US blacklists 28 Chinese companies and government agencies. Watch video to know more.

US blacklists 28 Chinese companies and government agencies

Qatar becomes the first Muslim-majority country to oppose china's persecution of Uighur Muslims.

WION Gravitas: Qatar opposes China on its treatment of Uighur Muslims

China's claim that "most" inmates have been released from re-education camps in its Xinjiang region has been met with anger and scepticism by the <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/ambassadors-of-50-countries-write-to-un-rights-council-backing-chinas-actions-on-uighurs-in-xinjiang-238932">Uighur diaspora</a> which has launched a social media campaign challenging Beijing to prove it.

Rights groups and experts say more than one million mostly Muslim ethnic minorities have been rounded up in internment camps in the tightly-controlled northwest region, home to <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/pompeo-calls-chinas-treatment-of-uighurs-stain-of-the-century-237014">China's Uighur population</a>.

But on Tuesday, Xinjiang officials told reporters that "most" people held in the camps had already returned home - though they did not share any figures.

"It's absolutely not true," said Guly Mahsut, a Uighur based in Canada.

"One of my cousins and one of my tour guide friends, and my friend's husband, they are still in the camps," the 37-year-old told AFP.

Mahsut and other overseas Uighurs have responded to China's claim with the hashtag "#Provethe90%", featuring stories and photos of missing friends and family who they have been unable to contact in Xinjiang.

The hashtag is a reference to remarks made by Xinjiang chairman Shohrat Zakir, who told reporters "more than 90 per cent" of those who "return to society...have work that they like and find suitable."

"China does not need to say they released most if they did so," said Arfat Erkin, a Uighur student in the United States who tweeted about his father using the "#Provethe90%" hashtag.

"All it needs is to give journalists normal access to those camps — not staged camps — and give official permission for Uighurs to contact their relatives abroad," he told AFP.

Bahram Sintash, who has posted information about destroyed mosques and neighbourhoods in Xinjiang, also tweeted about his 69-year-old father, a retired editor who Sintash said was taken December 2017.

'Unverifiable statements'

Asked about the scepticism, foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Wednesday that she was "not aware of the specific number" of people who have left the centres.

She said "the real Xinjiang is a lot different from what was depicted by certain Western media", adding that China has arranged trips to the region for diplomats and foreign journalists.

It is difficult to verify China's claims, as the government has made independent reporting in Xinjiang extremely challenging.

"China is making deceptive and unverifiable statements in a vain attempt to allay worldwide concern for the mass detentions of Uighurs and members of other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang," said Amnesty International's director for East Asia, Nicholas Bequelin.

He said Amnesty had not received any reports of large-scale releases.

On a six-day trip to the region last month, AFP reporters were almost constantly followed by plainclothesmen. They also encountered roadblocks and were turned away by security forces upon nearing some camps.

For Uighur student Erkin, China's claim that "most" detainees have been released does not seem believable given Beijing's initial denial of the very existence of re-education camps last year.

"It's like a joke," he said. "Many people are still detained, including my father and other relatives."

In October 2018, the Chinese government pivoted from outright dismissal to calling the camps "vocational education centres" in the face of mounting evidence in the form of government documents, satellite imagery, and escapee testimony.

'Hopeful Uighurs'

Beijing defends the centres as a necessary counter-extremism measure, where detainees learn subjects like Mandarin and Chinese law.

But former inmates and rights groups say individuals are subjected to political indoctrination and abuse.

One ex-detainee told AFP that he was forced to sing the Chinese national anthem every morning and eat pork, which is prohibited in Islam's religious restrictions.

Even if people are released, "how permanent is it?" said Arslan Hidayat, son-in-law of prominent Uighur comedian Adil Mijit, whom he lost contact with last November.

"They are still in Xinjiang and they can again be arbitrarily detained," he said, adding that inmates could technically be released from re-education centres only to be sent to what some reports have described as forced labour.

"There are still so many hopeful Uighurs," he added, explaining that some believe staying silent could help keep loved ones out of the camps.

Hidayat said China's claim that "most" have left the camps could affect "those who are already scared, people who don't want to speak up, to stop them further".

China's claim that "most" inmates have been released from re-education camps in its Xinjiang region has been met with anger and scepticism by the Uighur diaspora which has launched a social media campaign challenging Beijing to prove it.

China's claim that "most" inmates have been released from re-education camps in its Xinjiang region has been met with anger and scepticism by the Uighur diaspora which has launched a social media campaign challenging Beijing to prove it. Rights groups and experts say more than one million mostly Muslim ethnic minorities have been rounded up in internment camps in the tightly-controlled northwest region, home to China's Uighur population. But on Tuesday, Xinjiang officials told reporters that "most" people held in the camps had already returned home - though they did not share any figures. "It's absolutely not true," said Guly Mahsut, a Uighur based in Canada. "One of my cousins and one of my tour guide friends, and my friend's husband, they are still in the camps," the 37-year-old told AFP. Mahsut and other overseas Uighurs have responded to China's claim with the hashtag "#Provethe90%", featuring stories and photos of missing friends and family who they have been unable to contact in Xinjiang. The hashtag is a reference to remarks made by Xinjiang chairman Shohrat Zakir, who told reporters "more than 90 per cent" of those who "return to society...have work that they like and find suitable." "China does not need to say they released most if they did so," said Arfat Erkin, a Uighur student in the United States who tweeted about his father using the "#Provethe90%" hashtag. "All it needs is to give journalists normal access to those camps — not staged camps — and give official permission for Uighurs to contact their relatives abroad," he told AFP. Bahram Sintash, who has posted information about destroyed mosques and neighbourhoods in Xinjiang, also tweeted about his 69-year-old father, a retired editor who Sintash said was taken December 2017. 'Unverifiable statements' Asked about the scepticism, foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Wednesday that she was "not aware of the specific number" of people who have left the centres. She said "the real Xinjiang is a lot different from what was depicted by certain Western media", adding that China has arranged trips to the region for diplomats and foreign journalists. It is difficult to verify China's claims, as the government has made independent reporting in Xinjiang extremely challenging. "China is making deceptive and unverifiable statements in a vain attempt to allay worldwide concern for the mass detentions of Uighurs and members of other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang," said Amnesty International's director for East Asia, Nicholas Bequelin. He said Amnesty had not received any reports of large-scale releases. On a six-day trip to the region last month, AFP reporters were almost constantly followed by plainclothesmen. They also encountered roadblocks and were turned away by security forces upon nearing some camps. For Uighur student Erkin, China's claim that "most" detainees have been released does not seem believable given Beijing's initial denial of the very existence of re-education camps last year. "It's like a joke," he said. "Many people are still detained, including my father and other relatives." In October 2018, the Chinese government pivoted from outright dismissal to calling the camps "vocational education centres" in the face of mounting evidence in the form of government documents, satellite imagery, and escapee testimony. 'Hopeful Uighurs' Beijing defends the centres as a necessary counter-extremism measure, where detainees learn subjects like Mandarin and Chinese law. But former inmates and rights groups say individuals are subjected to political indoctrination and abuse. One ex-detainee told AFP that he was forced to sing the Chinese national anthem every morning and eat pork, which is prohibited in Islam's religious restrictions. Even if people are released, "how permanent is it?" said Arslan Hidayat, son-in-law of prominent Uighur comedian Adil Mijit, whom he lost contact with last November. "They are still in Xinjiang and they can again be arbitrarily detained," he said, adding that inmates could technically be released from re-education centres only to be sent to what some reports have described as forced labour. "There are still so many hopeful Uighurs," he added, explaining that some believe staying silent could help keep loved ones out of the camps. Hidayat said China's claim that "most" have left the camps could affect "those who are already scared, people who don't want to speak up, to stop them further".

Uighurs challenge China to prove missing relatives are free

The US Secretary of State&nbsp;Mike&nbsp;Pompeo&nbsp;on Thursday called China's treatment of its Uighur Muslim minority the "stain of the century", reported news agency Reuters

"China is home to one of the worst human rights crises of our time; it is truly the stain of the century,"&nbsp;Pompeo&nbsp;told the final day of the international conference in Washington.

He also accused Beijing of pressuring countries not to attend a US-hosted conference on religious freedom.

Pompeo&nbsp;said Chinese government officials had sought to discourage countries from attending the three-day event he has hosted, attended by 106 countries.

"Is that consistent with the guarantee of religious belief that is found directly in the Chinese constitution?" he asked.

Congratulating countries which had defied Chinese pressure, he said: "If you have declined to attend for the same reason, we take note."

Pompeo&nbsp;did not name any of the countries and a State Department spokesman could not provide a figure.

"We know the Chinese government called countries specifically to discourage participation. We cannot prove the exact number they successfully impacted," he said.

Pompeo's remarks came a day after US President Donald Trump met at the White House with victims of religious persecution from countries including China, Turkey, North Korea, Iran and Myanmar.

The Chinese government on Thursday rejected any suggestion that it abuses religious and human rights.

(With inputs from Reuters)

The US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday called China's treatment of its Uighur Muslim minority the "stain of the century", reported news agency Reuters "China is home to one of the worst human rights crises of our time; it is truly the stain of the century," Pompeo told the final day of the international conference in Washington.

The US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday called China's treatment of its Uighur Muslim minority the "stain of the century", reported news agency Reuters "China is home to one of the worst human rights crises of our time; it is truly the stain of the century," Pompeo told the final day of the international conference in Washington. He also accused Beijing of pressuring countries not to attend a US-hosted conference on religious freedom. Pompeo said Chinese government officials had sought to discourage countries from attending the three-day event he has hosted, attended by 106 countries. "Is that consistent with the guarantee of religious belief that is found directly in the Chinese constitution?" he asked. Congratulating countries which had defied Chinese pressure, he said: "If you have declined to attend for the same reason, we take note." Pompeo did not name any of the countries and a State Department spokesman could not provide a figure. "We know the Chinese government called countries specifically to discourage participation. We cannot prove the exact number they successfully impacted," he said. Pompeo's remarks came a day after US President Donald Trump met at the White House with victims of religious persecution from countries including China, Turkey, North Korea, Iran and Myanmar. The Chinese government on Thursday rejected any suggestion that it abuses religious and human rights. (With inputs from Reuters)

Pompeo calls China's treatment of Uighurs 'stain of the century'

By Abbas Faiz

A letter signed in early July by 22 Western countries, including the UK, Australia, Canada and France, raised serious concerns to UN officials about China’s incarceration of Uyghur people in so-called education camps in the country’s Xinjiang region. A few days later, a second letter emerged. Signed by 37 governments, including North Korea, Russia and Saudi Arabia, it effectively endorsed China’s human rights abuses in the region.

All of the signatories of the second letter have appalling human rights records of their own. Like the Chinese government, they suppress their political opponents and impose severe restrictions on critical media. Many subject their critics to arbitrary arrest, torture, long prison sentences or the death penalty after grossly unfair trials.

The letter highlights China’s latest win in its plan to reshape the international human rights system. For more than a decade, as documented in a 2012 Chatham House study, Chinese officials have worked hard to derail human rights resolutions at the UN whether or not they had a bearing on the country’s own record.

Alarm about the role China is playing to weaken the UN human rights system was also raised by Human Rights Watch in 2017. It accused China of intimidation on UN premises, obstruction of NGO advocacy at the UN, resistance to routine practices regarding appointments and media broadcast, and efforts to weaken key human rights resolutions.

If China succeeds in gaining the support of a majority of UN member states, it can push to water down some of the binding international legal safeguards for human rights, such as civil and political rights.

Insisting on sovereignty

China’s approach has been to engage with the UN’s human rights bodies to impose its own narrative, which misinterprets sovereignty as being distinct and above human rights. The Chinese government persistently reacts to any criticism of China by labelling it interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state. In doing so, it ignores repeated emphasis in international human rights law that human rights depend on one another. The exercise of one right, such as the right to sovereignty, cannot allow the violation of another, such as the right not to be tortured.

Chinese delegates at the UN Human Rights Council said they “highly appreciated” the letter of support by the 37 signatories. China’s ambassador to the council, Chen Xu, said: “We have repeatedly expressed that what is going on in Xinjiang is entirely an internal affair of China and it involves China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

A dangerous block

China is recruiting like-minded governments to push its line on sovereignty. The 37 signatories of the letter, as well as other countries not on the list, including Iran and Turkey, are taking the same approach towards legitimate criticism of their human rights records. Not only are they brothers in arms against safeguarding human rights, but for many their partnership with China’s Belt and Road Initiative or their dependency on China’s low interest loans is a growing incentive to join China’s block. The stronger this menacing form of solidarity grows, the less effective human rights safeguards will be in these countries.

Chinese officials have repeatedly termed the criticism of their treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang region as Western media politicising the issue. But the block of support that China is building is itself a highly political enterprise. The countries include Muslim states, such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, who turn a blind eye to the treatment of Muslims in China but have been vocal against the treatment of Muslims in other parts of the world in a display of double standards.

What unites many of the 37 countries who support China is their style of governance. They all appear hostile to campaigns for democracy in their countries, ruthlessly suppress freedoms, and with a few exceptions rank high in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index.

China may not be currently pushing for actual amendments to international human rights law, but it is advocating a change in how the law is interpreted. It may also want to have control in future on the appointment of independent experts, for which it would need support from other countries. A block of 37 countries may not yet be a decisive development, but it is the start of what could be a nightmare for human rights defenders.

China’s economic might and worldwide influence enable it to deflect international criticism of its poor human rights record. With a growing army of like-minded governments behind it, international human rights safeguards have never been so dangerously exposed.

(Abbas Faiz is Lecturer on Human Rights, School of Law, University of Essex)

(This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/china-is-building-a-global-coalition-of-human-rights-violators-to-defend-its-record-in-xinjiang-what-is-its-endgame-120546">original article</a>)

(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL.)&nbsp; 
&nbsp; 
&nbsp;

By Abbas Faiz A letter signed in early July by 22 Western countries, including the UK, Australia, Canada and France, raised serious concerns to UN officials about China’s incarceration of Uyghur people in so-called education camps in the country’s Xinjiang region.

