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When Wumaerjiang asked about his son, the agent replied that all
children who had spent time abroad must undergo “patriotic
education.” Wumaerjiang reported the
case to the police in Kiruna, who
interrogated him for three days but
never contacted him again. He also
contacted the Swedish Security Service
by post and e-mail, but never heard back
from them either.
Refugee Espionage
The lengths to which China is prepared to go to prevent
information from leaving Xinjiang became obvious when I visited
Stockholm earlier this summer to interview five Uyghurs currently
residing in Sweden. Their stories are backed up by e-mails, chat
logs and voice recordings from WeChat, the Chinese security
service’s software of choice.
Chinese refugee espionage on foreign soil is not new. In 2010, a
Uyghur man was sentenced to 16 months in prison for having
spied on his own diaspora in Sweden on the behalf of the Chinese
embassy. The Swedish Security Service also collected evidence
against one diplomat at the embassy, and one intelligence officer
working undercover as a correspondent for the party newspaper
People’s Daily. Both were expelled.
In 2010, Adam Galif arrived in Sweden to study. It only took a week
before the Chinese security service visited his remaining family
back in Xinjiang. “My dad told me I needed to contact a ‘friend’
who had just visited him. The person sent me an e-mail a couple of
days later, saying that since I am a Chinese citizen, I have to inform
on other Uyghurs living in Sweden,” Galif recalled.
A Province of Unrest
The Uyghurs, with linguistic and cultural roots in the larger Turkic
world, have inhabited the Xinjiang region for some 2,000 years.
When the region became a part of the People’s Republic of China in
1949, Han Chinese made up less than 10 percent of the population,
compared to almost 80 percent Uyghurs. A campaign to “Sinicize”
the resource-rich and strategically important region soon began:
Between 1957 and 1967, 2 million Han settlers poured into
Xinjiang. Even more followed after China’s economic reforms
started in the late 1970s, as state-owned enterprises intensified
their hunt for oil and minerals.
Jojje Olsson
Denials
“When I asked for more details, she didn’t even reply to me.
Probably she is afraid as well,” said Wumaerjiang.
He hasn’t heard his son’s voice since waving goodbye to him at the
Istanbul airport almost three years ago.
The Author
Jojje Olsson is a journalist and author living in Asia since 2007. He is currently based in
Taipei.