TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The Frontier Services Group (FSG), founded in part by Erik Prince, the man responsible for the mercenary company Blackwater, announced last week that it is preparing to open a "training center" in Xinjiang, China.
The announcement raises concerns that company, headquartered in Hong Kong, and whose board has several U.S. investors, including Prince, is now poised to begin assisting the Chinese communist party with its inhumane suppression of the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang region.
The move is by no means out of character for the company, whose major share holder is the CITIC group in Beijing. In fact, the FSG’s primary business is providing security and logistic support to Chinese businesses working in Africa.
The new training center announced for Xinjiang in the Kashgar Caohu Industrial Park will place the company in a region where the Chinese state is coming under increasing criticism for serious violations of human rights involving the reported detention of over one million Uyghur Muslims.
Prince is currently the deputy chairman of the FSG board. He is also the brother of U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, reports Japan Times.
The report says that the agreement is still preliminary, and has not yet been finalized by the entire company board. Erik Prince reportedly had no knowledge of the deal as of Friday, Feb. 1 according to a spokesperson.
CNN quotes a 2017 interview with Prince in which he said FSG is “not Blackwater at all.”
"None of our men are armed. We do logistics, we deliver groceries -- including frozen groceries -- from Cape Town and Durban all the way up to through Democratic Republic of Congo. We do aviation out of Malta. And we're the biggest medivac provider for the UN."
The United Nations, as well as a large number of countries and diplomats from around the world have all expressed serious concern over China’s mistreatment and abuse of the Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region. The Chinese communist party aims to effectively erase the ethno-religious identity of the Uyghur people in Xinjiang.
If the Kashgar training facility is approved and FSG is incorporated into the region’s police state security apparatus, then foreign mercenaries employed by the CCP may begin assisting in the mass violations of human rights taking place in the region.
Chang Zhengming, chairman of the CITIC group and FSG
