Xinjiang

Subterms

    Latest story

    175 Shares159 Views

    The Guardian view on China, Xinjiang and sanctions: the gloves are off | Editorial

    by

    China’s response to criticisms of horrifying human rights violations in Xinjiang is clear and calculated. Its aims are threefold. First, the sanctions imposed upon individuals and institutions in the EU and UK are direct retaliation for those imposed upon China over its treatment of Uighurs. That does not mean they are like-for-like: the EU and UK measures targeted officials responsible for human rights abuses, while these target non-state actors – elected politicians, thinktanks, lawyers and academics – simply for criticising those abuses.Second, they seek more broadly to deter any criticism over Xinjiang, where Beijing denies any rights violations. Third, they appear to be intended to send a message to the EU, UK and others not to fall in line with the harsher US approach towards China generally. Beijing sees human rights concerns as a pretext for defending western hegemony, pointing to historic and current abuses committed by its critics. But mostly it believes it no longer needs to tolerate challenges.Alongside the sanctions, not coincidentally, has come a social media storm and consumer boycott targeting the Swedish clothing chain H&M and other fashion firms over concerns they voiced about reports of forced labour in cotton production in Xinjiang. Nationalism is a real and potent force in China (though not universal), but this outburst does not appear spontaneous: it began when the Communist Youth League picked up on an eight-month-old statement, and is being egged on by state media.China has used its economic might to punish critics before – Norway’s salmon exports slumped after dissident Liu Xiaobo won the Nobel peace prize – and often with the desired results. But this time, it is acting far more overtly, and it is fighting on multiple fronts. Some clothing companies are already falling into line. Overall, the results are more complex. The sanctions have drastically lowered the odds of the European parliament approving the investment deal which China and the EU agreed in December, to US annoyance. Beijing may think the agreement less useful to China than it is to the EU (though many in Europe disagree). But the measures have done more to push Europe towards alignment with the US than anything Joe Biden could have offered, at a time when China is also alienating other players, notably Australia. Foreigners – who in many cases have offered more nuanced voices to counter outright China hawks – are already becoming wary of travelling there, following the detention and trial of two Canadians, essentially taken hostage following their country’s arrest (on a US extradition request) of a top Huawei executive. The sanctioning of scholars and thinktanks is likely to make them more so. Businesses, though still counting on the vast Chinese market, are very belatedly realising the risks attached to it. Those include not only the difficulty of reconciling their positions for consumers inside and outside China, but the challenges they face as the US seeks to pass legislation cracking down on goods made with forced labour, and the potential to be caught up in political skirmishes by virtue of nationality. For those beginning to have second thoughts, rethinking investments or disentangling supply chains will be the work of years or decades. But while we will continue to live in a globalised economy, there is likely to be more decoupling than people foresaw.The pandemic has solidified a growing Chinese confidence that the west is in decline, but has also shown how closely our fates are tied. There can be no solutions on the climate emergency without Beijing, and cooperation on other issues will be both possible and necessary – but extraordinarily difficult.Beijing’s delayed response to the UK sanctions suggests it did not anticipate them, perhaps unsurprising when the integrated review suggested we should somehow court trade and investment while also taking a tougher line. But the prime minister and foreign secretary have, rightly, made their support for sanctioned individuals and their concerns about gross human rights violations in Xinjiang clear. Academics and politicians, universities and other institutions, should follow their lead in backing targeted colleagues and bodies. China has made its position plain. So should democratic societies. More

