China is widely accused by human rights organizations of oppressing Uyghurs, one of the country’s largest predominantly Muslim minorities. Those including Amnesty and Human Rights Watch have accused Beijing of incarcerating tens of thousands of Uyghurs in “camps” in Xinjiang and resorting to other means in blatant violation of international laws in a bid to strip off the minority from its Muslim identity.

In September 2022, the UN released a report on alleged violations of the human rights of ethnic Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in China. The report found that mass detentions in China’s Xinjiang region from 2017 to 2019 were marked by credible documentation of torture, sexual violence, and forced labour, as well as forced abortions and sterilisations. The 48-page report concluded that “serious human rights violations” were committed by the Chinese government against the Uyghurs and other Muslims under China’s policies to fight terrorism and extremism.

Taking a cue from the above report, Turkey publicly criticized China for the first time over Beijing’s treatment of its Uyghur minority. It is worth noting that Turkey has been one of the most hospitable countries to Uyghurs, with whom Turks share ethnic, religious and linguistic connections. Roughly 50,000 Uyghurs live in Turkey, forming the largest Uyghur Diaspora outside Central Asia.

At a press briefing on December 29, 2022 Turkish Foreign Minister Cavusoglu stated, “Our defending the rights of the Turkic Uyghurs in the international arena disturbs China. But this is a humanitarian issue”. He told reporters that Beijing was irked by Ankara’s refusal to grant extradition requests for Uyghurs who were Turkish citizens and settled down in Turkey.

The Foreign Minister further emphasizedthat Turkey wanted to cooperate with China in a transparent manner but Chinese authorities did not allow the Ambassador in Beijing to freely visit the region where Uyghurs reside instead they wanted him to follow a “programme that they provided”. He reminded Beijing about the commitment made by Chinese President Xi Jinping five years ago of allowing a humanitarian delegation from Turkeyto visit and examine Xinjiang region and questioned Chinese authorities for impeding the visit.

Though Turkey’s public criticism of China is a rare happening, there have been instances in the past where Ankara has taken on Beijing for ill-treatment of Uyghurs. In 2019, Turkey had brought up the minority’s plight at the United Nations, condemning Beijing of “torturing” more than a million people. The condemnation had prompted the Chinese Ambassador in Ankara to openly warn the Turkish government against publicly criticizing Beijing by saying that it could have commercial and economic consequences. Beijing followed the warning by suddenly announcing temporary closure of its consulate in Turkey’s Aegean province of Izmir, which is planned to be the last port in China’s multibillion-dollar infrastructure project One Belt, One Road initiative, linking Asia and Europe.

In another spat, in 2021, the Chinese Embassy in Ankara directly targeted Turkish opposition leaders for commemorating the deaths of the Uyghurs. At that time the Chinese embassy had said, “The Chinese side reserves its legitimate right to respond” prompting the Turkish foreign minister to summon the Chinese ambassador.

Besides the confrontation on Uyghur issue, tensions have also cropped upin economic cooperation field. Recently, Huawei, the Chinese tech giant, threatened its Turkish partner telecom operator Turkcell over a defence tender. Huawei allegedly warned Turkcell with freezing its contracted operations when the latter refused to bow to pull down the bid in the defense tender, citing cost effectiveness concerns, according to a report by France-based Intelligence Online website. The company’s aggressive competitiveness “damaged its good relations” in Turkey, the report noted.

Despite this tension, trade and infrastructure investments have not been affected between Turkey and China. According to figures by the Turkish Foreign Ministry, the trade volume between the two countries reached nearly $40 billion in 2021. It will be interesting to watch whether Ankara will stand firm against Beijing over Uyghur issue or succumb to Beijing’s pressure in the wake of economic problems that the country is currently facing.

L'articolo Ankara’s support for Uyghurs irks Beijing proviene da InsideOver.

As Chinese President Xi Xinping pursues deity-like cult status in China, he is following some of history’s most notorious leaders – Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong (aka Mao Tse-tung) to name three of the last century’s worst dictators.

