 Well, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for coming out this evening to the National Security College for this very, very important topic. I'd like to say that it was not lifting one. Unfortunately, it isn't, but it is nonetheless crucial. The topic is the Uyghur emergency, the courses and consequences of China's mass incarceration of Turkish Muslims. And before we get started, folks, I think it's appropriate that we acknowledge and celebrate the first Australians on whose traditional lands we're meeting tonight, and also to pay our respects to the elders of the Ngunnawal people, both past and present. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Matthew Sussex, and I'm the Academic Director here at the National Security College. I will introduce our panelists very shortly, but for those of you who are new to the NSC, I thought I should say just a few words about who we are and what we do. The National Security College is a joint venture between the Commonwealth Government and the Australian National University. And its purpose is to serve as a bridge between government and academia in order to foster discussions between those who are in a policy practitioner context and those who are working in an academic environment. And effectively, we do here at the NSC three things. Number one, we provide training to executives and professionals working in the Australian public service in the security agencies, but also those who are less closely related to the security agencies. Second, we perform a sort of policy engagement and outreach function, which is a little bit like a think tank, but not quite. And finally, of course, we have an academic program, a vibrant team of academics who it's my absolute pleasure to lead. And one of their most senior members, of course, will be presenting tonight, Associate Professor Michael Clark. So that's who we are. And I think that we possibly have some propaganda for you outside, should be you'd be willing to interest yourself more in the workings of the NSC. But we should probably get on with tonight's proceedings. We have three excellent speakers tonight on this topic. As I indicated initially, Associate Professor Michael Clark from the National Security College at the ANU, an expert on Chinese foreign security policy and also the Uyghur problem. Mr. Nori Turkel, the chair of the board for the Uyghur Human Rights Project and an attorney at Covington and Burling LLP. And finally, to your far right, Ms. Louise Grieve, who's director for external affairs at the Uyghur Human Rights Project. Now, ladies and gentlemen, each of our speakers will talk for I think about 15 minutes each. It's more or less what we what we arranged beforehand so that we have plenty of time for questions and answers. Michael will be talking about sort of framing the issue, what's happening, why is it happening now and how many people are involved. Nori will talk about the implications for the Uyghur people both in the homeland, as well as those in exile abroad. And Louise will focus primarily on implications for the international community, things that the international community can and might do in order to help resolve this pressing emergency. With that, folks, I will yield the floor to Michael Clark and ask him to speak for his lot of time in 15 minutes. Thanks. Thank you, Matthew, for that introduction. So as Matthew alluded to, I'm going to focus my remarks primarily on three core questions. What do we know about the camps? What happens inside them? And why has the Chinese Communist Party decided to do this now at this particular moment? Some terms of what we know about the camps. There has been significant analysis, in particular, of a number of streams of data. One is satellite timelapse imaging from Google Earth and also the European Space Agency's Sentinel database, in particular by the BBC's John Sudworth. Aspie here in Canberra also did a very important report on this. Each of these different examinations is only examined part of what we know about the camp system in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region or East Turkestan as the Uyghur people refer to it. For instance, the John Sudworth report examined only 44 sites out of potentially 101 sites that have been identified to date. I'd just like to note a couple of comparisons here that this analysis has picked up. This is Daven Chung camp outside of capital Urumqi. And this timelapse satellite imaging compares the township of Daven Chung down here with what is now recognised as the campsite in 2005. So you can see there is no camp constructed, no facility there in 2005. When we compare this to 2018, very clear structure in comparison to the township itself. We also have sort of much more high resolution digital analysis of the camps, in particular by Sean Zhang and a number of others who demonstrated that these can very clearly be seen to be security-oriented facilities. Most likely prisons or some version thereof. More importantly, however, there is also further analysis beyond simply the digital imaging, the satellite imagery that I've already noted. Pathbreaking research by Adrian Zenz, for instance, has examined or has provided analysis of Chinese Communist Party documentation and also the regional government in Xinjiang, in particular focusing on public security spending. And this is from Adrian's recent piece in a China brief only a few weeks ago on the 5th of November. The important points tonight here that Adrian has highlighted are those in red. The spending increased, the rapidly increasing spending on so-called social stability management, and also the tension centre management, which has increased some 300 per cent, or thereabouts, just over the 2016 to 2017 period. All of this points to one outcome really, that this is a systematic and sustained project program for the construction of over 100 of these facilities across the entire region of Xinjiang. Essentially, since 2014-2015, the data and analysis, sorry, demonstrates. It's also important to note that there are different categories of these facilities. Some of these began in 2014 as daily or short-term so-called re-education facilities in which individuals would have to report to, for instance, at 9am and leave in the evening. This has intensified over the last few years to the development of a system of indefinite detention camps or centres across the region. So, the next core question essentially here is, now that we know the camps exist, what do we know about what occurs within them? There is, again, different sources of evidence for this. These images here were smuggled out by the NGO Bitter Winter. I had a source on the ground that there's a YouTube video as well that accompanies this that you can watch for yourselves. This gives you an idea of what these facilities look like on the outside. They're fairly innocuous on the outside, it would seem. However, some of the pictures smuggle out tell a far different story. Rather than being related to education or vocational training as the Chinese Communist Party would like to have us believe, as you can see from these images, this is essentially a hardened prison facility with security and prison gates on cells and also, in particular, a particular note, the computer-oriented electronic surveillance system resulting in surveillance of all parts of the centre at all times. The image at the bottom here is not quite as clear as I wanted it to be. However, this is outside of the facility. It's essentially very much akin to a jail prison yard where you have razor wire encompassing what appears to be an exercise yard for detainees. The Chinese Communist Party, the Chinese government, has also provided us with further evidence of what these facilities look like and what, in fact, may occur within them. So CCTV, the state television network, produced a 15-minute news item on one particular facility in Kotaan in the far south of Xinjiang in October this year. What's interesting about these images and these we would have to stress are fairly sanitised images from what we know and I'll talk about that in a little bit detail just shortly. So the Chinese Communist Party has gone from denying the existence of these camps to, in fact, openly celebrating them as a good bestowed on the people of Xinjiang by the benevolence of the Chinese Communist Party. So even in this official propaganda, if you will, we are told that detainees are inculcated in