The Chinese government has received assistance from Middle Eastern and North African countries in tracking down Uyghurs to limit criticism of Beijing's repression of Muslim minorities, a new report says.
Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates have helped the Chinese Ministry of State Security locate Uyghurs, according to a new report, entitled "Great Wall of Steel," by the Woodrow Wilson Center's Kissinger Institute on China and the United States.
"It is the first major study to place the Xinjiang humanitarian crisis in a global context, showing the international dimension of Beijing's campaign to suppress the Uyghurs," the report's author, Bradley Jardine, said.
The Chinese government launched a fierce crackdown against the Turkic Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang in 2017.
The Biden administration in December announced new sanctions on several Chinese biotech and surveillance companies and government entities over human rights abuses of Uyghur Muslims in the country's western region.
Also that month, President Joe Biden signed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which bans the import of goods from the Xinjiang region unless the individuals or companies can provide proof that the materials were not made using forced labor.
The Kissinger Institute's report said more than 5,500 Uyghurs outside of China had been targeted by Beijing, hit with cyberattacks and threats to family members who remain in China. Also, more than 1,500 Uyghurs had been detained or forced to return to China to face imprisonment and torture in police custody.
German anthropologist Adrian Zenz, who has studied and documented Beijing's systematic repression of Uyghurs, said China is using economic might and gifts of infrastructure projects to pressure countries to help them.
"The Chinese are quite scared of what Muslim populations think of their treatment of the Uyghurs and have exerted particular effort in influencing government and popular opinion in those countries," Zenz, a senior fellow in China studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, told NBC News.
Chinese authorities began rounding up Muslims in 2017 and detained them in camps supposedly designed to rid them of terrorist or extremist leanings.
Between 1-2 million Uyghurs and members of other minorities from Xinjiang are believed to be held in the camps, where they are forced to study Marxism, renounce their religion, work in factories, and face abuse, according to human rights groups and first-hand accounts, NBC News reported.
The Kissinger Institute's report said that "transnational repression," ranging from online harassment to detention and extradition, has taken place in 44 countries.
Uyghurs even have been threatened in the U.S., Japan, and European Union countries, the report said.
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