Rumors recently spread that China had reached an agreement with Türkiye to “export” three million Uyghurs under a labor pact. The claim struck a nerve because, whether or not this specific deal is true, it reflects the ugly reality of Beijing’s ongoing campaign to erase an entire people under the banner of “employment.”
Türkiye’s government swiftly denied the story, labeling it “baseless disinformation.” Yet the deeper truth is that China’s system of forced labor and coerced displacement already amounts to a vast human trafficking machine, one that international watchdogs and governments have called crimes against humanity and, in some cases, genocide.
The Machinery of Forced Displacement
Behind the rumor lies a documented fact: Beijing has institutionalized the relocation of Uyghurs on a massive scale.
- Labor Transfers: By its own 2023 figures, China moved nearly 3 million Uyghurs into jobs far from their homes. These transfers are rarely voluntary. Families are broken apart, children left behind, and entire communities uprooted.
- Internment Camps: Since 2016, hundreds of thousands have been detained in “re-education” centers designed to crush cultural and religious identity.
- Cultural Destruction: Mosques and shrines bulldozed, Uyghur language restricted, children forcibly assimilated.
- Reproductive Control: Reports of forced sterilizations and birth suppression have revealed another dimension of state-driven erasure.
This is not economic development. It is social engineering at gunpoint, designed to dissolve Uyghur society and scatter its people until nothing remains cohesive enough to resist.
The Global Response: Incomplete and Uneven
The United States has moved furthest. The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) has blocked over 16,000 shipments worth billions from entering American markets. 144 entities linked to forced labor are now blacklisted. This has forced corporations to untangle themselves from Xinjiang supply chains.
But momentum is slowing. Enforcement has dropped in recent months, while Europe and much of the world remain far behind with only symbolic resolutions and limited sanctions. Meanwhile, Beijing continues to market its forced labor programs as “poverty alleviation.”
Why the Rumor Struck a Chord
Even though Türkiye has denied the existence of a relocation deal, the idea resonated because it mirrors Beijing’s own logic: export a problem, erase a people, and dress it up as “labor mobility.”
The truth is simpler and darker. The Uyghurs are already being “exported” not across borders, but across provinces, across factories, across deserts. Displacement is their daily reality, stamped with the seal of state policy.
What the World Must Confront
The Uyghur genocide is not hidden. It is exposed in satellite images, leaked government documents, survivor testimonies, and Beijing’s own statistics. What remains hidden is the political will to stop it.
To accept China’s narrative of “labor transfers” is to normalize human trafficking on a scale unseen in modern times. To ignore it is to concede that genocide can now be carried out with bureaucratic efficiency and marketed as development.
