By DOUG BANDOW<\/a> \u2022 August 15, 2019<\/a> https:\/\/www.theamericanconservative.com\/articles\/saving-chinas-uighurs-can-washington-do-the-impossible\/?fbclid=IwAR1g9CQJh6GCGpm6wQ3N9xFENElxYs_Bb16uOU2HD4nRCTKQxzhuIS7d8pA<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Activists wave the Uighur flag and protest oppression by the Chinese government. Credit: Alexandros Michailidis\/Shutterstock<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Almost from the nation\u2019s beginning, Americans have sought to liberate their geographical neighborhood and the world beyond. Only a few years after winning independence, they debated aiding faraway Greeks fighting the Ottoman Empire, even though this was well beyond their means.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two centuries later, a far more powerful United States faces a similar dilemma. There is a growing movement to \u201cdo something\u201d about China\u2019s terrible treatment of its Muslim Uighur population, a million of whom (and perhaps far more) have been locked up in reeducation camps. Authoritarian, even totalitarian, controls have been imposed in Xinjiang province. The scope of oppression is breathtaking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Writes the Washington Post<\/em>\u2019s Josh Rogin: \u201cRepublicans and Democrats, isolationists and internationalists, the Trump administration and Congress, even Christians and Muslims all agree: This is a catastrophe the United States can no longer ignore.\u201d Several House members have written to express their dismay that \u201cthe administration has taken no meaningful action in response to the situation.\u201d They insist that the president come up with plans to hold \u201cBeijing accountable\u201d and \u201cmake clear to the Chinese government that the situation is a priority for the U.S. government.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Laments Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uighur Congress: \u201cEach time the world swears never again. When will we actually mean it?\u201d Yet what does \u201cnever again\u201d mean when dealing with a major, well-armed power with nuclear weapons? During the Cold War, a much weaker People\u2019s Republic of China committed far worse crimes against its own people. Today, humanitarian military intervention is inconceivable: the result would be even worse human carnage. America certainly isn\u2019t going to war with the PRC.Advertisement<\/p>\n\n\n\n Economic sanctions have become America\u2019s \u201cgo to\u201d policy when it dislikes what other countries are doing. However, Beijing is a far more significant power than those nations typically targeted. China\u2019s commercial ties extend through Asia and Europe and on to Africa and even Latin America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trade penalties have proven ineffective even when applied against weaker nations, including Russia, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Cuba, and Venezuela. At best, those sanctions helped push some, like Tehran, to the negotiating table. But in no case did those countries change their internal policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Indeed, sanctions do more to hurt the people than their governments. Consider the infamous exchange with UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright, who, when pressed to justify the deaths of a half million Iraqi children due to sanctions, asserted: \u201cWe think the price is worth it.\u201d Someone should have asked the Iraqis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In response to such criticism, the U.S. insists that it\u2019s now imposing \u201csmart\u201d sanctions, punishing those believed to be responsible for offensive policies. However, the leaders of hostile states rarely bank or vacation in America. Some of their supporters might enjoy the West\u2019s good life, but Russia\u2019s oligarchs are still unlikely to overthrow their czar anytime soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the case of China, it\u2019s been suggested that we sanction Chen Quanguo, Xinjiang\u2019s party chief and Politburo member (who previously kept brutal order in Tibet). Doing so might represent \u201cthe determination not to turn a blind eye,\u201d as Rogin puts it, though not much more. That won\u2019t change anything in Beijing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Indeed, the Uighur Human Rights Policy Act, pending in both houses, is mostly hortatory. The bill demands that the administration do something, such as condemn Chinese abuses, impose Magnitsky Act penalties against select Chinese officials, ban the export of technologies used for repression, and protect Uighurs and others in the U.S. from Chinese harassment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Protecting Chinese of any background living in America is worthwhile, but well-nigh impossible when relatives remain in the PRC. Indeed, China is reportedly seeking to create a database of Uighurs living abroad and their relatives left in Xinjiang, in order to more effectively pressure the former.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sophie Richardson of Human Rights Watch urges the targeting of American companies tied to Chinese firms \u201cengaged one way or another in repression in Xinjiang.\u201d That would be morally satisfying, but it would not stop other nations\u2019 businesses from stepping in. China will have no trouble manning and servicing its camps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n House Speaker Nancy Pelosi argues: \u201cThe administration must demonstrate the moral courage to use its economic leverage to not only guarantee fair trade for American products in Chinese markets, but also to advance human rights in China.