On his last day as US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo declared China’s human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region constituted “genocide” against ethnic Uighur Muslims. This outrageous declaration was the last of many that Pompeo has issued in a deliberate attempt to destroy relations with China on his way out of office.
Immediately after Pompeo issued this statement, Biden’s nominee for secretary of state Antony Blinken told the U.S. Senate that in his judgment Pompeo’s verdict of “genocide” was correct. He also made it clear that he was not about to try and repair relations with China. Speaking of Trump’s China policy, he said “I disagree very much with the way he went about it in a number of ways, but the basic principle was the right one and I think that’s very helpful to our foreign policy.” It’s about the only major area where he agreed with Trump’s policy.
China’s approach has two very different prongs. It wants to keep the door open for an eventual reset of relations with the Biden Administration, but is going out of its way to excoriate Trump’s. Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that “a new window of hope” was opening with the inauguration of Biden as president.
On the other hand, Chinese spokespeople have been extremely scathing concerning the outgoing Trump Administration. On 16 January a Xinhua commentary shouted “good riddance” to Trump and accused “certain U.S. politicians” of being without limit in their ignorance and prejudice against China’s successful development.
Immediately after the inauguration, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement sanctioning Pompeo and 27 others, including Stephen Bannon, Peter Navarro and John Bolton, all China hawks. It said: “These individuals and their immediate family members are prohibited from entering the mainland, Hong Kong, and Macao of China. They and companies and institutions associated with them are also restricted from doing business with China.”
The Ministry used strong language to justify this decision. It said that for years these 28 people had “planned, promoted and executed a series of crazy moves which have gravely interfered in China’s internal affairs, undermined China’s interests, offended the Chinese people, and seriously disrupted China-U.S. relations.” Incendiary perhaps, but accurate nonetheless!
In a press conference just after Pompeo issued his statement, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying went all out in attacking Pompeo. In response to questions from CNN, she described him as a “notorious liar and cheater” who is making himself “a doomed clown and a joke of the century with his show of lies and madness just before the curtain falls”. She also said his declaration on Xinjiang was “nothing more than a piece of waste paper”.
These are provocative words. But, to be fair to Hua, she also added quite a bit of concrete information that I would consider relevant to the question of genocide and human rights. She claimed, for instance, that Xinjiang’s life expectancy had gone up over the last 60 years or so from 30 to 72 and that, from 2010 to 2018, the Uighur population of Xinjiang had increased by 25.04 per cent as against 13.99 per cent for the whole of Xinjiang, and 2 per cent for the Han majority ethnic group. She said that the languages and traditional cultures of the ethnic minorities had been well protected. And she repeated the standard line that the camps so often called concentration camps in the Western media are in fact places of education aimed at lawful counter-terrorism and de-radicalization, “which effectively protected Xinjiang’s security and stability and residents’ safety”.
My own view is that China is right to promote de-radicalization. China has overreacted greatly in dealing with this issue, but considering the number of terrorist attacks that occurred since 1990 and especially over the years following major rioting in 2009 that killed about 200 people, Pompeo and his cohorts have also greatly exaggerated the situation in a way that suits their anti-China agenda. The advance in the standard of living among Uyghurs, which I have witnessed over quite a few visits to Xinjiang ranging in time from 1985 to 2018 I believe is indeed relevant to human rights.
And to call it “genocide” is completely ridiculous. There is a United Nations definition of genocide in a Convention of 1948. This definition is quite extensive, but the nub of it is specified acts “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” There is no such intent in any Chinese policy document, and the higher rate of growth in the Uighur population, as compared to the overall Xinjiang population, suggests that what is happening is anything but genocide.
Among the scholars to write the most damaging work on the situation in Xinjiang since 2017 is the German Adrian Zenz, whom Hua Chunying cites and castigates. She also brings in Australia, because several scholars in the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, notably Vicky Xu, have written extensively on Xinjiang as well. Their work is extremely hostile to China, and Hua made a point of attacking them. Since ASPI is frequently mentioned in Pearls and Irritations, it is hardly necessary for me to point out that its funding comes from a range of sources, many military, many non-Australian and all of them extremely hostile to China. At a forum I attended recently, Vicky Xu spoke with pride about the American government research grants she had obtained.
The American, British and Australian governments have used human rights abuses and slave labour as excuses for sanctioning anything to do with Xinjiang. My view is that we do ourselves and the people of Xinjiang great damage if we go down that path. It will increase tensions and hatreds and achieve nothing.