By Abbas Faiz A letter signed in early July by 22 Western countries, including the UK, Australia, Canada and France, raised serious concerns to UN officials about China’s incarceration of Uyghur people in so-called education camps in the country’s Xinjiang region. A few days later, a second letter emerged. Signed by 37 governments, including North Korea, Russia and Saudi Arabia, it effectively endorsed China’s human rights abuses in the region. All of the signatories of the second letter have appalling human rights records of their own. Like the Chinese government, they suppress their political opponents and impose severe restrictions on critical media. Many subject their critics to arbitrary arrest, torture, long prison sentences or the death penalty after grossly unfair trials. The letter highlights China’s latest win in its plan to reshape the international human rights system. For more than a decade, as documented in a 2012 Chatham House study, Chinese officials have worked hard to derail human rights resolutions at the UN whether or not they had a bearing on the country’s own record. Alarm about the role China is playing to weaken the UN human rights system was also raised by Human Rights Watch in 2017. It accused China of intimidation on UN premises, obstruction of NGO advocacy at the UN, resistance to routine practices regarding appointments and media broadcast, and efforts to weaken key human rights resolutions. If China succeeds in gaining the support of a majority of UN member states, it can push to water down some of the binding international legal safeguards for human rights, such as civil and political rights. Insisting on sovereignty China’s approach has been to engage with the UN’s human rights bodies to impose its own narrative, which misinterprets sovereignty as being distinct and above human rights. The Chinese government persistently reacts to any criticism of China by labelling it interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state. In doing so, it ignores repeated emphasis in international human rights law that human rights depend on one another. The exercise of one right, such as the right to sovereignty, cannot allow the violation of another, such as the right not to be tortured. Chinese delegates at the UN Human Rights Council said they “highly appreciated” the letter of support by the 37 signatories. China’s ambassador to the council, Chen Xu, said: “We have repeatedly expressed that what is going on in Xinjiang is entirely an internal affair of China and it involves China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.” A dangerous block China is recruiting like-minded governments to push its line on sovereignty. The 37 signatories of the letter, as well as other countries not on the list, including Iran and Turkey, are taking the same approach towards legitimate criticism of their human rights records. Not only are they brothers in arms against safeguarding human rights, but for many their partnership with China’s Belt and Road Initiative or their dependency on China’s low interest loans is a growing incentive to join China’s block. The stronger this menacing form of solidarity grows, the less effective human rights safeguards will be in these countries. Chinese officials have repeatedly termed the criticism of their treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang region as Western media politicising the issue. But the block of support that China is building is itself a highly political enterprise. The countries include Muslim states, such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, who turn a blind eye to the treatment of Muslims in China but have been vocal against the treatment of Muslims in other parts of the world in a display of double standards. What unites many of the 37 countries who support China is their style of governance. They all appear hostile to campaigns for democracy in their countries, ruthlessly suppress freedoms, and with a few exceptions rank high in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index. China may not be currently pushing for actual amendments to international human rights law, but it is advocating a change in how the law is interpreted. It may also want to have control in future on the appointment of independent experts, for which it would need support from other countries. A block of 37 countries may not yet be a decisive development, but it is the start of what could be a nightmare for human rights defenders. China’s economic might and worldwide influence enable it to deflect international criticism of its poor human rights record. With a growing army of like-minded governments behind it, international human rights safeguards have never been so dangerously exposed. (Abbas Faiz is Lecturer on Human Rights, School of Law, University of Essex) (This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article) (Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL.)

China is building a global coalition of human rights violators to defend its record in Xinjiang

China demanded the US on Thursday to stop interfering in its internal affairs, after President Donald Trump met Chinese Uighur and other religious <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/they-gave-you-nobel-peace-prize-for-what-trump-asks-yazidi-activist-nadia-murad-236832">persecution victims at the White House</a>.

Trump, who has made religious freedom a centerpiece of his foreign policy, met with victims of religious persecution from countries including China, Turkey, North Korea, Iran and Myanmar.

Trump counts evangelical Christians among his core supporters and the State Department is hosting a conference on the topic this week that will be attended by Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

"I must point out that in China this situation of so-called religious persecution does not exist," China's foreign ministry spokesman Geng Suang said.&nbsp;

"Chinese people have freedom of religion. The United States have arranged for people from the evil cult of Falun Gong and people who smear China's religious policy to take part in the so-called religious meeting, and arranged them to meet with the US leader," the foreign ministry spokesman added.&nbsp;

Four of the 27 participants in the Oval Office meeting were from China, the White House said: Jewher Ilham, an Uighur Muslim; Yuhua Zhang, a Falun Gong practitioner; Nyima Lhamo, a Tibetan Buddhist; and Manping Ouyang, a Christian.

Ilham told Trump her father was one of many Uighurs "locked up in concentration camps" in the Xinjiang region and that she had not spoken with him since 2017.

"This is an interference in China's internal affairs. China expresses strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to this. We demand that the United States correctly views China's religious policies and the status of religious freedom in China, and stop using the issue of religion to interfere in other countries' affairs," Geng said.&nbsp;

The Trump administration has been weighing sanctions against Chinese officials over the treatment of the Uighurs, including the Communist Party chief of Xinjiang, Chen Quanguo, but has so far held back amid Chinese threats of retaliation.

Relations between the United States and China are already tense over a tit-for-tat trade war, with the United States alleging that China engages in unfair trading practices.

China demanded the US on Thursday to stop interfering in its internal affairs, after President Donald Trump met Chinese Uighur and other religious persecution victims at the White House.

China demanded the US on Thursday to stop interfering in its internal affairs, after President Donald Trump met Chinese Uighur and other religious persecution victims at the White House. Trump, who has made religious freedom a centerpiece of his foreign policy, met with victims of religious persecution from countries including China, Turkey, North Korea, Iran and Myanmar. Trump counts evangelical Christians among his core supporters and the State Department is hosting a conference on the topic this week that will be attended by Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. "I must point out that in China this situation of so-called religious persecution does not exist," China's foreign ministry spokesman Geng Suang said. "Chinese people have freedom of religion. The United States have arranged for people from the evil cult of Falun Gong and people who smear China's religious policy to take part in the so-called religious meeting, and arranged them to meet with the US leader," the foreign ministry spokesman added. Four of the 27 participants in the Oval Office meeting were from China, the White House said: Jewher Ilham, an Uighur Muslim; Yuhua Zhang, a Falun Gong practitioner; Nyima Lhamo, a Tibetan Buddhist; and Manping Ouyang, a Christian. Ilham told Trump her father was one of many Uighurs "locked up in concentration camps" in the Xinjiang region and that she had not spoken with him since 2017. "This is an interference in China's internal affairs. China expresses strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to this. We demand that the United States correctly views China's religious policies and the status of religious freedom in China, and stop using the issue of religion to interfere in other countries' affairs," Geng said. The Trump administration has been weighing sanctions against Chinese officials over the treatment of the Uighurs, including the Communist Party chief of Xinjiang, Chen Quanguo, but has so far held back amid Chinese threats of retaliation. Relations between the United States and China are already tense over a tit-for-tat trade war, with the United States alleging that China engages in unfair trading practices.

Chinese people have freedom of religion, US should stop using issue of religion to interfere: China

Why Countries Turn A Blind Eye To China's Mass Detention Of Uighurs? China seems to be getting away with rights abuse for fun. 37 countries have defended China's track-record in Xinjiang. Some of them are Muslim countries. But the detention of Uighur muslims in 'internment camps' doesn't seem to bother them. Is China's economic might helping it to escape criticism? Does investment matter more than rights or religion? Palki explains.

Gravitas: Uighur camps: 37 countries defend China's human rights abuse

An official Turkish visit to the troubled north-western Chinese province of Xinjiang to assess reports of a brutal crackdown on the region’s Turkic Muslims could shape Turkey’s challenge to conservative Gulf states’ leadership of the Islamic world and complicate Muslim silence about the most frontal assault on their faith in recent history.

The visit to assess the situation in Xinjiang was agreed in talks with Chinese leaders when Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan raised the issue during a recent visit to Beijing.

Erdogan appeared to set the tone for the visit by declaring that it was possible to "Find a solution to this issue that takes into consideration the sensitivities on both sides."

Walking a fine line, Erdogan went on to say that "those who exploit the issue…by acting emotionally without thinking of the relationship that Turkey has with another country, unfortunately, end up costing both the Turkish republic and their kinsman."

For its part, China seemingly sought to frame the Turkish visit with state-run China Daily newspaper quoting Erdogan as telling Chinese leaders that "It is a fact that the people of all ethnicities in Xinjiang are leading a happy life amid China's development and prosperity."

Turkey has in the past sought unsuccessfully to mediate tensions in Xinjiang in part by agreeing with Beijing on an investment program in the Chinese region.

For Turkey, the visit amounts to a risky gamble.

A Turkish confirmation of the extent of the crackdown would position Erdogan as a leader willing to defend Muslim causes that other leaders have chosen to ignore much like he attempted last year to take the lead on denouncing US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Turkey earlier this year briefly appeared to be willing to take on the Xinjiang issue when its foreign ministry harshly condemned Chinese policy but has largely remained silent since.

In response to the criticism, China temporarily closed its consulate in the Mediterranean port city of Izmir, warned Chinese residents and travellers to Turkey to “Be wary and pay attention to their personal safety,” and threatened further economic retaliation.

If Turkey, on the basis of the visit, were to endorse China’s assertion that it is countering extremism by offering voluntary vocational training to Turkic Muslims, it would be granting a significant victory to China given Turkey’s ethnic and cultural ties to the Xinjiang Muslim community.

It would project Erdogan as just one more Muslim leader who for economic and commercial reasons was willing to cold-shoulder co-religionists in a time of need.

An endorsement would group Erdogan with men like Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman who earlier this year during a visit to Beijing recognized China’s right to undertake "anti-terrorism" and "de-extremism" measures and Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan and Indonesian president Joko Widodo who professed to be unaware of the situation in Xinjiang.

Trying to balance Turkey’s position as a safe haven for Turkic Muslims while maintaining close ties to China, Turkey last month said it had granted 146,000 residence permits to members of various Turkic communities, including an estimated 35,000 Uyghurs.

“You don’t need to worry. I want you to know that we will use every chance in favour of you to provide that you will reach tomorrow as citizens of the Republic of Turkey, brotherly and sisterly,” interior minister Suleyman Soylu told a breaking of the Ramadan fast dinner.

China’s past attempts to convince foreign diplomats even if they remained publicly silent and journalists of its version of events by taking them on guided tours of Xinjiang have largely produced moderate results at best.

How Turkey handles the visit to Xinjiang is likely to resonate in major parts of the Islamic world.

The delegation’s conclusion is likely to come as pressure plays out on the Sudanese military by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to revisit several Turkish contracts concluded with ousted president Omar al-Bashir, including the development of Khartoum airport and a port on Suakin Island.

The port project would put Turkey too close for comfort to the Saudi Red Sea coast and challenge the UAE’s effort to dominate East African ports.

Turkish criticism of China could also complicate efforts by Central Asian governments to ignore Xinjiang even if ethnic Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks and other Central Asians are among the detainees in the Chinese region, sparking anti-Chinese sentiment in former Soviet republics.

Kyrgyz President Sooronbai Jeenbekov, meeting Chinese president Xi Jinping a day before leaders of the eight Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) countries gathered in Bishkek last month, described the situation in Xinjiang as an “internal (Chinese) matter.”

The SCO groups Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India, and Pakistan.

A critical Turkish stance could further aggravate problems, at least in Kyrgyzstan, stemming from China’s promotion of a non-competitive Xinjiang-based company competing for a major infrastructure project.

China’s insistence that TBEA, a little-known contractor with at best modest experience in building and repairing power stations, be granted a $386 million contract to refurbish Bishkek’s ageing plant has landed former Kyrgyz prime minister Sapar Isakov in court on corruption charges.

TBEA was awarded the contract despite lower bids by a competing Chinese company and a Russian company with an established track record.

It was not clear to what degree the push for TBEA was driven by an effort to line the pockets of corrupt officials and/or geopolitical objectives. China sees Central Asia and Pakistan as key drivers of economic development in Xinjiang.

Said Yang Shu, head of the Institute for Central Asia Studies at Lanzhou University in north-western China, commenting on Chinese strategy: “For countries that have good relations with China and have similar problems, it is easy for both to reach consensus on the Xinjiang issue. For other countries, explanations will not have much effect… But overall, it’s better to do it than not to do it.”

After vacillating between silence and criticism, the Turkish visit is likely to determine where Turkey really stands. 
 
(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL.)&nbsp;

An official Turkish visit to the troubled north-western Chinese province of Xinjiang to assess reports of a brutal crackdown on the region’s Turkic Muslims could shape Turkey’s challenge to conservative Gulf states’ leadership of the Islamic world and complicate Muslim silence about the most frontal assault on their faith in recent history.

