Video from state TV showed dozens of dancing, flower-waving celebrants on the airport tarmac as Xi disembarked. State media reports say he met with representatives of ethnic groups and “expressed the hope that everyone would join forces and move forward together to build a beautiful Xinjiang.” The friendly tableau stood in stark contrast to widespread allegations of abuses against ethnic Uyghurs in Xinjiang carried out by Beijing.
In 2021, the U.S. State Department labeled as genocide what it called a “systematic attempt to destroy Uyghurs by the Chinese party-state.” It alleged the Chinese Communist Party had arbitrarily imprisoned more than a million civilians, created a regime of torture and forced sterilization and drastically curtailed freedoms of speech, religion and movement among Uyghurs.
