When the University College Cork in Ireland withdrew from a partnership with Minzu University of China (MUC) in 2021, speculation cited concerns linking MUC with human rights abuses against Uyghurs in Xinjiang. This included the arrest of a Uyghur professor at MUC who was accused of separatism and escalating ethnic tensions.
The speculation, however, failed to unveil MUC’s direct involvement in developing technologies used to oppress ethnic minorities in China.
MUC and Xinjiang University are two universities under the ‘double first-class university plan’ which is intended to provide 42elite Chinese universities with resources to become ‘world-class’ universities. Both are working on speech– and facial-recognition technologies used to target ethnic minorities.