An official Turkish visit to the troubled north-western Chinese province of Xinjiang to assess reports of a brutal crackdown on the region’s Turkic Muslims could shape Turkey’s challenge to conservative Gulf states’ leadership of the Islamic world and complicate Muslim silence about the most frontal assault on their faith in recent history. The visit to assess the situation in Xinjiang was agreed in talks with Chinese leaders when Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan raised the issue during a recent visit to Beijing. Erdogan appeared to set the tone for the visit by declaring that it was possible to "Find a solution to this issue that takes into consideration the sensitivities on both sides." Walking a fine line, Erdogan went on to say that "those who exploit the issue…by acting emotionally without thinking of the relationship that Turkey has with another country, unfortunately, end up costing both the Turkish republic and their kinsman." For its part, China seemingly sought to frame the Turkish visit with state-run China Daily newspaper quoting Erdogan as telling Chinese leaders that "It is a fact that the people of all ethnicities in Xinjiang are leading a happy life amid China's development and prosperity." Turkey has in the past sought unsuccessfully to mediate tensions in Xinjiang in part by agreeing with Beijing on an investment program in the Chinese region. For Turkey, the visit amounts to a risky gamble. A Turkish confirmation of the extent of the crackdown would position Erdogan as a leader willing to defend Muslim causes that other leaders have chosen to ignore much like he attempted last year to take the lead on denouncing US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Turkey earlier this year briefly appeared to be willing to take on the Xinjiang issue when its foreign ministry harshly condemned Chinese policy but has largely remained silent since. In response to the criticism, China temporarily closed its consulate in the Mediterranean port city of Izmir, warned Chinese residents and travellers to Turkey to “Be wary and pay attention to their personal safety,” and threatened further economic retaliation. If Turkey, on the basis of the visit, were to endorse China’s assertion that it is countering extremism by offering voluntary vocational training to Turkic Muslims, it would be granting a significant victory to China given Turkey’s ethnic and cultural ties to the Xinjiang Muslim community. It would project Erdogan as just one more Muslim leader who for economic and commercial reasons was willing to cold-shoulder co-religionists in a time of need. An endorsement would group Erdogan with men like Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman who earlier this year during a visit to Beijing recognized China’s right to undertake "anti-terrorism" and "de-extremism" measures and Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan and Indonesian president Joko Widodo who professed to be unaware of the situation in Xinjiang. Trying to balance Turkey’s position as a safe haven for Turkic Muslims while maintaining close ties to China, Turkey last month said it had granted 146,000 residence permits to members of various Turkic communities, including an estimated 35,000 Uyghurs. “You don’t need to worry. I want you to know that we will use every chance in favour of you to provide that you will reach tomorrow as citizens of the Republic of Turkey, brotherly and sisterly,” interior minister Suleyman Soylu told a breaking of the Ramadan fast dinner. China’s past attempts to convince foreign diplomats even if they remained publicly silent and journalists of its version of events by taking them on guided tours of Xinjiang have largely produced moderate results at best. How Turkey handles the visit to Xinjiang is likely to resonate in major parts of the Islamic world. The delegation’s conclusion is likely to come as pressure plays out on the Sudanese military by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to revisit several Turkish contracts concluded with ousted president Omar al-Bashir, including the development of Khartoum airport and a port on Suakin Island. The port project would put Turkey too close for comfort to the Saudi Red Sea coast and challenge the UAE’s effort to dominate East African ports. Turkish criticism of China could also complicate efforts by Central Asian governments to ignore Xinjiang even if ethnic Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks and other Central Asians are among the detainees in the Chinese region, sparking anti-Chinese sentiment in former Soviet republics. Kyrgyz President Sooronbai Jeenbekov, meeting Chinese president Xi Jinping a day before leaders of the eight Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) countries gathered in Bishkek last month, described the situation in Xinjiang as an “internal (Chinese) matter.” The SCO groups Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India, and Pakistan. A critical Turkish stance could further aggravate problems, at least in Kyrgyzstan, stemming from China’s promotion of a non-competitive Xinjiang-based company competing for a major infrastructure project. China’s insistence that TBEA, a little-known contractor with at best modest experience in building and repairing power stations, be granted a $386 million contract to refurbish Bishkek’s ageing plant has landed former Kyrgyz prime minister Sapar Isakov in court on corruption charges. TBEA was awarded the contract despite lower bids by a competing Chinese company and a Russian company with an established track record. It was not clear to what degree the push for TBEA was driven by an effort to line the pockets of corrupt officials and/or geopolitical objectives. China sees Central Asia and Pakistan as key drivers of economic development in Xinjiang. Said Yang Shu, head of the Institute for Central Asia Studies at Lanzhou University in north-western China, commenting on Chinese strategy: “For countries that have good relations with China and have similar problems, it is easy for both to reach consensus on the Xinjiang issue. For other countries, explanations will not have much effect… But overall, it’s better to do it than not to do it.” After vacillating between silence and criticism, the Turkish visit is likely to determine where Turkey really stands. (Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL.)

For Turkey, Xinjiang visit amounts to a risky gamble

A draft US resolution that would designate a Pakistani terrorist Masood Azhar as a global terrorist threatens to be China’s, and possibly Pakistan’s showdown at the OK Corral.&nbsp;

The draft is supported by Britain and France.

The resolution, if formally tabled in the full United Nations Security Council, could force China to justify its ten-year long blocking of efforts to designate Masood Azhar, the head of Jaish-e-Mohammed.

Jaish-e-Mohammed is believed to be responsible for last month’s suicide attack in Jammu&nbsp;and Kashmir.

At least 40 Indian paramilitary personnel died in the attack that briefly brought Pakistan and India to the brink of war.

China, earlier this month, blocked a French draft resolution presented to the council’s 1267 committee, saying it needed more time to study evidence against Azhar.

Known as the Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee, the committee was established on the basis of Security Council resolution 1267 adopted in 1999 to create a sanctions regime for Al Qaida and the Taliban.

China has in the past said there was insufficient proof to list the Pakistani militant. In response to the US draft, China’s foreign ministry said this week that a “comprehensive and thorough” assessment was needed before blacklisting Azhar.

The United States, by circulating the draft weeks after the failed French attempt, is in effect saying that China can no longer buy time. The US draft amounts to an effort to put on public display seeming contradictions in Chinese as well as Pakistani policy.

To be sure, China, as a permanent Security Council member, is likely to veto the US draft if it were to be put to the vote.

The veto, however, would put to rest Chinese assertions that Beijing had so far not vetoed Azhar’s blacklisting but “put a hold on the application” to promote “proper settlement of the issue through dialogue.”

The Chinese position was supported by Pakistan’s UN ambassador, Maleeha Lodhi, who cautioned that the Security Council’s terrorism sanctions regime and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international anti-money laundering and terrorism finance watchdog, should not be used by powers as a tool to score geopolitical points. Lodhi was pointing fingers at the United States but stopped short of explicitly mentioning it.

“Pakistan has been the principal victim of terrorism, including that supported, sponsored and financed from abroad. But this has not diminished my country’s resolve to eliminate this scourge,” Lodhi insisted.

Pakistan’s support of Chinese obstruction of Azhar’s designation casts, however, a further shadow over the Islamabad government’s so far unsuccessful efforts to convince FATF that it is addressing the group’s criticism. FATF has threatened to put the South Asian state on its blacklist.

FATF’s regional affiliate, the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering, this week, took Pakistan to task for its allegedly weak implementation of measures against proscribed groups.

A failure to satisfactorily address FATF concerns could impact Pakistan’s application for a financial aid package from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Pakistan denies Indian claims that Jaish-e-Mohammed is one of several militant groups supported by the Pakistani military.

Pakistan says it has intensified its crackdown on militants in the wake of the Kashmir attack. The government announced earlier this month that it had taken control of 182 religious schools and detained more than 100 people, including Azhar’s brother, as part of its push against banned groups such as Jaish-e-Mohammed.

In response, Azhar has denied government claims that he was seriously ill, ridiculed the government’s assertion that it was truly cracking down and warned that the crackdown would spark jihad across South Asia.

He also goaded India in his regular column in Jaish-e-Mohammed’s Al-Qalam weekly. “India’s brain is not working. They are trying to threaten us. But are their threats making us scared? Certainly not. In fact, their threats encourage us. Their threats do the same trick as public appreciation does for a poet reciting his poetry,” Azhar wrote.

China, perhaps inadvertently, helped increase pressure on Pakistan to meet FATF’s requirements by voting this week in favour of a Security Council resolution that criminalises funding of political violence and demands that all countries establish legal frameworks to counter the practice.

The US draft could put China in the difficult position of having to square its shielding of Azhar with its effort to convince the international community that its brutal crackdown on Turkic Muslims in the troubled north-western province of Xinjiang is key to its fight against political violence.

China asserted in a white paper published this month that its counterterrorism policies in Xinjiang that amount to a frontal attempt to alter Islamic practices and involve the incarceration of up to one million people in re-education camps dubbed vocational training facilities were producing results. The paper claimed that the policies were in accordance with the rule of law and protecting human rights.

“Hundreds of thousands and possibly millions of Uyghurs are held against their will in so-called re-education camps where they’re forced to endure severe political indoctrination and other awful abuses,” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a speech in Washington on Friday.

Pompeo was speaking after meeting with a former detainee, Mihrigul Tursun, and three other Uyghur activists. Tursun has spoken publicly about allegedly being abused and tortured in detention.

The meeting and Pompeo’s remarks came against the backdrop of moves in the US Congress to out Chinese companies that facilitate the crackdown in Xinjiang.

Major US institutional investors have recently divested from Hikvision, the world’s largest surveillance company that provides technology used in Xinjiang’s re-education camps.

China’s predicament in squaring its protection of Azhar with the justification of its crackdown is unlikely to crack the Muslim world’s wall of silence about what is happening to their Chinese brethren. Western pressure on China threatens to strike closer to home.

To their credit, Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan and Indonesian president Joko Widodo have refrained from following in the footsteps of Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman and Kazakh foreign minister Beibut Atamkulov, as well as, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation that all have endorsed China’s crackdown.

But Khan’s repeated assertion over a period of months that he lacks information or knows nothing about the situation in Xinjiang, even if scores of Pakistani nationals have complained about the disappearance of spouses and other relatives, is wearing thin.

Pakistani businessmen travelling last September to Beijing to petition for the release of their wives was headline news.

Khan’s insistence that “I haven't heard about that” is hardly a sustainable position. 
 
(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL.)

A draft US resolution that would designate a Pakistani terrorist Masood Azhar as a global terrorist threatens to be China’s, and possibly Pakistan’s showdown at the OK Corral.

A draft US resolution that would designate a Pakistani terrorist Masood Azhar as a global terrorist threatens to be China’s, and possibly Pakistan’s showdown at the OK Corral. The draft is supported by Britain and France. The resolution, if formally tabled in the full United Nations Security Council, could force China to justify its ten-year long blocking of efforts to designate Masood Azhar, the head of Jaish-e-Mohammed. Jaish-e-Mohammed is believed to be responsible for last month’s suicide attack in Jammu and Kashmir. At least 40 Indian paramilitary personnel died in the attack that briefly brought Pakistan and India to the brink of war. China, earlier this month, blocked a French draft resolution presented to the council’s 1267 committee, saying it needed more time to study evidence against Azhar. Known as the Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee, the committee was established on the basis of Security Council resolution 1267 adopted in 1999 to create a sanctions regime for Al Qaida and the Taliban. China has in the past said there was insufficient proof to list the Pakistani militant. In response to the US draft, China’s foreign ministry said this week that a “comprehensive and thorough” assessment was needed before blacklisting Azhar. The United States, by circulating the draft weeks after the failed French attempt, is in effect saying that China can no longer buy time. The US draft amounts to an effort to put on public display seeming contradictions in Chinese as well as Pakistani policy. To be sure, China, as a permanent Security Council member, is likely to veto the US draft if it were to be put to the vote. The veto, however, would put to rest Chinese assertions that Beijing had so far not vetoed Azhar’s blacklisting but “put a hold on the application” to promote “proper settlement of the issue through dialogue.” The Chinese position was supported by Pakistan’s UN ambassador, Maleeha Lodhi, who cautioned that the Security Council’s terrorism sanctions regime and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international anti-money laundering and terrorism finance watchdog, should not be used by powers as a tool to score geopolitical points. Lodhi was pointing fingers at the United States but stopped short of explicitly mentioning it. “Pakistan has been the principal victim of terrorism, including that supported, sponsored and financed from abroad. But this has not diminished my country’s resolve to eliminate this scourge,” Lodhi insisted. Pakistan’s support of Chinese obstruction of Azhar’s designation casts, however, a further shadow over the Islamabad government’s so far unsuccessful efforts to convince FATF that it is addressing the group’s criticism. FATF has threatened to put the South Asian state on its blacklist. FATF’s regional affiliate, the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering, this week, took Pakistan to task for its allegedly weak implementation of measures against proscribed groups. A failure to satisfactorily address FATF concerns could impact Pakistan’s application for a financial aid package from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Pakistan denies Indian claims that Jaish-e-Mohammed is one of several militant groups supported by the Pakistani military. Pakistan says it has intensified its crackdown on militants in the wake of the Kashmir attack. The government announced earlier this month that it had taken control of 182 religious schools and detained more than 100 people, including Azhar’s brother, as part of its push against banned groups such as Jaish-e-Mohammed. In response, Azhar has denied government claims that he was seriously ill, ridiculed the government’s assertion that it was truly cracking down and warned that the crackdown would spark jihad across South Asia. He also goaded India in his regular column in Jaish-e-Mohammed’s Al-Qalam weekly. “India’s brain is not working. They are trying to threaten us. But are their threats making us scared? Certainly not. In fact, their threats encourage us. Their threats do the same trick as public appreciation does for a poet reciting his poetry,” Azhar wrote. China, perhaps inadvertently, helped increase pressure on Pakistan to meet FATF’s requirements by voting this week in favour of a Security Council resolution that criminalises funding of political violence and demands that all countries establish legal frameworks to counter the practice. The US draft could put China in the difficult position of having to square its shielding of Azhar with its effort to convince the international community that its brutal crackdown on Turkic Muslims in the troubled north-western province of Xinjiang is key to its fight against political violence. China asserted in a white paper published this month that its counterterrorism policies in Xinjiang that amount to a frontal attempt to alter Islamic practices and involve the incarceration of up to one million people in re-education camps dubbed vocational training facilities were producing results. The paper claimed that the policies were in accordance with the rule of law and protecting human rights. “Hundreds of thousands and possibly millions of Uyghurs are held against their will in so-called re-education camps where they’re forced to endure severe political indoctrination and other awful abuses,” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a speech in Washington on Friday. Pompeo was speaking after meeting with a former detainee, Mihrigul Tursun, and three other Uyghur activists. Tursun has spoken publicly about allegedly being abused and tortured in detention. The meeting and Pompeo’s remarks came against the backdrop of moves in the US Congress to out Chinese companies that facilitate the crackdown in Xinjiang. Major US institutional investors have recently divested from Hikvision, the world’s largest surveillance company that provides technology used in Xinjiang’s re-education camps. China’s predicament in squaring its protection of Azhar with the justification of its crackdown is unlikely to crack the Muslim world’s wall of silence about what is happening to their Chinese brethren. Western pressure on China threatens to strike closer to home. To their credit, Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan and Indonesian president Joko Widodo have refrained from following in the footsteps of Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman and Kazakh foreign minister Beibut Atamkulov, as well as, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation that all have endorsed China’s crackdown. But Khan’s repeated assertion over a period of months that he lacks information or knows nothing about the situation in Xinjiang, even if scores of Pakistani nationals have complained about the disappearance of spouses and other relatives, is wearing thin. Pakistani businessmen travelling last September to Beijing to petition for the release of their wives was headline news. Khan’s insistence that “I haven't heard about that” is hardly a sustainable position. (Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL.)

Masood Azhar issue and crackdown on Uighurs put China in a tight spot

Gravitas: World calls out China on mass detention of uighur muslims

Gravitas: is the Muslim world turning a blind eye to China's treatment of Uighur Muslims

Gravitas: Imran Khan recieves flak on social media for feigning ignorance on Uighurs

China said Thursday it had invited European diplomats to visit the restive northwest region of Xinjiang, where Beijing is accused of rights abuses against the ethnic Uighur Muslims.