I’d like to draw attention, with only minimal further comment, to two ironies. One is that on 21 January, the Chinese representative at the United Nations Human Rights Council attacked Australia on five grounds, the first being racism, hate speech and failure to protect the rights of ethnic minorities. This kind of argument about human rights abuses cuts more than one way. The second is that Twitter locked the account of China’s embassy in the United States for a tweet that defended China’s policy towards Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang. The reason given was the tweet on Xinjiang violated Twitter’s stand against “dehumanizing” people. The Chinese Embassy suffered the same treatment as Donald Trump since his last days as president.
Certainly, the Biden Administration has a lot on its plate, including dismantling many of the most harmful of Trump’s initiatives. But it should expand cooperation with China and reset relations. As for Australia, it is against our interests as well as against common sense and realities to follow (hopefully) spent politicians like Pompeo.
COLIN MACKERRAS, AO, FAHA is Professor Emeritus at Griffith University, Queensland. He has visited and worked in China many times. He is a specialist on Chinese history, theatre, minority nationalities, Western images of China and Australia-China relations and has written widely on all topics. His many books include Western Perspectives on the People’s Republic of China, Politics, Economy and Society, World Scientific Publishing, Singapore, 2015.
Comments
40 responses to “Pompeo and Blinken are wrong: China is not committing genocide in Xinjiang”
Peter Navarro shouldn’t be just sanctioned but sectioned. He is certifiably insane.
So it seems very few people on here believe investigative journalism like this from the BBC. Apparently the BBC is run by the CIA. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/China_hidden_camps
It is as influenced by the CIA via Five Eyes as any other country that is part of it. ABC is no better here.
As I said, google Manufacturing Consent. Then you will understand why mainstream media is not to be trusted.
Did you read the BBC on the WMD in Iraq by any chance? Cardiff University produced a detailed study on BBC bias in support of the British government.
“Over the three weeks of conflict, 11% of the
sources quoted by the BBC were of coalition government or military
origin, the highest proportion of all the main television broadcasters.
The BBC was the least likely to quote official Iraqi sources, and less
likely than Sky, ITV or Channel 4 News to use independent (and often
sceptical) sources such as the Red Cross.
The study found the BBC placed least emphasis on Iraqi casualties, which
were mentioned in 22% of its stories about the Iraqi people. Casualties
received most prominence on Channel 4 News, figuring in 40% of its
reports about Iraqis. The corporation was least likely to report on the
unhappiness of Iraqis about the invasion.”
They have form.
Unless Biden changed his mind, the passing of theChina bashing baton from Pompeo to Blinken is an exercise with the full blinkers on. Instead of a fresh start with a new administration, Blinken now inherits all the sins of Pompeo and the poison chalice.
I think English-speaking culture is ugly and arrogant out of ignorance. Over the last 50 years our education system has failed in its teaching of foreign languages, and failed to produce enough people with the worldly outlook that knowledge of other cultures brings. Now we are being eclipsed by what is probably already the world’s leading culture, about which we know nothing, and to which we react with fear and hostility. We have the same attitude to the science of human behaviour. We are headed for the trash heap.
The idea that all the reporting on the “camps” is all lies doesn’t really cut it. Have you read the large number of personal accounts by Uighurs themselves? Have you read the personal testimony of many Uighurs who have family locked up and they are not allowed to have contact with them. You can’t just dismiss widespread reports as being all “CIA plots”. Should ordinary citizens in large numbers be forced into what you call ”
places of education aimed at lawful counter-terrorism and de-radicalization?”
In reply to your last question, ordinary citizens are forced into places of education throughout the western world from the age of five upwards. In this instance the education is aimed at ‘lawful counter-terrorism and de-radicalisation”. Seems fair enough to me if the alternative is allowing ‘terrorists’ and ‘radicals’ to simply kill other members of their local community.
And actually, I have not read or come across ‘large numbers of personal accounts by Uighurs themselves’. I have read the personal accounts of a small number of Uighurs, on many occasions, and I have no idea whether they are telling the truth or are being paid by the CIA to do so. And neither have you.
Last year I read an ABC account saying that the Uighur language had been banned in China. They got this from a Uighur living in Sydney, and of course it was nonsense, but did the ABC fact check the story or retract it? No.
The Uighur World Congress supports the stories about the million or more Uighurs being held in captivity, although when asked for evidence, reporters were told that members of the Congress had got the information from reports in the media.
