{"id":828,"date":"2018-06-05T18:24:29","date_gmt":"2018-06-05T18:24:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/?p=828"},"modified":"2018-06-05T18:24:29","modified_gmt":"2018-06-05T18:24:29","slug":"how-should-the-world-respond-to-intensifying-repression-in-xinjiang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/?p=828","title":{"rendered":"How Should the World Respond to Intensifying Repression in Xinjiang?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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China File<\/a><\/p>\n

A ChinaFile Conversation<\/p>\n

Deliberate, systematic human rights abuses are happening in China\u2019s northwest. Reporting and research published in recent weeks shows that the Chinese government is targeting the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region\u2019s\u00a0roughly 11 million<\/a>\u00a0Muslims for \u201cre-education.\u201d Anywhere\u00a0from several hundred thousand to more than a million<\/a>\u00a0people have been or are being held in \u201ccenters,\u201d where they\u00a0have to<\/a>\u00a0\u201cdisavow their Islamic beliefs, criticize themselves and their loved ones and give thanks to the ruling Communist Party.\u201d Some are\u00a0tortured<\/a>. While several U.S. lawmakers have\u00a0called<\/a>\u00a0for sanctions, much of the world remains silent, including the\u00a0Organization of Islamic Cooperation<\/a>, which calls itself \u201cthe collective voice of the Muslim world.\u201d What should the international community do?\u00a0\u2014The Editors<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Comments<\/h2>\n
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Rian Thum<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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The mass, extra-legal internment of minorities in Xinjiang\u2014including 5-10% of the Uighur population\u2014should be met with global condemnation. Every business, non-governmental organization, and government that interacts with the People\u2019s Republic of China (P.R.C.) risks its integrity by remaining silent on the internment camps and the racist system of cultural cleansing that the camps support. Nonetheless, the prevailing response is, for the moment, silence. China watchers have an important role to play in ending this silence.<\/p>\n

More than a decade of dialogue and argument has failed to persuade P.R.C. officials to abandon repressive policies in Xinjiang. Any effective response will have to be broader and more forceful than the urgings of the recent past. Diplomats and foreign policy specialists must support bold initiatives, including sanctions, to convince P.R.C. leaders that the humane treatment of minorities is in the Party\u2019s best interest, not just morally imperative. China, like the U.S., has opted out of much of international human rights law, but legal experts should explore ways to hold the P.R.C. to international norms. Businesses such as Kraft Heinz, which sources tomato paste for its ketchup from state-owned enterprises in Xinjiang, will have to determine how much their products contribute to the maintenance of the totalitarian police state in Xinjiang. The International Olympic Committee and Olympic athletes will need to consider whether the Olympic goal of \u201cbuilding a better world through sport\u201d can be accomplished in 2022 if the host country, China, maintains an Apartheid-like system for certain minorities. Countries around the world should welcome the handful of Uighurs and Kazakhs who manage to escape China.<\/p>\n

But such a robust response will never emerge without greater awareness. Even the existence of the Uighurs and other minority groups of Xinjiang is not broadly known, and widespread Islamophobia has made it easy for the P.R.C. to camouflage its repression in the language of the War on Terror. Recognition of the tragedy unfolding in Xinjiang has thus grown gradually, emerging first from those closest to the ground: the Uighur and Kazakh communities, scholars who study Xinjiang, and the handful of foreign journalists who have recently visited the region. Some of the reporting by these groups has undoubtedly reached influential policy actors directly, but wider awareness will only emerge if general China experts\u2014on whom NGOs, businesses, news media, and governments depend\u2014make Xinjiang an integral part of the China story.<\/p>\n

Analyses of general topics such as the media, gender, or rule of law in China should fully incorporate discussion of Xinjiang and Tibet, rather than treating these regions as exceptional. The current legal system of the P.R.C., for example, must now be understood as one that varies along ethnic lines, and one that permits sudden extra-legal innovations on a grand scale, in this case the enormous new network of indefinite detention camps for purportedly suspicious groups. It is tempting to restrict studies of the P.R.C. to data from Han-majority areas because of their overwhelming influence within the P.R.C., but any understanding of China is distorted without a consideration of the minorities with which the Han majority is intertwined. Such distortion helps keep the gross injustices in Xinjiang invisible, and risks enabling an even darker future, foreshadowed by the stories of torture and deaths that have already begun to emerge from the internment camps.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

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Rachel Harris<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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In 2014, Xi Jinping visited UNESCO headquarters and delivered a\u00a0speech<\/a>\u00a0on the value of cultural diversity and equality in China\u2019s \u201cWestern regions,\u201d signalling the links China was making between intangible cultural heritage (ICH) and the Belt and Road Initiative.<\/p>\n

