Cross-posted from: https://feddit.de/post/9752393
Xinjiang’s top Communist Party official said on Thursday that the “Sinicisation” of Islam in the Muslim-majority region in northwestern China, where Beijing is accused of human rights abuses, is “inevitable”. “Everyone knows that Islam in Xinjiang needs to be Sinicised, this is an inevitable trend,” regional party chief Ma Xingrui told reporters at a largely scripted briefing on the sidelines of China’s annual parliamentary sessions in Beijing.
Rights groups accuse Beijing of widespread abuses of Uyghurs, a mainly Muslim ethnic minority that numbers around 10 million in Xinjiang, including denying Uyghurs full religious freedoms. Beijing vigorously denies any abuses.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has repeatedly called for the “Sinicisation” of religions including Islam, Buddhism and Christianity, urging followers to pledge loyalty to the Communist Party above all else. About two-thirds of mosques in Xinjiang have been damaged or destroyed since 2017, according to an Australian think-tank report.
During the news conference, Ma and other regional officials praised Xinjiang’s economic development, refuted U.S. allegations of forced labour and cultural genocide, and tried to paint the region as open to foreign tourism and investment.
Ma, a high-flying former governor of prosperous Guangdong province who was transferred to Xinjiang in 2021, stressed the need to “coordinate security and development”.
“The three forces are still active now, but we cannot be afraid (to open up) because they exist,” said Ma, using a political slogan referring to “ethnic separatism, religious extremism and violent terrorist forces” in Xinjiang.
Beijing in 2017 launched a harsh security crackdown in Xinjiang after a spate of violent ethnic protests, which saw over a million people from several Muslim minorities detained in re-education camps, rights groups allege.
We have carried out a severe crackdown on terrorist activities, promulgated and implemented anti-terrorism laws to … combat various forms of terrorism," senior Xinjiang parliamentarian Wang Mingshan said.
But the briefing was largely focused on Xinjiang’s economic development, tourism potential and what the officials described as cultural preservation.
Last year Xinjiang received 565.7 billion yuan ($78.5 billion) in central government transfers accounting for 72.7% of local government spending, as well as over 19 billion yuan ($2.6 billion) in fiscal aid from other provinces, the region’s chairman Erkin Tuniyaz said.
Ma was flanked by two Xinjiang officials sanctioned by the United States over human rights abuses in Xinjiang - Tuniyaz and former regional chairman Shohrat Zakir.
Officials claimed that over 4,390 foreigners visited Xinjiang in 2023, and that last year’s newly installed renewable energy capacity totalled 22.61 million kilowatts, bringing the total installed in the region to 64.4 million kilowatts - nearly half of Xinjiang’s electricity capacity.
Xinjiang is a major base for solar cell production, which has been tainted by allegations of forced labour.
Sigh, alright I guess I’ll address the “concentration camps” nonsense in detail for you. The whole conspiracy theory started with a claim of millions of Uyghurs being supposedly imprisoned story is based on two highly dubious “studies.”.
However, this claim is completely absurd when you stop and think about it even for a minute. That figure 1 million is repeated again and again. Let’s just look at how much space would you actually need to intern one million people.
This is a photo of Rikers Island, New York City’s biggest prison. The actual size of a facility interning ten thousand people.
According to Wikipedia, “The average daily inmate population on the island is about 10,000, although it can hold a maximum of 15,000.” Let’s assume this is a Xinjiang detention camp, holding ten to fifteen thousand people. How many of these would it take to hold one million people?
Let’s do some math:
In reality, one million people would probably take more space; all the supposed detention camps we see are much less dense than Rikers.
For comparison, San Francisco is 47 square miles. Amsterdam is 64 square miles. You’d literally need detention camps that total the size of San Francisco or Amsterdam to intern one million Uyghurs. It’d be like looking at a map of California. There’s Los Angeles. There’s San Diego. And look, there’s San Francisco Concentration City with its one million Uyghurs.
Literally visible to the naked eye from space.
CHRD states that it interviewed dozens of ethnic Uyghurs in the course of its study, but their enormous estimate was ultimately based on interviews with exactly eight Uyghur individuals. Based on this absurdly small sample of research subjects in an area whose total population is 20 million, CHRD “extrapolated estimates” that “at least 10% of villagers […] are being detained in re-education detention camps, and 20% are being forced to attend day/evening re-education camps in the villages or townships, totaling 30% in both types of camps.” Furthermore, it doesn’t even make sense from logistics perspective.