And if we conclude, as you clearly have done, that it is improbable that all these negative stories about Uighurs could all be being made up by the CIA, I would ask why you think it’s improbable. You may be right, but it seems perfectly plausible to me that the CIA could have manufactured these situations. And what do we make of all the anecdotal evidence from Uighurs who claim to have benefited from ‘re-education’? Are they simply dupes for Beijing propaganda?
OK so we can’t trust any reports on the ABC. We can’t trust any reports by the BBC. I presume you also don’t trust anything that Amnesty International says. I presume you don’t trust anything Human Rights Watch says. It’s all CIA lies and there are no serious violations of human rights in China. OK, good to know.
Google Manufacturing Consent.
The answer is yes – none of those sources should be considered trustworthy.
But we should trust the Chinese government?
Nobody here is. Nice try though.
So we don’t trust anyone. Not human rights groups, not media, and not Chinese govt. But somehow you claim to have knowledge of what is happening in China, even though you don’t trust any source.
of course, once upon a time one did trust these agencies, but it has become clear in recent years that many, especially Human Rights Watch have been suborned by US intelligence agencies. I’m reluctant to abandon Amnesty International, but I do note they were very late coming round to supporting Assange. Whether we can trust the Chinese government is moot, but western countries have been so extreme in their anti-Chinese propaganda, it’s difficult to know what to to trust any more. Sorry.
If you only rely on the MS media, then you will only get as much misinformation as you want. Manufacturing consent is real, and it was first identified in the US by Noam Chomsky. At least on P&I there are a diversity of views, many of international origin, academics other than Clive Hamilton, foreign affairs experts, and more independent sources.
What amazes me about your views is that while you appear to show compassion for Uyghurs, you don’t seem to be concerned about warfare in the entire Sino-Japanese region which is largely being pushed by US political interference.
Horses for courses. I imagine the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation is sensitive to a genocide against muslims. The 14 members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) – including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, the UAE, Qatar and Algeria signed a letter to the UN supporting the PRC on the issue and praising PRC for its “remarkable achievements in the field of human rights.” Now we have the situation of the killers of millions of muslin civilians in wars against Afghanistan, Ira, Syria and Yemen staunchly defending muslim “rights.” whilst the OIC defends the PRC in its actions. But then again the OIC is just a bunch of muslims aren’t they? Not proper white people.
Horses for courses. I imagine the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation is sensitive to a genocide against muslims. The 14 members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) – including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, the UAE, Qatar and Algeria signed a letter to the UN supporting the PRC on the issue and praising PRC for its “remarkable achievements in the field of human rights.” Now we have the situation of the killers of millions of muslin civilians in wars against Afghanistan, Ira, Syria and Yemen staunchly defending muslim “rights.” whilst the OIC defends the PRC in its actions. But then again the OIC is just a bunch of muslims aren’t they? Not proper white people.
The charge is “genocide’. And yes there is absolutely no evidence of genocide. There are human rights violations in Australia by the way. O and yes a real genocide.
And since this entire matter has been provoked by the US, just have a look at what Human Rights Watch says about the diminishing standards of human rights under the Trump regime. Biden certainly appears to be on the path of reversing some of Trump’s appalling decisions, but we are yet to see if others in the US judiciary and the GOP will let him do it.
https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2020/country-chapters/united-states#
As David Brophy, Australia’s most qualified academic on the Uyghur and Xinjiang people says (and I paraphrase), the Uyghur’s situation for many decades has been ignored over and over again by Western nations who showed not one skerrick of interest.
Why is it suddenly important when it is only the size of China’s economy and associated power that actually changed?
Ms, I understand your concerns. I sense that your concern for the oppressed is genuine. However, in a world filled with misinformation, it is indeed difficult to tell fiction apart from fact. I have heard many Uyghurs accusing the Chinese government on TV. I listened with careful consideration as to where they were coming from. Firstly, they were asylum seekers, or given asylum in the West or Australia. To quality as an asylum seeker, they must have a convincing narrative. In listening to their stories, I have often come to the conclusion that there are many tell-tale signs of exaggerations. One in Germany claimed that she saw a Chinese guard rape a Uyghur woman inmate in front of 100 witnesses. Firstly, one has to assume that the Chinese do not have law and order and that the people in charge of the reeducation camps are a bunch of uncivilised barbarians. Secondly, in the trauma of seeing an atrocity committed, how did she manage to count 100 witnesses or even in a frame of mind to estimate that number? If the government is that repressive, how was she able to travel to the West to seek asylum? Thirdly, how did she find herself in the camp? What law had she actually infringed and any such background has never been revealed. I have heard other claims with an open mind and think that what they say does not compute. Two others that I have seen on TV footage spoke as Uyghurs but it was revealed, very quickly close to the end, that they were Kazaks. What were they doing in China? What were the nature of their infringements were never revealed.