\u201d Similarly, as regards Hong Kong, Amnesty International\u2019s Francisco Bencosme observes, \u201cWhile the U.S. is negotiating trade agreements, I think it\u2019s important to remember that history is not going to remember the details of the negotiations but where the United States was on this massive human rights issue.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But what to do? Impose human rights tariffs? Embargo all trade? And would the objective be to close the camps or liberate Xinjiang? To kill Hong Kong\u2019s extradition bill or force democratic rule?<\/p>\n\n\n\n And what of the many other human rights violations\u2014attacks on religious liberty, arrests of human rights lawyers, creation of a totalitarian \u201csocial credit\u201d system, restrictions on academic exchanges and internet access, and much more? Is there any reason to believe that a rising nationalist power would cave on such issues? If not, then just \u201cdoing something\u201d would be for our benefit, not that of the oppressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Congress also recently targeted China\u2019s ongoing crackdown in Hong Kong. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that if Hong Kong approves the proposed extradition bill, \u201cthe Congress has no choice but to reassess whether Hong Kong is \u2018sufficiently autonomous\u2019 under the \u2018one country, two systems\u2019 framework\u201d to maintain existing trade preferences. Legislation has been introduced to reaffirm Washington\u2019s commitment to human rights in Hong Kong, certify the sufficiency of the territory\u2019s autonomy, and impose personal sanctions on those responsible for violating liberties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If the Special Administrative Region loses its special status, then it should lose any corresponding trade preferences. Nevertheless, the threat to strip away trade benefits won\u2019t change Beijing\u2019s behavior. If millions of demonstrators can\u2019t sway Hong Kong and Beijing authorities, American economic penalties won\u2019t do so. The SAR matters ever less economically to China and Chinese leadership will not yield control of a territory they only regained a couple decades ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Michael Mazza of the American Enterprise Institute proposes that the U.S. boycott the 2022 China Winter Olympic Games to protest Beijing\u2019s Xinjiang practices. If the International Olympics Committee was deciding where to schedule the next games, denying them to the PRC would be sensible punishment. However, a unilateral boycott\u2014Mazza expressed the likely forlorn hope that Washington could convince others to go along and the IOC to cancel or relocate the competition\u2014would merely be an exercise in moral vanity. It would be a particularly curious statement if tourists and businessmen filled planes headed for China while American athletes were stuck at home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So far the administration has resisted pressure to act. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo unconvincingly claimed that he has raised human rights \u201cin multiple conversations.\u201d However, the administration values human rights only as a foreign policy weapon against particularly hated adversaries. Punishing the PRC would also interfere with other important policy objectives, such as moving North Korea toward denuclearization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nor is China the only country that offends American values. For example, during the contested redo of Istanbul\u2019s mayoral race, Bloomberg\u2019s Eli Lake contended that the issue should be \u201cat the top of the U.S. agenda with Turkey.\u201d Yet what could Washington have done? President Recep Tayyip Erdogan felt threatened by the initial opposition victory: holding onto power was his priority and would have trumped any threat from Washington. Moreover, were the U.S. government seen to be allying with the opposition, it might prove to be more burden than asset in a nationalist state with significant anti-American sentiments. American intervention might also might have spurred Erdogan to do whatever was necessary to ensure his party\u2019s victory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n History has not ended and horrific violations of human rights abound across the globe. Alas, America\u2019s desire to redress injustice far outstrips its ability to do so. Even when addressing offenses like the mass incarceration of China\u2019s Uighurs, prudence remains a virtue. Best would be for the administration to encourage creation of a global coalition to address these horrific problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. He is a former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan and the author of several books, including <\/em>Foreign Follies: America\u2019s New Global Empire.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Unfortunately America\u2019s desire to redress injustice far outstrips our ability to do so. By DOUG BANDOW \u2022 August 15, 2019 https:\/\/www.theamericanconservative.com\/articles\/saving-chinas-uighurs-can-washington-do-the-impossible\/?fbclid=IwAR1g9CQJh6GCGpm6wQ3N9xFENElxYs_Bb16uOU2HD4nRCTKQxzhuIS7d8pA Activists wave the Uighur flag and protest … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":600,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[4],"class_list":["post-598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-human-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=598"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":602,"href":"https:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598\/revisions\/602"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}