    More stories

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      US 'deeply disturbed' by reports of systematic rape in China's Xinjiang camps

      by

      The United States government is “deeply disturbed” by reports of systematic rape and sexual torture of women detained in China’s Xinjiang camps for ethnic Uighur and other Muslims, and demanded serious consequences.The US state department was responding to a BBC report, published on Wednesday, detailing horrific allegations rape, sexual abuse and torture, based on interviews with several former detainees and a guard. The interviewees told the BBC “they experienced or saw evidence of an organised system of mass rape, sexual abuse and torture”.“We are deeply disturbed by reports, including first-hand testimony, of systematic rape and sexual abuse against women in internment camps for ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims in Xinjiang,” a state department spokesperson said, reiterating US accusations that China has committed “crimes against humanity and genocide” in Xinjiang.“These atrocities shock the conscience and must be met with serious consequences.”The spokesperson demanded China allow “immediate and independent investigations by international observers” into the rape allegations “in addition to the other atrocities being committed in Xinjiang.”The BBC report said it was unable to independently verify the women’s stories, which included horrific accounts of sexual assault and torture, and the forcing of some women to strip and handcuff others before they were left alone with Han men. However, key details and travel documents matched timelines and available satellite imagery, and corresponded with numerous other accounts from former detainees.Australia’s foreign affairs minister, Marise Payne, echoed the US’s calls for international observers, including the UN high commissioner for human rights, Michelle Bachelet, “to be given immediate, meaningful and unfettered access to Xinjiang at the earliest opportunity,” she said.“Australia has been consistent in raising our significant concerns with the human rights abuses in Xinjiang. These latest reports of systematic torture and abuse of women are deeply disturbing and raise serious questions regarding the treatment of Uighurs and other religious and ethnic minorities in Xinjiang.”China has consistently denied allegations of human rights abuses and genocide in Xinjiang, despite mounting evidence of mass internment, suspected forced labour programmes, indoctrination, forced sterilisation of women, extensive digital and in person surveillance, and suppression of religious and cultural activities. China says the camps are vocational training centres designed to counter extremism.On Wednesday, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin accused the BBC of making a “false report” which was “wholly without factual basis”.He claimed the women interviewed were “actors disseminating false information”, and said China had released multiple reports showing “people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang live in peace and contentment, unity and harmony, and that all their legal rights are effectively guaranteed”.Among the reports referred to the Wang is a white paper on Xinjiang which last year admitted for the first time that more than 1.2 million people had been sent through its “vocational training” programmes.The BBC revelations horrified the global Uighur community, many of whom have missing family members detained or suspected to be detained in the camps. Recent data leaks have shown that contact with overseas relatives has been used by Chinese authorities to justify detaining a Uighur person in Xinjiang.“I have a mother, a wife, sisters, aunts, and grandmothers. The rape of any woman breaks my heart and makes my blood boil,” said Salih Hudayar, the US-based founder of a self-declared government-in-exile for East Turkistan.“The systematic rape of Uighur and other Turkic women are part of China’s ongoing genocide against East Turkistan’s people. We urge the international community to support our case against China at the International Criminal Court.”In December the ICC rejected an application to investigate claims of genocide in Xinjiang, saying it was unable to act because the alleged crimes occurred in China, which is not a party to the court and so is outside its jurisdiction.The Biden administration has endorsed a declaration by the outgoing Trump administration in its final days of office that China has committed genocide in Xinjiang. More

    • 175 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      The Guardian view on Xinjiang and crimes against humanity: speaking and acting | Editorial