Mandarin classes, Chinese culture sessions. They also have to undertake significant periods of self-criticism, in particular with a focus on criticising elements of Uyghur culture and a particular profession of Islam. They are also forced to sing patriotic songs or so-called red songs praising the Chinese Communist Party and the leadership of President Xi Jinping. All of this, as I've already noted before, but these images bring out starkly, is that this is all under intrusive forms of surveillance. If we look at on the picture here of the reporter in the image, you can clearly see the video cameras, CCTV footage. Here we can see microphones placed throughout the room. So detainees are monitored at all times, not only for what they are doing physically, but what they might be saying to each other. It's a very intrusive form of surveillance. In terms of what we know sort of beyond what the Chinese Communist Party has allowed us to see. We have testimony from a number of Uyghur survivors who have emerged from these camps. The most significant of these perhaps was Miragol Tarsan's testimony in Washington DC just last week, where she detailed a much more violent and invasive set of conditions in the camps, including cramming of prisoners or detainees, as they're generally called, 60 individuals to a particular cell. Little food, no access to toilet, shower facilities, a lack of privacy, even including with so-called toilet facilities within each individual cell. So the CTV cameras, the video surveillance, that is present at all times. Miragol's testimony also described regular dosage, particularly of female detainees with unknown drugs, for unknown reasons. She also detailed varying elements of torture from beatings right through to electrocutions in her particular case. A further question that confronts us now is, how many people are in these detention facilities, these camps? Current estimates and these, I would stress, are conservative. I suggest somewhere between one and two million people, anywhere up to 10 percent of the Uyghur population of Xinjiang itself. What is the evidence for this estimate? Well, this estimate is based on analysis of the capacities of the facilities that have been analyzed through the satellite imagery. It's also been demonstrated through local government, analysis of local government documents and sources. So in particular, Radio Free Asia essentially did some pioneering work here. They simply rang local officials in Khotan and Kashgar and simply asked them point blank how many individuals would attain in these facilities. And funnily enough, they actually got a straight answer, it would say. Officials and these two prefectures acknowledged that between 10 percent and 50 percent of the populations under their control had been detained in these facilities. So this is just two prefectures in Xinjiang itself. Adrian Zen's work on exploring the publicly available data on public security spending also demonstrates a rapid expansion and spending in particular on large-scale construction and capital works. The broader question, I think perhaps the burning question for many of us is why now? Why has the Chinese Communist Party decided on this particular course of action, this invasive course of action at this point in time? All I would suggest there are multiple factors here, some at the level of the province itself and some at the national level. In terms of Xinjiang itself, we can see here the continuation of a number of long-term themes and dynamics in the Chinese Communist Party's approach to the region. In particular, it's long-term efforts to intensify forms of social control, surveillance and monitoring, in particular as it relates to key elements of Uyghur religious and cultural practice. This has been intensified due, I would argue, to a number of key events in the last decade or so. First of these would be the 2009 riots in the Rungchi, the region's capital, in July of 2009. This large-scale violence, it seems, prompted intra-party debate about the so-called failure of the Chinese Communist Party's approach to ethnic minority regions and peoples. In particular, it led to a call for a so-called second generation of minority policy. That would, in effect, be much more assimilationist than that pursued in the past. Additionally, there was high-profile violent incidents in 2013, the so-called SUV terrorist attack in Tiananmen Square in October of that year and also the terrorist attack at Kunming Rail Station in 2014. Both of those events served, in a sense, to transform the Uyghur issue for the Chinese Communist Party into one that is essentially about security. It's effectively resolved in the securitisation of Uyghur identity and culture. An additional cause, in a sense, of the question of why now is, I think, lays in the Belt and Road Initiative. Xinjiang is seen by President Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party more broadly as central to the success of the Belt and Road. In fact, Xinjiang is seen to be the hub of at least three of the so-called macroeconomic corridors that are supposed to be key to BRR. A third factor is the return of ideology under President Xi Jinping and, in particular, the formulation of the new concept of social management, which is essentially an innovation or adaptation of the classic Maoist mass line, but under 21st century technological conditions. Here we have party control, facilitated by technological innovations and surveillance technology. So what we get in Xinjiang, I would argue, is a racialised version of the concept of social management. Here we have, I would argue, an experiment of mass social engineering via coercion and extraditional interment or detention. And to give you an idea of the way in which, and I'll conclude here, the party sees the issue and, in a sense, gives us an idea of what the goal is. These are, in a sense, words from the horse's mouth. This is from a CCP youth official quoted in October 2017, clearly anologising elements of Uyghur identity, in particular profession of Islam, two are being infected by a disease that has to be treated, lest the effects take its toll on society more broadly. Another Chinese official in Kashgar earlier this year, and this has been widely quoted, said it said you can't operate all the weeds, so the weeds are potentially extremist Uyghurs, are hidden amongst the crops in the field one by one. You need to spray chemicals to kill them all. Re-educating these people is like spraying chemicals on crops, that is why it is a general re-education not limited to a few people. Finally, a quote from an internal party document uncovered by Ben Dooley, an investigative journalist for Reuters, suggested that re-educations stated very starkly is designed to break their lineage, break their roots, break their connections and break their origins. So ultimately here, the Uyghurs have an effect being defined as a biological pathology to the Chinese body politic that must be cleansed or eradicated for China to enjoy security. I'll hand over now to Nuri. Thank you. Thank you Michael for that overview that is making my job easier to explain how did we get here. First of all, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the ANU for hosting this important forum and also like to acknowledge my, recognize my delegation and our host in Australia to make it possible. I appreciate your hospitality and able to join us in this forum today. I've been asked to tell a story of myself and others to illustrate throughout different periods in our modern history, particularly since 1980s, to describe how Chinese policy has changed over the years. My own life story tells the Chinese state policy towards the Uyghur people. I was born in a re-education camp which is very similar to the one that we've been reading and described by Michael earlier. He was at the height of a cultural revolution. My father, who was a university professor, sent to labor camp while my young mother was pregnant with me, sent to re-education camp. The purpose was to punish my parents' family connection, guilt by association specifically. During the incarceration, my mother suffered tremendous hardship and when I was born, people didn't believe that I would be able to survive. After the cultural revolution, Uyghur experienced what is now considered as the cultural revival period. During that period, we witnessed restoration of our Uyghur cultural sites, masks were built, Uyghur