If you watched some of the videos on YouTube featuring young Uighur influencers, then you would have no idea that a growing number of human rights organisations and the United Nations have documented China’s severe repression of this Muslim ethnic minority. In a study published mid-October, an Australian research centre has dissected more than 1,700 videos to show how they are in fact part of the complex Chinese propaganda network under President Xi Jinping.
“Do you want to know about cotton in Xinjiang? Then, follow [me]!” says a smiling young woman who presents herself online as “Anni Guli”, a Uighur resident of Xinjiang. In the video, Anni tells her followers that she will show them a cotton field in Xinjiang, an autonomous region of China and the native land of the Uighur minority.
