4 - How A Military-Industrial-Complex Think Tank Potentially Harmed the Human Rights of Uyghurs, and How the Xinjiang Government Did Nothing About It

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) is an Australian government-owned think tank with a hybrid funding model. It receives most of its funding from the Australian Department of Defence, but mixed in with its funding is what could be described as ‘unclean money’ from weapons-making companies, such as Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. Under its charter, ASPI is tasked with advising and educating on defence and strategic policy, but of late, with its China fixation, it has detoured away from its charter into human rights advocacy, becoming the strange bedfellow of human rights organisations like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the UN OHCHR. In 2020, ASPI published its infamous ‘Uyghurs For Sale’ report, claiming it uncovered a Chinese government-led program that systematically forced 80,000 Uyghurs into forced labour. But a critical legal analysis of ASPI’s report reveals that not a single allegation stacks up in law, logic or evidence, to the point where ASPI has left itself open to the accusation that its report is a piece of strategic disinformation propaganda. Unfortunately, however, in order for a full and thorough refutation of ASPI’s report to be carried out (in terms of proving a negative), researchers, such as myself, need access to key sites in Xinjiang, which have been refused by the Xinjiang government. This leaves China open to the accusation that it has something to hide and leaves researchers (who were initially willing to criticise ASPI) in an ethical dilemma - should we continue defending China based on desktop research alone, or should we sit out of the debate entirely if we continue to be refused field access by the Xinjiang government?