education were promoted, Uyghur mausoleums for historic figures were built, and they released intellectuals, thought leaders, business leaders, religious leaders back to the society. So during that period, I was able to go to a regular Uyghur cultural life, social life, even though I was able to practice my religion by following my family members and going to the place of worship for important religious holidays. That golden period that Uyghur, some Uyghurs described ended after the mass tenement massacre in 1989, which Chinese government realized two things. One, domestic political resentment and so-called foreign influence must be dealt with and that time coincide with the collapse of the Soviet Union. For the Communist Party, for the Xinjiang regional government, keeping the political resentment at bay or under the lid is one of the primary concerns. In the mid-90s, the Chinese government realized that they need to crack down Uyghur political resentment and started the day of a strike hard campaign. And then as a result, the individuals who were released into the society and able to restore their lives brought back to the prison. So the history repeated itself in the first wave of the Uyghur suppression being described in various reports and media news articles. And then the Uyghurs reached another milestone, which is the 9-11. Interestingly enough, the Uyghur dictionary does not even contain a language called terrorism, let alone the Uyghurs being a terrorist or as described by the Chinese as a violent people. So right before the 9-11 attacks, the Chinese government, I would say about two weeks prior to that attack, hold a press conference, top Chinese Communist Party official, proudly declared that Xinjiang is the safest place as such to foreign investors should pour in. And as soon after the 9-11, the Chinese government opportunistically claimed that China is also a victim of terrorism. How convenient is that? Political expediency serving the Chinese national interests to this day. After 9-11, the Chinese government very comfortably used the Uyghur terrorism as a label. Michael was describing the Chinese government's three warfare against the Uyghurs. It has one of his remarks in Washington. One is the public opinion campaign, labeling campaign. And then they effectively labeled Uyghurs as terrorists achieved two purposes, one for domestic consumption, to rally support within the domestic Chinese citizens, and also scare away potential support for the Uyghur grievances in a national, so not friendly environment, particularly towards Muslim people. As a result, in the early 2000s, specifically 2005, according to the Chinese government's own statistics, 18,000 Uyghurs were detained on national security charges. And as described in one of the congressional testimonies in February 2006, this figure even astonished people who had some good will towards the Chinese government or certain level of sympathy. And then we reached to another milestone in 2009, July 5, 2001, which started as a peaceful protest that turned into violent unrest. That resulted in another wave of attack on Uyghur social and political economic lives. The Chinese government used a fight against three forces, extremism, terrorism, and separatism. So that resulted in a large number of Uyghurs being detained, disappeared, and imposed in starting 2012, what's called punishment on the spot policy. So many people, even without going through a legal judicial process, being executed on the spot. Radio Free Asia reported a motorcycle is running red light and they're being killed by traffic police. So how did we get to this current brutal policy being initiated by the Chinese? In addition to the events that I described, two things may have resulted Xi Jinping's China that I would like to call to come up with this current policies. One, Xi Jinping's last trip to the Uyghurs' homeland, East Turkestan, there was a violent incident, a train station bombing. And also he was specifically being quoted by various reports that he was surprised, at the same time very disappointed that Uyghurs are still Uyghurs. They're not being fully signified, not being fully incorporated into what's called China proper or Chinese cultural preference. And then the other thing happened was that there's a scholar in the Chinese academia have been promoting not carrot and stick policy, rather stick, using harsh policy to force Uyghurs to assimilate. During that period we witnessed social engineer forcing Uyghur kids to enroll in Chinese medium schools, promoting Chinese cultural heritage, and also taking a substantial number of Uyghur kids to inland Chinese schools to generate, train new generation of Uyghurs. And during that period we thought that it was a social engineering and Chinese government is trying to forcibly assimilate. And now we got into human ingenuity period that Michael was articulating earlier with specific policy, slogan, political policy objectives being promoted by the Chinese government. So the story brings us to today. I'm going to start what's happening today with the story of Mirgutusun who was in Washington in addition to describing her stories. She said that the Chinese government where her captors forced her to say, I deserve punishment for not understanding President Xi Jinping and Communist Party. And the Communist Party and Xi Jinping can only help me. So instead of believing and worshiping God, the people forced to worship Xi Jinping. This is the reality for the Uyghurs today. And then she goes on to say that there's no God and I don't believe in God. I believe in the Communist Party. And if you cannot say that correctly, that can add more punishment for you. And that includes forcing to be set on tiger chair. So when we started this campaign with my colleagues, educating the world about the atrocities taking place in 2018, a lot of people were skeptical, find it incredible. And thanks to the reporters, journalists who were reporting on the ground from various Western media organizations, including Radio Free Asia, and academics who have been amazingly forceful in the effort to educate the public, we start knowing about these camps and knowing about not only over a million people being locked up, and we start learning about the life of the Uyghurs outside of China, outside of those camps. So recently, one of the American scholars wrote a piece describing this home state policy, which means one million out, one million in. So they come in with a purpose, very specific purpose of monitoring your activities, your phone calls, even communications with your own children. And if that does not meet the standard, you'll be out to the camp. Just imagine, we live in a civilized society. Someone just knocks your door and your kids to, and your kids to force to welcome them with the Chinese propaganda, and they're not only sitting with you uninvited on your dining table. They try to sleep with you on your bed. Think about it. Think about it for a minute. And tell me if that's acceptable practices. So this is exactly what they're doing. Therefore, we've been heavily focused on the people who have been detained in the camps, but we're not talking enough about the people outside the camps, and those of us living in a free society like myself. And it's a fact to us. So I was mentioning about academics. One of the most well-known Uyghur scholars, a scholar specialized in Uyghur issues, said that cultural cleansing in Beijing's attempt to find a solution to the Xinjiang problem. Those of us who read history or student history know what that really means. So the Chinese government has very specific purpose and goal, which is to force Uyghurs to become one of them. If you stand in a way, they will take you out. And I'd like to cite this statement made by the U.S. government official, a senator specifically, who has been taken a Churchillian-like leadership, who said earlier on, this may be the largest incarceration of ethnic minority population since World War II. And these people are serious people. They will not say things like this lightly. And one of the well-known human rights advocates in the U.S. Congress, Christopher Smith, said this is considered to be crimes against humanity. And let's talk about the impact that these horrific events taking place in China and on us. Because of our disconnect with our family members, loved ones, former classmates, schoolmates, associates, the life has been extremely difficult