Report: China’s Influence Campaigns in Southeast Asia & Plight of Uyghurs

Press Release

For Immediate Release

March 27, 2026

Contact@Uyghurstudy.org

Uyghurstudy.org

Today, the Center for Uyghur Studies (CUS) has released a comprehensive report documenting the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) sophisticated and systematic influence campaign in Southeast Asia. This campaign aims to conceal, deny, and justify the ongoing genocide, human rights abuses, and religious persecution of the Chinese government against the Uyghur people in East Turkistan (AKA the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region).

The report, titled “China’s Influence Campaigns in Southeast Asia & Plight of Uyghurs,” examines how Beijing fabricates false narratives, infiltrates institutions, exploits economic leverage, and suppresses dissenting voices to control the narrative surrounding its human rights abuses.

This report serves as a warning to governments, civil society, and citizens across Southeast Asia and beyond: the information environment surrounding the Uyghur Genocide is being deliberately manipulated. Executive Director Abdulhakim Idris stated:

“China’s campaign against the Uyghur people extends beyond mass detention, forced assimilation, and family separation. It is a systematic assault on truth itself. By silencing survivors, manipulating information, and pressuring governments into complicity, the Chinese state is obstructing international accountability for grave human rights violations. This report stands as both evidence and a call to urgent action.”

At the core of this report are the voices of Uyghur men, women, and children, voices that China’s disinformation machinery seeks to erase. The CCP’s influence campaigns are deliberately designed to prevent these stories from reaching audiences in Southeast Asia.

Key Findings

The report highlights a complex, multi-layered disinformation infrastructure implemented by Beijing across the region:

• Thailand has emerged as a critical frontline in the Uyghur refugee crisis. Uyghur detainees in Thai immigration centers face overcrowding, inadequate medical care, near-total isolation, and prolonged detention, conditions described by detainees themselves as “hell on earth.”
• Chinese state media have established content-sharing agreements with Southeast Asian outlets, amplifying pro-Beijing narratives.
• Facebook has removed over 150 fake Chinese-linked accounts and networks, including “Operation Deniz Gazing,” which had approximately 130,000 followers in the Philippines and was used to spread pro-CCP messaging and misinformation about the Uyghurs.
• The report documents the rise of AI-generated propaganda, including deepfake news anchors used across platforms such as TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook, marking a new phase in CCP propaganda efforts.
• Beijing organizes sponsored visits for religious leaders and journalists to the Uyghur region to reinforce its official narratives.
• Uyghur refugees and asylum seekers are systematically delegitimized by CCP messaging, creating political cover for deportations.
• CCP propaganda falsely portrays the Uyghur region as stable and prosperous, claiming that religious freedom and cultural expression are protected.

The report further demonstrates that these propaganda efforts are deeply intertwined with economic influence. China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), trade relations, and debt arrangements create conditions that reinforce political silence and compliance:

• Malaysia’s trade with China exceeded $190 billion in 2023, reinforcing long-standing economic dependence.
• Indonesia received approximately $4.7 billion in Chinese investment during the Jokowi administration, contributing to reluctance in addressing human rights concerns.
• Sri Lanka, following its sovereign debt crisis, entered restructuring agreements with China’s EXIM Bank in 2024, covering roughly $10 billion in debt.

Conclusion

The persecution of the Uyghur people is not a distant issue, it is an immediate test of Southeast Asia’s moral and legal commitments. Silence in the face of crimes against humanity is not neutrality, it is complicity.

The Center for Uyghur Studies (CUS) calls on governments, Islamic institutions, media organizations, and all actors of conscience to reject CCP’s propaganda efforts, confront abuses, and uphold their responsibility to protect fundamental human rights and religious freedom.