Without understanding the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), it is impossible to understand modern day Xinjiang.
Illustration by Luis Grañena
Earlier this month, one of the most sanctioned men in China got a big promotion. Wang Junzheng was the party secretary of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC) — an organization integral to carrying out what U.S. officials have deemed a genocide against Uyghur Muslims in China — and, evidently, his higher-ups were impressed by his work. Despite sanctions from the U.S., United Kingdom, Canada and the EU — all of which were intended to “discourage” Wang and “promote accountability” — the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) promoted Wang to Party chief of the entire Tibet Autonomous Region, an important job in another politically sensitive area for the Chinese government.
Wang’s promotion laid bare one of the central questions of Western efforts to stop the Uyghur genocide: Do sanctions actually change behavior? A big part of the answer, analysts say, is who you are sanctioning.
Wang’s organization, the XPCC, is a paramilitary force that has been
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