics aim to control and erase Uyghur identity in East Turkistan, framing exploitation as development.

Rushan Abbas, a leading figure in the World Uyghur Congress, delivered a powerful speech at the Human Rights Foundation, drawing attention to China's strategic use of financial repression to stifle the Uyghur population. Abbas spotlighted how the Chinese Communist Party's economic policies effectively serve as tools of persecution, describing them as "a devastating financial dimension to the genocide Uyghurs are facing," as reported by the World Uyghur Congress.

She outlined the dire economic tactics including the arbitrary seizure of property, freezing of bank accounts, and deprivation of economic opportunities faced by the Uyghurs. "This is not just discrimination--it is financial warfare," she declared. Uyghur professionals, ranging from academics to farmers, are particularly targeted. Abbas pointed to an alarming 50-fold surge in land transfers from 2001 to 2021, which uprooted a multitude of Uyghur farmers, transferring control to the state.

The re-registration of properties has become a coerced requirement for homeowners, often impossible for those detained in camps, resulting in homes being taken over by Han Chinese settlers. These policies push Uyghurs into the state's "Poverty Alleviation Program"—described as a facade for forced labor by Abbas and human rights advocate Adrian Zenz. Under constant surveillance, Uyghurs are moved to exploitative factory roles without any freedom to decline. "Every bank transaction is monitored, every app tracked," Abbas warned, portraying East Turkistan as a police state where financial repression is a key tactic to silence dissent and erase Uyghur identity. She starkly concluded, "This is modern-day slavery in the guise of development."

The systematic policies of the Chinese government, from mass surveillance to forced labor and cultural erasure, illustrate its deep-rooted endeavor to displace Uyghurs, seize their properties, and strip away economic freedoms. Millions are detained, constantly watched, and face religious persecution, all under the CCP's strategy to erase and assimilate their identity into the Han Chinese mainstream, as observed by ANI.

(With inputs from agencies.)