Practically all the stories we see about China trace back to Adrian Zenz is a far right fundamentalist nutcase and not a reliable source for any sort of information. The fact that he’s the primary source for practically every article in western media demonstrates precisely what I’m talking about when I say that coverage is divorced from reality.
Zenz is a born-again Christian who lectures at the European School of Culture and Theology. This anodyne-sounding campus is actually the German base of Columbia International University, a US-based evangelical Christian seminary which considers the “Bible to be the ultimate foundation and the final truth in every aspect of our lives,” and whose mission is to “educate people from a biblical worldview to impact the nations with the message of Christ.”
Zenz’s work on China is inspired by this biblical worldview, as he recently explained in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. “I feel very clearly led by God to do this,” he said. “I can put it that way. I’m not afraid to say that. With Xinjiang, things really changed. It became like a mission, or a ministry.”.
Along with his “mission” against China, heavenly guidance has apparently prompted Zenz to denounce homosexuality, gender equality, and the banning of physical punishment against children as threats to Christianity.
Zenz outlined these views in a book he co-authored in 2012, titled Worthy to Escape: Why All Believers Will Not Be Raptured Before the Tribulation. In the tome, Zenz discussed the return of Jesus Christ, the coming wrath of God, and the rise of the Antichrist.
The fact that this nutcase is being paraded as a credible researcher on the subject is absolutely surreal, and it’s clear that the methodology of his “research” doesn’t pass any kind of muster when examined closely.
It’s also worth noting that there is a political angle around the narrative around Xinjiang. For example, here’s George Bush’s chief of staff openly saying that US wants to destabilize the region, and NED recently admitting to funding Uyghur separatism for the past 16 years on their own official Twitter page. An ex-CIA operative details US operations radicalizing and training terrorists in the region in this book. Here’s an excerpt:
US has been stoking terrorism in the region while they’ve been running a propaganda campaign against China in the west. In fact, US even classified Uyghur separatists as a terrorist group at one point https://www.mintpressnews.com/us-was-at-war-uyghur-terrorists-now-claims-etim-doesnt-exist/276916/
Here’s an interview with a son of imam killed in Xinjiang https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-06-19/Son-of-imam-assassinated-in-Kashgar-s-2014-mosque-attack-speaks-out-RqNiyrcRuo/index.html
Here’s an account from a Pakistani journalist who has been all over Xinjiang (which borders Pakistan) claims that western media reports on “atrocities” are lies. https://dailytimes.com.pk/723317/exposing-the-occidents-baseless-lies-about-xinjiang/
It’s also worth noting that the accusations originate entirely from the west while Muslim majority countries support China, and their leaders have visited Xinjiang many times.
Also notable that whenever western media actually deigns to visit Xinjiang, which is not often, they’re unable to produce support for any of their claims of mass imprisonment and oppression, so they opt for insinuations instead https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-lifestyle-china-health-travel-7a6967f335f97ca868cc618ea84b98b9
There’s a further list of debunking here if you’re interested https://redsails.org/the-xinjiang-atrocity-propaganda-blitz/
The whole thing is very clearly a propaganda blitz that US is cynically using to manipulate impressionable people in the west.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BFJ5zXjdD5U&pp=ygUNdmljZSBVeWdodXJzIA%3D%3D
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=v7AYyUqrMuQ&pp=ygUMdmljZSB1eWdodXJz
Here are two instances of investigative journalism into Xinjiang by Vice. If the Chinese had nothing to hide, why the hostility towards journalists? Why are they being followed by CCP agents? Or is Vice far right too now?
There are countless interviews of Uighur Muslims who fled the area detailing their experiences there. Kids are being separated from the parents to be put in “Kindergartens” (the Chinese version of Canadian residential schools).
As for the Muslim countries- do you really think undemocratic monarchies/ dictators give two shits about their fellow Muslims? The slave labor that has built the UAE and Saudi Arabia’s infrastructure involves Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, who are all Muslim. Or is slave labor in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar evil western propaganda too?
deleted by creator
I have no idea about the Falun Gong fellow. I haven’t heard claims of organ harvesting before. So I don’t care about Falun Gong. I’m talking about Vice here. Vice’s journalistic freedoms were being trampled upon by the CCP here.