The 2003 Convention on ICH aims to safeguard cultural practices \u201cessential for communities\u2019 cultural identity.\u201d It emphasizes grassroots practice, and the key safeguarding role of practitioners and communities. In China, ICH is a major plank of cultural policy, implemented through a tightly controlled, center-led, and elite-dominated system. A 2011 law requires that safeguarding initiatives be \u201cbeneficial to upholding the unification of the state and ethnic unity, and promoting social harmony.\u201d<\/p>\n

China has long used the UNESCO heritage lists to enhance its international prestige. It is a major partner of UNESCO\u2019s ICH projects, with the largest number of ratified ICH items worldwide. Among them is Meshrep, a form of community gathering amongst Uighurs, which was ratified in 2010.<\/p>\n

Since then, Meshrep has been transformed from community gathering into song-and-dance spectacle, used to promote tourism, and deployed as part of soft diplomacy and investment initiatives. This has happened against a backdrop of extraordinary levels of surveillance, intervention into the daily lives of millions of people, and mass incarceration.<\/p>\n

Knowledge of what is happening on the ground is severely hampered by the \u201cGreat Wall of Iron<\/a>\u201d Xi Jinping ordered erected around the region, cutting off access for foreign journalists and researchers and severing contact between overseas Uighurs and their relatives within Xinjiang.<\/p>\n

Even so, we know that grassroots Meshrep have been conflated with \u201cillegal religious gatherings\u201d; villagers have been unable to organize Meshrep, and universities have forbidden students from attending informal Meshrep. Refusal to attend officially organized Meshrep, on the other hand, is taken as a sign of religious extremism. We know of several researchers and transmitters of Uighur heritage who have been detained.<\/p>\n

In late 2014, local government blogs in Xinjiang\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0a \u201cweekly Meshrep to tackle extremism\u201d campaign. One stated, \u201cTo prevent extremist religious ideology infiltrating society and totally eliminate extremist religious activities we organized a series of Meshrep events . . . We listened to beautiful music, song and dance, and showed our determination to build our beautiful country.\u201d<\/p>\n

China\u2019s \u201csafeguarding\u201d of Meshrep thus involves separating the practice from its community roots, and creating versions that promote repressive government campaigns. It is part of state policies that actively impede and disrupt local forms of community organization and expression. UNESCO ratification allows the Chinese government to present itself as protecting Uighur heritage, masking the reality that securitization policies severely hamper the practice and transmission of that heritage.<\/p>\n

Chinese media frame China\u2019s ICH policies as \u201csaving\u201d Uighur heritage from foreign influence and religious extremism. On the contrary, the principal threats to Uighur heritage are government policies including the shift to Chinese-language education in schools, the relocation of Uighur communities to make room for development projects, restrictions on religion and informal gatherings, and the mass incarceration of Uighurs in re-education camps.<\/p>\n

UNESCO should raise these issues with China as a matter of urgency, and launch an independent investigation into the situation in Xinjiang to ascertain if the conditions necessary to safeguard ICH are present, namely ownership of the process of safeguarding by practitioners and communities, underpinned by freedom of speech, religion, and assembly.<\/p>\n

A detailed report on Intangible Cultural Heritage in Xinjiang, written by Nicole Morgret, will shortly be released by the\u00a0Uyghur Human Rights Project<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

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James Leibold<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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What is happening in Xinjiang at present is arguably the most serious human rights violation in China since the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. Yet, to date, governments across the global have remained largely muted in response. The forced imprisonment of tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in political concentration camps not only violates Chinese law but also international norms against the extrajudicial deprivation of liberty. Article 37 of the Chinese Constitution and Article 9 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, for example, explicitly forbid any form of arbitrary detention. Thanks to the meticulous work of scholars and journalists (mentioned above), we now have a substantial body of evidence outlining the harsh realities of these so-called political re-education camps, including coercive brainwashing, physical and mental torture, and the forced denunciation of one\u2019s culture and religion.<\/p>\n

Some western governments criticized these abuses at the U.N. Human Rights Council earlier this year, and American officials, including the co-chairs of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, have\u00a0called<\/a>\u00a0for possible sanctions against Chinese officials in Xinjiang under the Global Magnitsky Act. It\u2019s now time for other countries to publicly condemn these camps. Unfortunately, my home country of Australia has thus far remained silent. In 1997, the Australian government decided to pursue an annual, closed-door human rights dialogue with Chinese officials, arguing it would prove more effective in moderating Beijing\u2019s behavior. This strategy has failed miserably. China has become a far more repressive place under Xi Jinping, and in 2015 the Chinese government made a\u00a0unilateral decision<\/a>\u00a0to walk away from these annual human rights meetings with Canberra. If we are unwilling to publicly name and shame Beijing, we have little hope of changing its behavior. In 2017, the Turnbull government warned about the dangers of a \u201ccoercive China<\/a>,\u201d but has subsequently pulled its head back in, fearing Chinese reprisals. The Australian government is now under immense pressure to \u201creset<\/a>\u201d its relationship with China, with tacit calls to set aside values and principles in order to pursue \u201cwin-win\u201d economic collaboration.<\/p>\n