Hitler led Germany into a disastrous world war and killed six million Jews. His racist ideology is still a powerful force today, influencing neo-Nazis and the far right.

Stalin starved at least 3.9 million Ukrainians to death from 1931-34, but even today he has a devoted following in Russia. Chairman Mao, as he was known, allowed tens of millions to die of hunger but he is still revered in some quarters of China and appears on Chinese currency.

These charismatic leaders commanded their countries and were worshiped by the bulk of citizens and established personality cult to ensure devotion. The term became popular after Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev’s speech to the Soviet Party Congress in 1956. He used the term to suggest how Stalin crafted his dictatorship, abused power and yet enjoyed extraordinary adulation among the people.

Like a dark version of Saul of Tarsus on the Road to Damascus, Xi is on the path to cult status but there will be no conversion of Saul to the loving Apostle Paul and a ceasing of his persecution of Christians. Just the opposite, in fact, as Xi’s picture replaces that of Jesus in Chinese Christian churches. The message to Chinese Christians is that Jesus can’t save you but President Xi can and will. Small wonder Xi is going after Jesus, considering that Christianity is the fastest growing religion in China, with estimates of up to 100 million adherents. And this in a country that is officially atheist and sees religion as an opponent to government control and power. In the province of Jiangxi’s Yugan county, officials said residents were happy to remove 624 posters of Christian doctrine and images, and in their place came 453 pictures of the Chinese President. The move is a page right out of Chairman Mao’s playbook, where his face was on the wall of every home.

Xi Wants To Be ‘An Object Of Worship Worthier Than God’

“The Chinese President, like Chairman Mao before him, is trying to propose himself as an object of worship worthier than God,” says Bitter Winter, an Italian-based online website that focuses on religious liberty and human rights in China, in an article headlined: “How Xi Jinping Become God.” It details how indoctrination of teachers and students began last year in the province of Jiangxi. Various methods are used to accomplish this goal, such as the children’s song “Grandpa Xi Is Our Big Friend” and stories of “Grandpa Xi.” And the target is not only toddlers and elementary schoolchildren. Since 2018, students and teachers at the Jiangxi Agricultural University must take an online course called “Young People Study Xi.”

Another mile gained on the highway to cultist status is the persecution of the Muslim Uighurs, as Xi seems determined to wipe out all religions. There are about 11 million of them and Christians are treated with charity in comparison to the way the Uighurs have been manhandled. There are about a million in forced camps, where they are taught Mandarin Chinese, starved of food and forced to renounce their Muslim faith. They are subjected to both physical beatings and mental torture.

Ruler For Life

Xi came to power in 2012 and immediately what had been a faceless government under his predecessor became the face of the president. The two-term limit on presidents was changed and Xi established himself as a ruler for life. At first many might say what is the problem with a cult of personality when the government strictly controls daily life anyway? But Xi is removing bureaucracy and replacing it with himself, as the state-controlled Chinese media dubbed him: “Chairman of Everything.” The system of collective leadership that followed Mao is now being destroyed by Xi.

The danger? In a 2016 essay “The New Dictators”, authors Andrea Kendall-Taylor, Erica Frantz and Joseph Wright determined that a “robust body of political science research” indicates that (one-person dictatorships) tend to produce the worst outcomes of any type of political regime: they tend to produce the most risky and aggressive foreign policies; they are the most likely to invest in nuclear weapons; the most likely to fight wars against democracies; and the most likely to initiate interstate conflicts.”

It seems that if you must live under a dictatorship, one run by bureaucracy is better than one run by a strongman.

L'articolo The Rise of the Personality Cult of Chairman Xi Jinping proviene da InsideOver.

In his sixth visit since assuming office less than two years ago, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan was in Riyadh last week to meet with the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) to “discuss recent developments in the regional context.”