As for Chinese journalists, no, they would not be restricted to film and report stuff in the US. Please provide videographic evidence if you disagree.
Edit: Also about the population of the Muslim countries - what about slavery? They don’t seem to be so much against that either.
Fuck it i know what im doing in this class anyway heres some more info
the Uyghur population has been steadily increasing and grew by more than 25% between 2010 and 2018 even though the total population of Xinjiang only rose by 13.99%. The Uyghur population is growing faster than Han Chinese (2%) or other ethnic minorities (22.14%).[source]
Chinese protections of Islam have been reputed to be contested by some citizens as suggesting preferential treatment, refuting the claim that the China’s policies are anti-Islam.[source]
China has roughly 54 other ethnic groups which have been relatively unscathed, including other Muslim-majority ethnic groups such as the Hui ethnic group, which is larger than the Uyghur population. In 2019, almost 1,000 diplomats and journalists from many countries as well as the UN, EU, Arab League, African Union, and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation visited Xinjiang and found no evidence of genocide. [source]
In response to the Trump administration Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s claims of genocide in Xinjiang, people from all walks of life in the region submitted at least 450 written responses and 345 videos condemning the comments as untrue and harmful. [source]
Adrian Zenz is a far-right racist connected to the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, which is controlled by the U.S. government. He claimed that Xinjiang is forcibly sterilizing Uyghur women with IUDs. In fact, only 328,475 of China’s total 3,774,318 IUDs were in Xinjiang.[source]
In September 2018, he said there were about 1,060,000 Uyghurs in re-education camps. This number is based on anonymous interviews with only eight people.[source]
In his initial report for the ~1M estimate, Radio Free Asia is cited four times, and the estimate is only mentioned on (pp. 21-2). Zenz finds this number by roughly extrapolating a “leaked” report by Newsweek Japan (affiliated with Newsweek Inc.).[source] This report came from “Istekral TV”, which frequently platforms the terrorist organization ETIM—the report was never confirmed.
On May 4, 2022, the BBC posted an article detailing what they termed the “Xinjiang Police Files”, a collection of documents and other resources which purportedly proved accusations of maltreatment against Uyghurs. The documents were allegedly provided by an anonymous source to Adrian Zenz, who then gave them to the BBC. The documents in fact showed many Uyghurs working at the centers and that the centers had some Han Chinese detainees. Many articles used images of guns as a scare tactic without noting that these were images of security drills and that the magazines were empty. The articles associated with the files whitewashed the crimes of genuine ETIM members who had been a party in bombings such as Yusup Ismayil (with text placed over an image of Yusup reading “many have been detained just for ordinary, outward signs of their Islamic faith or for visiting countries with majority Muslim populations”, with no citation for this claim). The Xinjiang Police Files “key documents” file metadata showed that Adrian Zenz and Ilshat Kobor (of the Uyghur American Association) had modified them, with metadata information being removed soon after release. The XPF website also posted demographic data, of which the number of male and female detainees added up to over the stated total in the same data.[source]
BBC claimed that Zamira Dawut was sterilized at a vocational center. Her brother, Abduhelil, said she had never been to a vocational center. Zamira said her father was arrested multiple times and then died of unknown causes. In reality, he was never arrested or even investigated and died of heart disease on 2019 October 12.[source]
On 2019 November 16, The New York Times reported on supposed leaked documents on Xinjiang. State media was quick to assert that these documents were not authentic, calling them “fabricated.”[source]
Grammatical errors indicated that the documents were fake and likely translated from English to Chinese, with users further noting that the “leaked” docs did not correspond to the formatting standards of Chinese government documents (GB/T9704).source
In 2018 December, diplomats from Afghanistan, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Thailand, and Uzbekistan visited Xinjiang and had full access to vocational training centers. They found no evidence of forced labor or cultural or religious oppression.