      by

      It took a long time for leaders to notice, longer to condemn, and longer still to act. It took time for researchers to amass evidence of China’s treatment of Uighurs in Xinjiang – from mass detention to forced sterilisation – given the intense security and secrecy in the north-west region. Beijing initially denied the existence of the camps, believed to have held about a million Turkic Muslims, before describing them as educational centres to tackle extremism. But the hesitation by other governments also reflected the anxiety to maintain relations with the world’s second-largest economy.The US, on Donald Trump’s final day in office, became the first country to declare that China is committing genocide. The administration has already targeted officials and issued a ban on any cotton or tomato products from the region. On Tuesday, the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, described a “systematic attempt to destroy Uighurs by the Chinese party-state … forced assimilation and eventual erasure”. A more cautious report from a bipartisan US Congressional commission said that China had committed crimes against humanity and “possibly” genocide.Mr Pompeo’s statement is a parting shot, made with some cynicism. (Not all criticism of human rights abuses, however merited, is motivated solely by human rights concerns; Mr Trump reportedly told Xi Jinping that the camps were “exactly the right thing to do”.) But the announcement is unlikely to be the end of the matter. Joe Biden’s campaign called it genocide months ago. While Mr Trump broke with the previous approach to China, the US has undergone a bipartisan shift, forged primarily by Beijing’s actions – not only in Xinjiang but also in Hong Kong, its handling of the pandemic and in international relations more broadly.The same change is evident in the UK, as evidenced by the sizeable Conservative rebellion in parliament on Tuesday, in which an amendment to the trade bill was narrowly defeated by 319 to 308. The genocide amendment originated in the Lords and was backed by all opposition parties, as well as a broad coalition outside parliament, including the Muslim Council of Britain and the Board of Deputies of British Jews. It proposes that the UK high courts could determine whether genocide is taking place, potentially leading to the revocation of trade deals. The Foreign Office argues that genocide determinations are complex matters better made by international institutions – knowing full well that in reality they will not consider them in this case, and that this is not a requirement of the Genocide Convention. The foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, struck a far stronger tone than before when he spoke recently of “torture and inhumane and degrading treatment … on an industrial scale” in Xinjiang. But the remedies he put forward – requiring firms to do better on due diligence – were feeble.A genocide finding is an extremely high bar: it is unclear whether a court would agree that Chinese actions passed it. It could not address Britain’s continuing sale of arms to Saudi Arabia despite its grotesque record, nor the recent agreement with Egypt, said by campaigners to be seeing its worst human rights crisis for decades. China – whose spokespeople have described “the so-called ‘genocide’” as “a rumour deliberately started by some anti-China forces and a farce to discredit China” – has shown itself increasingly impervious to international opinion.But at the very least, it must be ensured that western businesses do not profit from abuses such as forced labour. The willingness to say that human rights matter, and not only when it is convenient for the UK to do so, is important. MEPs too have promised to focus on them in their scrutiny of the new EU-China investment treaty, although Anglophone countries are taking a stronger stance towards Beijing in general. The political ground internationally is shifting. But measures can only hope to have an impact if like-minded nations act together and support each other. More

    • 113 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump finds unlikely backers in prominent pro-democracy Asian figures