The meeting comes on the heels of the upcoming Kuala Lumpur Summit – an initiative led by the Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad. The summit seeks to rival the almost-defunct Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and aims to bring together the leaders of Indonesia, Iran, Qatar, Turkey, Pakistan and Malaysia and counter the anti-Islam narrative around the world.

Mahathir, while announcing the summit claimed to create a united Islamic forum to bring the plight of Muslims especially Kashmiris, Uighurs and the Rohingyas to the forefront and condemn the leaders responsible for these atrocities.

The summit, scheduled between Dec 18-21, plans to build a parallel leadership forum in the Islamic world minus the Saudi Arabia and the UAE to fill the leadership vacuum, has laid bare the simmering rift within the Islamic countries.

The attendees, especially Qatar, Iran and Turkey have publicly criticized Saudi Arabia for its indifference towards the plight of Muslims across the world. Their presence at the summit has irked the leadership of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and Pakistan has caught itself in the crosshairs.

Reports claim that MBS has raised his displeasure over PM Khan’s acceptance to attend the summit. PM Khan, in a bid to persuade MBS, sent his Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi to Riyadh. But Qureshi failed to convince the Saudi prince. After which, Khan himself flew to Riyadh on Saturday to meet the Crown Prince where he discussed the situation.

But media reports surrounding the meeting suggest that the Saudi leadership communicated their displeasure to Khan’s over his decision to participate in the meeting.

Pakistan and Saudi Arabia may be allies but the two are not equal. Pakistan does not have the diplomatic bravado to challenge Saudi Arabia as it has borrowed more than $6 billion from the country and has currently availed deferred oil purchase facility as well. On the other hand, Saudi Arabia has also made investments into the country’s religious institutions and holds a certain degree of sway over Pakistan’s religious affairs.

But Pakistan under Imran Khan has become increasingly assertive in its foreign policy ambitions and has tried to maintain a degree of neutrality vis-a-vis Iran and Saudi Arabia. Khan recently visited both Tehran and Riyadh to establish a line of communication between the two arch-rivals who were on a brink of an all-out war.

But as Khan was meeting with Crown Prince MbS, Pakistan’s Army Chief was in Abu Dhabi to meet UAE’s Crown Prince Sheikh Zayed. The official announcement following the meeting did not mention the summit but sources privy to the information have claimed that the chief was there to convince the prince who has also shown his displeasure at the Kuala Lumpur initiative.

Although an official statement has not been released yet, certain Pakistani media outlets have claimed that Khan has also decided to abstain from participating in the moot.

The visit by both Khan and Bajwa amplified the degree of Saudi Arabia’s influence on Islamabad in its foreign policy ambitions, but more importantly, it showed Pakistan’s handicapped ability to pursue foreign relations given its reliance on the UAE and Saudi Arabia for financial needs.

L'articolo PM Khan’s Handicapped Foreign Policy Ambitions proviene da InsideOver.

The Chinese government is upgrading its surveillance efforts against key minorities, a recent report from Citizen Lab has discovered.

In September 2019, Apple Inc confirmed that the phones of mostly-Muslim minority, Uighurs – considered a terrorist and radical threat by the Chinese government – were hacked to monitor their community.

The Chinese hackers also spied on Tibetans in exile through their iPhone. The Citizen Lab report suggested that both attacks were carried out by the same hackers working with the Chinese government.

The report also suggested that the Chinese government may currently be upgrading its surveillance efforts against key minority groups, which it considers to be enemies of the state.

In China, it is not just minority groups who are under surveillance. By next year, every member of the population will be subject to the “social credit system”.

“I can’t buy property. My child can’t go to a private school,” Liu Hu, a journalist writing about censorship and corruption in China said. “You feel you’re being controlled by the list all the time.”

Hu was listed on a List of Dishonest Persons Subject to Enforcement by the Supreme People’s Court and was prevented from taking flights, because of his low social credit system.

“There was no file, no police warrant, no official advance notification. They just cut me off from the things I was once entitled to. What’s scary is there’s nothing you can do about it. You can report to no one. You are stuck in the middle of nowhere.”