"In order to enhance the understanding of the achievements of Xinjiang's economic and social development in Europe... the Chinese side invited the diplomatic envoys of European countries to visit Xinjiang," foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters.

The dates of the visit and other arrangements were under discussion, he said, hoping the trip would allow the diplomats to "experience the stability and harmony of Xinjiang, and the real situation of people of all nationalities living and working in peace and contentment".

As many as one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim minorities are being held in internment camps in Xinjiang, according to a group of experts cited last year by the United Nations.

Beijing claims the camps are "vocational training centres" that help steer people who may be drawn to extremism away from terrorism and reintegrate them into society in a region plagued by violence blamed on Uighur separatists or Islamists.

Questioned during a press briefing, French ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert said that as far as he knew, no ambassador from an EU country had yet received an invitation.

"We were told that we would be invited to Xinjiang," he said, adding they had indicated they would be happy to go.

After months denying the existence of the internment camps, Beijing last year launched a campaign to defend its "training centres", organising visits starting with diplomats or media from friendly countries.

However, a delegation of three EU officials who visited Xinjiang in January as part of a carefully organised visit said they had the impression that the people they had spoken to in a "training centre" were reciting a dictated speech.

Former detainees say they were interned for simply following Islamic traditions, such as having a long beard or wearing a veil.

China said Thursday it had invited European diplomats to visit the restive northwest region of Xinjiang, where Beijing is accused of rights abuses against the ethnic Uighur Muslims.

China said Thursday it had invited European diplomats to visit the restive northwest region of Xinjiang, where Beijing is accused of rights abuses against the ethnic Uighur Muslims. "In order to enhance the understanding of the achievements of Xinjiang's economic and social development in Europe... the Chinese side invited the diplomatic envoys of European countries to visit Xinjiang," foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters. The dates of the visit and other arrangements were under discussion, he said, hoping the trip would allow the diplomats to "experience the stability and harmony of Xinjiang, and the real situation of people of all nationalities living and working in peace and contentment". As many as one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim minorities are being held in internment camps in Xinjiang, according to a group of experts cited last year by the United Nations. Beijing claims the camps are "vocational training centres" that help steer people who may be drawn to extremism away from terrorism and reintegrate them into society in a region plagued by violence blamed on Uighur separatists or Islamists. Questioned during a press briefing, French ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert said that as far as he knew, no ambassador from an EU country had yet received an invitation. "We were told that we would be invited to Xinjiang," he said, adding they had indicated they would be happy to go. After months denying the existence of the internment camps, Beijing last year launched a campaign to defend its "training centres", organising visits starting with diplomats or media from friendly countries. However, a delegation of three EU officials who visited Xinjiang in January as part of a carefully organised visit said they had the impression that the people they had spoken to in a "training centre" were reciting a dictated speech. Former detainees say they were interned for simply following Islamic traditions, such as having a long beard or wearing a veil.

China 'invites' EU diplomats to visit Xinjiang

A security firm with former US military contractor Erik Prince on its board has moved into Myanmar to provide protection services for international investors, the company told AFP, as it weathers backlash to revelations over planned work in China's restive Xinjiang region.

Hong Kong-headquartered Frontier Services Group specialises in providing security and logistics for firms working in risky and conflict-hit regions.

One of the company's board members and its deputy chairman is former Navy SEAL Prince, co-founder of notorious private security firm Blackwater and the brother of US Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

Employees of Blackwater -- which was later renamed -- played a controversial role during Washington's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the 2007 killing of 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians.

AFP reported in February that FSG signed a preliminary deal with China to build a training centre in Xinjiang, where Uighur Muslims have been targeted in an unprecedented security crackdown, including mass incarcerations.

A company spokesman confirmed it was now also operating in Myanmar.

"(FSG) has established a joint-venture security company in Myanmar and obtained a security licence to provide international-standard security services to international investors in Myanmar, including those from China, Japan and Thailand," he said Wednesday.

He declined to give additional details and it remains unclear which companies FSG would work with and where.

The firm has been active in Myanmar since at least mid-June last year.

Photos of an FSG-run "Personal Protection Specialist Training Graduation Ceremony" were posted then on the Facebook page of a former senior military official.

Many large investment projects in Myanmar are in the restive borderlands where the military is waging war against various ethnic rebel armies.

This includes Rakhine state where the military conducted a bloody crackdown against the Rohingya Muslim community in 2017, forcing some 740,000 over the border into Bangladesh.

All three countries mentioned by FSG are ploughing money into the frontier market, with China by far the largest investor.

Beijing is financing ports, dams, pipelines and mines across the country and yet more cash is expected to pour in under Beijing's massive "Belt and Road" global infrastructure project.

A subsidiary of Chinese state-owned CITIC Group, CITIC Group (Myanmar), is the main investor in Kyaukphyu deep port in Rakhine, a project signed off in November at a cost of $1.3 billion.

CITIC Group chairman Chang Zhenming is also board chairman for FSG.

But CITIC (Myanmar) could not immediately be reached for comment on whether FSG is already -- or will be -- providing services for the company.

Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi wants to attract investment to Rakhine, one of the poorest states in the country.

But uncertainty over the future of Rohingya repatriation and fresh conflict with ethnic Rakhine rebels is standing in the way of any major transformation.

The instability provides a landscape ripe for security companies, and rights groups are concerned what FSG's entry into the market will mean.

"In a country like Myanmar where rights abuses by security forces are all too common, Erik Prince and FSG will sadly fit right in," Phil Robertson from Human Rights Watch said, calling on the media and civil society to scrutinise the firm's activities.

A security firm with former US military contractor Erik Prince on its board has moved into Myanmar to provide protection services for international investors, the company told AFP, as it weathers backlash to revelations over planned work in China's restive Xinjiang region.

A security firm with former US military contractor Erik Prince on its board has moved into Myanmar to provide protection services for international investors, the company told AFP, as it weathers backlash to revelations over planned work in China's restive Xinjiang region. Hong Kong-headquartered Frontier Services Group specialises in providing security and logistics for firms working in risky and conflict-hit regions. One of the company's board members and its deputy chairman is former Navy SEAL Prince, co-founder of notorious private security firm Blackwater and the brother of US Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. Employees of Blackwater -- which was later renamed -- played a controversial role during Washington's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the 2007 killing of 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians. AFP reported in February that FSG signed a preliminary deal with China to build a training centre in Xinjiang, where Uighur Muslims have been targeted in an unprecedented security crackdown, including mass incarcerations. A company spokesman confirmed it was now also operating in Myanmar. "(FSG) has established a joint-venture security company in Myanmar and obtained a security licence to provide international-standard security services to international investors in Myanmar, including those from China, Japan and Thailand," he said Wednesday. He declined to give additional details and it remains unclear which companies FSG would work with and where. The firm has been active in Myanmar since at least mid-June last year. Photos of an FSG-run "Personal Protection Specialist Training Graduation Ceremony" were posted then on the Facebook page of a former senior military official. Many large investment projects in Myanmar are in the restive borderlands where the military is waging war against various ethnic rebel armies. This includes Rakhine state where the military conducted a bloody crackdown against the Rohingya Muslim community in 2017, forcing some 740,000 over the border into Bangladesh. All three countries mentioned by FSG are ploughing money into the frontier market, with China by far the largest investor. Beijing is financing ports, dams, pipelines and mines across the country and yet more cash is expected to pour in under Beijing's massive "Belt and Road" global infrastructure project. A subsidiary of Chinese state-owned CITIC Group, CITIC Group (Myanmar), is the main investor in Kyaukphyu deep port in Rakhine, a project signed off in November at a cost of $1.3 billion. CITIC Group chairman Chang Zhenming is also board chairman for FSG. But CITIC (Myanmar) could not immediately be reached for comment on whether FSG is already -- or will be -- providing services for the company. Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi wants to attract investment to Rakhine, one of the poorest states in the country. But uncertainty over the future of Rohingya repatriation and fresh conflict with ethnic Rakhine rebels is standing in the way of any major transformation. The instability provides a landscape ripe for security companies, and rights groups are concerned what FSG's entry into the market will mean. "In a country like Myanmar where rights abuses by security forces are all too common, Erik Prince and FSG will sadly fit right in," Phil Robertson from Human Rights Watch said, calling on the media and civil society to scrutinise the firm's activities.

Former Blackwater contractor Erik Prince in Myanmar security venture

A police raid on a Kazakh group documenting the plight of Kazakhs and Uyghurs caught in a brutal crackdown in China’s north-western province of Xinjiang is more than a government seeking to please Beijing in the hope that it improves a lot of its ethnic kin while preserving diplomatic and economic relations.

Amid suspicions that the raid on the offices of Atajurt Eriktileri and the arrest of activist Serikjhan Bilash was carried out as a result of Chinese pressure aimed at squashing criticism of the crackdown, the raid seemingly reflects an increasingly aggressive Chinese effort to impose its will on others and ensure that they observe the respect and deference that China believes it deserves.

Atajurt Eriktileri supports relatives of people who have disappeared in Xinjiang and says it has documented more than 10,000 cases of ethnic Kazakhs interned in China.

Police on Sunday sealed the group’s office in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city, seized the group’s computers and archives and flew Bilash, who said he was being accused of “inciting ethnic hatred, to the Kazakh capital of Astana.

The East Turkistan Awakening Movement, a Washington-based Uyghur exile group, said Bilash had been arrested on charges of "Creating tensions between #Kazakhstan and #China."

The Kazakh police raid is but the latest incident pointing to China’s more aggressive form of diplomacy that includes an increasing number of undiplomatic comments by Chinese diplomats across the globe.

At times, those comments are couched in civilizational terms steeped in what political scientist Zhang Weiwei describes as the rise of the civilizational state under President Xi Jinping.

Describing the trend towards a civilizational state that involves a rejection of Western concepts, including notions of human rights and freedom of religion, Financial Times columnist Gideon Rachman noted that China was not alone in its embrace of the idea as an alternative to the traditional concept of a nation-state based on national borders and language. Rahman suggested that the concept was also gaining currency in countries like India and Russia.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi defended his diplomat’s more outspoken statements by pointing to China’s need to stand up for its “rightful and lawful interests.” Wang insisted that China would not tolerate infringements of its sovereignty and national dignity.

“Chinese diplomats, wherever we are in the world, will firmly state our position,” Wang told journalists this weekend covering the National People’s Congress.

Former senior Singapore diplomat Bilahari Kausikan noted that “China does not just want its new status recognised as a geopolitical fact; China wants its new status accepted as a new norm of East Asian international relations; a hierarchy with China at the apex. Most countries accept the geopolitical fact; few accept the norm.”

Examples of China’s more aggressive attitude abound while the Kazakh raid suggests that China’s concepts of deference and respect amount to far more than traditional notions of respect. They also provide a potential insight into the values and norms that in China’s view would undergird a new world order.

China’s notion of deference was put on display last September at the Pacific Islands Forum when Beijing’s ambassador to Fiji, Du Qiwen, allegedly demanded the right to speak before Tuvalu prime minister Enele Sosene Sopoaga. The forum’s host, Nauru president Baron Waqa accused the Chinese envoy of being “insolent” and a “bully.”

Both Nauru and Tuvalu, to China’s chagrin, maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan.

Similarly, Papua New Guinea police were called after Chinese officials allegedly tried to force their way into the office of the country’s foreign minister in a bid to influence the final communique of last November’s Asia Pacific summit.

The summit ended without a final statement because of disagreements between the United States and China. Chinese officials dismissed the report of them having attempted to gain access to the foreign minister’s office as “a rumour spread by some people with a hidden agenda."

In an Op-ed in The Hill Times, an Ottawa-based newspaper, Lu Shaye, China’s ambassador to Canada, described as “Western egotism and white supremacy” demands that China releases two Canadian nationals arrested in China.

The two Canadians are being held in apparent retaliation for the detention in Canada at the behest of the United States on charges of having misled banks about the company’s business dealings with Iran.

A series of incidents in the wake of a visit to Sweden last September by the Dalai Lama involving Chinese tourists and a satirical Swedish television show that poked fun at Chinese visitors and excluded Taiwan and parts of Tibet from a map of China drew the ire of the Chinese embassy in Stockholm.

The embassy denounced Swedish police as “inhumane,” decried “so-called freedom of expression,” charged that the TV show “advocate(s) racism and xenophobia outright, and openly provoke(s) and instigate(s) racial hatred and confrontation,” and issued a safety alert to Chinese tourists because of multiple cases of theft and robbery and poor treatment by Swedish police.

In line with Wang’s justification of his diplomats’ more undiplomatic approach, Brookings fellow Ryan Hass told Bloomberg that the envoys were “matching the mood of the moment in Beijing… Some in Beijing also seem to be growing frustrated that China’s rising national power is not yet translating into the types of deference from others that it seeks.”

The raid in Kazakhstan, like earlier cases such as Egypt’s return at China’s request in 2017 of up to 200 Uyghur students to an uncertain future in the People’s Republic, suggests that Beijing maintains an intrusive, far-reaching definition of its concept of deference and respect.

Kazakh activists charged that the raid was indicative of the kind of pressure applied by China. “Our government doesn’t want to spoil relations between Kazakhstan and China,” said Atajurt’s lawyer, Aiman Umarova.

There was no independent confirmation of assertions that Chinese pressure prompted the raid.

In a video statement, Bilash confirmed that he was Kazakh police custody and had not been detained “by either the Chinese or Chinese spies”.

Bilash’s wife, Leila Adilzhan, said she was "afraid our government will give him to China."

That may be one step too far for the Kazakh government given mounting anti-Chinese summit among Kazakhs and public demands that Kazakhstan is more forceful in its standing up to China for the rights of Kazakh nationals and Chinese citizens of Kazakh descent. Kazakhs constitute the second largest minority in Xinjiang after Uyghurs. 
 
(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL.) 
&nbsp;

A police raid on a Kazakh group documenting the plight of Kazakhs and Uyghurs caught in a brutal crackdown in China’s north-western province of Xinjiang is more than a government seeking to please Beijing in the hope that it improves a lot of its ethnic kin while preserving diplomatic and economic relations.

