You’ve heard all about the camps. China detains more than 1 million Muslims in sprawling concrete prisons in its Xinjiang region. The regime hasn’t laid any charges against most of these men and women, nor even given them the dignity of a trial — or any due process.
What you may not know about is Chinese tech giant Huawei’s role in the largest detention of an ethnic and religious minority since World War II.
The detention centers are hell on earth. Stories of torture flow out steadily. “Fake news,” insists China. But when leaked documents quote President Xi Jinping calling for these minorities to be shown “absolutely no mercy,” and when survivors risk their own safety to show us torture scars and ripped fingernails, I know whom I believe.
Activists accuse Huawei of complicity in these horrors. As a recent report from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute put it: “Huawei works directly with the Chinese Government’s Public Security Bureau in Xinjiang on a range of projects.”
Huawei has tried to deny this, claiming its work in the region is conducted through third parties. Well, if that’s true, someone better tell whoever writes the press releases for the Xinjiang government. “Together with the Public Security Bureau,” one 2018 release read, “Huawei will unlock a new era of smart policing and help build a safer, smarter society.”
“Smarter security” is a euphemism for invasive data profiling. If you are unfortunate enough to fit the profile — Muslim of a particular origin — you are vulnerable to arrest and detention. The regime tries to justify this blatant profiling as necessary to “re-educate” potential terrorists. Yes, really. There are more than 1 million “suspected terrorists,” who all happen to share the same religion and ethnicity.
Do Huawei executives know about this? Let’s allow them to speak for themselves. When questioned directly in 2018 by the UK Parliament over whether the firm felt complicit in human rights abuses, Huawei boss John Suffolk said: “Our judgment is, ‘Is it legal within the countries in which we operate?’ That’s our criteria. It’s for others to make a judgment on whether it’s right or wrong.”
In other words, Huawei is an ethics-free zone. And it can’t plead ignorance: Huawei is almost an extension of the Communist Party. The Communist regime, including its military and intelligence wings, subsidizes the firm to the tune of $75 billion. There is massive personnel overlap between Huawei and Xi’s one-party state apparatus.
It is inconceivable that Huawei doesn’t know about the camps. The firm must know. And that knowledge makes it complicit. What is happening to Uyghur people and others in Xinjiang is state-sponsored terror on an epic scale. And by the local government’s admission, Huawei is the technological “partner” to these crimes.
And the same company wants to develop 5G infrastructure in many Western states. Massive state subsidies mean that Huawei is able to undercut the competition significantly. Thankfully, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and the United States have refused to be seduced and blocked Huawei. For these countries, data security far outweighs the financial bottom line.
Not so Britain, where I work and live. The UK government has agreed to let Huawei build 35 percent of its 5G network. That’s hardly surprising, given that Huawei’s UK board is riddled with former UK cabinet ministers and intelligence bosses, parliamentarians, retired establishment figures — all with their snouts in the trough.
But the argument against Huawei isn’t just about data security. It’s about human rights. Which is why the US should make it clear that the UK is turning its back against the special relationship for a company knee-deep in rights abuse. It’s a grotesque betrayal of our closest ally — and of one of the world’s most vulnerable religious minorities.
Luke de Pulford is founder of the Coalition for Genocide Response and sits on the UK Conservative Party Human Rights Commission.
