The article is written by probably the 2 most highly respected German sinologists: Thomas Heberer, a senior professor of Chinese politics and society at the University of Duisburg-Essen and Helwig Schmidt-Glintzer, a senior professor of Chinese studies and the director of the China Centrum Tübingen (CCT).

They wrote this article after having themselves done their own private investigation on site in Xinjiang in May this year with 2 other German China scholars and an international lawyer.

Here is the TLDR

• They confirm that what happened in Xinjiang was the result of “massive Islamist terror between 2010 and 2016” with “twelve separatist-Islamist movements” active at the same time.
• They remind that “in 2016, extremist Uighurs declared in an ISIS video that they planned to ‘drown Han Chinese in a sea of blood.’” And that “they began recruiting young Uighurs as fighters from Afghanistan and Pakistan in southern Xinjiang”.
• All this “almost led to a loss of control by the central government”. As a result of this “Beijing felt compelled to respond with undoubtedly excessive measures to curb the terror and regain control. The internal security of all of China was at stake. It should also not be overlooked that the Uighur population itself suffered from the terror.”
• Beijing’s response was “a transitional phase” between “2017 to 2020” where “Beijing was forced to declare a ‘state of emergency’, move military units to Xinjiang, and establish a strict discipline regime.”
• Since new Party Secretary Ma Xingrui, who has been in office since December 2021, the goal is “a return to ‘normalcy’ as quickly as possible”. They write that “the various camps established during the peak of the fight against terror have now been largely dissolved” and that “clear signs of a return to ‘normalcy’ are evident. In the regions visited by the group, police street checkpoints are clearly no longer in use.”
• They write that “among the Uighur population, the modernizations initiated by the central government in education, medical care, and employment clearly receive noticeable sympathy. […] With the introduction of fifteen years of free education (kindergarten, school, and vocational training) for young Uighur men and women, the state has initiated a new development boost. Additionally, initially in the southern part of Xinjiang, there is state-subsidized healthcare. […] This is complemented by regionally divided and adapted development aid and resource allocation from the wealthier eastern provinces of China. This is evident in modern vocational training centers in each Xinjiang county. Students receive 200 yuan monthly in addition to free education to support their parents. State-sponsored settlements of modern branches in the agricultural and industrial sectors, which must employ almost exclusively Uighurs at nationally valid minimum wage standards, are intended to help solve the employment problem.”
• They write that even though “the travel group could not ascertain general discrimination against the Uighur language and culture, in Xinjiang, as in all areas of ethnic minorities with their language and script, the main language of instruction in schools from secondary level is Mandarin. The native language is always offered as a subject in compulsory schooling.”
• Their conclusion: “If the human rights situation continues to normalize demonstrably, the EU should initiate dialogue and reconsider the sanctions imposed on China due to Xinjiang.”