{"id":1730,"date":"2019-04-05T16:59:19","date_gmt":"2019-04-05T15:59:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wsm.prolerat.org\/?p=1730"},"modified":"2019-04-05T16:59:19","modified_gmt":"2019-04-05T15:59:19","slug":"material-world-taming-the-uighur","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/material-world-taming-the-uighur\/","title":{"rendered":"Material World: Taming the Uighur"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Back in September 2014, we carried an article on the Chinese \ngovernment\u2019s persecution of the Uighurs, a Muslim minority \n(worldsocialism.org\/spgb\/socialist-standard\/2014\/2010s\/no-1321-september-2014\/material-world-chinas-wild-west\/)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Uighur are more akin to the Turkic peoples of Kyrgyzstan and \nKazakhstan, than to the Han Chinese. Following a policy conducted in \nTibet, China has promoted the mass migration of Han Chinese into \nXinjiang \u2013 the autonomous region in western China, home to approximately\n 11 million Uighurs, with the effect of trying to reduce Uighurs to a \nminority on their native land, pre-empting any possibility of \nindependence that many Uighurs seek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In August 2018, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial \nDiscrimination voiced \u2018deep concern\u2019 over the situation facing Muslims \nwho were being treated as \u2018enemies of the state\u2019 and held in secret \n\u2018re-education\u2019 camps. The Chinese Human Rights Defenders reported that a\n fifth of all 2017 arrests in China were made in Xinjiang. According to a\n Human Rights Watch report, the detention centres are located in \nspecially-built facilities or converted government buildings where \ndetainees are held, unlawfully and without charge, as a result of \nreligious \u2018offences\u2019 such as excessive praying or non-religious acts \nsuch as accessing proscribed websites or contacting overseas relatives. \nOther aspects of the security crackdown include all-encompassing social \nmedia surveillance, mass deployment of police and severe regulations \nagainst religious practices and dress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inmates at those gulags are forced to criticise their own Islamic \nbeliefs and sing Communist Party propaganda songs for hours each day and\n give thanks to the ruling Communist Party. They are compelled to shave \ntheir beards and have been forced to eat pork and drink alcohol. Former \ndetainees described beatings and deaths despite authorities\u2019 tight \ncontrol of available information. Likewise, the government also operates\n orphanages for Uighur children taken from their parents, in a process \nto disconnect them from their ethnic heritage, a punitive policy \ntargeting indigenous peoples seen all across the world at various times \nin history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China is an economic superpower which the world relies on heavily for\n trade and there are signs that economic factors are the reason \ndeterring diplomatic protest or humanitarian intervention from the rest \nof the world. Many states including Islamic ones fear the economic \nconsequences and possible retaliation they could receive if they \nchallenged or sanctioned China for this blatant ethnic cleansing of the \nUighur people. China has invested $62bn in the construction of the \nChina-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which will connect Kashgar in \nXinjiang to the southern Gwadar port in Pakistan. Despite Pakistan \nhighlighting the plight of Muslim minorities, when it comes to Uighurs, \nIslamabad protests are muted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018It\u2019s quite striking that while Pakistan often laments the plight of \nRohingya, Syrian, Kashmiri, and Palestinian Muslims, you rarely hear \nIslamabad making statements in solidarity with Uighurs\u2019, according to \nMichael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia programme at the Wilson \nCenter. He says \u2018The Muslim world on the whole, with a few exceptions, \nhas taken a position of studied silence because of a desire not to upset\n a key global player that offers investments and other useful benefits\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Particularly revealing were the comments from Saudi Arabia\u2019s Crown \nPrince Mohammed bin Salman who, on his recent visit to China, voiced \nsupport for China\u2019s campaign against \u2018terrorists\u2019 and its \n\u2018de-extremization\u2019 camps. Did we really think that China or Saudi Arabia\n would allow some Uighurs to get in the way of Saudi Aramco\u2019s $10 \nbillion deal for a refining and petrochemical complex or the signing of \n35 economic cooperation accords worth $28 billion? Chinese-Saudi trade \nreached $63 billion in 2018. As long as economics matter, the Uighurs \nwill not likely find an ally in Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turkey has been the only majority Muslim country to criticise China, \nwith the Turkish foreign ministry calling China\u2019s treatment of Uighurs \n\u2018a great cause of shame for humanity\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China is able to disguise anti-Uighur actions under a cloak of the \nglobal \u2018war against terror\u2019 to counter and de-radicalise Islamic \nfundamentalism. China is taking advantage of the global trend to \nweaponise Islamophobia to drive its racist programme of state-sponsored \nHan dominance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China\u2019s Foreign Minister Wang Yi justified the \u2018re-education camps\u2019, \nstating, \u2018the efforts are completely in line with the direction the \ninternational community has taken to combat terrorism \u2026 if we can take \ncare of prevention, then it will be impossible for terrorism to spread \nand take root\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other government officials defended the forced detention claim that \nIslam is an ideological illness, depicting the camps as more like \nhospitals to \u2018cure\u2019 people from the Muslim infliction. China\u2019s \nambassador to the USA, Cui Tiankai, stated that the country is trying to\n turn the Uighurs into \u2018normal people\u2019. China is instituting the very \nsame calls made by some Western politicians to criminalise expressions \nof Muslim identity such as the wearing of hijabs in an effort to heal \nMuslims of their \u2018sickness\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maya Wang of the Human Rights Watch campaign explained that while \nauthorities claimed the camps were about combating terrorism and \nseparatism, they were in fact designed to assimilate Uighurs. Amnesty \nInternational described the detention centres as comparable to \u2018wartime \nconcentration camps\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Socialist Party is fully conscious of the sufferings of many of \nour fellow-workers and we wish to promote a kaleidoscope of cultures but\n candour compels us to point out that only the abolition of capitalism \nand the establishment of socialism can put an end to national chauvinism\n and race prejudice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ALJO<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From April 2019 Socialist Standard PDF<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in September 2014, we carried an article on the Chinese government\u2019s persecution of the Uighurs, a Muslim minority (worldsocialism.org\/spgb\/socialist-standard\/2014\/2010s\/no-1321-september-2014\/material-world-chinas-wild-west\/) The Uighur are more akin to the Turkic peoples of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, than to the Han Chinese. Following a policy conducted in Tibet, China has promoted the mass migration of Han Chinese into Xinjiang…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1982,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"magazine_newspaper_sidebar_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}