for Uyghurs like myself. As a free Uyghur, as a citizen of the civilized world, some people don't like this word, but I'm very comfortable using the word civilized world, should not be dealing with a foreign government trying to make my life miserable. This sentiment resonates among the Uyghur Australians today, as we speak. I had formal informal communications and contacts with the Uyghur communities here. They're going through a horrific time. Your fellow citizens cannot sleep at night, worrying about their parents, worrying about their loved ones, and not being able to find out if they're alive or dead. Recently, one of my American business executive friend who works for a major U.S. company called me and asked me to find out through U.S. government if they can find out if family members, one of the specific family members are still alive. She wanted to have a closure. If that brother of hers is dead, she wants to move on. She has been seeing councilor, and this has been the story for many of us. With that, I'd like to say that we live in a particular time. We now know what is happening to the Uyghurs. We now know how it ends. We've seen this before. There's a specific reason among the Western scholars and reporters and policymakers to likening what is happening to the Uyghurs to all of the ugly chapters in the history. South African apartheid, Nazi Germany, Japanese internment, Jim Crow, everything. There's a reason for that likening, so I would like to ask all of you to think for a minute, are we going to let the Chinese win on this run? What kind of children do we want to have? What are we going to tell our children in the future that we saw something like this happening and we did not take an action? Thank you. So much, Nuri, for giving us, bringing that raw reality forward, and of course, Richard, for giving us the analysis. Is it time for business as usual, given what we know? We're now 20 months into the crisis. We're about a year into a period when senators and the U.S. Congress have publicly raised the question, what is our policy response? So I work for a Uyghur advocacy group that is bringing forward questions about business as usual, diplomatically in terms of business, in terms of law enforcement in our democratic countries, and in terms of academia and other volunteer exchanges where people are creating programs between our countries and the government of China. Why does it matter so much? There are people suffering certainly everywhere, but when we look at the Chinese government's blatantly disregard for international standards exemplified by this terrible treatment of the Uyghur people, we have to realize this has profound implications for our national security in the U.S., in Australia, and everywhere else, and for all democratic nations. Inaction in the face of a powerful country's flouting of civilized norms is a green light for continuation of those policies and for further encroachment on other fronts. Furthermore, East Turkestan, the homeland of the Uyghurs is becoming a laboratory for the creation of specific tools for a dystopian control of surveillance and repressive policies. These total control methods are being rolled out elsewhere in China. Specifically, just two days ago, we read about an agreement between the governments of Xinjiang and of Ningxia, Ningxia Autonomous Region, to cooperate on counter terrorism. I say that in quotation marks, security matters for the Ningxia to learn from the successes of the Xinjiang government. But also, the problem will also extend further into China and when the creation of not only electronic surveillance through state cameras, through mobile phone apps that completely scrape all communications, all images and look for subversive content, through biometric data, collection of blood samples from all Uyghurs to create a gigantic database to be able to connect DNA data with individuals, with QR codes being posted on homes, matching one's identity card, and with screening not only at the entrances to neighborhoods, but to malls to schools requiring showing an identity card in order to fill up with petrol to drive down the road. A completely linked system of total surveillance is being perfected in East Turkestan. Once that's perfected, of course, it can be used elsewhere and is already being exported reportedly in parts of it at least in Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe, Ecuador and other places. Diplomatically, sanctions are the appropriate response. The officials responsible for gross and severe human rights violations, crimes against humanity should not be welcomed in our countries. There should be visa bans. Their assets should be frozen. They should not be welcomed to own property to use our banking systems or to have their businesses be able to use the banking systems of our free and open societies. In terms of business, all businesses need to be asked, what is your role? Are you being complicit in building a surveillance state and repressive repression of an entire ethnic and religious group inside China? This is a matter for individual, free and private sector actors to consider their role. There's also a role for government. Under existing export control laws, of course, most democratic countries, the US, Australia restrict the export of technologies that are used for gross human rights violations. We believe in our Uyghur advocacy organization that no business should feel comfortable making a profit from repression of this scale and severity. Law enforcement, is it business as usual with law enforcement? It is no longer acceptable that a government like Australia, a government like the US, France, Belgium, should shrug its shoulders and say that it has no role to play in protecting their citizens from the extraterritorial repression being perpetrated by agents of the Chinese Communist Party and government. The threats Nuri was not able to describe in detail. Most Uyghurs have received some kind of communication phone calls, text messages, messages from others, asking them to reveal private information, even saying you must provide us in France particular. You'll be able to find articles written about this. We need photocopies of your passport, your work identity card, your addresses, your phone numbers. We need to know this information. Extremely intimidating. Many people are being called and asked to spy on other members of the Uyghur community to report unhealthy behavior and they're being threatened. If you don't cooperate, think about what will happen to your family back home in East Turkestan. Of course reprisals are taking place. All of the Uyghurs here who are very active, including my friend Nuri, all of the reporters who work tirelessly at Radio Free Asia, the Uyghur language service of the broadcasting service operating in the United States, funded by the U.S. Congress, have had their family members taken away in retaliation for their work to raise awareness and speak the truth and get out the story of what's happening. Those reprisals are unacceptable. It's time for the law enforcement agencies of our democratic countries to step up proactively and protect the democratic rights under our own constitutions of our Uyghur citizens, permanent residents, and students who are studying in our universities. Then that brings me to the realm of academia. I want to praise very much Dr. Clark and his colleagues for having forthrightly published just literally a week ago, Monday, November 26th, a worldwide scholar statement condemning the repression in Xinjiang and asking for a number of actions on the part of academic institutions and governments globally to respond to a global crisis, a global crisis of global significance. That statement started with 278 students eight days ago. And what is the latest number that you know of? I was going to say it was 541 numbers, signatures, that's the last I've seen and now it's 557. I want to praise the leadership of our scholars who are aware of what's happening and are saying look after 20 months, 20 months into a crisis like this. It's no longer somebody else's responsibility to speak out, to express alarm, and to in a sense serve as a conscience of the world to say this is not something that needs to be ignored or in the face of which we can continue business as usual. We strongly believe that beyond the individual scholars every institution that has a campus inside China needs to think about the judgment of