There are many Uyghurs fighting for ISIS and other extreme Islamic groups in the Middle East and elsewhere. They would have many narratives about the “ugly” Chinese. It would be very naive to take what they say as the unvarnished truth.
I believe that as a reasonable person, you would have to allow for the fact that the Chinese are like the rest of us, educated and largely moderate, albeit that they do things differently. With the attention of the world so deeply focussed on them and Xinjiang, do you think that they would allow such atrocities to happen so openly or at all? Are all Chinese fools?
Asylum seekers have an agenda. Some host countries have a geopolitical agenda to want to see the worst of the Chinese. When the two agendas coincide, they make the ugliest propaganda. We recently have a Chinese seeking political asylum in Australia whose claim that he worked for the Chinese secret service turned out to be concocted or exaggerated.
The Ughurs, like the rest of the Chinese population, including other ethnic groups, have a vastly improved standard of living and are being lifted out of poverty. Yet, disgraceful journalists will take pictures of their old abandoned mud hovels and claim that the Chinese are destroying their culture. They do not film the new homes that they were presently inhabiting – homes with modern conveniences and vastly improved hygiene.
Many of these Uyghurs claim to be victims. Let us hope that we are not instead the victims of their narratives.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/China_hidden_camps
Hi again Sophie,
Satellite images are almost a standard tool to show reeducation camps. No one disputes these camps. The Chinese never disputed that. They even invited two dozen representatives from Muslim countries to visit and inspect them. None found cause to express concerns. I would say as an ideology driven country, the Chinese have used the age old method of attempts at indoctrination. We don’t know what happens in there. So far, there has been claims of people disappearing. In China, it is often the case that a person disappears and resurfaces again after the authorities are sure that they have recanted. So far, no one has claimed that anyone was actually killed in the camp. Because they were mostly malicious propaganda, they can’t provide real names and details of the deceased person because if they did Chinese might just produce the person and the journalist or the Uyghur asylum seeker will have egg on their face.
Of course you’ll say this link below is propaganda, because unlike the West only China does it apparently, only China lies, and the BBC is always telling the truth. Unlike what they did with the war in Iraq.
If you back self-confessed “we lie, we steal, we cheat ” Pompeo however, who is the one who recently stirred up debate with his genocide comment, you should know he made his claims on Fox News = go figure. Murdoch’s Fox News has always been Trump’s backer and willing accomplice in mistruths, even his son James told us this last week.
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202101/1213911.shtml
Not all Uyghurs are against China, the country that Xinjiang is a part of. Like the rest of China they also receive significant benefits as well.
And what you don’t see is that even if we accept that a certain percentage of Uyghurs are persecuted, the US under Trump has been making up an exaggerated phony case for regime change in China, and has been willing to lie its teeth off to start it.
I heard from Rubyah Kadeer wishpering to me ?Ha,ha…, ha….. How made up fancy story and legitemated by 5Eyes media tools and their webs.
I understand why the Chinese government are so hard on Rubyah Kadeer. She is advocating a breakaway from China which is sacrilegious to them. Even the US would not allow the southern states to secede. The civil war took in excess of half a million lives.
This is very welcome perspective on the real situation for Uighurs in Xinjiang – something that seems of little interest to most Western media and commentators, for whom Mike Pompeo’s incendiary accusations are merely stating the obvious. Most on the left have only seen the disinformation and propaganda from human rights groups like Amnesty, broadcast without alteration by our main media. But what is missing isn’t just the real story of the “re-education camps”, but of the East Turkestan Islamic Front and its separatist campaign. Not only is this directed against China internally, but the “new silk road” of IS-affiliated terrorists to Turkey and Syria has been assisted by the Western allies in pursuit of their goals in Syria, where significant communities of Uighurs remain a problem, particularly in the remaining “rebel” occupied Idlib region. The Chinese foreign ministry would do well to point this out, and point out that our leaders already know but keep hidden from us.
There were Uighur terrorists from Syria fighting for IS-Maute in the terrorist attack on Marawi in May 2017 in Mindanao. It took the Philippines army five months to defeat them. Marawi is a city of 200,00 people.
