{"id":401,"date":"2019-05-07T22:04:28","date_gmt":"2019-05-07T13:04:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/?p=401"},"modified":"2019-05-07T22:06:56","modified_gmt":"2019-05-07T13:06:56","slug":"the-world-shrugs-as-china-locks-up-1-million-muslims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/2019\/05\/07\/the-world-shrugs-as-china-locks-up-1-million-muslims\/","title":{"rendered":"The world shrugs as China locks up 1 million Muslims"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/uighur-muslim-detention-camps-xinjiang-china-7d682095-4dcc-4b7b-8368-09e73ae7178a.html\">https:\/\/www.axios.com\/uighur-muslim-detention-camps-xinjiang-china-7d682095-4dcc-4b7b-8368-09e73ae7178a.html<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/authors\/dlawle01\">Dave Lawler<\/a>May 6, 2019<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.axios.com\/KMQZiqaDJRrC6vSIZWg5DeOrRLg=\/0x0:1920x1080\/1920x1080\/2019\/05\/05\/1557083675482.png\" alt=\"Illustration of a star from the Chinese emblem casting a shadow over a praying Muslim\"\/><figcaption>Illustration: A\u00efda Amer\/Axios<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">China has detained an estimated 1 million to 2 million Uighur Muslims in the region of Xinjiang, and millions more live one step away from detention under the watchful eye of the Chinese Communist Party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Why it matters:<\/strong>&nbsp;It has been two years since the internment camps first came to light internationally, and a series of reports from Xinjiang have made vivid the scale of the abuses. Yet foreign governments and corporations are content to pretend it isn&#8217;t happening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>&#8220;If right now, just about any other country<\/strong>&nbsp;in the world was found to be detaining over 1 million Muslims of a certain ethnicity, you can bet we\u2019d be seeing an international outcry,&#8221; says Sophie Richardson, china director for Human Rights Watch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>&#8220;Because it&#8217;s China, which has enormous power in international institutions these days, it&#8217;s hard to muster any response at all.&#8221;<\/li><li>&#8220;There has been this almost childlike hope that as China gets wealthier and more secure it would change&#8221; and adapt to international norms, Richardson says. Instead, China is using its economic clout and influence at the UN to undermine those norms.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>China has long waged<\/strong>&nbsp;a campaign of &#8220;assimilation and cultural destruction&#8221; in Xinjiang, but under President Xi Jinping it has &#8220;dramatically escalated,&#8221; says Omer Kanat, a prominent Uighur activist. &#8220;The camps are designed to eradicate the Uighur&#8217;s religious and ethnic identity once and for all.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>China used to deny the camps existed; it now claims they&#8217;re voluntary and designed to root out extremism.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>But a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hrw.org\/report\/2019\/05\/01\/chinas-algorithms-repression\/reverse-engineering-xinjiang-police-mass-surveillance\">new Human Rights Watch report<\/a>&nbsp;<\/strong>reveals Chinese authorities use an app to track nearly every aspect of Uighurs&#8217; lives and deem activities that have nothing to do with terrorism \u2014 keeping to oneself, using too much electricity, donating to a mosque \u2014 suspicious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>&#8220;These dubious criteria are being used to identify large numbers of people, many of whom are then arbitrarily locked up,&#8221; Richardson tells Axios.<\/li><li>Even those who aren&#8217;t locked up live under constant surveillance, as a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2019\/04\/04\/world\/asia\/xinjiang-china-surveillance-prison.html\">recent NY Times interactive<\/a>demonstrates.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>What they&#8217;re saying:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Prime Minister Imran Khan of Pakistan, which borders Xinjiang but has a deep economic reliance on China,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/IsmailRoyer\/status\/1111219015337287680\">told the FT in March<\/a>: &#8220;Frankly, I don&#8217;t know much about&#8221; what\u2019s happening to the Uighurs.<\/li><li>Indonesian President Joko Widodo&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/9831c394-46ed-11e9-b168-96a37d002cd3?utm_source=newsletter&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosworld&amp;stream=world#_ga=2.219700445.535832009.1556543578-258975452.1534272380\">gave a similar answer<\/a>, despite leading the world&#8217;s largest majority-Muslim country.<\/li><li>UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rfa.org\/english\/news\/uyghur\/un-camps-04302019170046.html\">appeared to tiptoe<\/a>&nbsp;around the issue on a visit to China last week.<\/li><li>Meanwhile the CEO of Volkswagen, which has a factory in Xinjiang,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/world\/2019\/04\/17\/volkswagen-built-factory-chinas-xinijang-where-up-million-uighurs-have-been-detained-its-ceo-says-hes-not-aware-that\/?utm_term=.2c1eff3219ff\">claimed last month<\/a>&nbsp;that he was &#8220;not aware&#8221; of the mass detentions.<\/li><li>The Organization of Islamic Cooperation went so far&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hrw.org\/news\/2019\/03\/21\/missed-opportunity-protect-muslims-china\">as to praise<\/a>&nbsp;China in March for &#8220;providing care to its Muslim citizens,&#8221; while in February Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/2019\/02\/22\/saudi-crown-prince-defends-chinas-right-put-uighur-muslims-concentration\/\">defended<\/a>&nbsp;China&#8217;s &#8220;right&#8221; to crack down on its Muslim citizens &#8220;for its national security.&#8221;<\/li><li>The U.S. and EU have spoken out, as has Turkey, but as a Council on Foreign Relations report&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cfr.org\/backgrounder\/chinas-crackdown-uighurs-xinjiang\">points out<\/a>, &#8220;no country has taken action beyond issuing critical statements.&#8221;<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Between the lines:&nbsp;<\/strong>&#8220;This is a difficult issue to address precisely because China has the world&#8217;s second-largest economy&#8221; and is &#8220;ruthless&#8221; when challenged, says John Herbst, a former longtime diplomat now at the Atlantic Council. &#8220;Countries are not going to make this a critical issue in their relations with China.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>What to watch:&nbsp;<\/strong>&#8220;What&#8217;s happening in Xinjiang now didn\u2019t happen overnight,&#8221; Richardson says. &#8220;If analysts like us didn&#8217;t see this coming \u2014 and I freely admit we didn&#8217;t \u2014 I wonder what we&#8217;re missing that\u2019s coming next.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>https:\/\/www.axios.com\/uighur-muslim-detention-camps-xinjiang-china-7d682095-4dcc-4b7b-8368-09e73ae7178a.html Dave LawlerMay 6, 2019 China has detained an estimated 1 million to 2 million Uighur Muslims in the region of Xinjiang, and millions more &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":176,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[5],"class_list":["post-401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-mass-detention"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":403,"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401\/revisions\/403"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}