history. Well yes, if they look back and say yes those years when China was building out large-scale concentration camps holding an ethnic minority, we just continued our programs as usual. This is a question that all institutions need to ask themselves. At a larger level we'd like to see governments withdrawing their ambassadors. We'd like to see a UN Security Council debate. If this were any other country and this were happening there would be a Security Council agenda item. We'll get there someday. In the meantime we ask all of you who are here and who are listening to this event to just think about the good judgment of history and ask is it time for business as usual. Thank you. Thanks very much Louisa and to all of our speakers this evening. I'm going to open up the discussion for questions from the floor. I assume that there will probably be a fair bit of interest in this topic. So can I ask you please and we've got some mics we don't have mics roaming around that's all right in that case we'll be picked up probably by the by the central audio quite well. Can I just ask you to give your name affiliation if any and come to your question relatively quickly and just identify whether your question is for individual panel members or or for the group who would like to start us off. Yes sir. Hi my name is Simon Gulley. I'm the director of the Australian Policy Institute. I have a question for the panel and I'll get to it. Basically is this if we look at the Holocaust it didn't proceed that they start killing Jews straight away. They stripped them of their identity and they said is a Jews no longer allowed believers amongst us as citizens. Jews are no longer allowed to live amongst us. Jews are no longer allowed to live. It's a linear progression that happens in many of the genocides throughout the world. What is it going to take for the world to say that this is genocide because I've studied this that you once that you use the word genocide action has to be taken and that's why they use the term acts of genocide during the Rwandan crisis because they didn't want to use action like it. If they weren't willing to use force then during 1994 to 2 million who's got killed during that crisis. What is it going to take for the world to actually step up and say this is genocide because the next step after this is going to be the physical discrimination as happened in Germany. Yes thank you so much for your question. Yes one of the difficulties in discussing the Uyghur crisis is the disbelief. Thank you so much for your question one of the difficulties that both of our my fellow panelists have described is the question of disbelief. This is the 21st century it's 2018. There isn't that much coverage of what's going on so the struggle has been to bring forward the evidence and this is why we're all very grateful to really brave reporters who went to Xinjiang to report and having this evidence presented and that's taken some time. Once you see what's happening then you say well what is it? Is it ethnic cleansing? Is it large is it mass detention? Just as recently as August 30th in the UN the committee for the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination met in Geneva. It was the first time at the UN that this crisis was mentioned and it was the term was mass detention. Simply to say we have information that over 1 million people have been detained without drawing any labels as to how international law applies at a level beyond severe human rights violations. The problem is if you wait for complete proof that the act genocide has happened is too late. In order for international committee to take a legal action international organizations including the UN has to be active. As we know UN is heavily influenced by the Chinese government, a Chinese delegation. UN Security Council cannot focus anything unless they get everybody on board. I cannot imagine that the UN Security Council will be setting as quite as it is today. We're not inclined to set up a tribunal to bring justice to those human rights violation abusers. If the similar type of atrocities, tragedies taking place elsewhere on someone else. So the simple answer is China. Yeah I would agree absolutely with that Nuri. The other issue here that we need to think about is also the terminology the Chinese Communist Party is using which I alluded to briefly in my remarks. These are formally termed transformation through education facilities. Now the concept here Hark's back of course and Nuri refers to this as well to Maoist era reform through labor camps. So the objective here is not necessarily physical elimination or at least in the past but the transformation of someone's identity ideology and so on. So if we were to take a kind of if there is a silver lining here it is I actually believe that the Chinese Communist Party doesn't want to physically eliminate you know how can how could it get away with eliminating over 10 million of its citizens in one fell swoop it was to choose to do so and two I don't believe that it feels disposed to do that at this point in time but you're right there is only a progression here and it's difficult to determine you know when that tipping point occurs. They coerced 400 million abortions so you've got population state power squids like they're not they've got no qualms about killing 10 million leaders. One other problem that we've been facing one of the biggest challenges lack of leadership who's going to take this take leadership in this effort United States Australia we're looking for leadership somebody has to step up some country has to step up to the plate and say look we cannot accept this this is not happening on my watch let's rise against this atrocities we need to stop this there's no leadership that's one of the biggest problems folks we're having a bit of problem with the audio so we're going to run the mic into the audience and then we're going to run it back we're going to have a bouncing microphone unfortunately next question please yes sir and then I'll come here oh hi my name is Marcus I was wondering if you could shed some light on the role of hard Chinese in Xinjiang province are they bystanders are they complicit or are they actually are they hard Chinese trying to help the Uighurs in Xinjiang thank you again for raising this very very good question there are reports that some of the let's say it's the home population of Xinjiang which is about 40% of the population does has felt reassured by the security state they have been fed a lot of propaganda about the inherent violent nature of Uighurs and about Islam being dangerous and so some feel secure on the other hand even as far ago it's three or four years others have other Han Chinese also feel the intrusiveness of this state extreme state intrusion into private life and felt that it was recognized this is no way to live so that's about people who live in Xinjiang some people have reportedly in the last two years found it we have one anecdote of somebody who found it terrible to be part of a society where people disappeared a teacher a shop owner tried to leave this was somebody who worked for the government and was not allowed when the when the work unit in Xinjiang found out the person who tried to go get a job somewhere else in another part of China tracked them down and made them come back then about who are the guards and the fact is that there have been recruitment forms Adrian since the German scholar has found advertisements so that this is a highly paid position they apparently have to pay a lot to get people to come and do this job and we have evidence from one former guard who has talked about what it was like to be in there in charge of dealing out truly brutal treatment on a daily basis meeting people who couldn't memorize Chinese you know 50 year old peasant or person from the countryside and doesn't really speak Chinese mother tongue is weaker failing having to beat that person with holding food when people don't stand at attention properly yet the flag raising in the morning can't sing the songs praising Xi Jinping this is a brutalizing practice so even if we have only a certain number of Chinese people involved in the in the repression of course there's police we didn't even mention every street corner checking those IDs having to come over and stop anyone who comes by and says let me check your ID it's brutalizing to those people and it's part of the process of desensitizing even those