The editors of the Washington Post take to their fainting couches over the unconscionable treatment of the Uighur population of China’s western provinces by the Chinese authorities:
China has sought for years to assimilate the Muslim Uighur population into the majority Han Chinese, partially by flooding Xinjiang province with migrants from elsewhere. But the effort to crush the population has picked up speed under President Xi Jinping, whose government set up an archipelago of bleak outposts for carrying out forced indoctrination, to eradicate the Uighur language, traditions and culture. At first, China denied these camps existed; then China admitted that they exist but claimed they are for “re-education†and vocational training. As eyewitnesses have verified, the real purpose is much darker, to coerce the detainees to give up their language and culture. Experts have said more than 1 million Uighurs are now detained, out of a population of more than 11 million. Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uighur Congress, told us there may be 2 million or more imprisoned, based on word leaking out to Uighur families and those who have been released.
That’s a terrible choice of words. The Chinese authorities are not trying to “assimilate” China’s Uighur population.
They are supplanting them, removing them, eradicating them, following the same playbook as used in Tibet. China is racist. Its authorities view it as an ethnic state as surely as Hungarians or Kosovars do theirs. If you’re not Han Chinese, you’re not Chinese.
There is some controversy over the history of the Uighurs but the question is whether they’ve comprised the major part of China’s Xinjiang province for the last millennium or the last 10,000 years. The Han Chinese tend to believe the former, the Uighurs themselves the latter. Whatever the case they are not newcomers, not invaders, not foreigners.
Here’s the remedy proposed by the editors:
China must be held to account for crimes against the Uighur population. Worthy legislation is pending in Congress to address this, and the time has come for the rest of the world to demand admission to the camps, in search of a lost Uighur musician and more than 1 million others.
There are only three avenues for meaningful responses: trade sanctions, diplomatic sanctions, or military sanctions. Since the editors have condemned each of those for China in the past it would be interesting to hear their views on what sort of response would be appropriate. On that, sadly, the editorial is silent.
yet reading Rubio’s S.178 – Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2019, incidentally cosponsored by E. Warren, requires economic sanctions be applied. A similar bill is pending in the House, different verbiage, yet same actions proposed.
Has the cocktail party circuit chatter changed?
One can only hope. I’m trying to figure out how the WaPo is going to square the circle here. Economic sanctions approved by Congress are okay but those imposed unilaterally by the president aren’t? Sanctions for human rights are okay but not for mercantilist trade policies that injure working people in the U. S.? Youth wants to know.
What’s not being mentioned here is the same thing not being mentioned when it comes to Burma’s Rohingya Muslims and Thailand’s Muslims. Generally speaking, all three groups have been a source of violence and terrorism.
Unlike the servile European governments, the Chinese and Burmese are taking a more direct approach to getting rid of this problem. And while they may be using methods that may seem harsh to us, it’s not like this is totally without reason.
Don’t be surprised if the populations of certain European countries eventually get tired of having their women and children raped and their cities becoming no go areas and use some similar methods. As always, when things get this drastic some perfectly nice, peaceful people suffer as well. But that’s what happens sometimes, even with the best of intentions.
Individual Muslims can assimilate and live in non-Muslim countries quite well if they want, and I know a number who have. But Islam simply doesn’t play well with others, and that and a significant number of Muslims, perhaps a majority. A look at the past 1400 plus years as well as what’s in the Qur’an makes it obvious why. It was never designed to play well with others, only to conquer dar harb (literally, ‘the house of war’ and turn it into dar Islam (the area ruled by Islam).
Tibet, which I know a bit about is an entirely different matter. There, the Chinese simply invaded a sovereign country, deposed it’s government, did their best to eradicate it’s culture and religion, and proceeded to colonize it, bringing Han Chinese in and even forcing marriages between Tibetan women and Han Chinese men to eliminate the population. Interesting that with all the fake nonsense peddled about Israel on the media (not to mention the Muslim Rohingya and Uighers) no one says much about Tibet.
It’s pretty obvious why.
Typo alert. This sentence should have read “and that includes a significant number of Muslims, perhaps a majority. ”
Sorry about that.
We conquered this nations land by relentless barbaric force. with claims of Manifest Destiny, we used false promises, ruse, lies, and genocide to clear the land of it’s former inhabitants. If general Grant had had his way, the only ones left would be wooden.
The government supplied ammunition for hunters to clear the land of it’s larger and much of it’s smaller wildlife. Vast herds were destroyed in only a few years .
Now we have the gall to tell other peoples they can’t clear their forests and wipe out gorillas, elephants, wildebeest, to make room for progress. And to tell the Chinese they have to live with eternal unrest by followers of a death cult in the name of humanity and I suppose, diversity.
Do as we say, not as we do.
Han persecution of the Hui goes back many, many years. It is more the cause than the result of Uighur terrorism.