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A security firm listed in Hong Kong and led by Erik Prince has signed an agreement with the Chinese authorities for the construction of a training center in Xinjiang, where Uyghur Muslims have suffered a mbadive security crackdown.
Frontier Services Group, which specializes in the security and logistics of companies located in risk areas, has announced the signing of an agreement for the management of a training base in the city of Kashgar, according to a statement released on his Chinese website.
The company was founded by Erik Prince, a former US Navy SEAL member and brother of US Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.
Prince was also the founder of the American military subcontractor Blackwater, whose mercenaries had played an important and controversial role in Washington's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the 2007 killing of 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians by Blackwater employees. .
FSG, headquartered in Hong Kong, has accumulated a multitude of contracts both in China and for Chinese companies operating overseas, particularly in Africa.
But its presence in Xinjiang is controversial because of the large-scale security crackdown that Chinese authorities have launched in the troubled region of the far west of the country, including mbadive incarcerations.
According to a group of experts cited by the United Nations, nearly one million Uyghurs and members of other predominantly Muslim groups are being held in extrajudicial detention camps in Xinjiang.
Beijing says the facilities are benign "vocational training centers" that help people who are attracted to extremism to stay away from terrorism and allow them to reintegrate into society.
Critics and ex-inmates say the facilities are little more than prisons.
The region is a major pillar of the mbadive impact of Beijing's global "Belts and Roads" infrastructure, serving as China's western gateway to Central Asia and beyond. Security companies have experienced economic growth.
In a statement by the FSG, one of the group's subsidiaries announced the signing of an agreement on a "training center" with the Kashgar Caohu Industrial Park in southern Xinjiang. The company will invest 4 million yuan ($ 600,000) in the center, which will have the capacity to train 8,000 people a year, the official media said.
Representatives from the city of Tumxuk, Xinjiang, a subsidiary of the CITIC government conglomerate, attended the January 11 signing.
The statement did not specify the type of training that would be provided and the FSG did not respond to a request for additional comment.
FSG's website shows that it has already trained "security specialists abroad" for many Chinese companies. He also helped train the Chinese army and police.
Last month, he announced that he had obtained a security license to operate in Cambodia, where he will aim to provide "close protection of the escorts of funds, airport security (and VIP)."
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