In April 2018, the Communist-ruled party boasted of blocking Chinese nationals from taking 11.14 million flights and 4.25 million high-speed rail trips. Deductions are made for bad behaviour, such as traffic violations or playing too much video games, while points are added for good behaviour, such as being a parent.

China aims to have about 626 million surveillance cameras in the country, to be used as part of the social credit system. Observed behaviour caught on camera, which are not in line with what the Community party deems “good”, decreases citizens’ social credit scores.

Xi Jinping aims for total control of his people’s political, mental and philosophical views. Political commentators have, however, argued that beneath Xi’s desire for totalitarianism is an insecure fear of dissent and political rejection from his supporters. To maintain his timeless rule as president, the social credit system punishes minor social and political dissent as small as jaywalking, and hands out rewards for total conformity to Communist ideals of good citizenship.

For Xi, the founder of modern China, Mao Zedong’s ideologies, will best lead China towards political and economic greatness in the eyes of the world.

“If at the time of reform Comrade Mao had been completely repudiated, would our party still be standing? Would our country’s system of socialism still be standing?” he asked the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee several days after becoming their general secretary.

“These things cannot be cut away from the entire history of our party and our country. To grasp this is to grasp everything. This is not just an intellectual issue—it is a political issue.”

Behind Xi’s ideologies for a great China lies fear of the outside world. Differing ideologies cannot be tolerated in Xi’s China. Although his family was persecuted, murdered and tortured – and he banished – during the Maoist era, Xi’s belief in the Maoist ideals of self-sacrifice for the greater good is demanded of his people. The Western culture of democracy, individualism and self-determination cannot be tolerated, neither can religious beliefs, feminist beliefs, human rights beliefs and many more.

Ironically, Xi’s family do not conform to ideals of self-sacrifice, amassing wealth for themselves in both China and offshore accounts.

“Rein in your spouses, children, relatives, friends, and staff, and vow not to use power for personal gain,’’ he told officials during a 2004 conference call.

In a volume of his internal speeches, published in January 2016, titled: ‘Excerpts of Xi Jinping’s Remarks on the Strict Maintenance of Party Discipline’, Xi is highly critical of corruption in the Chinese political system.

“The higher the positions of power these people are in, they less seriously they take party political discipline, even to the point of recklessness and sheer audacity,” he writes.

“Some are inflated with a political will to power, entirely in the service of personal profits or the vested interests of their clique, running their plots and dealings outside existing party organizations that damage and split the party.”

It seems that, apart from Xi’s own family, conformity is an utmost requirement for everyone in China. Like most totalitarian leaders, China’s president is too hypocritical to follow his authoritarian ideologies.

L'articolo How Surveillance is Used to Punish Nonconforming Citizens in China proviene da InsideOver.

China’s response

Action must be taken

L'articolo Tensions Rise Between US and China Over Condemnation Bill proviene da InsideOver.

United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo fired remarks aimed towards China and their detainment of the Uighur Muslims in concentration camps.  Pompeo spoke out at a Vatican conference organised by the US embassy on religious freedom. He blasted the country over their repressive policies against the Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang.  

Pompeo called on the global community to join Washington in protecting religious freedom stating China were the “worst perpetrators of abuse against people of faith,” and that “Beijing should be held accountable.” 

China’s autocratic regime was slandered as Pompeo added: “When the state rules absolutely, it demands its citizen’s worship government, not God. That’s why China has put more than one million Uighur Muslims … in internment camps and is why it throws Christian pastors in jail.” 

Who Are the Uighurs?

The Uighur Muslims are a Turkic speaking minority from Central Asia who have been wrongfully held and tortured by the Chinese government as a result of their communist hard-line regime. It is reported that over a million Uighurs and other Muslims have been living in these egregious camps where they have been subjected to some shocking conditions since 2017.  

Back in the mid-twentieth century, the Uighurs quickly proclaimed sovereignty, however the area was brought under the authority of a territorial China’s new Communist government in 1949.  Uighurs are populous in Xinjiang with around 11 million people in and around the city. 

