When the Chinese government quietly began retreating from its vast system of detention camps in Xinjiang after 2019, Beijing insisted nothing fundamental had changed. Officials claimed the “vocational training centers” had simply fulfilled their mission. Yet new academic research suggests a very different story: China’s shift was not voluntary, nor purely security-driven, but the result of sustained international exposure-especially investigative journalism that pierced one of the world’s most sophisticated information control systems.

A recent study published in Modern China, a peer-reviewed academic journal, argues that reporting by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and its media partners played a decisive role in forcing Beijing to alter both its narrative and its policies on Xinjiang. The research, conducted by political scientist Jan Švec of the Institute of International Relations in Prague, traces how China moved from outright denial of mass detention to partial acknowledgment, legal rationalization, downsizing, and eventual dismantling of the camps as a visible policy.

For journalists and policymakers in Bangladesh and across the Global South, the findings carry an important lesson: even powerful states that appear immune to criticism are responsive to sustained international scrutiny-particularly when that scrutiny threatens diplomatic legitimacy, trade relations, and global ambitions.

China’s campaign in Xinjiang did not begin in secrecy. After ethnic unrest and a series of deadly attacks that Beijing attributed to Uyghur militants, President Xi Jinping launched the “Strike Hard Campaign against Violent Extremism” in 2014. Uyghur identity itself was increasingly framed as a security problem, and local authorities began experimenting with what they openly called “de-extremization” or “re-education” centers.

At this early stage, the camps were not hidden. Regional state media praised them as innovative governance tools. Official documents spoke plainly about ideological transformation. International awareness, however, remained minimal. The world’s attention was elsewhere, and China faced little pressure to........

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