A police raid on a Kazakh group documenting the plight of Kazakhs and Uyghurs caught in a brutal crackdown in China’s north-western province of Xinjiang is more than a government seeking to please Beijing in the hope that it improves a lot of its ethnic kin while preserving diplomatic and economic relations. Amid suspicions that the raid on the offices of Atajurt Eriktileri and the arrest of activist Serikjhan Bilash was carried out as a result of Chinese pressure aimed at squashing criticism of the crackdown, the raid seemingly reflects an increasingly aggressive Chinese effort to impose its will on others and ensure that they observe the respect and deference that China believes it deserves. Atajurt Eriktileri supports relatives of people who have disappeared in Xinjiang and says it has documented more than 10,000 cases of ethnic Kazakhs interned in China. Police on Sunday sealed the group’s office in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city, seized the group’s computers and archives and flew Bilash, who said he was being accused of “inciting ethnic hatred, to the Kazakh capital of Astana. The East Turkistan Awakening Movement, a Washington-based Uyghur exile group, said Bilash had been arrested on charges of "Creating tensions between #Kazakhstan and #China." The Kazakh police raid is but the latest incident pointing to China’s more aggressive form of diplomacy that includes an increasing number of undiplomatic comments by Chinese diplomats across the globe. At times, those comments are couched in civilizational terms steeped in what political scientist Zhang Weiwei describes as the rise of the civilizational state under President Xi Jinping. Describing the trend towards a civilizational state that involves a rejection of Western concepts, including notions of human rights and freedom of religion, Financial Times columnist Gideon Rachman noted that China was not alone in its embrace of the idea as an alternative to the traditional concept of a nation-state based on national borders and language. Rahman suggested that the concept was also gaining currency in countries like India and Russia. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi defended his diplomat’s more outspoken statements by pointing to China’s need to stand up for its “rightful and lawful interests.” Wang insisted that China would not tolerate infringements of its sovereignty and national dignity. “Chinese diplomats, wherever we are in the world, will firmly state our position,” Wang told journalists this weekend covering the National People’s Congress. Former senior Singapore diplomat Bilahari Kausikan noted that “China does not just want its new status recognised as a geopolitical fact; China wants its new status accepted as a new norm of East Asian international relations; a hierarchy with China at the apex. Most countries accept the geopolitical fact; few accept the norm.” Examples of China’s more aggressive attitude abound while the Kazakh raid suggests that China’s concepts of deference and respect amount to far more than traditional notions of respect. They also provide a potential insight into the values and norms that in China’s view would undergird a new world order. China’s notion of deference was put on display last September at the Pacific Islands Forum when Beijing’s ambassador to Fiji, Du Qiwen, allegedly demanded the right to speak before Tuvalu prime minister Enele Sosene Sopoaga. The forum’s host, Nauru president Baron Waqa accused the Chinese envoy of being “insolent” and a “bully.” Both Nauru and Tuvalu, to China’s chagrin, maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Similarly, Papua New Guinea police were called after Chinese officials allegedly tried to force their way into the office of the country’s foreign minister in a bid to influence the final communique of last November’s Asia Pacific summit. The summit ended without a final statement because of disagreements between the United States and China. Chinese officials dismissed the report of them having attempted to gain access to the foreign minister’s office as “a rumour spread by some people with a hidden agenda." In an Op-ed in The Hill Times, an Ottawa-based newspaper, Lu Shaye, China’s ambassador to Canada, described as “Western egotism and white supremacy” demands that China releases two Canadian nationals arrested in China. The two Canadians are being held in apparent retaliation for the detention in Canada at the behest of the United States on charges of having misled banks about the company’s business dealings with Iran. A series of incidents in the wake of a visit to Sweden last September by the Dalai Lama involving Chinese tourists and a satirical Swedish television show that poked fun at Chinese visitors and excluded Taiwan and parts of Tibet from a map of China drew the ire of the Chinese embassy in Stockholm. The embassy denounced Swedish police as “inhumane,” decried “so-called freedom of expression,” charged that the TV show “advocate(s) racism and xenophobia outright, and openly provoke(s) and instigate(s) racial hatred and confrontation,” and issued a safety alert to Chinese tourists because of multiple cases of theft and robbery and poor treatment by Swedish police. In line with Wang’s justification of his diplomats’ more undiplomatic approach, Brookings fellow Ryan Hass told Bloomberg that the envoys were “matching the mood of the moment in Beijing… Some in Beijing also seem to be growing frustrated that China’s rising national power is not yet translating into the types of deference from others that it seeks.” The raid in Kazakhstan, like earlier cases such as Egypt’s return at China’s request in 2017 of up to 200 Uyghur students to an uncertain future in the People’s Republic, suggests that Beijing maintains an intrusive, far-reaching definition of its concept of deference and respect. Kazakh activists charged that the raid was indicative of the kind of pressure applied by China. “Our government doesn’t want to spoil relations between Kazakhstan and China,” said Atajurt’s lawyer, Aiman Umarova. There was no independent confirmation of assertions that Chinese pressure prompted the raid. In a video statement, Bilash confirmed that he was Kazakh police custody and had not been detained “by either the Chinese or Chinese spies”. Bilash’s wife, Leila Adilzhan, said she was "afraid our government will give him to China." That may be one step too far for the Kazakh government given mounting anti-Chinese summit among Kazakhs and public demands that Kazakhstan is more forceful in its standing up to China for the rights of Kazakh nationals and Chinese citizens of Kazakh descent. Kazakhs constitute the second largest minority in Xinjiang after Uyghurs. (Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL.)

The Kazakh window into China's crackdown on Muslims

The Kazakh government, in defense of Kazakh and by implication Central Asian behind-closed-doors diplomacy towards China in the face of mounting domestic pressure, has offered a rare public account of its ability to improve conditions for its ethnic kin caught in a crackdown on Turkic Muslims in the north-western Chinese province of Xinjiang.

Kazakhstan’s detailing of its ability to reduce the number of Kazakhs among the reported one million Turkic Muslims incarcerated in re-education camps comes amid a significant expansion of what amounts to the most frontal assault on Islam in recent history.

Kazakh transparency is balanced by the government’s efforts to limit civil society pressure on the governments of both Kazakhstan and China to rollback Chinese efforts to severely restrict religious freedoms and alter the practice of the faith in Xinjiang and elsewhere in the country.

The crackdown that China says has helped it counter militancy and separatism in Xinjiang puts on the spot not only central Asian nations with their ethnic and cultural links to Xinjiang but also Muslim and Arab countries.

In the most recent development, Chinese authorities have removed public Islamic and Arab symbols in Xinjiang as well as the neighbouring province of Gansu, home to non-Turkic Hui Muslims, a community that long prided itself of having adopted a form of Islam that had ‘Chinese characteristics.’

The moves, part of what China has termed an anti-halalisation campaign, threatens to put out of business small entrepreneurs like butchers and restaurant owners that cater to a Muslim community that adheres to Muslim dietary and personal lifestyle laws.

The moves suggest that the crackdown is about more than alleged Uyghur militancy and separatism.

By providing a degree of transparency, the Kazakh government is not only defending itself against domestic criticism but also providing a justification for the Muslim wall of silence that has been only breached intermittently.

On a visit to Beijing last month, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman took that justification to its extreme by seemingly endorsing the crackdown with his statement that China had the right to undertake "anti-terrorism" and "de-extremism" measures.

Addressing parliament this week, Kazakh foreign minister Beibut Atamkulov said the government’s quiet diplomacy had ensured that the “number of Kazakhs in these (re-education) camps decreased by 80 percent.”

It remained unclear whether Atamkulov was referring to Kazakh and dual nationals or also Chinese nationals of Kazakh descent, he said that China had last year detained 33 dual nationals, 23 of whom were returned to Kazakhstan, suggesting that he was not speaking about the vast majority of Kazakh ethnic kin who have been detained and only have Chinese nationality.

Numbering approximately 1.5 million&nbsp;ethnic Kazakhs are the second largest ethnic minority in Xinjiang after Uyghurs.

The minister said the government had received more than 1,000 enquiries about people reportedly detained in China and was “working on these issues case by case.”

Atamkulov’s ministry announced in January that China agreed to allow some 2,000 ethnic Kazakhs to renounce their Chinese citizenship and leave the country.

It was not clear whether the Chinese decision applied to former re-education camp inmates or only Chinese nationals of Kazakh descent who qualify for Kazakhstan’s existing repatriation program.

A former re-education camp employee, Sayragul Sauytbay, who fled to Kazakhstan told a Kazakh court last year that she was aware of some 7,5000 Kazakh nationals and Chinese of Kazakh descent being incarcerated.

Atajurt Eriktileri, a Kazakh group that supports relatives of people who have disappeared in Xinjiang, says it has documented more than 10,000 cases of ethnic Kazakhs interned in China. The Xinjiang Victims Database says it has collected some 3,000 testimonies of prisoners and their families, half of which are from ethnic Kazakhs.

Gulzira Auelkhan, a 39-year-old Chinese citizen of Kazakh descent who spent 15 months in two re-education facilities before being transferred to work at a glove factory for a far below minimum wage, credits her husband’s lobbying of the Kazakh government on her behalf and publicizing of her plight for her release and ability to join him in Kazakhstan.

Eager not to provoke the Chinese, Atamkulov was careful not to criticise the crackdown. He acknowledged, however, that “There are questions regarding people of Islamic faith” but insisted that China has its own internal policy."

Kazakh policy appears to demonstrate the ability of quiet diplomacy to achieve at best-limited results. The government’s figures suggest that it is able to intervene only in cases of Kazakh nationals, a small fraction of Kazakhstan’s ethnic kin caught up in the Chinese crackdown.

By responding to cases of Kazakh nationals, China enables the Kazakh government to maintain its public silence in the hope that the government can manage mounting domestic pressure and hold steadfast.

That could prove to be a risky bet.

Auelkhan is living proof of the risk. She was warned when released that her relatives who remain in Xinjiang, two daughters and her elderly parents, would suffer consequences if she chose to speak out once she was in Kazakhstan.

“I know how awful these camps are, and I want the world to know about them. In Kazakhstan, I can speak about this, so I am doing it on behalf of those still trapped in Xinjiang,” she says defiantly. 
 
(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL)

The Kazakh government, in defense of Kazakh and by implication Central Asian behind-closed-doors diplomacy towards China in the face of mounting domestic pressure, has offered a rare public account of its ability to improve conditions for its ethnic kin caught in a crackdown on Turkic Muslims in the north-western Chinese province of Xinjiang.

The Kazakh government, in defense of Kazakh and by implication Central Asian behind-closed-doors diplomacy towards China in the face of mounting domestic pressure, has offered a rare public account of its ability to improve conditions for its ethnic kin caught in a crackdown on Turkic Muslims in the north-western Chinese province of Xinjiang. Kazakhstan’s detailing of its ability to reduce the number of Kazakhs among the reported one million Turkic Muslims incarcerated in re-education camps comes amid a significant expansion of what amounts to the most frontal assault on Islam in recent history. Kazakh transparency is balanced by the government’s efforts to limit civil society pressure on the governments of both Kazakhstan and China to rollback Chinese efforts to severely restrict religious freedoms and alter the practice of the faith in Xinjiang and elsewhere in the country. The crackdown that China says has helped it counter militancy and separatism in Xinjiang puts on the spot not only central Asian nations with their ethnic and cultural links to Xinjiang but also Muslim and Arab countries. In the most recent development, Chinese authorities have removed public Islamic and Arab symbols in Xinjiang as well as the neighbouring province of Gansu, home to non-Turkic Hui Muslims, a community that long prided itself of having adopted a form of Islam that had ‘Chinese characteristics.’ The moves, part of what China has termed an anti-halalisation campaign, threatens to put out of business small entrepreneurs like butchers and restaurant owners that cater to a Muslim community that adheres to Muslim dietary and personal lifestyle laws. The moves suggest that the crackdown is about more than alleged Uyghur militancy and separatism. By providing a degree of transparency, the Kazakh government is not only defending itself against domestic criticism but also providing a justification for the Muslim wall of silence that has been only breached intermittently. On a visit to Beijing last month, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman took that justification to its extreme by seemingly endorsing the crackdown with his statement that China had the right to undertake "anti-terrorism" and "de-extremism" measures. Addressing parliament this week, Kazakh foreign minister Beibut Atamkulov said the government’s quiet diplomacy had ensured that the “number of Kazakhs in these (re-education) camps decreased by 80 percent.” It remained unclear whether Atamkulov was referring to Kazakh and dual nationals or also Chinese nationals of Kazakh descent, he said that China had last year detained 33 dual nationals, 23 of whom were returned to Kazakhstan, suggesting that he was not speaking about the vast majority of Kazakh ethnic kin who have been detained and only have Chinese nationality. Numbering approximately 1.5 million ethnic Kazakhs are the second largest ethnic minority in Xinjiang after Uyghurs. The minister said the government had received more than 1,000 enquiries about people reportedly detained in China and was “working on these issues case by case.” Atamkulov’s ministry announced in January that China agreed to allow some 2,000 ethnic Kazakhs to renounce their Chinese citizenship and leave the country. It was not clear whether the Chinese decision applied to former re-education camp inmates or only Chinese nationals of Kazakh descent who qualify for Kazakhstan’s existing repatriation program. A former re-education camp employee, Sayragul Sauytbay, who fled to Kazakhstan told a Kazakh court last year that she was aware of some 7,5000 Kazakh nationals and Chinese of Kazakh descent being incarcerated. Atajurt Eriktileri, a Kazakh group that supports relatives of people who have disappeared in Xinjiang, says it has documented more than 10,000 cases of ethnic Kazakhs interned in China. The Xinjiang Victims Database says it has collected some 3,000 testimonies of prisoners and their families, half of which are from ethnic Kazakhs. Gulzira Auelkhan, a 39-year-old Chinese citizen of Kazakh descent who spent 15 months in two re-education facilities before being transferred to work at a glove factory for a far below minimum wage, credits her husband’s lobbying of the Kazakh government on her behalf and publicizing of her plight for her release and ability to join him in Kazakhstan. Eager not to provoke the Chinese, Atamkulov was careful not to criticise the crackdown. He acknowledged, however, that “There are questions regarding people of Islamic faith” but insisted that China has its own internal policy." Kazakh policy appears to demonstrate the ability of quiet diplomacy to achieve at best-limited results. The government’s figures suggest that it is able to intervene only in cases of Kazakh nationals, a small fraction of Kazakhstan’s ethnic kin caught up in the Chinese crackdown. By responding to cases of Kazakh nationals, China enables the Kazakh government to maintain its public silence in the hope that the government can manage mounting domestic pressure and hold steadfast. That could prove to be a risky bet. Auelkhan is living proof of the risk. She was warned when released that her relatives who remain in Xinjiang, two daughters and her elderly parents, would suffer consequences if she chose to speak out once she was in Kazakhstan. “I know how awful these camps are, and I want the world to know about them. In Kazakhstan, I can speak about this, so I am doing it on behalf of those still trapped in Xinjiang,” she says defiantly. (Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL)

Kazakhstan comes to the rescue of its nationals caught in a crackdown on Muslims in China

A Turkish-Chinese spat as a result of Turkish criticism of China’s crackdown on Turkic Muslims in its strategic but troubled north-western province of Xinjiang complicates efforts by Kazakhstan and other Central Asian states to at best deal quietly behind closed doors with the plight of their citizens and ethnic kin in the People’s Republic.

