Chinese ambassador met Thailand’s security chief six days after two pardoned Uyghurs were moved to immigration custody, Switzerland signs a trade upgrade with China’s first forced-labor commitment, Steinmeier presses Xi on “the right of the strongest”

October 30, 2026 Közet Staff

Közet’s daily roundup of news on Uyghurs, their homeland, and the world around them. Friday, October 30, 2026.

TOP LINE

China’s ambassador to Thailand, Zhang Jianwei, called on the new secretary-general of Thailand’s National Security Council, Gen. Chaipruak Doungprapat, at Government House in Bangkok on October 27, six days after two Uyghur men pardoned by the king were moved from prison to the Suan Phlu immigration detention center, where the council will decide whether they go to China or a third country, Közet reported on Friday. The council described the meeting as a courtesy call and listed “law enforcement cooperation between Thailand and China” among the topics, in a post Közet reviewed; the embassy’s account, published two days later, quoted Zhang praising “good cooperation in judicial and law-enforcement affairs” and Chaipruak pledging “all-round cooperation.” The two men, detained in March 2014 near the Malaysian border when one of them was 14, have had no visit from a lawyer since October 21: requests on October 21, 22 and 26 were referred upward and neither granted nor refused, Krittaporn Semsantad of the Peace Rights Foundation told Közet. Both have said in writing that they do not want to return to China, said Nyrola Elimä, an independent researcher who has followed the case. Three men from the same group remain in Klong Prem prison. Thailand sent 109 members of the group to China in July 2015 and 40 more in February 2025; UN experts, Human Rights Watch and Fortify Rights said this year that the 40 men’s whereabouts are unknown. (Közet; Office of the National Security Council of Thailand; Chinese Embassy in Thailand)

HOMELAND

XPCC chief on the border: “stability” first, “counter-terrorism” routine, more of the “national common language.” He Zhongyou, party secretary and political commissar of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC) and deputy secretary of the regional party committee, inspected the Fourth Division at Kokdala on October 27 and 28, visiting border police posts, the Muzart (Muzaerte) port of entry, a women’s militia squad at the Zhonghuai outpost on the 74th Regiment and the Qing-era Dolantu karun ruins on the 67th Regiment, Bingtuan Daily, the XPCC’s newspaper, reported on Thursday. At the border posts he called for stronger border infrastructure and “technological empowerment” to build “an iron wall of border prevention and control,” the paper said. Summing up, he told cadres to “always put the maintenance of social stability first,” to pursue “counter-terrorism and stability maintenance” on a “law-based, routine” footing, to strengthen “party, government, military, police, Corps and people” joint border defense, and to “strengthen education in the national common language and script” so that workers of all ethnic groups “interact, exchange and blend.” (Bingtuan Daily, the XPCC’s newspaper, via the XPCC Fourth Division)

Museum directors across the region drilled in the party’s “two histories.” More than 180 officials of the regional Cultural Heritage Bureau, its museums and museum directors from across the region attended a lecture on what the authorities call the “two histories of Xinjiang,” the official volumes on the region’s history and the history of its religions, given by Tian Weijiang, a former vice president of the Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences, under the title “Interpreting Xinjiang’s history from a Chinese perspective,” the bureau said in a notice carried Thursday by the regional Culture and Tourism Department. The notice says the volumes give heritage work a basis for “setting the record straight,” and that museum staff are to apply them to research, exhibitions and visitor services so that “the Chinese nation’s correct view of history” takes root and Chinese culture is “fully displayed through real objects, real scenes and real events,” guiding “the masses of all ethnic groups” toward the “five identifications.” The notice gives no date for the lecture. (Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Cultural Heritage Bureau, via the Culture and Tourism Department)

DIASPORA

Book of 26 Uyghur testimonies launched in Washington. The Uyghur Transitional Justice Database, a Norway-based documentation group, launched the English edition of Untold Uyghur Stories: Echoes of Resistance and Resilience Amid a Relentless Flow of Oppression and Injustice at a National Endowment for Democracy conference in Washington on October 28, Közet reported on Friday from the event. The 252-page book, published in September after a Uyghur edition launched in Istanbul, gathers 26 testimonies collected between October 2023 and May 2025, most of them anonymous for the contributors’ safety; the named contributors include Gulbahar Haitiwaji, Qelbinur Sidik, Gulbahar Jelilova and Patigul Rozi. “Statistics do not seem to have much impact on people,” the database’s founder, Bahtiyar Omar, told Közet; “what affects people is the experience each individual has lived through.” The panel, moderated by NED’s William Nee, included Elise Anderson of the New Lines Institute and Alexander Boyd of China Books Review; about 35 to 40 people attended. Russian, Chinese and Turkish editions are planned. Közet receives funding from NED, which also has funded the database. (Közet)