Stemming from the terrorist attacks performed by the East Turkistan Islamic Movement – a terrorist group linked to Al-Qaeda and responsible for many attacks in Xinjiang, China proceeded with the persecution of Muslims to curb future attacks.  

The Truth About The Concentration Camps

In August 2018, a UN human rights committee was told there were solid reports that China had transformed the Uighur self-ruling area into something that looks like a monstrous internment camp”. Around a million people may have been confined, the board was told. 

Denying all claims of human rights violations, Beijing continues to use the excuse in that the “re-education camps” are used to fight terrorism and radicalisation where Muslims are being detained in efforts to absolve all accountability. It is within these “re-education camps” where the Uighurs are allegedly combating extremism but have instead been found to be targeting Muslims removing their rights to practice their religion in attempts to make them “normal citizens”.  

Brutal new legitimate punishments have been enforced to limit Islamic practices. This includes the forbiddance of long facial hair and headscarves, the religious guidance of kids, and even Islamic-sounding names. Extreme surveillance strategies where individuals are forced to give up DNA samples and biometric data so they can be identified by their faith and religion are used.  

The inhabitants of the camps are placed under systematic surveillance and are constrained against their will to political indoctrination where they are forced to renounce their religion and practice the values of Chinese communists. They also submit to poor diets in which they are rarely fed in overcrowded facilities. It is thought that inmates who die are cremated so no evidence is left. Thousands of Uighur Muslims have been protesting against the government’s internment camps advocating for the release or whereabouts of their missing family members. 

Hamid Sabi, a human rights lawyer has accused China of harvesting organs of Uighurs. Sabi took his claim to the United Nations Human Rights Court asking them to investigate the matter further. This is just one of many claims regarding the treatment of the detainees.  

In his speech, the US Secretary of State also told the story of a woman who through the advocacy of her husband, was released from the camps and was forced to eat pork, denounce her religion, recite atheist values and was given unknown drugs.  

What are international countries doing about it?

Australia condemned the detention camps further prompting calls for change. There has been increasing international criticism of China’s treatment of Uighur Muslims however, up till now, no country has directly acted out of just issuing statements. The country has been widely condemned for their actions, with 22 countries signing a letter to the UN urging them to act and for China to stop its mass detention and execution of genocide of the Uighur Muslims. 

Criticism has also circulated for Muslim-majority countries such as Pakistan and Turkey who have remained distant from the matter. It is suggested that many such countries have turned a blind eye to the matter for the sake of foreign policy and maintaining a strong relationship with China – one of the strongest economical countries in the world.  For example, Turkish President Erdogan, despite being the leader of a Muslim-majority country, has been rather silent on the issue. Critics believe it is because China helped Turkey secure a $3.6 billion deal for energy and transportation. 

On the contrary, a congressional group in the United States has strongly encouraged the government to place sanctions on administrators and companies involved in the human rights crisis in Xinjiang.  

With media access to the camps limited, the truly shocking nature of the ongoing human rights crisis in China is slowly being revealed. Groups and individuals on social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter and Facebook have been rallying to raise awareness of the ongoing humanitarian crisis in China as they did for South Sudan when users of the apps turned their handles #BlueforSudan. 

Previous incidents such as Abu Ghraib and the treatment of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar have set precedence to the anti-separatist and Islamophobic hate crimes some countries have been known to carry out. With comparisons also being drawn to the Holocaust, history could, unfortunately, be repeating itself. 

L'articolo Mike Pompeo Slams Uighur Muslim Camps in China proviene da InsideOver.

At the end of May, a woman and her four children were forcibly removed from the Belgian embassy in Beijing, China. She’d been trying to complete the paperwork necessary to rejoin her husband in Ghent, Belgium. Given the fear that she and her children were Uighur Muslims originating from the Xinjiang province of China, it’s feared they’ve been transported back to Xinjiang, where a growing number of reports have indicated that the Chinese government is running inhumane and oppressive internment camps.