On 2019 January 29, an EU delegation visited. On February 25, about 200 representatives of 50 political parties from almost 30 countries visited Ürümqi. On February 28, diplomats from Algeria, Burma, Greece, Hungary, Morocco, Vietnam, and the Arab League visited. China offered to let the EU visit again in March, but it declined. On March 27, the Albanian and Serbian ambassadors to China (Selim Belortaja and Milan Bačević) visited. On June 15, Under Secretary-General of the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Office Vladimir Voronkov visited Xinjiang. Between June 18 and 21, diplomats from Algeria, Burkina Faso, the DR Congo, Laos, Malaysia, Nigeria, Serbia, Somalia, Tajikistan, Togo, and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation visited. On August 19, diplomats from Bahrain, Cambodia, Laos, Nepal, Nigeria, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka visited. In September, diplomats from the African Union and 16 African countries, including Burundi, Djibouti, Lesotho, Sudan, Uganda, and Zimbabwe visited. In November, Fahri Hamzah, former Deputy Speaker of the Indonesian House of Representatives, visited Xinjiang. On November 11, the World Bank visited Xinjiang and found no abnormalities in the vocational centers.[source]
On 2019 January 6, Reuters visited Xinjiang. Starting on January 9, 12 media representatives from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Sri Lanka, and Turkey visited. Another media delegation from Egypt visited on January 29. On February 22, 11 journalists from Indonesia and Malaysia visited. On 2019 May 7, NPR released its report on a visit to a vocational center. On 2019 June 18, BBC visited a vocational center. Starting on July 14, journalists from 24 countries, including India, Iran, Italy, Japan, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Turkey, the USA, and Uzbekistan visited Xinjiang. On August 17, a media group from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Japan, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, Turkey, and the UAE visited. On August 29, ABC News visited a vocational center.[source]
On October 10, 2021, as Xinjiang was slowly opening for tourism, the Associated Press traveled to Xinjiang in order to investigate the measures taken by the government. They concluded that the genocidal policies had existed at some point but had been done away with before the opening measures, although the article still critiqued certain things they felt stifled Uyghur culture.[source]
A response was posted afterwards by The New Atlas which bemoaned several of the article’s pretensions.[source]
I really dont know anything about that vice thing but i think this should suffice yeah?
I understand why its easy to believe that china is committing genocide and i get why you might distrust china. You would be right to based on the information you are fed, no judgement i promise. Personally I trust the US and US based sources a lot less however
Bruv almost all your sources are from some “Qiao Collective”. If you read their about page, the very first line says, “Qiao Collective is a diaspora Chinese media collective challenging U.S. aggression on China.” We can definitely trust them to provide objectively correct information, right? /s
Your very first source is CGTN, the Chinese State News.
You (not you particularly, but tankies in general) flail around a lot about western propaganda but forget that others have their respective propaganda as well. Especially the Chinese. They have literally firewalled their entire goddamn country. You can link Chinese State propaganda freely, and I can access it without censorship. Can the Chinese do the same for western news? No, thanks to the great firewall.
Im well aware of where my sources come from lol, but you can check all of those claims made yourself if you so choose. These are reports on things that did happen and are proovable.
These were just the sources most readily available to me
Cool. The burden of proof is on you though. You made a claim, you gotta provide evidence to support your claim. Right now, you’re saying “but China doesn’t say that they’re committing genocide. So I guess they ain’t…”. How would you react if I used Israeli state sources to “prove” that there’s no genocide happening in Gaza?
It isnt though, the burden of proof is on those claiming that there is a genocide. You dont have to proove the negative.
Also I’m not say china says they aren’t comitting genocide I’m providing all the hard evidence china has provided to disprove the allegations. You wouldn’t accuse someone of a crimes and never look at any evidence they provide to the contrary.
The falun gong thing is on me, i was confusing two seperate US funded chinese seperatist groups. The falun gong are the group behind the shen yun play if youre aware of that and they claim their organs are being harvested because they are “pure”. Strange group. I deleted that comment because it wasnt relevant but i guess it hasnt federated
Anyway you’re correct that a chinese journalist wouldnt be restricted to film and report because they likely wouldnt be let into the US. But if they were i have no doubt theyd be monitered by the CIA at every point of their visit.
Also muslim countries arent against slavery? Brother the US isnt against slavery. Why do you think its prison population is higher than the population of many entire countries?
As for videographic evidence, im in class rn and dont really have time to go looking, the original comment i made is something i copy paste because i got tired of writing it all out
Evidence please. I have no doubt that I am an alien as well.
Agreed. Fuck the US. But does the US being shitty justify others being shitty as well?
Ahh np. Take your time.
Wouldn’t hold my breath buddy.