China’s threat that the Turkish criticism of its massive surveillance and detention campaign, involving the alleged incarceration in re-education camps of up to one million Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims would have economic consequences and the temporary closure of the Chinese consulate in the Mediterranean port city of Izmir serves as warnings to others in the Muslim world what could happen if they break their silence.

The Chinese effort to get the Muslim and broader international community to maintain silence, if not acquiesce in the crackdown that constitutes the most frontal assault on Islam in recent history, was boosted when Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on a visit to Beijing last month appeared to endorse Chinese policy.

Prince Salman’s endorsement of China's right to undertake "anti-terrorism" and "de-extremism" measures was widely seen as tacit support for the crackdown by the custodian of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.

China has denied allegations of widespread abuse of human rights and insisted that the camps are re-education and training facilities that have stopped attacks by Islamist militants and separatists.

The Crown Prince’s remarks contrasted starkly with the characterisation last month of the crackdown by Turkey’s foreign ministry &nbsp;as an “embarrassment to humanity,” the ministry demanded that Chinese authorities respect the human rights of the Uyghurs and close what it termed “concentration camps.”&nbsp;

Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu called twice last week on China to make a distinction between perpetrators of political violence and innocent civilians while insisting that Turkey wished to continue cooperation with the People’s Republic.

“The fact that we have a problem with China on an issue should not necessarily hinder our cooperation on other matters,” Cavusoglu said.

Turkey is hoping that Chinese investment in nuclear, e-commerce, finance, and infrastructure will narrow its gaping trade deficit with China that last year stood at $17.8 billion.

That is not how China appeared to envision its future relationship with Turkey.

“There may be disagreements or misunderstandings between friends, but we should solve them through dialogue. Criticising your friend publicly everywhere is not a constructive approach,” said Chinese ambassador to Turkey Deng Li.

“The most important issue between countries is mutual respect. Would you stay friends if your friend criticized you publicly every day?” Deng asked.

“If you choose a non-constructive path, it will negatively affect mutual trust and understanding and will be reflected in commercial and economic relations,” Deng added.

Deng’s comments were not only designed to whip Turkey back into line but also to prevent Central Asian nations from speaking out despite mounting domestic pressure.

Deng’s comments reflected greater Chinese intolerance for criticism of its crackdown amid attempts to convince the international community by taking diplomats and journalists on carefully managed tours of Xinjiang that one participant called a “dog and pony show.”

The ambassador’s rings particularly loud in Kazakhstan whose ethnic kin constitute the second largest Muslim community in Xinjiang after the Uyghurs.

A former re-education camp employee, Sayragul Sauytbay, who fled to Kazakhstan told a Kazakh court last year that she was aware of some 7,5000 Kazakh nationals and Chinese of Kazakh descent being incarcerated.

Atajurt Eriktileri, a Kazakh group that supports relatives of people who have disappeared in Xinjiang, says it has documented more than 10,000 cases of ethnic Kazakhs interned in China. The Xinjiang Victims Database says it has collected some 3,000 testimonies of prisoners and their families, half of which are from ethnic Kazakhs.

Askar Azatbek, a former Xinjiang official who became a Kazakh citizen, went missing in December after allegedly having been kidnapped while on the Kazakh side of Khorgos, a free-trade zone on the border with China.

So has Qalymbek Shahman an ethnic Kazakh Xinjiang businessman who was refused entry into Kazakhstan, sent to Uzbekistan and disappeared in Thailand to where he was returned by Uzbek authorities. Shahman hasn’t been heard from since.

"I wanted to go to Kazakhstan because China's human rights record was making life intolerable," Shahman said in a videotape from Tashkent airport before being forced to fly to Thailand, which has a track record of complying with Chinese repatriation requests.

For now, Central Asian leaders are walking a tightrope. Officially, they insist that Xinjiang is a Chinese internal affair. At the same time, the leaders are trying to curb domestic criticism.

Serikzhan Bilash, the head of Atajurt Eriktileri, was fined in February by an Almaty court for operating an unregistered organisation.

Sauytbay has fired her lawyer after he became unreachable at key moments in her asylum application and encouraged her to not talk about it publicly. “I don’t want to talk…until I have some kind of protection. I’d prefer that protection to come from Kazakhstan, but I might need help from other countries,” Sautbay said.

Sauytbay is certain to hope that Turkey’s willingness to confront China, if maintained, makes Central Asia’s tightrope act increasingly risky, particularly in an environment in which public criticism of the crackdown, anti-Chinese sentiment and social and economic discontent are meshing.

 
(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL.)

A Turkish-Chinese spat as a result of Turkish criticism of China’s crackdown on Turkic Muslims in its strategic but troubled north-western province of Xinjiang complicates efforts by Kazakhstan and other Central Asian states to at best deal quietly behind closed doors with the plight of their citizens and ethnic kin in the People’s Republic.

A Turkish-Chinese spat as a result of Turkish criticism of China’s crackdown on Turkic Muslims in its strategic but troubled north-western province of Xinjiang complicates efforts by Kazakhstan and other Central Asian states to at best deal quietly behind closed doors with the plight of their citizens and ethnic kin in the People’s Republic. China’s threat that the Turkish criticism of its massive surveillance and detention campaign, involving the alleged incarceration in re-education camps of up to one million Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims would have economic consequences and the temporary closure of the Chinese consulate in the Mediterranean port city of Izmir serves as warnings to others in the Muslim world what could happen if they break their silence. The Chinese effort to get the Muslim and broader international community to maintain silence, if not acquiesce in the crackdown that constitutes the most frontal assault on Islam in recent history, was boosted when Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on a visit to Beijing last month appeared to endorse Chinese policy. Prince Salman’s endorsement of China's right to undertake "anti-terrorism" and "de-extremism" measures was widely seen as tacit support for the crackdown by the custodian of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. China has denied allegations of widespread abuse of human rights and insisted that the camps are re-education and training facilities that have stopped attacks by Islamist militants and separatists. The Crown Prince’s remarks contrasted starkly with the characterisation last month of the crackdown by Turkey’s foreign ministry as an “embarrassment to humanity,” the ministry demanded that Chinese authorities respect the human rights of the Uyghurs and close what it termed “concentration camps.” Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu called twice last week on China to make a distinction between perpetrators of political violence and innocent civilians while insisting that Turkey wished to continue cooperation with the People’s Republic. “The fact that we have a problem with China on an issue should not necessarily hinder our cooperation on other matters,” Cavusoglu said. Turkey is hoping that Chinese investment in nuclear, e-commerce, finance, and infrastructure will narrow its gaping trade deficit with China that last year stood at $17.8 billion. That is not how China appeared to envision its future relationship with Turkey. “There may be disagreements or misunderstandings between friends, but we should solve them through dialogue. Criticising your friend publicly everywhere is not a constructive approach,” said Chinese ambassador to Turkey Deng Li. “The most important issue between countries is mutual respect. Would you stay friends if your friend criticized you publicly every day?” Deng asked. “If you choose a non-constructive path, it will negatively affect mutual trust and understanding and will be reflected in commercial and economic relations,” Deng added. Deng’s comments were not only designed to whip Turkey back into line but also to prevent Central Asian nations from speaking out despite mounting domestic pressure. Deng’s comments reflected greater Chinese intolerance for criticism of its crackdown amid attempts to convince the international community by taking diplomats and journalists on carefully managed tours of Xinjiang that one participant called a “dog and pony show.” The ambassador’s rings particularly loud in Kazakhstan whose ethnic kin constitute the second largest Muslim community in Xinjiang after the Uyghurs. A former re-education camp employee, Sayragul Sauytbay, who fled to Kazakhstan told a Kazakh court last year that she was aware of some 7,5000 Kazakh nationals and Chinese of Kazakh descent being incarcerated. Atajurt Eriktileri, a Kazakh group that supports relatives of people who have disappeared in Xinjiang, says it has documented more than 10,000 cases of ethnic Kazakhs interned in China. The Xinjiang Victims Database says it has collected some 3,000 testimonies of prisoners and their families, half of which are from ethnic Kazakhs. Askar Azatbek, a former Xinjiang official who became a Kazakh citizen, went missing in December after allegedly having been kidnapped while on the Kazakh side of Khorgos, a free-trade zone on the border with China. So has Qalymbek Shahman an ethnic Kazakh Xinjiang businessman who was refused entry into Kazakhstan, sent to Uzbekistan and disappeared in Thailand to where he was returned by Uzbek authorities. Shahman hasn’t been heard from since. "I wanted to go to Kazakhstan because China's human rights record was making life intolerable," Shahman said in a videotape from Tashkent airport before being forced to fly to Thailand, which has a track record of complying with Chinese repatriation requests. For now, Central Asian leaders are walking a tightrope. Officially, they insist that Xinjiang is a Chinese internal affair. At the same time, the leaders are trying to curb domestic criticism. Serikzhan Bilash, the head of Atajurt Eriktileri, was fined in February by an Almaty court for operating an unregistered organisation. Sauytbay has fired her lawyer after he became unreachable at key moments in her asylum application and encouraged her to not talk about it publicly. “I don’t want to talk…until I have some kind of protection. I’d prefer that protection to come from Kazakhstan, but I might need help from other countries,” Sautbay said. Sauytbay is certain to hope that Turkey’s willingness to confront China, if maintained, makes Central Asia’s tightrope act increasingly risky, particularly in an environment in which public criticism of the crackdown, anti-Chinese sentiment and social and economic discontent are meshing. (Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL.)

Turkish-Chinese spat puts Asian leaders on the spot

In perhaps the most significant condemnation to date of China’s brutal crackdown on Turkic Muslims in its north-western province of Xinjiang.&nbsp;

<a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/uighur-musician-abdurehim-heyit-is-alive-says-chinas-state-run-television-196600">Turkey’s foreign ministry </a>demanded this weekend that Chinese authorities respect human rights of the Uighurs and close what it termed “concentration camps” in which up to one million people are believed to be imprisoned.

Calling the crackdown an “embarrassment to humanity,” Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy said the death of detained Uighur poet and musician Abdurehim Heyit had prompted the ministry to issue its statement.

Known as the Rooster of Xinjiang, Heyit symbolised the Uighurs’ cultural links to the Turkic world, according to Adrian Zenz, a European School of Culture and Theology researcher who has done pioneering work on the crackdown.

Turkish media asserted that Heyit, who was serving an eight-year prison sentence, had been tortured to death. &nbsp;

Aksoy said Turkey was calling on other countries and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to take steps to end the “humanitarian tragedy” in Xinjiang.

The Chinese embassy in Ankara rejected the statement as a “violation of the facts,” insisting that China was fighting separatism, extremism and terrorism, not seeking to “eliminate” the Uighurs’ ethnic, religious or cultural identity.

Aksoy’s statement contrastèd starkly with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s declaration six months earlier that China was Turkey’s economic partner of the future. At the time, Turkey had just secured a $3.6 billion loan for its energy and telecommunications sector from the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC).

The Turkish statement constitutes the first major crack in the Muslim wall of silence that has enabled the Chinese crackdown, the most frontal assault on Islam in recent memory. The statement’s significance goes beyond developments in Xinjiang.

Like with Muslim condemnation of US President Donald J Trump’s decision last year to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, Turkey appears to be wanting to be seen as a spokesman of the Muslim world in its one-upmanship with Saudi Arabia and to a lesser degree Iran.

While neither the kingdom or Iran are likely to follow Turkey’s example any time soon, the statement raises the stakes and puts other contenders for leadership on the defensive.

The bulk of the Muslim world has remained conspicuously silent with only Malaysian leaders willing to speak out and set an example by last year rejecting Chinese demands that a group of Uighur asylum seekers be extradited to China. Malaysia instead allowed the group to go to Turkey.

The Turkish statement came days after four Islamist members of the Kuwaiti parliament organised the Arab world’s first public protest against the crackdown.

By contrast, Pakistani officials backed off initial criticism and protests in countries like Bangladesh and India have been at best sporadic.

Like the Turkish statement, a disagreement between major Indonesian religious leaders and the government on how to respond to the crackdown raises questions about the sustainability of the wall of silence.

Rejecting a call on the government to condemn the crackdown by the Indonesian Ulema Council, the country’s top clerical body, Indonesian vice-president Jusuf Kalla insisted that the government would not interfere in the internal affairs of others.

The council was one of the first, if not the first, major Muslim religious body to speak out on the issues of the Uighurs. Its non-active chairman and spiritual leader of Nahdlaltul Ulama, the world’s largest Muslim organisation, Maruf Amin, is running as President Joko Widodo’s vice-presidential candidate in elections in April.

The Turkish statement could have its most immediate impact in Central Asia, which like Turkey has close ethnic and cultural ties to Xinjiang, and is struggling to balance relations with China with the need to be seen to be standing up for the rights of its citizens and ethnic kin.

In Kazakhstan, Turkey’s newly found assertiveness towards China could make it more difficult for the government to return to China Sayragul Sautbay, a Chinese national of ethnic Kazakh descent and a former re-education camp employee who fled illegally to Kazakhstan to join her husband and child.

Sautbay, who stood trial in Kazakhstan last year for illegal entry, is the only camp instructor to have worked in a reeducation camp in Xinjiang teaching inmates Mandarin and Communist Party propaganda and spoken publicly about it.

She has twice been refused asylum in Kazakhstan and is appealing the decision. China is believed to be demanding that she be handed back to the Xinjiang authorities.

