Hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs have been sent to re-education camps in China since 2017. Today, the repression continues, but less conspicuously. The Xinjiang region appears to be in a significant stage of transition.
In a former mosque in the city of Kashgar, two baby camels are waiting for customers. They are standing in a small enclosure in the courtyard, next to a make-up studio and mannequins in colorful traditional dress.
The camels are the accessories for a trend that tourists from other parts of China love: They dress up as Uighur princesses for photos. The studio in the former mosque specializes in this kind of "ethnic" travel photography - and business seems to be good.
The Chinese, who are once again traveling extensively following the lifting of the country's zero-COVID policy, increasingly view the Xinjiang region as an attractive tourist destination. In just the five days of holidays in early May, the region recorded 8 million visitors, an increase of 140 percent over the same period last year. The increase was twice as high as the national average.
In the West, by contrast, Xinjiang is primarily associated with the oppression of the Uyghurs. After Beijing unleashed its "Strike Hard" campaign in 2014, hundreds of thousands of women and men were shipped to camps, with some estimates putting the figure at more than 1 million. read more