who are not supposedly the targets of this transformation effort to make people to bigger people lose change their identity and become Chinese this is a desensitization process that could well be one of the steps along a much more severe towards a much more severe solution which is physical elimination of people I have a slightly different take on them that question it's a it's a critical important question before explaining if they are either accomplice or sympathetic let's look at what the Chinese government has been doing to the way that they portray the leaders one psychological warfare they created this atmosphere of fear on the population this applies to both Chinese and weaker people so it's not a free society there's no free press there's no investigative journalism so the society in of itself is is is is not free so people are not there to do the type of free thinking and objective actionable things so the second thing the Chinese government has been very very successful is to wage a public opinion campaign the Chinese media is controlled by the Chinese state all the way from the central tv station to local newspaper if you flip through you'll be hard-pressed to find anything positive about the weeks so it's filtered I don't think that general public in China looked through a true reporting investigative reporting being published in western newspapers so there's no access to a real story and then the third is a labeling campaign I'm borrowing Michael's thoughtful remarks in Washington the labeling campaign that the Chinese have daged over the years particularly 2001 has been very effective so when you mention Uyghur name used to be a cute looking good-looking happy minority who knows how to think and dance but now it's the enemy of the state they created this enemy in Uyghurs so so what do you do in this kind of toxic environment you've been labeled in a nicer way you're separatist in the worst way you're a terrorist and then the public opinion campaign has been so effective there's nothing positive about Uyghurs other than being them an ungrateful minority and troublemakers and the psychological campaign is preventing people to have a free thoughts and express their opinion so in this kind of environment I would like to say that the Chinese people outside of China not interested a they don't have access to true stories they just pay attention to what the state government says the government central government says on the ground in istrakistan the Chinese people are accomplice in my mind they're helping Chinese to punish the Uyghurs in various governmental levels most of the high-level position policymakers enforcers are all Chinese the Chinese government does not trust even Uyghur police and then two they're helping Chinese to further this uh human engineering by forking Uyghur woman to marry helping a Chinese state to adopt or enforce the state-run orphanage what does it tell us when the government messing with your children nothing was nothing was your woman so it's very telling unfortunately I would say that the people in in the underground are accomplice the others are ignored and my name is Sadik Gushin I'm here to visit my daughter she's studying at university I'm here for just for one month I'm very interested in Uyghur's issue I just wonder how is the other Turkey uh Republic's approach to Uyghur issue namely Turkey my question first it goes to Mr. Nuri please okay that is a great question the Turkish government have has been taking a very different position over the years it is based on political expediency based on Turkey's relationship with the west based on Turkey's relationship with China so it has been taking kind of a roller coaster roller coaster like position without going too much backward to the back to the historic period let's just start from the 2009 2009 when there was a ethnic clash taking place in our homeland east Turkistan the Turkish prime minister then very comfortably despite the fact that this genocide war is is almost like a sensitive word in Turkey he likened what's happening to his Uyghur brothers and sisters as a genocide and then in the last couple years following the deterioration of his relationship with the west he felt alienated and looking for friendship towards in Moscow and Beijing and and that is helping Turkey in economic maybe in a diplomatic front but creating dark spot in the Turkish history Turkey is in a very interesting position and in a very good position to speak out today for what is happening to the Uyghurs not much hope another Turkic states I'd like to give a credit to Kazakhstan for trying to protect their own citizen and allowing this Chinese citizen who married a Kazakh citizen to release being released from prison and but the others have been awfully quiet and as as you would agree that they're not Jeffersonian democracy they're people are not free when people are not free you cannot force your government to take an action so I don't I don't have much hope on the other Turkic states but in Turkey I'd like to I'd like to believe that one day Turkish president wakes up and realized that his rhetoric almost hypocritical trying to defend other Muslim countries or peoples while ignoring his own people who has a historic and cultural it's a disgrace if you flip flip through the Turkish newspapers or flip through a TV remote control you'll be hard pressed to find anything about what's happening the entire western media and this is another another sad sad of the sad rather disappointing side of the Turkish politics some Turkish people today listening to the government propaganda believes that helping the Uyghurs will be helping it will almost equal and of helping the United States to undermine Chinese position in the world stage so um yeah maybe I should stop here more questions ladies and gentlemen yes sir hi thank you for coming my name is Delia I'm a Uyghur myself I am a student of the ANU here I study astronomy so one thing for the past couple of at least two years ever since this thing happened um what I realized is that at the beginning I didn't feel very connected to the issue because I was in a free country and my immediate family was here but until I learned more and more about it and start looking to the issue then I realized like you guys said it's no longer business as usual because for example I study astronomy and China is heavily invested in astronomy so I cannot go to China to even present my science or even learn about other people's science I cannot even go to any Chinese airport for transit to go to other countries because should I land in within Chinese orders I will be taken away that is my major concern so as you said it's no longer business as usual but as a Uyghur youth here in Australia or as a Uyghur youth in any other country that's that has democracy that values individual identity over this collective identity what should we do what can we do how do we put in our effort thank you at the policy level it would be terrific for all those who are concerned about the issue our Uyghur Australians and and others to number one right to your member of parliament we've had terrific meetings at parliament house today and yesterday many leaders across parties we have a green and liberal and labor party leaders who are highly concerned about the historic significance of what's happening and others who say well I would like to hear from my constituents and right to say we'd like to support sanctions just yesterday the Global Magnitsky Act was introduced which would allow the government to sanction officials who are responsible for gross human rights violations in addition members of parliament can write to the foreign minister and ask about action to protect Australian Uyghurs and to speak up in international forums as part of a coalition of states that are ready to say it's the longer time for business as usual those are two and then the third ask you can make up MPs they should be a very famous and beloved professor of economics named Professor Ilham Tohti you may know who he is and maybe you could describe it he deserves the Nobel Prize not a life sentence for trying to offer practical solutions to difficulties of Uyghur life in in China he's serving a life sentence he needs a Nobel Prize every member of parliament every professor of law every professor of political science and every head of a think tank is qualified to nominate people for the Nobel Prize for 2019 thank you for