"China Cables": Zhu Hailun, craftsman of the "reeducation" of Uyghurs

He is omnipresent. China Cables, the Chinese government's confidential documents published by the International Consortium of News Journalists (ICIJ) on Monday (November 25th), demonstrate the pivotal role played by Zhu Hailun, the No. 2 Communist Party leader in Xinjiang northwest of China), in the policy of repression of the Muslim minority of the Uyghurs.

It is the man who approved the most explosive document of the "China Cables": the "manual" of organization of the "reeducation" camps, these centers where were interned more than a million people, of after the UN estimates. This 2017 memo portrays a prison system where individuals to be "re-educated" can be detained for an indefinite period, are under constant surveillance and subjected to an intensive indoctrination program.

Field man

Zhu Hailun also initialed the three confidential bulletins describing how the massive electronic surveillance system set up in Xinjiang can identify individuals to place in rehab centers. These documents describe hundreds of cases across the region where law enforcement officials are being asked to make "arrests" or "investigative complements" about people who have been caught in the net of the vast video surveillance network. .

>> Read: How Beijing organizes Uygur 2.0 monitoring

Until now, this 61-year-old apparatchik had remained in the shadow of Chen Quanguo, the representative of the CCP in the Xinjiang region. This tough man, known for having "pacified" Tibet where he had been in office until 2016, was tasked with fighting the "terrorist threat" and also to quell the separatist aspirations of the Uyghur minority. In many ways, Chen Quanguo has only modernized the surveillance and police harassment system successfully applied in Tibet by integrating technological innovations such as facial recognition.

But he needed a connoisseur of the field to transform his vision of a Xinjiang paced. This is the role inherited by Zhu Hailun, who set up the repressive apparatus devised by Chen Quanguo, starting in 2016. "Chen Quanguo was the incarnation of the party, but Zhu Hailun is the one who knew what it was necessary to do, who to stop and how to proceed, "sums up a Uighur businessman in exile, interviewed by the Associated Press (AP).

Zhu Hailun arrived in Xinjiang in 1975 as part of a regime program that encouraged ambitious young cadres of the party to live a few years in more remote parts of the country. "But unlike most of his peers who quickly returned to their hometown at the end of their assignment, Zhu Hailun chose to stay in Xianjiang," notes ICIJ.

He slowly climbed the party ladder until the late 1990s. Zhu Hailun gradually built a reputation for efficiency and authority. In particular, he used to organize police raids in the middle of the night in rural villages with a Muslim majority to carry out his policing mission.

Penchant for stick politics

Methods that have not gone unnoticed in Beijing. And when the interethnic riots of 2009 erupted in Urumqi, the regional capital, the regime decided to promote this zealous official to the post of leader of the party in this city. It was an unusual decision, because "ordinarily, the CPC sent Beijing men to the regional capitals to give them field experience in prominent positions," says AP.

Shortly after his appointment, Zhu Hailun organized a massive police harassment campaign against the local Muslim population which, in a sense, foreshadowed the repressive approach advocated by Chen Quanguo in 2016.

The two men therefore share a common penchant for stick politics. In 2017, Zhu Hailun gave a very strong speech to hundreds of police officers. He called on the security forces to "load their rifles, unsheathe their swords and strike the [Muslim] terrorists with force and brutality," the Hong Kong daily South China Morning Post reports.

And even as he harangued the police, Zhu Hailun began, in parallel, to supervise the construction of the "re-education" camps for all those who would be targeted.

In early 2019, Zhu Hailun was retired. He was elected to the head of the regional parliament, which is considered a gift end of career, notes the ICIJ. His successor, Wang Junzheng, a 56-year-old "wolf", is considered one of the Chinese Communist Party's top rising stars.