Beijing rejects the allegations, claiming to be fighting terrorism and ensuring the region's development.

Hopes of a thorough investigation into rights abuses have given way to concern among rights advocates that the ruling Communist Party will use the visit to whitewash its alleged atrocities.

Beijing has long denied accusations of ethnic cleansing against Uighurs and other mostly Muslim Turkic people in Xinjiang.

International Olympic Committee vice-president John Coates says the body 'is not a world government', following concerns over China's human rights record and treatment of the Uighur minority.

Lawmakers say officials should skip the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics unless China improves on human rights in Hong Kong and for the Uighur Muslim minority.

For the moment, Islam lives on, though the Sinicization campaign has palpably reduced the role and visibility of religion in daily life.

NZ foreign minister says Wellington only recognises a genocide when it has been defined as such by international courts.

China keeps data on its use of the death penalty secret, although rights group Amnesty International estimates the country is the top executioner globally.

Nike had issued a statement saying it was 'very concerned' by allegations of forced labour in Xinjiang while H&M earlier said it would no longer source cotton from the region.

A Muslim commentator says Beijing wants Muslim ethnic groups throughout China to lose any sense of unity their religion provides.

Beijing has stepped up the rhetoric against London since Britain offered millions of Hong Kong citizens in its ex-colony the chance to obtain full British citizenship.

Besides its reporting on Xinjiang, the BBC has also aired a hard-hitting documentary accusing China of covering up the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic around the city of Wuhan in late 2019.