the question I'm glad that you here we we talked to your brother earlier and I was expecting to see you one of the things that we learned during our trip meeting with government officials and lawmakers that your government is very interested in hearing from you we asked how did you get involved why took you so long to speak on behalf of your own citizen as you know that three Australian citizens were detained and the government didn't say much about it until recently and and and the response that I found it quite interesting is that the lack of uh uh outreach from the community to the Australian government officials so specifically the parliament members your representative would love to hear from you once you reach out to them and tell you story every Uyghur has a story they must act and when they act they defect the foreign ministry must do something about it so engagement civic duty participation and and I would love you to write start writing your story and encourage others to write stories because we want the world to know what we gone through we do have about 15 minutes left folks so yes ma'am I'm just call myself Margaret from Suburbia near here and I sat here in A&U maybe it's closer to 40 years ago it seems a rewrite of the Tibetan experience there are so many Tibetan flags flying on ordinary Australian houses and free Tibet symbols but I just want to comment that when members of the Tibetan government in exile spoke to our press club here in Canberra last year only one government elected representative came to that will publish oh it actually wasn't even put on ABC TV it was one of the alternate press club Tuesdays the only politician who came was our local Green so it's really not a question unless you can extrapolate from that do you want to comment on that or just leave as a leave as a comment yeah thank you very much yeah uh Michael good evening thank you for your for your remarks I'm Mike from the National Security College my question was really in relation to how you promote this cause to other Han Chinese living overseas living in Australia in the US and how they feel about this obviously they still have access to what goes on at home in terms of media reporting back in China but do they have a broader what they are obviously living in the western world would have broader access to information about those sort of issues and do they show any interest or do you have any sort of conscious in relation to this that might work in the favor of your cause thank you I'd like to see more Chinese overseas Chinese to at least publicly support sympathy if not an action we haven't seen it yet unfortunately only handful of Chinese dissidents namely a person who's in charge of one of the NGOs in Washington has reached out offering to acknowledge this young lady's suffering with another word that is the only thing that is happening we want to see more dissidents to come out I would love to see those Tiananmen Square Pro-Democracy activists flooding American newspapers with editorials encouraging the others to do the same and there's a large Chinese American constituents in my country they should be getting involved in the legislative process we have a bill in the US Congress that needs a lot of support from various communities there are a lot of things can be done and also it's part of our our our responsibility we have not been able to reach out to them because we don't have enough resources we overstretched we have been treating this as an emergency I have a full-time job I'm a full-time lawyer I'm using my vacation to come here to to do this advocacy work so because of lack of resources because of lack of interest and at least apparently we have not been accomplished but that's a very important aspect of this campaign Chinese people needs to get involved yes and I'd like to it's terrific to have these suggestions I certainly love the creative thinking here and thinking through the strategic points of leverage actually the the Uyghur Human Rights Project long ago recognized that even before this horrific campaign of detention camps recognized that you know the future of the Uyghur people as with the Tibetan people is certainly be affected by how the people of China decide to conduct their political affairs hopefully in a democracy in the future so UHRP started I'm looking at the director now the director of Uyghur Human Rights Project is here with us started a program of the entire stream of news in in Chinese all our reports we've issued 40 47 reports and research briefings about what's going on since 2004 almost all of them are translated to Chinese if any Chinese people would like to volunteer to just do something to help we need help translating more of them as Norie said we're short on resources we also have our Twitter feed in Chinese it actually has more followers than our English feed so either that means there are a lot of Chinese state agents or trolls who decided to hang us or it means there's real interest and so that gives us you know some encouragement and I'd like to specifically praise and thank Dr. Tang Biao a law professor in who's now in New York he himself is in exile because he speaks stands for role of law and democracy in China who's writing a series of essays in Chinese for Radio Free Asia China service so all of you who read Chinese I would encourage you to read Tang Biao's essays about what's happening in East Turkestan and I'd like to praise a group of 30 some 30 some or 50 some Chinese intellectuals who did do a joint letter about three months ago calling attention to the seriousness of what's happening the current crisis is something that everyone should pay attention to including those Chinese both inside and outside of China the as Luisa pointed out we group people and their homeland has been used as a laboratory for a surveillance state if if this is not stopped this will affect the Chinese people's lives and others around the world because some countries already are looking to China as a model on how to keep their people monitored tracked to prevent with the hope to prevent political upheaval so if this is not carefully treated was stopped or handled this humanitarian crisis may be the tomorrow for people around the world so I'd like to call on Chinese people using that using this form to take an action our today could be your tomorrow might take some pairs of questions just so that we can give our panelists a sort of smorgasbord to choose from you sir you had your hand up any who else yes ma'am at the back so we'll go one two and then we'll come to the the panel for response good evening my name is Mustafa I'm a postgraduate student at the University of Canberra I would like to thank the panel for the presentation my question or first I would like to say that until about 30 years ago very few people were expecting that disintegration of the Soviet Union and then there were apparently some hidden factors and reasons which led to its disintegration in hindsight do you see that there is something or there is there a likelihood that something similar may happen in China are there some other ethnic groups that are also in addition to the Tibetan people are asking for their rights and their autonomous autonomy etc do you think this there's a likelihood that China will go this way if yes what are the factors that will lead to that and if not why not thank you hi my name is Sahana I'm a student at the Department of International Relations if one of the aspects of the prosecution of Uyghurs is Islam then how can the larger Islamic community be involved in this or is there a conflict of interest because the Belt and Road Initiative will run through Central Asia to Middle East how can that be navigated thank you both sound like questions my colleague Associate Professor Clark I'm sure I mean I'll have a stab at the first one this is essentially about you know what could precipitate the collapse of the current configuration in China the PRC and the the collapse of the Chinese Communist Party look it's very difficult here as you said no one really predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union there were some of course but if we're talking about the Chinese Communist Party in in Xinjiang itself it's difficult to see where any autonomous movement and weaknesses are in the current configuration of the CCP's power in the region I mean if we're talking historically it is probably the most powerful the Chinese state has