Turkic states’ Ankara Declaration pledges cooperation against “separatism.” Leaders of the Organization of Turkic States adopted the 163-point Ankara Declaration at their 13th summit on Friday, pledging cooperation against “terrorism, extremism, separatism” alongside defense industry, cybersecurity and transport corridor projects, Daily Sabah, a pro-government Turkish daily, reported; Turkey took over the organization’s rotating chairmanship and Uzbekistan hosts the next summit in 2027. The organization’s members include Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, which share borders with the Uyghur region. (Daily Sabah, a pro-government Turkish daily)

INTERNATIONAL

Switzerland and China sign a trade upgrade carrying a forced-labor commitment. Switzerland and China signed a protocol upgrading their 2014 free trade agreement in Beijing on Friday after talks between Swiss President Guy Parmelin and Xi Jinping, Reuters and Xinhua, the state news agency, reported; Xinhua said the two presidents also witnessed the signing of cooperation documents on scientific research, employment and media. According to the factsheet the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs issued when negotiations closed on August 20, the upgraded agreement “contains binding commitments on environment and labour,” including commitments to the “elimination of forced labour” and “to effectively implement the relevant ratified conventions of the International Labour Organisation,” a provision the factsheet says “appears for the first time in one of China’s FTAs”; disputes go to a panel of experts that can “examine the facts of the case and make recommendations.” Parmelin said the deal was “a new step in our relations”; Xi said free trade cooperation “has become the brightest highlight of China-Switzerland relations,” Xinhua reported. The signing comes ten days after the Swiss foreign ministry raised Uyghurs, Tibetans and China’s new ethnic-unity law at the two countries’ human rights dialogue in Bern. (Reuters; Xinhua, the state news agency; Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs; Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs)

Steinmeier to Xi: cut the surplus, defend the order. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier asked Xi Jinping on Friday to reduce China’s trade surplus with Germany, saying “we want close trade and economic relations” but that “with so much dynamism it is natural that we must keep reviewing the framework,” and warned that the international order was under pressure from “the right of the strongest,” citing Ukraine, the Middle East and Sudan, the German news agency dpa reported. Xi replied that the world’s second- and third-largest economies should build cooperation on equality and mutual benefit, “openness instead of isolation, cooperation instead of confrontation.” At Peking University on Thursday, Steinmeier said China should use its relationship with Russia to press for an end to the war in Ukraine and spoke of China’s “grown responsibility” in international relations, dpa reported. (dpa, via t-online and Ariva; Office of the Federal President)

MEDIA WATCH

Tianjin paper casts Hotan schoolboys in a “national unity” play, and in its story. Tianjin Daily, the Tianjin party committee’s newspaper, devoted a page-8 feature on Thursday to the Tianjin Children’s Art Theatre’s October tour in Hotan of 少年国旗班, “Young Flag Guard,” a play the paper says is drawn from “the true story of Xinjiang students studying in Tianjin,” in which the Uyghur boy “Little Kerim” was played at each stop by a local child chosen by audition or school selection after the Uyghur student who played the role in Tianjin could not travel. The paper describes performances at Hotan Prefecture No. 2 Middle School and at the “ethnic unity education base” in the Yutian-Tianjin industrial park in Keriye (Yutian), the latter following the launch of a “Tianjin-Hotan of one heart, culture nourishing Xinjiang” youth exchange program; it quotes one boy’s father, a singer who has performed in Tianjin, as hoping his son’s part would convey local people’s gratitude for Tianjin’s “pairing assistance,” reports that the troupe invited the other boy to come to Tianjin for school “in a few years,” and closes with the director saying the two peoples held together “like pomegranate seeds.” (Tianjin Daily, the Tianjin party committee’s newspaper)

ON THE RADAR

Saturday, Beijing: Parmelin opens the Swiss-Chinese Economic Forum and ends his visit, per the Swiss government; Steinmeier departs for Berlin, per his office’s program.
Saturday, Istanbul: “Uygur 12 Makam – Sanat Rüzgarı,” the twelve-muqam concert at Zeytinburnu Culture and Arts Center, reception 6:30 p.m., concert 7:30 p.m. local time, per UygurHaber, a Turkish-language Uyghur news site, citing the organizers’ invitation.
December 9 to 10, Washington: The Uyghur Human Rights Project, an advocacy group, and George Washington University plan a conference assessing ten years of the detention campaign, Omer Kanat of UHRP said at the NED event, per Közet.

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.