I find myself in agreement with this essay/assessment. On another essay this morning I have mentioned the writer Philippe Sands and his book Torture Team – on the Rumsfeld/Bush (W) terrors inflicted in the US torture bases of Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib. In relation to your article here again I’d like to raise the writer (forensic political malpractice investigator) again – for his East West Street (2016) in which he explores his own family story out of Lvov/Lwiw and the two men from that same town/city who out of the post-WWII Nuremburg War Crimes trials established the principles of Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide! That Australia has been called out for its hypocrisy by the Chinese is right and proper and overdue. Once we have our own house in order – First Nations, asylum-seekers, pollution, political corruption – maybe then we might be able to do some finger-pointing of our own – and on our own – without direction from the US and our own Quislings doing the US bidding.
We are rightly cautious not to use the word “holocaust” to describe other atrocities, for fear of diluting the meaning of that word.
Yet we so casually use the word “colonialism”, “slavery”, and now “genocide” – all shameful events that were done by European settlers in the New World – to describe China’s policies with so little substantiating evidence!
I guess from the point of view of Europeans/Americans (and Australians?), this has the benefit of watering down the horrific policies of their/our past.
This is the great wonder of the Western propaganda machine.
Since the second world war, US and other western militaries have 1. dropped two atomic bombs to kill hundreds of thousands instantly 2. killed three million Koreans 3. killed another three million Vietnamese people 4. killed about a million in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya. Quite apart from causing mayhem and destruction with colour revolutions and regime changes everywhere.
And yet, and yet! They have come up roses! Taiwanese Chinese and a good proportion of Hongkongers are still hoping that the US would bring them independence and democracy!
And of course, the entire Western world is convinced by now that we have an evil regime in Beijing. Millions of Indonesians also buy the story about Xinjiang.
Big Tech is also playing its role for the CIA and NSA. The people on the planet gets told the ‘truth’, according to Washington! Sigh!
The current outcry about invisible atrocities in Xinjiang is also an attempt to salvage some value from America’s $1+ billion investment in Uyghur terrorism, which is now entirely lost. Says US Ambassador Chas. H. Freeman, Director for Chinese Affairs at the U.S. Department of State from 1979-1981:
It is also very interesting to read about how the British put Tibet in the hands of the Chinese as a protectorate due to their fear that the Tibetans had formed close relations with the Russians.
You probably know that anyway, but for others that have never read the story just search for the “Younghusband Expedition.”
I recently read Peter Hopkirk’s ‘The Great Game’ which spends quite a bit of time on the Younghusband Expedition. An expedition which killed a 1000 or more Tibetan soldiers. All of this in an attempt to speak with the Dalai Lama, an attempt that failed.
Looks like a very interesting book. Thanks for that.
I crunched some numbers last night based on official data of prison populations in different countries.
I note the US has 2,121,600 detainees in its prisons. That constitutes 0.646% of the the country’ s population or 655 people per 100,000
China has 1,700,000 incarcerated in its prisons or 0.122% of its population, or 120 people per 100,000
In other words America has 5.54 times the amount of people compared to China in its prisons. American prisons are privately run and people work for as little as $2 an hour as slaves for US corporations.
I note also that “Incarceration in the United States is a primary form of punishment and rehabilitation for the commission of felony and other offenses. The United States has the largest prison population in the world, and the highest per-capita incarceration rate”.
Just to add statistics for Australia to compare, we have 0.179% of our population in gaol. That’s 170 people per 100,000 and our prisons are already full.
And, off the topic a little, but relevant as tomorrow is Invasion Day, the rate for indigenous Australians is over 4000!
Yes it is a shocker as well.
We should recognise the ‘wonders’ of the privatised detention industry in America. Every additional person jailed adds to the coffers of some corporate (which no doubt also has a lobbyist somewhere…). You have to wonder whether the police forces are also giving these corporates a helping hand!!
Yes, and I like this bit too: “Incarceration in the United States is a primary form of punishment and rehabilitation for the commission of felony and other offenses”.
In other words incarceration is used as punishment, and rehabilitation is used to change peoples’ minds.
Even though many incarcerated Americans are predominantly black or Hispanic, the very people that are often the poorest and underprivileged people in the US, who may resort to petty theft and crime because they may have little choice if they are unemployed or from the working poor classes.
Meanwhile those who caused the 2008 crash for example, went without any punishment or rehabilitation (mind changing), and their massive debts were paid for by the US government, at taxpayers’ expense, mainly from the largest cohort of US workers that do badly paid work.