Since 1989, the Chinese Communist Party has worked hard to redefine human rights as a morally and culturally relativist concept, suggesting its \u201cChina model\u201d of hierarchical inclusion means not all citizens\u2019 rights are equal and the interests of the individual can be quashed for the utilitarian good of the nation. By overlooking human rights violations in China, such as those occurring in Xinjiang today, we undermine the moral authority and universality of these rights, and permit Xi Jinping the physical and discourse space to not only perfect his authoritarian controls at home but also begin exporting them abroad. All agree on the need to engage with China, but we must do so in a considered and principled manner, as Sophie Richardson, China Director of Human Rights Watch, recently\u00a0pointed out<\/a>. The best way to deal with a bully is regular, consistent, and public shaming.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

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Jessica Batke<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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A symbolically powerful step the U.S. government should take\u2014and one for which the mechanisms are already in place\u2014is to sanction Xinjiang Party Secretary Chen Quanguo under the\u00a0Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act<\/a>. The U.S. Congress created the Global Magnitsky Act in response to the death of a Russian accountant who died in prison after exposing high-level government corruption there. It allows for the United States to take two potential actions against foreign persons found to be responsible for human rights violations: blocking or revoking U.S. visas, or imposing property sanctions.<\/p>\n

Chen Quanguo\u2019s role in dramatically escalating state repression and violence against ethnic and religious minorities in Xinjiang is clear. The Xinjiang regional Justice Department issued a\u00a0key document<\/a>\u00a0mandating the expansion of the incarceration camps in February 2017, six months after Chen became Party Secretary in August 2016. Google satellite images of locations identified from government expropriation and bid notices clearly show that construction of\u00a0several<\/a>\u00a0\u201cre-education<\/a>\u00a0centers<\/a>\u201d began in the first half of 2017. In addition to the massive expansion of the political education centers, his tenure in Xinjiang has also brought omnipresent security checkpoints, as well as tremendous increases in\u00a0security spending<\/a>,\u00a0security personnel hiring programs<\/a>, and\u00a0government procurement and construction bids<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As the highest-ranking Chinese Communist Party member in Xinjiang, Chen Quanguo is the most powerful official in the region and ultimately responsible to Beijing for what occurs in his jurisdiction. The lines of authority in the Chinese Party-state mean that Chen is at the very least complicit in these abuses, if not a major driving force. Lest his involvement in the ongoing tragedy in Xinjiang be seen as coincidental, it is worth remembering that this escalation in repressive measures echoes\u00a0similar spikes<\/a>\u00a0in security spending and hiring when Chen was Party Secretary of Tibet.<\/p>\n

As a former member of the U.S. Intelligence Community, I am trained\u2014and indeed, usually prefer\u2014to focus on analyzing the situation at hand rather than offering policy prescriptions. I know that I can\u2019t see the full scope of U.S.-China relations, and that there are factors beyond any given human rights concern that play a role in U.S. policymaking. In this case, however, the scale and scope of what is happening in Xinjiang demands a definitive and forceful response. The Global Magnitsky Act and an accompanying\u00a0Executive Order<\/a>\u00a0from late last year make it possible to sanction an individual that is \u201cresponsible for or complicit in, or [has] directly or indirectly engaged in, serious human rights abuse.\u201d Further, that individual need only \u201cbe or have been a leader or official of . . . an entity, including any government entity, that has engaged in, or whose members have engaged in\u201d serious human rights abuse. Chen Quanguo is a clear example of exactly whom the Magnitsky Act was designed to target: an individual who is leading the incarceration of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of citizens simply because of their religious beliefs.<\/p>\n

Source\uff1ahttp:\/\/www.chinafile.com\/conversation\/how-should-world-respond-intensifying-repression-xinjiang<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

China File A ChinaFile Conversation Deliberate, systematic human rights abuses are happening in China\u2019s northwest. Reporting and research published in recent weeks shows that the Chinese government is targeting the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region\u2019s\u00a0roughly 11 million\u00a0Muslims for \u201cre-education.\u201d Anywhere\u00a0from several hundred thousand to more than a million\u00a0people have been or are being held in \u201ccenters,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-central-asia","category-uyghur-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=828"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":830,"href":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828\/revisions\/830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}