Similarly, Turkey’s statement could impact the fate of Qalymbek Shahman, a Chinese businessman of Kazakh descent, who is being held at the airport in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent after being denied entry into Kazakhstan.

"I was born in Emin county in China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region to a farming family. I wanted to go to Kazakhstan, because China's human rights record was making life intolerable. I would have my ID checked every 50 to 100 meters when I was in Xinjiang, This made me extremely anxious, and I couldn't stand it anymore," Shahman said in a video clip sent to Radio Free Asia from Tashkent airport.

A guide for foreign businessmen, Shahman said he was put out of business by the continued checks that raised questions in the minds of his clients and persuaded local businessmen not to work with him.

Said Zenz, the Xinjiang scholar, commenting on the significance of the Turkish statement: “A major outcry among the Muslim world was a key missing piece in the global Xinjiang row. In my view, it seems that China’s actions in Xinjiang are finally crossing a red line among the world’s Muslim communities, at least in Turkey, but quite possibly elsewhere.” 
 
(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL.)

In perhaps the most significant condemnation to date of China’s brutal crackdown on Turkic Muslims in its north-western province of Xinjiang. Turkey’s foreign ministry demanded this weekend that Chinese authorities respect human rights of the Uighurs and close what it termed “concentration camps” in which up to one million people are believed to be imprisoned.

In perhaps the most significant condemnation to date of China’s brutal crackdown on Turkic Muslims in its north-western province of Xinjiang. Turkey’s foreign ministry demanded this weekend that Chinese authorities respect human rights of the Uighurs and close what it termed “concentration camps” in which up to one million people are believed to be imprisoned. Calling the crackdown an “embarrassment to humanity,” Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy said the death of detained Uighur poet and musician Abdurehim Heyit had prompted the ministry to issue its statement. Known as the Rooster of Xinjiang, Heyit symbolised the Uighurs’ cultural links to the Turkic world, according to Adrian Zenz, a European School of Culture and Theology researcher who has done pioneering work on the crackdown. Turkish media asserted that Heyit, who was serving an eight-year prison sentence, had been tortured to death. Aksoy said Turkey was calling on other countries and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to take steps to end the “humanitarian tragedy” in Xinjiang. The Chinese embassy in Ankara rejected the statement as a “violation of the facts,” insisting that China was fighting separatism, extremism and terrorism, not seeking to “eliminate” the Uighurs’ ethnic, religious or cultural identity. Aksoy’s statement contrastèd starkly with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s declaration six months earlier that China was Turkey’s economic partner of the future. At the time, Turkey had just secured a $3.6 billion loan for its energy and telecommunications sector from the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC). The Turkish statement constitutes the first major crack in the Muslim wall of silence that has enabled the Chinese crackdown, the most frontal assault on Islam in recent memory. The statement’s significance goes beyond developments in Xinjiang. Like with Muslim condemnation of US President Donald J Trump’s decision last year to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, Turkey appears to be wanting to be seen as a spokesman of the Muslim world in its one-upmanship with Saudi Arabia and to a lesser degree Iran. While neither the kingdom or Iran are likely to follow Turkey’s example any time soon, the statement raises the stakes and puts other contenders for leadership on the defensive. The bulk of the Muslim world has remained conspicuously silent with only Malaysian leaders willing to speak out and set an example by last year rejecting Chinese demands that a group of Uighur asylum seekers be extradited to China. Malaysia instead allowed the group to go to Turkey. The Turkish statement came days after four Islamist members of the Kuwaiti parliament organised the Arab world’s first public protest against the crackdown. By contrast, Pakistani officials backed off initial criticism and protests in countries like Bangladesh and India have been at best sporadic. Like the Turkish statement, a disagreement between major Indonesian religious leaders and the government on how to respond to the crackdown raises questions about the sustainability of the wall of silence. Rejecting a call on the government to condemn the crackdown by the Indonesian Ulema Council, the country’s top clerical body, Indonesian vice-president Jusuf Kalla insisted that the government would not interfere in the internal affairs of others. The council was one of the first, if not the first, major Muslim religious body to speak out on the issues of the Uighurs. Its non-active chairman and spiritual leader of Nahdlaltul Ulama, the world’s largest Muslim organisation, Maruf Amin, is running as President Joko Widodo’s vice-presidential candidate in elections in April. The Turkish statement could have its most immediate impact in Central Asia, which like Turkey has close ethnic and cultural ties to Xinjiang, and is struggling to balance relations with China with the need to be seen to be standing up for the rights of its citizens and ethnic kin. In Kazakhstan, Turkey’s newly found assertiveness towards China could make it more difficult for the government to return to China Sayragul Sautbay, a Chinese national of ethnic Kazakh descent and a former re-education camp employee who fled illegally to Kazakhstan to join her husband and child. Sautbay, who stood trial in Kazakhstan last year for illegal entry, is the only camp instructor to have worked in a reeducation camp in Xinjiang teaching inmates Mandarin and Communist Party propaganda and spoken publicly about it. She has twice been refused asylum in Kazakhstan and is appealing the decision. China is believed to be demanding that she be handed back to the Xinjiang authorities. Similarly, Turkey’s statement could impact the fate of Qalymbek Shahman, a Chinese businessman of Kazakh descent, who is being held at the airport in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent after being denied entry into Kazakhstan. "I was born in Emin county in China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region to a farming family. I wanted to go to Kazakhstan, because China's human rights record was making life intolerable. I would have my ID checked every 50 to 100 meters when I was in Xinjiang, This made me extremely anxious, and I couldn't stand it anymore," Shahman said in a video clip sent to Radio Free Asia from Tashkent airport. A guide for foreign businessmen, Shahman said he was put out of business by the continued checks that raised questions in the minds of his clients and persuaded local businessmen not to work with him. Said Zenz, the Xinjiang scholar, commenting on the significance of the Turkish statement: “A major outcry among the Muslim world was a key missing piece in the global Xinjiang row. In my view, it seems that China’s actions in Xinjiang are finally crossing a red line among the world’s Muslim communities, at least in Turkey, but quite possibly elsewhere.” (Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL.)

Harsh Turkish condemnation of Uighur abuse in Xinjiang cracks wall of silence

A disagreement between major Indonesian religious leaders and the government on how to respond to China’s crackdown on Turkic Muslims raises questions about the Islamic World’s ability to sustain its silence about what amounts to one of the most concerted assaults on the faith in recent history.

Rejecting a call on the government by the Indonesian Ulema Council, the country’s top clerical body, to condemn the crackdown that has seen up to one million Turkic Muslims detained in re-education camps in China’s north-western province of Xinjiang, Indonesian vice-president Jusuf Kalla insisted that the government would not interfere in the internal affairs of others.

The disagreement could take on greater significance after elections in April next year which incumbent president Joko Widodo is expected to win Widodo’s vice-presidential running mate, Maruf Amin, is the ulema’s council’s chairman. Since joining the presidential ticket, Amin has retained his council position as non-active chairman.

Nonetheless, eager to attract Chinese infrastructure investment, Kalla’s position is in line with a majority of Muslim countries, who have opted to remain silent in a bid not to jeopardise relations with the People’s Republic even if many of them have responded angrily to far less threatening incidents such as the condemnation of British writer Salman Rushdie for his novel, The Satanic Verses; the cartoon depiction in Denmark of the Prophet Mohammed; and the burning of a Quran by an American pastor.

In a similar vein, Mushahid Hussain, chairman of Pakistan’s Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, said the cardinal principle of Pakistan-China relations was to refrain from commenting on anything to do with another other country’s domestic issues even though some 200 small Pakistani businessmen have been campaigning for the release of their Uyghur spouses from Chinese camps and either the &nbsp;lifting of travel bans on their children or being allowed to visit them.

&nbsp;“Given the relationship of Pakistan with China, and in the Muslim world, in particular, the Chinese narrative is apparently being accepted across the board as the one that is correct,” Hussain told Associated Press.

By the same token, Turkey with its ethnic and cultural links to China’s Turkic Muslims and past support for Uyghur aspirations has adopted a similar attitude as Chinese investment and financial aid expands.

With the exception of a few protests in Bangladesh and India and critical statements by Malaysian leaders, Muslims across the globe have largely refrained from pressuring their governments to speak out about developments in Xinjiang. If anything, China retains its status of Asia’s top tourism destination for Muslim travellers.

Nabeel Shariff, the founder of UK-based halal holiday company Serendipity Tailormade, struggled with the ethical aspects of promoting Muslim tourism to China, but concluded that “In a way, it makes sure the Uygur community are not forgotten.”

Shariff’s justification notwithstanding, there is little public evidence of the plight of China’s Turkic Muslims being in the Muslim public eye. Muslim and Chinese leaders appear to be betting that the silence is sustainable. That threatens to be a risky strategy.

For one, the crackdown in Xinjiang is expanding to the Hui, China’s non-Turkic Muslims. The autonomous region of Ningxia Hui recently signed a cooperation agreement on anti-terrorism with Xinjiang in a bid to learn from the crackdown on the Turkic Muslims or in the words of the Global Times, a Communist Party organ, “to learn from Xinjiang's experiences in promoting social stability.”

Mounting Western criticism of the crackdown, that is toughest on Muslims, but also targets other religious groups, including evangelists, puts Muslim nations on the spot. The criticism is likely to lead to Western companies boycotting products made in Xinjiang by inmates of the re-education camps, which China describes as institutions for vocational training or people who were recently released but forced to work in factories associated with the crackdown.

An Associated Press investigation published this week tracked the shipment of sportswear from a factory linked to the camps to Badger Sportswear in the United States that supplies university bookshops and sports teams around the country. “We will voluntarily halt sourcing and will move production elsewhere while we investigate the matters raised,” said Badger CEO John Anton.

New Jersey Republican Congressman Chris Smith, a member of the House Foreign Relations Committee, called on the Trump Administration to ban imports from Chinese companies associated with detention camps.

A potential black swan is an anti-Chinese sentiment in a number of Muslim countries, some of which have ethnic links to China’s Turkic Muslims, as a result of perceptions of Chinese commercial terms for project finance and loans associated with the People’s Republic’s infrastructure-driven Belt and Road initiative that are perceived to be debt traps.

In an illustration of the risk, Kunaysh Sultanov, a member of the Kazakh parliament and former deputy prime minister and ambassador to China, took issue with the government’s walking a tightrope, attempting to balance its relations with its need to stand up for the rights of Kazaks.

“There should be talks taking place with the Chinese delegates. Every delegation that goes there should be bringing this topic up… The key issue is that of the human rights of ethnic Kazakhs in any country of the world being respected,” Sultanov said after a Chinese camp worker of Kazakh descent who had escaped to the Central Asian republic testified in court about what she had witnessed. 
 
(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL)

A disagreement between major Indonesian religious leaders and the government on how to respond to China’s crackdown on Turkic Muslims raises questions about the Islamic World’s ability to sustain its silence about what amounts to one of the most concerted assaults on the faith in recent history.

A disagreement between major Indonesian religious leaders and the government on how to respond to China’s crackdown on Turkic Muslims raises questions about the Islamic World’s ability to sustain its silence about what amounts to one of the most concerted assaults on the faith in recent history. Rejecting a call on the government by the Indonesian Ulema Council, the country’s top clerical body, to condemn the crackdown that has seen up to one million Turkic Muslims detained in re-education camps in China’s north-western province of Xinjiang, Indonesian vice-president Jusuf Kalla insisted that the government would not interfere in the internal affairs of others. The disagreement could take on greater significance after elections in April next year which incumbent president Joko Widodo is expected to win Widodo’s vice-presidential running mate, Maruf Amin, is the ulema’s council’s chairman. Since joining the presidential ticket, Amin has retained his council position as non-active chairman. Nonetheless, eager to attract Chinese infrastructure investment, Kalla’s position is in line with a majority of Muslim countries, who have opted to remain silent in a bid not to jeopardise relations with the People’s Republic even if many of them have responded angrily to far less threatening incidents such as the condemnation of British writer Salman Rushdie for his novel, The Satanic Verses; the cartoon depiction in Denmark of the Prophet Mohammed; and the burning of a Quran by an American pastor. In a similar vein, Mushahid Hussain, chairman of Pakistan’s Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, said the cardinal principle of Pakistan-China relations was to refrain from commenting on anything to do with another other country’s domestic issues even though some 200 small Pakistani businessmen have been campaigning for the release of their Uyghur spouses from Chinese camps and either the lifting of travel bans on their children or being allowed to visit them. “Given the relationship of Pakistan with China, and in the Muslim world, in particular, the Chinese narrative is apparently being accepted across the board as the one that is correct,” Hussain told Associated Press. By the same token, Turkey with its ethnic and cultural links to China’s Turkic Muslims and past support for Uyghur aspirations has adopted a similar attitude as Chinese investment and financial aid expands. With the exception of a few protests in Bangladesh and India and critical statements by Malaysian leaders, Muslims across the globe have largely refrained from pressuring their governments to speak out about developments in Xinjiang. If anything, China retains its status of Asia’s top tourism destination for Muslim travellers. Nabeel Shariff, the founder of UK-based halal holiday company Serendipity Tailormade, struggled with the ethical aspects of promoting Muslim tourism to China, but concluded that “In a way, it makes sure the Uygur community are not forgotten.” Shariff’s justification notwithstanding, there is little public evidence of the plight of China’s Turkic Muslims being in the Muslim public eye. Muslim and Chinese leaders appear to be betting that the silence is sustainable. That threatens to be a risky strategy. For one, the crackdown in Xinjiang is expanding to the Hui, China’s non-Turkic Muslims. The autonomous region of Ningxia Hui recently signed a cooperation agreement on anti-terrorism with Xinjiang in a bid to learn from the crackdown on the Turkic Muslims or in the words of the Global Times, a Communist Party organ, “to learn from Xinjiang's experiences in promoting social stability.” Mounting Western criticism of the crackdown, that is toughest on Muslims, but also targets other religious groups, including evangelists, puts Muslim nations on the spot. The criticism is likely to lead to Western companies boycotting products made in Xinjiang by inmates of the re-education camps, which China describes as institutions for vocational training or people who were recently released but forced to work in factories associated with the crackdown. An Associated Press investigation published this week tracked the shipment of sportswear from a factory linked to the camps to Badger Sportswear in the United States that supplies university bookshops and sports teams around the country. “We will voluntarily halt sourcing and will move production elsewhere while we investigate the matters raised,” said Badger CEO John Anton. New Jersey Republican Congressman Chris Smith, a member of the House Foreign Relations Committee, called on the Trump Administration to ban imports from Chinese companies associated with detention camps. A potential black swan is an anti-Chinese sentiment in a number of Muslim countries, some of which have ethnic links to China’s Turkic Muslims, as a result of perceptions of Chinese commercial terms for project finance and loans associated with the People’s Republic’s infrastructure-driven Belt and Road initiative that are perceived to be debt traps. In an illustration of the risk, Kunaysh Sultanov, a member of the Kazakh parliament and former deputy prime minister and ambassador to China, took issue with the government’s walking a tightrope, attempting to balance its relations with its need to stand up for the rights of Kazaks. “There should be talks taking place with the Chinese delegates. Every delegation that goes there should be bringing this topic up… The key issue is that of the human rights of ethnic Kazakhs in any country of the world being respected,” Sultanov said after a Chinese camp worker of Kazakh descent who had escaped to the Central Asian republic testified in court about what she had witnessed. (Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL)

Xinjiang crackdown: China and the Islamic world’s Achilles Heel

Malaysia has freed from detention 11 ethnic Uighur Muslims who fled to the southeast Asian nation after a Thai jailbreak last year, and sent them to Turkey, their lawyer said on Thursday, in disregard of China's request to hand them to Beijing.

