‘China splitting Uighur kids from families for social re-engineering’

Thousands of Muslim children in China’s western Xinjiang region are being separated from their parents in what a new study calls a “systematic campaign of social re-engineering and cultural genocide”.
The research sheds light on what happens to the children of so-called “double-detained” parents — when both a mother and father have been abducted by the state into what it calls “re-education” facilities. The UN says China has detained over one million minority Muslims, mostly Uighurs, since a dramatic escalation of the policy in 2017.
Writing in the Journal of Political Risk, German researcher Adrien Zenz presents evidence to show that the Xinjiang authorities pre-empted the risk that kids who had lost both parents to detention centres would be motivated to
lash out against the state.
The state government issued directives ordering schools to concentrate on Uighur students’ “thought education” — similar to the sort of language used by the state to justify its detention of adults. Schools were ordered to establish “emergency response plans” that include dealing with state-orphaned children, including regular assessments of their state of mind and “psychological counselling”.
Satellite images show that around the same time China started expanding the facilities we now know are used for the detention of Uighurs, attached or independent boarding schools also started receiving dramatically increased dormitory facilities. Official reports boast that the children receive “improved Chinese language skills” as well as generally better manners and personal hygiene.
China has denied the existence of any state-orphaned minority kids.