 "The Chinese government has made all-out efforts to muzzle international media, including social media, and to thwart academics and activists who oppose the Chinese move against Uyghurs and support the human rights and freedom. Image: REUTERS")
A report titled “The Assessment of Human Rights Concerns in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, People’s Republic of China”, which was published under the auspices of the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR), completed two years on August 31, 2024. The OHCHR had spent a lot of time (almost five years since late 2017), money, and energy on fact-finding investigations and rigorous deliberations over the reports, documents, and pieces of evidence provided by various governments, civil society organisations, individual researchers, think tanks, media, etc, to publish this report.
The organisation analysed thoroughly the testimonies of some Uyghurs who were released or had escaped from the detention centres in Xinjiang after having harrowing experiences for years. While highlighting “serious human rights violations” in Xinjiang in the garb of the Chinese Central government’s so-called “counter-terrorism and counter-extremism” strategies, the 48-page report rapped China left and right in addition to prescribing a long list of recommendations for China to adhere to.
The horrors of hundreds of detention camps inside Xinjiang, which Chinese authorities romanticise as re-education camps, came to light in 2016. China has reportedly incarcerated over a million Uyghurs in these camps. Several governments, human rights organisations, Uyghur diaspora organisations, academics, think tanks, freelancers, and activists have prepared and published many online and offline reports on this issue.
One of the eye-opening reports on the situation in Xinjiang is by the Human Rights Watch, which describes the Chinese excesses against Uyghurs as “crimes against humanity”. Similarly, the US government passed the “Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act” in 2020, which “imposes sanctions on foreign individuals and entities” responsible for human rights violations in Xinjiang.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsHowever, Beijing has categorically denied and outrightly rejected the reports described above. It does not pay any heed to the global community’s concern for Uyghurs imprisoned in Xinjiang. It has yet to follow nor implement the OHCHR recommendations. Instead, China has reactivated its propaganda machine to disseminate the message worldwide that the situation in Xinjiang is stable and peaceful, and the Uyghurs are leading a prosperous life. Accordingly, it has strategised methodically and honed its diplomatic efficacy to counter the international community’s concerns about the Uyghurs.
The Chinese government has circulated several counter reports, White Papers, etc, to mobilise international opinions against the Uyghurs and those who extended them continuous moral and material support. As part of its propaganda drive, the State Council Information Office of China has published (between 2019 and 2021) six White Papers on overall human rights developments in the country and eight White Papers on the situation in Xinjiang. As the latest countermeasure, the Standing Committee of the 14th Xinjiang Regional People’s Congress passed a resolution last month (August 2024) opposing a series of American sanctions related to Xinjiang since 2022 under the ambit of the Uyghur Force Labour Prevention Act.
Besides, China has exhibited its sheer power of money and diplomacy to silence critics all across the globe. The Chinese government has built a strong rapport with the leadership in Islamic nations so that they do not show solidarity with their brethren in Xinjiang. Chinese government strategy includes visits by foreign dignitaries (politicians, diplomats, media people, scholars, activists, etc) from like-minded friendly countries for state-sponsored guided tours in Xinjiang.
The Chinese authorities also facilitate visits by YouTubers from different parts of the globe to showcase the marvels China has done in Xinjiang without showing anything about the Uyghurs’ woes. China ensures that these dignitaries give positive feedback about Xinjiang and share their experiences in all news media while parroting the Chinese lines.
Early this year, several political leaders from Arab countries and journalists from Pakistan visited various cities in Xinjiang and enjoyed seven-star Chinese hospitality. In lieu of this Chinese largesse, the visiting dignitaries eulogised Chinese policies towards the Uyghurs. Earlier, this author had highlighted in a couple of publications how the Uzbek Premier and Turkish Foreign Minister had yielded to Chinese pressure during their visits to Xinjiang and subsequently subscribed to the Chinese narrative on Uyghurs. Last year (2023), as many as 30 Islamic scholars from over a dozen countries in Asia, Europe, and Africa not only visited Xinjiang but also heaped full praise on the Chinese policies towards Muslims in the country in general and Uyghurs in particular.
At present, the condition of Uyghurs in Xinjiang beggars description. Nobody has any clue about what is happening inside the detention camps and with the Uyghurs. The Chinese government has made all-out efforts to muzzle international media, including social media, and to thwart academics and activists who oppose the Chinese move against Uyghurs and support the human rights and freedom of the Uyghurs. Because of the surveillance in the region, it is difficult for anyone to pass on news from Xinjiang to the outside world.
It is a worldwide fact that everything in Xinjiang is on the Chinese government’s radar. The state security apparatus persecutes anyone who holds an anti-government or anti-China stand. In recent years, the Chinese strategy has been to disclose only information about Xinjiang, which does not harm its position in the region. It means China has effectively made the world believe what it says about Xinjiang and the Uyghurs.
Keeping in view the endeavours made by the international community to persuade or pressurise China for the grave mistake it has committed in Xinjiang, it is imperative to deduce that while China has become largely successful in influencing international opinion to favour its narrative on Xinjiang, the world community has failed miserably to set China right for its follies.
Beijing has been daring enough to ignore the OHCHR findings and the sanctions by the Western countries, especially the US, and thereby keep on continuing its campaign against Uyghurs. The US Department of State has expressed disappointment over the Chinese not complying with the global body’s report. It is high time the world understood the gravity of the problem and clamped down stricter measures to cut the arrogant and aggressive China to size. All conscientious nations and their leaders should make a combined endeavour to compel the Chinese government to stop excesses against the minorities in the country, especially Uyghurs, and to provide them with fundamental freedom.
Mahesh Ranjan Debata teaches at the Center for Inner Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.