The move is likely to strain ties with China, already tested since Mahathir Mohamad became prime minister after a stunning election victory in May and cancelled more than $20 billion worth of projects awarded to Chinese companies.

Also read: <a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/china-says-us-seeks-to-disturb-xinjiang-policies-170904">China says </a><a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/china-says-us-seeks-to-disturb-xinjiang-policies-170904">US</a><a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/china-says-us-seeks-to-disturb-xinjiang-policies-170904"> seeks to 'disturb' Xinjiang policies</a>

Prosecutors in Muslim-majority Malaysia dropped charges against the Uighurs on humanitarian grounds and they arrived in Turkey after flying out of Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday, their lawyer, Fahmi Moin, said.

"The charges were withdrawn because the attorney general's chambers agreed to the (appeal) from our side," he told Reuters.

Malaysia's immigration department, home ministry and the attorney general's office did not immediately respond to requests for comment. China's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The men were detained and charged with illegally entering Malaysia after last November's daring prison break, by punching holes in a prison wall and using blankets as ladders.

In February, Reuters reported that Malaysia was under great pressure from China to deport the men there, citing sources. Some Western missions sought to dissuade it from sending them to China, which has been accused of persecuting Uighurs.

Beijing accuses separatist extremists among the Uighur minority of plotting attacks on China's Han majority in the restive far western region of Xinjiang and elsewhere.

China has been accused of rights abuses in Xinjiang, torture of Uighur detainees and tight controls on their religion and culture. It denies wrongdoing.

Over the years, hundreds, possibly thousands, of Uighurs have escaped the unrest by travelling clandestinely via Southeast Asia to Turkey.

The Uighurs in Malaysia were part of a group of more than 200 detained in Thailand in 2014.

Although they identified themselves as Turkish citizens and asked to be sent to Turkey, more than 100 were forcibly returned to China in July 2015, sparking international condemnation.

In February, Malaysia said it was considering China's request to extradite the 11 men. In the past, it has sent some detained Uighurs to China.

Their detention came as Malaysia drew closer to China under former prime minister Najib Razak, but 93-year-old Mahathir, in his second stint as premier, has been vocal in backing Muslim communities against persecution.

He recently criticised Aung San Suu Kyi, the de facto leader of neighbouring Myanmar, over the Nobel peace laureate's handling of the Rohingya crisis, saying, "We don't really support her anymore."

Malaysia has freed from detention 11 ethnic Uighur Muslims who fled to the southeast Asian nation after a Thai jailbreak last year, and sent them to Turkey, their lawyer said on Thursday, in disregard of China's request to hand them to Beijing.

Malaysia has freed from detention 11 ethnic Uighur Muslims who fled to the southeast Asian nation after a Thai jailbreak last year, and sent them to Turkey, their lawyer said on Thursday, in disregard of China's request to hand them to Beijing. The move is likely to strain ties with China, already tested since Mahathir Mohamad became prime minister after a stunning election victory in May and cancelled more than $20 billion worth of projects awarded to Chinese companies. Also read: China says US seeks to 'disturb' Xinjiang policies Prosecutors in Muslim-majority Malaysia dropped charges against the Uighurs on humanitarian grounds and they arrived in Turkey after flying out of Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday, their lawyer, Fahmi Moin, said. "The charges were withdrawn because the attorney general's chambers agreed to the (appeal) from our side," he told Reuters. Malaysia's immigration department, home ministry and the attorney general's office did not immediately respond to requests for comment. China's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The men were detained and charged with illegally entering Malaysia after last November's daring prison break, by punching holes in a prison wall and using blankets as ladders. In February, Reuters reported that Malaysia was under great pressure from China to deport the men there, citing sources. Some Western missions sought to dissuade it from sending them to China, which has been accused of persecuting Uighurs. Beijing accuses separatist extremists among the Uighur minority of plotting attacks on China's Han majority in the restive far western region of Xinjiang and elsewhere. China has been accused of rights abuses in Xinjiang, torture of Uighur detainees and tight controls on their religion and culture. It denies wrongdoing. Over the years, hundreds, possibly thousands, of Uighurs have escaped the unrest by travelling clandestinely via Southeast Asia to Turkey. The Uighurs in Malaysia were part of a group of more than 200 detained in Thailand in 2014. Although they identified themselves as Turkish citizens and asked to be sent to Turkey, more than 100 were forcibly returned to China in July 2015, sparking international condemnation. In February, Malaysia said it was considering China's request to extradite the 11 men. In the past, it has sent some detained Uighurs to China. Their detention came as Malaysia drew closer to China under former prime minister Najib Razak, but 93-year-old Mahathir, in his second stint as premier, has been vocal in backing Muslim communities against persecution. He recently criticised Aung San Suu Kyi, the de facto leader of neighbouring Myanmar, over the Nobel peace laureate's handling of the Rohingya crisis, saying, "We don't really support her anymore."

Defying China, Malaysia releases Uighur detainees

Recent years have seen a remarkable era of Pakistan-China friendship. Apparently, everyone in Pakistan is singing songs that China is their real friend and it will be purely due to China that their country will rise from the ashes like a miracle.

&nbsp;

Over the last so many decades, Pakistani rulers have been emphasising on their Islamic orientation, criticising the instances wherever they felt that Muslims are facing discriminations. For instance, Pakistan&#39;s political establishment went berserk over atrocities committed against Palestinian, Rohingya Muslims, during Balkan Conflict at Kosovo, the Chechnya debacle among. Criticism flowed fast and steady.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

But a serious question arises as to how much is the People&#39;s Republic of China, the mentor and &#39;best friend&#39; of Pakistan, concerned and sensitive about the second largest and the fastest growing religion in the world?

&nbsp;

To find the answer, you must look towards the north-west edge of Pakistan and Indian province of Kashmir. In the map, you will find Xinxiang province of the People&rsquo;s Republic of China where an ethnic Islamic minority called Uighurs have been fighting for over six decades for their existence. They have been receiving a second-class treatment from rulers of the Peoples Republic of China; their religious and cultural autonomy is under serious threat.

&nbsp;

Uighurs are a minority of Turkish-speaking people of about 10 million population. While Pakistan considers itself as the true defender of Islam, China has banned Islamic activities in its Xinxiang province for Uighur Muslims. Religious education is totally banned for Uighurs and is punishable by law. The religious prohibition by China includes control over religious activities, practitioners, schools, cultural institutions, publication of Islamic literature and even personal appearance and behaviour of Uighur Muslims. They cannot display any symbol of Islam, for example, beard or Islamic dresses.

&nbsp;

Not only this, all Imams of the mosques are supposed to vet themselves on a regular basis, attend self-criticism sessions where they are to criticise their own religion. They are forbidden to practice anything which can be termed as a symbol of slightest separatism as per the policy of China, and it is punishable by death. Last year the Imams were called for a gathering and made to dance on the tunes of China. The video is still available on social media.&nbsp;

<div class="ui-state-default" contenteditable="false">
<div class="twitter-block" draggable="false"><iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WcGZPPC7RRk" width="560"></iframe></div>
<a class="close-mark close-div" href="#" id="jqclosemark">&times;</a></div>

There are cases where people have been tortured and punished just because they were in possession of a version of Holy Koran. There have been times where the peaceful activists have been arrested, tortured and executed even without any evidence. There are so many stories of atrocities of Uighurs in the area, however, due to media censorship in the country, they don&rsquo;t come out.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

The mass genocide of Uighurs started in 1949 with the Chinese occupation of territory by General Wang Zhen. Things have not changed much since then. Only the Generals changed over the years, the genocide of innocent population continues.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

The Chinese influence in the area has risen very sharply. The Uighurs which used to dominate the region with over 90% population share in 1955 has now dropped to 43% because of a state-sponsored mass settlement of residents from the eastern part of China. Many of these settlers include retired soldiers from the Chinese military and seasonal workers employed in various industries in the region. China has already succeeded in changing the demographic pattern of the area.

&nbsp;

India&#39;s neighbour who is so concerned about Islam has always turned a blind eye to this matter. No one in Pakistan government ever speaks about the religious freedom of Uighurs in China. Their support for Islam falls through when it comes to Uighurs of China. If we compare the state of religious freedom across the world, China&#39;s track record would be the worst due to their treatment of Uighurs in Xinxiang.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

So, what is the reason for this behaviour of not only our nuclear-powered neighbour but also other Islamic countries? The reason lies in the belief of the West about the impressive growth and state-led development of China in last 30 years. In the current scenario, every country is dependent upon Chinese imports and wants to enter their multitrillion-dollar market so that they can also make money.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

The case of Pakistan is even worst. The economy of the country is going through a dangerous turbulence. Western countries, as well as IMF, have cut down on aid. The domestic production is on a decline and corruption among the top leaders of the country has become a common scene. The only support is Chinese investment which is aimed at making Pakistan its second territory. If Pakistan starts showing their genuine concern towards Uighur Muslims, it may lose multibillion-dollar projects of China. In the current wake of China establishing its industrial, economic and military establishments in Pakistan rapidly, the day is not far when it will be another territory of China. And in such case, another Xinxiang is in making now.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL).

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

Imams are forbidden to practice anything which can be termed as a symbol of slightest separatism as per the policy of China, and it is punishable by death

Recent years have seen a remarkable era of Pakistan-China friendship. Apparently, everyone in Pakistan is singing songs that China is their real friend and it will be purely due to China that their country will rise from the ashes like a miracle. Over the last so many decades, Pakistani rulers have been emphasising on their Islamic orientation, criticising the instances wherever they felt that Muslims are facing discriminations. For instance, Pakistan's political establishment went berserk over atrocities committed against Palestinian, Rohingya Muslims, during Balkan Conflict at Kosovo, the Chechnya debacle among. Criticism flowed fast and steady. But a serious question arises as to how much is the People's Republic of China, the mentor and 'best friend' of Pakistan, concerned and sensitive about the second largest and the fastest growing religion in the world? To find the answer, you must look towards the north-west edge of Pakistan and Indian province of Kashmir. In the map, you will find Xinxiang province of the People’s Republic of China where an ethnic Islamic minority called Uighurs have been fighting for over six decades for their existence. They have been receiving a second-class treatment from rulers of the Peoples Republic of China; their religious and cultural autonomy is under serious threat. Uighurs are a minority of Turkish-speaking people of about 10 million population. While Pakistan considers itself as the true defender of Islam, China has banned Islamic activities in its Xinxiang province for Uighur Muslims. Religious education is totally banned for Uighurs and is punishable by law. The religious prohibition by China includes control over religious activities, practitioners, schools, cultural institutions, publication of Islamic literature and even personal appearance and behaviour of Uighur Muslims. They cannot display any symbol of Islam, for example, beard or Islamic dresses. Not only this, all Imams of the mosques are supposed to vet themselves on a regular basis, attend self-criticism sessions where they are to criticise their own religion. They are forbidden to practice anything which can be termed as a symbol of slightest separatism as per the policy of China, and it is punishable by death. Last year the Imams were called for a gathering and made to dance on the tunes of China. The video is still available on social media. × There are cases where people have been tortured and punished just because they were in possession of a version of Holy Koran. There have been times where the peaceful activists have been arrested, tortured and executed even without any evidence. There are so many stories of atrocities of Uighurs in the area, however, due to media censorship in the country, they don’t come out. The mass genocide of Uighurs started in 1949 with the Chinese occupation of territory by General Wang Zhen. Things have not changed much since then. Only the Generals changed over the years, the genocide of innocent population continues. The Chinese influence in the area has risen very sharply. The Uighurs which used to dominate the region with over 90% population share in 1955 has now dropped to 43% because of a state-sponsored mass settlement of residents from the eastern part of China. Many of these settlers include retired soldiers from the Chinese military and seasonal workers employed in various industries in the region. China has already succeeded in changing the demographic pattern of the area. India's neighbour who is so concerned about Islam has always turned a blind eye to this matter. No one in Pakistan government ever speaks about the religious freedom of Uighurs in China. Their support for Islam falls through when it comes to Uighurs of China. If we compare the state of religious freedom across the world, China's track record would be the worst due to their treatment of Uighurs in Xinxiang. So, what is the reason for this behaviour of not only our nuclear-powered neighbour but also other Islamic countries? The reason lies in the belief of the West about the impressive growth and state-led development of China in last 30 years. In the current scenario, every country is dependent upon Chinese imports and wants to enter their multitrillion-dollar market so that they can also make money. The case of Pakistan is even worst. The economy of the country is going through a dangerous turbulence. Western countries, as well as IMF, have cut down on aid. The domestic production is on a decline and corruption among the top leaders of the country has become a common scene. The only support is Chinese investment which is aimed at making Pakistan its second territory. If Pakistan starts showing their genuine concern towards Uighur Muslims, it may lose multibillion-dollar projects of China. In the current wake of China establishing its industrial, economic and military establishments in Pakistan rapidly, the day is not far when it will be another territory of China. And in such case, another Xinxiang is in making now. (Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL).

Opinion: China censors Islamic practices. Why Pakistan is silent

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