The seized Uyghur property next to Starbucks’ Urumqi flagship, Friday’s regional party committee vote, robot dogs in the Korla drills

October 22, 2026 Közet Staff

Közet’s daily roundup of news on Uyghurs, their homeland, and the world around them. Thursday, October 22, 2026.

TOP LINE

Közet reported Wednesday that Starbucks’ Urumqi flagship occupies the former driveway of a building that belonged to a Uyghur family’s company before a Chinese court confiscated the company’s assets and auctioned its shares in 2019. Enforcement and auction records document the company’s sale to its tenant after an owner’s conviction on a charge of helping terrorist activities; Közet could not obtain the criminal judgment itself. Satellite images, historical photographs and visitors’ videos place the store on the former driveway, but Közet could not determine who now owns the building or holds the land-use rights beneath it. Starbucks and Boyu Capital did not respond to Közet’s questions before publication. (Közet)

HOMELAND

Regional party committee election set for Friday. The five-yearly meeting of the Chinese Communist Party’s delegates for the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region adopted its election rules and a preliminary candidate list for the 11th regional party committee at a presidium session on Wednesday afternoon chaired by party secretary Chen Xiaojiang. The meeting is scheduled to close Friday morning with the election of the committee; the new committee then selects its standing committee and secretary at its first plenum, usually the same day. The report Chen delivered on October 19 put “maintaining social stability” first and called for implementing the “ethnic-unity law”, consolidating the spread of the “national common language” and “systematically advancing Sinicization of religion.” (Xinjiang Daily, the regional party committee’s newspaper, via Aksu News; The Paper, a Shanghai state-owned outlet)

Heavy snow and gales through Saturday. China’s Central Meteorological Observatory said Thursday that most of the region faces wind, falling temperatures and rain or snow from October 22 to 24, with winds of force 9–11 at mountain passes, gusts to force 12–13, drops of more than 10°C in parts of the north, and blizzard to extreme blizzard in the Altay mountains, the Tacheng highlands, the northern Tianshan slope and the Ili valley. It warned of risks to transport, tourism, farming and herding. These are forecasts, not confirmed closures or losses. (Central Meteorological Observatory via China News Service, a state news agency)

Mining company tells investors Qumul is the priority and some Zhundong mines are curtailing output. State-owned China Energy Engineering and its listed subsidiary Yipuli (易普力) hosted an investor roadshow at the Wucaiwan No. 1 open-pit coal mine in the Zhundong coalfield on October 20, promoting autonomous electric haul trucks and a digital control platform. In its investor-relations record of the meeting, Yipuli reported 16.3 billion yuan in new contracts companywide through the third quarter, called Qumul (Hami) “the focus of the company’s market push and regional layout,” and said some Zhundong mines were “producing to order and flexibly limiting output” because of coal type, outbound transport capacity and prices. (Yipuli investor-relations record No. 2026-007; Securities Times, a state-run financial paper)

DIASPORA

Abduweli Ayup to present in Paris. The Uyghur linguist is expected to present research on language loss and family separation at an October 24 symposium in Paris, according to Asia Sentinel and the World Uyghur Congress, an advocacy group. Közet has not confirmed the organizer, venue or program. (Asia Sentinel; World Uyghur Congress)

INTERNATIONAL

Uyghurs absent from the public C5+1 record. The joint statement issued after the October 19 ministerial commits the United States and five Central Asian governments to cooperate on “countering illegal immigration,” terrorism and trafficking; it does not mention refugees, non-refoulement or Uyghurs. Neither Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s opening remarks nor his press availability, where no reporter raised the subject, referred to Uyghurs, and the department’s Kazakhstan readout did not either. Two advocacy groups, the World Uyghur Congress and the Uyghur Human Rights Project, had publicly asked him to raise forced returns to China and pressure on diaspora communities. The public record does not establish whether he did so privately. Közet submitted questions to the State Department on October 22 and will report any response. Rubio left Uzbekistan for India on October 20. (U.S. Department of State; Uzbekistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs; RFE/RL)

Robot dogs and vehicle grilles in the Korla drills. CNR Military (央广军事), the official account of China Media Group’s defense broadcast, posted footage Wednesday that it said shows robot dogs moving with mixed Chinese–Pakistani units in the search-and-clear phase of the Karakoram 2026 exercise. CCTV Military (央视军事) posted footage the same day that it described as showing Type 08 wheeled infantry fighting vehicles fitted with roof grilles against drones. China’s Defense Ministry describes the exercise, which began October 14, as high-altitude counter-terrorism training. (CNR Military; CCTV Military; Ministry of National Defense)

MEDIA WATCH

XPCC media tour presents cotton “household workshops.” A report from Tumshuq on Thursday by Guangming Net, the website of the Communist Party-run Guangming Daily, is part of an organized “central media investigation tour” of the Third Division of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC). It profiles the cotton chain from ginning to socks and describes Tangjin Textile’s model of placing sock-knitting machines in more than 930 rural households for farmers to operate “in their spare time,” with cottonseed sourced from Qarghiliq (Yecheng), Yarkent (Shache) and Maralbishi (Bachu) counties in Kashgar prefecture and socks exported to Uzbekistan and Mexico. The 930 figure has appeared in XPCC-affiliated reporting since at least 2024. The report offers no account of how households are selected, how they are paid, or whether they can decline. UN human rights experts said in January that state labor-transfer programs across the region may amount to forced labor; their statement made no finding about these workshops. The XPCC was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury in 2020 over rights abuses against ethnic minorities. (Guangming Net; OHCHR; U.S. Treasury)

A menswear brand markets Aksu cotton through CCTV.com. A sponsored article on Sina, dated October 21 and labeled as commercial content sourced to 点财网, describes brand 十如仕 working with CCTV.com, the state broadcaster’s website, on a documentary and a “traceability livestream” from cotton fields in Awat county, Aksu prefecture, with actor Wang Yang and CCTV.com presenter Chang Ting. The piece pairs an Aksu origin story with sustainability and traceability claims; it names no mill, audit or lot documentation, and none of its claims are independently verified. (Sina, sponsored content)

ON THE RADAR

Friday, October 23: the regional party meeting is scheduled to close and elect the 11th regional party committee; the committee’s first plenum then names the standing committee and secretary.
October 22–23: the China Home Textile Association’s “好家纺·新疆造” gathering in Maralbishi (Bachu), Kashgar prefecture, including a scheduled presentation by the National Cotton and Cotton Yarn Trading Center on a “full-chain cotton traceability system.”
October 24: Abduweli Ayup presents in Paris.
Through Saturday: snow and wind across the north; the Central Meteorological Observatory has warned of risks to transport, tourism, farming and herding.

Radar is compiled by Közet’s editors from Közet’s own reporting, public documents and other outlets’ work, attributed in each item. Where Közet has read the underlying record, the item says so; where it could not verify a claim, the item says that too. Statements by governments and companies are reported as statements, not facts. Uyghur place names appear first, with the official Chinese name in parentheses. Published weekdays at 10:00 a.m. Eastern. Editorial standards and corrections: kozet.org/editorial-standards.