Dec 11, 2019
Read the documents: China tried to get World Bank funds to spy on Uighurs
Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, author of China
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.
Go deeper: China tried to get World Bank to fund surveillance in Xinjiang