Dec 11, 2019

Read the documents: China tried to get World Bank funds to spy on Uighurs

Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian

Below are more than 8,000 pages of documentation about efforts by Chinese schools to secure funding from the World Bank to support surveillance programs in the country's Xinjiang region.

Why it matters: A World Bank spokesperson told Axios the June 2017 procurement documents had not been translated into English, meaning only Chinese-speaking staff could read them.

  • This means oversight was nearly impossible for this specific procurement plan because Chinese nationals who staff the World Bank office in Beijing cannot be relied on to be whistleblowers about Chinese government plans.

Read the documents.

Go deeper: China tried to get World Bank to fund surveillance in Xinjiang

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Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian

Scoop: China tried to get World Bank to fund surveillance in Xinjiang

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios

Chinese recipients of World Bank loans tried to secure funding for the purchase of facial recognition technology for use in China’s northwest region of Xinjiang, according to documents obtained by Axios.

Why it matters: The World Bank's loan program in Xinjiang demonstrates the extreme moral hazard that is now facing any organization with operations in the region, where China has constructed a surveillance state and detained more than a million ethnic minorities.

Go deeperArrowDec 11, 2019
Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian

Scoop: The World Bank told Taiwanese staff to get Chinese passports

This year, the World Bank told current and prospective employees of Taiwanese nationality they must present Chinese travel documents in order to maintain or pursue employment.

Why it matters: China has recently ramped up its campaign to systematically force Taiwan and its citizens out of the international community. But forcing out its own staff in this way violates World Bank employment principles.

Go deeperArrowDec 13, 2019
Rashaan Ayesh

China separating Uighur children from families to re-educate them

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios

About a half-million Uighur children have been separated from their families and placed in boarding schools as part of China's effort to eradicate the Uighur identity, The New York Times reports.

The big picture per Axios' Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian: Forced family separation is a tried-and-true method that governments have used to permanently eradicate minority identities and culture. The New York Times reveals for the first time the true scale — and the genocidal intent — of China's intergenerational family separation policies in Xinjiang, a province with a large population of Uighurs.

Go deeperArrowDec 28, 2019