This month, London has played host to hearings in an independent tribunal to investigate the alleged genocide against the Uyghurs by the Chinese government. One of those giving evidence was the journalist who wrote an exposé of China’s colonial oppression 20 years ago

Travelling along the southern rim of the Taklamakan Desert in the autumn of 1995 I had my first sight of the Chinese bullying Uyghurs. Their big Toyota Land Cruisers would speed up when an old man on his donkey cart came into view ambling along the dirt road between the poplars, then roar past as close as possible, covering man and beast in a cloud of grey dust.

The Han presence in the deep south of Xinjiang was not in those days as obvious as it became after a metalled road was driven down through the eastern side of the desert. True, there were loudspeakers blaring ­propaganda in the oasis towns, and the only decent hotels were usually booked out by Communist Party cadres attending their interminable conferences. But native life seemed to go on as it had for centuries.

Things looked different when our small party emerged from the desert 10 days later after a 100-mile walk with camels across the dunes and a drive up the empty Khotan River. The first place we came to was a labour camp outside Aksu, part of China’s gulag. Here the clash of cultures between the Muslim Uyghurs and the Chinese colonists, the insolent domination of new occupiers and the subservience of the natives, became more obvious.