Current estimates suggest that more than a million Uighur individuals are currently being subjected to what authorities euphemistically refer to as ‘re-education.’ Reports from the BBC, the UN and various media outlets talk of bullying and brainwashing, but while much of the global public has been appalled by such reports, the recent episode in the Belgian embassy yields an indication of how other states have been complicit in China’s persecution of its 11 million-strong Uighur population.

Up until recently, European nations such as Germany and Sweden have been deporting Uighurs back to China. In August 2018, the German government suspended deportations of Uighurs until further notice, a decision that came four months after Bavarian authorities ‘accidentally’ expelled a Uighur man back to China. In March, Sweden finally granted refugee status to Uighur asylum seekers. The period between 2013 and 2018 saw between 45 and 77 Chinese adults come to the Scandinavian country each year to seek asylum.

Even with these welcome moves, Human Rights Watch issued an open letter to the EU in December, in which it called on EU ministers and all other member states to follow the examples set by Germany and Sweden. “We urge your government to not forcibly return ethnic Uyghurs, Kazakhs, or other Turkic Muslims to China without providing a full and fair individualized examination of their risk of being persecuted,” declared the letter’s authors, Lotte Leicht and Sophie Richardson.

At time of writing, no other EU nation has granted refugee status to Uighur communities or declared an end to deportations, and as Human Rights Watch’s letter indicates, few countries outside Europe fare better. “We have documented instances of forced returns of ethnic Uyghurs to China from Cambodia, Nepal, Pakistan, and Thailand, among others,” it writes. In highlighting these returns, HRW also offers a hint of one of the most regrettable features of the Uighur persecution crisis, which is that it has been met mostly with silence from many Muslim nations.

In June, the US Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, Sam Brownback, publicly stated that he was “disappointed” by the lack of response of governments in the Islamic world. Impartial or not, Brownback’s criticism isn’t without substance. In March, the Organisation of Islam Cooperation – an association of 57 Muslim states – issued a report on Muslim minorities in non-OIC states, in which it concluded that it “commends the efforts of the People’s Republic of China in providing care to its Muslim citizens; and looks forward to further cooperation between the OIC and the People’s Republic of China.”

Other commentators have pointed out that many Muslim-majority states are scared of alienating China and losing economic access to its Belt Road Initiative. While the US may be justified in calling out the likes of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, it needs to be remembered that America has arguably been the biggest enabler of China’s industrialised abuse of Uighur Muslims.

By launching a “war” against (Islamic) terrorism, the United States cultivated the narrative and political climate through which China has been able to maintain the fiction that Uighur Muslims represent a distinct terrorism threat. Only a few months after 9/11, 22 Uighur Muslims were extralegally incarcerated in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, with the US government and the Joint Task Force Guantanamo claiming that they belonged to a terrorist group referred to by Chinese authorities as “the East Turkestan Islamic Movement.” This claim was never actually proven, but the remaining three members of the initial 22 weren’t released from Guantánamo until December 2013, by which point the Chinese government had been able to repeat the terms “Al-Qaeda” and “East Turkestan Islamic Movement” routinely enough to make its depiction of Uighurs seem vaguely credible.

This explains June’s visit of the UN’s counterterrorism chief to Xinjiang province, rather than a human rights rapporteur. Even after all of the negative attention, this is admittedly a depressing turn of events. A the very least, there are signs that the tide is incrementally turning. European nations including Canada and Australia began putting diplomatic pressure on Beijing at the end of last year by demanding a meeting with Xinjiang’s highest official, while the United States has been openly criticising China in recent months and has also considered imposing sanctions. Sadly, this has been kicked into the long grass as the US tries to push for a more favorable trade deal with China, but assuming that such a deal is reached, the congenitally hopeful among us might be forgiven for believing that political pressure could reemerge once again.

L'articolo Why the West Shares Blame in China’s Oppression of Uighur Muslims proviene da InsideOver.