      by

      Jimmy Lai, Hong Kong media tycoon and one of the most prominent pro-democracy figures in the city, waded into the US election in its final days, with an enthusiastic endorsement of the incumbent in his Apple Daily newspaper.“I find a stronger sense of security in [Donald] Trump,” he wrote in an editorial that praised the US president for his “hardline” approach to Beijing.His position is echoed by many in Hong Kong’s increasingly battered pro-democracy movement, across Taiwan and among many exiled Chinese dissidents living in America, including blind lawyer Chen Guangcheng, who endorsed Trump at the Republican national convention.The US president might not seem like a natural ally for pro-democracy campaigners after years of public support for strongmen and dictators, undermining the press at home, and even attacking domestic protesters as “rioters”.At a time of increased hate attacks on Asian Americans he has also used racist rhetoric about Covid-19, describing it as “kung flu” and the “China virus”. Advocacy groups have warned Trump’s language could have dangerous consequences.But Lai and others who want democracy for China see in Trump’s unpredictable approach to foreign policy, and his escalating confrontations with Beijing, their greatest hope of challenging Chinese Communist party rule.“The Trump administration might be the hand that eventually pushes China to democracy,” dissident Wang Juntao, who fled into exile after the crackdown in Tiananmen Square in 1989, told local New York paper The City.In Taiwan a recent poll found that independence-leaning Taiwanese back Trump strongly. 80% of Democratic Progressive party supporters wanted US voters to return him to office, the Taiwan Times reported.These enthusiastic Trump supporters are motivated by the president’s turn away from decades of US engagement with Beijing, rather than his personal politics, said Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute in London.“They are focusing much more on confronting the challenges posed by the Communist party of China than they are focusing on the principles of democracy and human rights,” Tsang said.Since Nixon, US presidents had all “to slightly different extents, belonged to the school of engagement with China”, Tsang added. Trump began his presidency with a similar approach, so keen to strike a trade deal that he held off taking action over human rights abuses in Xinjiang to smooth negotiations.But amid escalating tensions over everything from the coronavirus to the economy and allegations of industrial espionage, he has broken definitively with that tradition, deploying the strongest rhetoric on China since the early days of the cold war.Timeline2020 US election: key datesShow3 November 2020Polling day. However in many states people have been able to vote early either in person or by absentee ballot since September.23 November 2020Washington is due to be the last state to stop accepting and counting votes – they must be postmarked on or before election day, but can be counted if they arrive as many as 20 days afterwards. In practice, however, Washington is among the safest Democratic party states and will have been called for one party or the other long before this deadline.8 December 2020Deadline for states to resolve any disputes over the selection of their electors of the electoral college.14 December 2020The electors meet in their respective state capitals to formally vote for the president and vice-president.6 January 2021The electoral college votes are formally counted in a joint session of Congress. The president of the Senate announces who will be the next president of the United States.20 January 2021The next president swears their oath and is inaugurated in a Washington DC ceremony.Trump has also brought in a series of sanctions over alleged abuses in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, boosted diplomatic and military support for self-ruled Taiwan, and challenged Chinese-owned tech firms operating in the US.For prominent figures like Lai, that has meant support for both his cause, and him personally. When the tycoon was arrested by Hong Kong authorities in August, Trump denounced the detention as “a terrible thing”.Lai’s media empire has even been accused of trying to actively meddle in the US election. He recently apologised for the role the Apple Daily played in a report on Hunter Biden’s alleged Chinese business links.He admitted funds from his private firm had been used to pay for it, but said he personally had “nothing to do” with its commissioning or dissemination.Support for Trump is far from universal among critics of China, however. Kevin Yam, a Hong Kong-based lawyer, is among those who argue that the lure of a hardline stance against Beijing is superficial, and the president’s position on other issues will ultimately undermine everything they are fighting for.“I dispute the very idea that Trump is ‘tough on China’ given his record, and his words and deeds make it hard for him to have credibility when pushing a human rights agenda around the world,” said Yam who laid out his concerns in an editorial for Ming Pao and said he was showered with abuse when it came out.“If an anti-universal values power ‘beats’ another, that’s not a triumph for freedom, it’s just Orwellian Nineteen Eighty-Four-style endless mutual destruction as between hegemons,” he wrote in an English language summary of his argument on Twitter.In the US, another Tiananmen Square dissident, Wan Yanhai is campaigning hard against the incumbent, and says he too has faced verbal abuse and even a death threat, but is determined to continue.“Trump has inflicted major damage on democracy,” he told The City. “You want to fight against the CCP [Chinese Communist party], but you shouldn’t expect one monster to eat another monster.” More

    • 88 Shares159 Views

      in World Politics

      China Continues Its Persecution of Uighur Muslims

      by

      The coronavirus pandemic has laid bare the shortcomings of the capitalist and institutionally racist systems that govern our world, but its precedence in the media has drawn attention away from human rights abuses that continue to take place. Worse still, the global lockdowns caused by the public health crisis have been relentlessly exploited by various […] More

    • 188 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      China says it will 'resolutely hit back' at US over sanctions law on Uighur abuses

      by

      Washington legislation allows US to freeze assets of Chinese officials it deems responsible for arbitrary detentions in Xinjiang region Uighur security personnel patrol near the Id Kah Mosque in Kashgar in western China’s Xinjiang region. China has threatened to retaliate against the US’s new Uighur human rights law. Photograph: Ng Han Guan/AP Beijing has criticised […] More