The Australian Strategic Policy Institute launched The Xinjiang Data Project on September 24 2020, publishing the most comprehensive database of Xinjiang's detention system in the world. Using satellite imagery analysis and official Chinese construction tender documents, ASPI researchers identified and mapped over 380 sites newly built or significantly expanded since 2017. The sites were categorised into four tiers by security level, from lower-security re-education camps to high-security prison-style facilities with perimeter walls, watchtowers and internal fencing. ASPI, xjdp.aspi.org.au, September 24 2020.

The ASPI research directly contradicted official Chinese government statements that all trainees at the so-called vocational education and training centres had graduated by late 2019. Satellite imagery showed at least 61 detention sites with new construction and expansion work occurring between July 2019 and July 2020, including at least 14 facilities still under construction in 2020. The evidence indicated a policy shift from lower-security re-education camps toward higher-security prison-style facilities. ASPI researcher Nathan Ruser concluded that available evidence suggests many extrajudicial detainees are now being formally charged and locked up in higher security facilities, or sent to walled factory compounds. ASPI, September 24 2020.

Beijing has consistently described the Xinjiang detention facilities as voluntary vocational education and training centres designed to counter extremism and provide free skills training. Chinese officials have stated publicly that detainees attended voluntarily and graduated when training was complete. The Xinjiang Police Files, hacked from Chinese police computer systems and published by ICIJ and the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in May 2022, document in the Chinese government's own operational language what the facilities actually were: high-security institutions with machine gun posts, snipers, armed guards, shoot-to-kill orders for escape attempts and protocols for preventing detainees from contacting their families. ICIJ, icij.org, May 2022.

The gap between official language and operational reality documented in the files is not a matter of interpretation. The Chinese government's own operational manuals, authenticated by ICIJ and multiple academic experts, describe the exact security infrastructure and detention protocols the government simultaneously denied existed. China's response to the Xinjiang Police Files was to call the investigation pure fabrication. The documents were authenticated by ICIJ, 17 media partners and independent academic analysis. ICIJ, icij.org, May 2022.

Human Rights Watch documented in its 2019 report that the IJOP aggregates intimate personal data about individuals, often without their knowledge, from a range of sources including police checkpoints, surveillance cameras, WiFi sniffers and informant networks. The platform flags individuals as potentially threatening based on a range of criteria that include practising Islam, possessing a Quran, praying regularly, having a passport or having overseas contacts. The Xinjiang Police Files document that in Konasheher county alone, at least 10,000 people were recommended for detention or closer examination by police using the IJOP predictive policing system. ICIJ, Xinjiang Police Files, May 2022.

The IJOP is part of a broader mass surveillance infrastructure in Xinjiang that includes ubiquitous CCTV cameras with facial recognition capabilities, mandatory smartphone apps that monitor communications, DNA collection and biometric data harvesting from Uyghur Muslim residents. The system is designed to identify, track and flag Uyghur Muslims for attention based on religious observance, family connections and travel history. Human Rights Watch documented that being flagged by IJOP can result in detention without charge or trial. HRW, 2019, hrw.org.

The China Cables, published by ICIJ and 17 media partners in November 2019, comprised classified Chinese government documents including a nine-page operational bulletin for running the Xinjiang detention camps and a longer manual on the system's broader surveillance infrastructure. The documents provided, in the Chinese government's own words, instructions for preventing escape, managing points-based discipline systems, conducting ideological indoctrination, preventing detainees from contacting family members and controlling information flow to the outside world. China described the documents as pure fabrication and fake news. ICIJ, icij.org, November 2019.

Academic research published in the peer-reviewed journal Modern China in 2026 found that the China Cables investigation, along with the contemporaneous Xinjiang Papers leaked to the New York Times, represented a turning point in forcing Beijing's public position from outright denial of the camps to justification and eventual partial dismantling of the most visible elements of the mass detention system. The research by political scientist Jan Svec at the Institute of International Relations in Prague documented how investigative journalism and civil society pressure produced a measurable shift in Chinese government public statements. ICIJ, February 5 2026, icij.org.

AFP and satellite imagery analysts Earthrise Alliance documented in October 2019 that the Chinese government had, since 2014, exhumed and flattened at least 45 Uyghur Muslim cemeteries in Xinjiang, including 30 in the preceding two years. Many of the sites were transformed into parks or parking lots, while others were left as empty lots. AFP reporters physically visited 13 destroyed cemeteries across four cities and observed human remains at at least three sites. Scientists to whom AFP shared photographs confirmed the remains were human bones. The Xinjiang government did not respond to AFP's requests for comment. AFP, October 2019.

CNN independently documented over 100 Uyghur Muslim cemeteries demolished by Chinese authorities since 2014, cross-referencing sites known to the Uyghur diaspora community with satellite images. When asked for comment, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not deny the cemetery destruction. A spokesperson stated that governments in Xinjiang fully respect and guarantee the freedom of all ethnic groups to choose cemeteries and funeral and burial methods. One official notice cited by CNN announced the relocation of a cemetery to meet the demand of city planning and promote construction. ASPI separately documented that 30 percent of all important Islamic sacred sites in Xinjiang, including shrines, cemeteries and pilgrimage routes, have been demolished since 2017. CNN, January 2020 · ASPI, Cultural Erasure report, xjdp.aspi.org.au.