ever been in Xinjiang it's most powerful hold over the region at any time going back from the late Qing period onwards so it's really difficult to see where that weakness will come having said that however and this is something that Louisa touched upon in Adrian Zen's research as well touches upon is that there's a particular political economy behind the system of mass detention and mass repression that we're seeing in Xinjiang so there are thousands and thousands of people who are employed by the public security bureau for instance low level officials and so on so forth Adrian again Zen's work points out in 20 I think 2017 alone there was nearly a hundred thousand new positions advertised internally within the regional government directly related to security issues now part of that is the practicality the manpower aspects of you know you need people to man these detention facilities the other part is what I would term the performative element of security at Louisa also alluded to vis-a-vis whether or not the Han Chinese are complicit in Xinjiang so the party has gone out of its way to make its security presence visible in Xinjiang you know you have these so-called convenience police stations for instance in major urban areas you have CCTV cameras over major urban centers shopping malls bus stations all these kind of things part of this is is performative it's to demonstrate to the Han Chinese population that they are secure that the party is looking out for them so there's that element to it but the political economy side is particularly interesting because there is evidence that the regional economy is suffering in the last 20 months you've got much of the the the local government budget sucked up into these detention centers it's driving businesses away there's reports of Han Chinese entrepreneurs and businesses leaving Xinjiang going back to the interior provinces of China so many of those kind of trends continues that poses an interesting question about the longevity of the program in terms of China more broadly I mean there's bigger issues to do with Xi Jinping's authority within the Chinese Communist Party what would it take for you know sort of intraparty politics to remove him for instance would it be for the Belt and Road to fail spectacularly would it be for the China US trade war to escalate more broadly and so on if there's a whole list of things that you could point to but in terms of Xinjiang it's difficult to see where the loosening on the edges will come just before you when you get cracking I might just jump in someone who focuses on Russia in the form of USSR in terms of the differences there certainly was a political economy related to detention in the USSR even in Gorbachev's era I think where the big difference is is that the collapse of the Soviet Union was very much a series of national self-determination revolutions right in the formation of Georgia Ukraine Kazakhstan as independent sovereign states but the most important thing there was of course it was a national self-determination revolution for the Russians and the Russians rejected the Soviet model as well there's I think no possibility really of Han Chinese doing that not to mention in fact the also the huge economic disparity between where the Soviet Union was at and where where the PRC is at now sorry for interjecting that was a good one thank you you know three thoughts one the current political environment social environment has a lot to do with CCP's insecurity some policy experts already been start talking about what is happening in East Turkistan it's just a symptom and the root causes the CCP Xi Jinping's China and then when you look at the reasons why they all of a sudden implemented the current policies the last 18 month has a lot to do with their thinking so the present actual presence of a security threat is not how they implement or formulate policies it's lack thereof so when you look at the western governments who have that have been facing terrorism there's a policy process there is a legislative process there's an explanation as to what really defines what really constitutes violent activities today if you walk around in the room you look like we were gentlemen apparently based on your name I can tell you would be in trouble that kind of stylistic beer can be seen as a sign of extremism foreign policy magazine listed 48 behaviors that includes adhering to Islamic diet interfering your children's love relationship with non-wigret non-muslim individuals even saying As-salamu alaykum can constitute a extremism so one don't have the Chinese does not need to have a security concern to present to formulate these policies until they thought that the previous policies are not helping them to achieve the Belt and Road initiative Dr. Clark mentioned which is one big objective of the Chinese government they are taking more of an activist foreign policy approach and in order to achieve that objective and Belt and Road in order to do the Belt and Road the Chinese need to take fully control of that big landmass that's four times the size of California makes once except the Chinese territory and borders has seven international borders of those borders included in the the Belt and Road countries I believe it's 70 now right so it has a lot of geopolitical cultural insecurity survival of Xi Jinping survival of CCP and also racism I'd like to address a little bit the question about Muslim voices in support of the suffering of the Uyghur people who are being targeted for ordinary practices of daily life as a practicing Muslim shared by a billion people on this planet and yet even when there's a broad momentum that is coming for governments to stop business as usual to speak about to China directly to the Chinese delegation on November 6th sitting in Geneva at the UN we have a colleague here who's been campaigning for the last seven months to ensure in the end we had 13 or 14 countries depending on your how you count it saying to the Chinese diplomatic delegation shut down these camps but none of them were Muslim majority countries some of the countries sadly not only phrase the Chinese and requested the Chinese to step up apply more pressure so there's that and also a marathon that my colleague here involved in some of the initiatives in Washington back this past summer the United States government called the ministerial on international religious freedom over 60 countries been invited only four Muslim country at four countries sign up only Kosovo is one of the signatories so it's clearly the same concerns that actually make it and made it difficult all this time even for the democratic countries with long democratic traditions openly espoused international norms of human rights who also hesitated because it's China there's a business lobby that doesn't let upset China you know Australia politicians feel what would happen if we did upset China what would happen to our country and security wise business wise so that hesitation has caused silence and cowardice in the face of this problem of global and historic significance practically speaking how to activate more Muslim voices to say we also do not want to be standing by what this happens to innocent Muslim people in East Turkestan and I'd like to praise the Australian Imams Council it came out with one of the early statements that was just about it was either August or September look it up Australian Imams Council write to them and praise them and then if I know some of our Uighur the Australian Uighurs are would like to speak with many different community organizations here in Australia and ask different Muslim organizations to make their own statements it can be short just to speak out that will draw more momentum to say look ordinary practicing Muslims I would like to have even more powerful leaders voice the concern well ladies and gentlemen we probably could go on for much longer but I rather expect unfortunately we're out of time and we're going to have to get you away in a timely fashion but I really want to thank very much our three panelists tonight for their in many respects rather grim tale but also some advice on what perhaps might be done towards the resolution of this problem like to thank them all for their particularly profound insights tonight thanks to Michael thanks to Nuri and thanks to work to glory as well so if everybody ladies and gentlemen you would join me in thanking them for their presentation tonight