Like the ‘Islamic Card Policy’ of the 1980s, which helped the United States and its allies to dismantle the hostile Marxist USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), the new onslaught against China through use of ploy of ‘mass internment of Uyghur Muslims’ is aimed at countering the Belt and Road initiative (BRI). The military and economic containment of China is part of a New Great Game in which the United States and allies are using religio-militant groups as proxies. It is well-established from many official documents (leaked and otherwise) that all over the world, the Muslim terrorist apparatuses have been created by US Intelligence as a geopolitical weapon — its use in Xinjiang, an autonomous territory in northwest China, is no secret.
Since China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) – a mega project — is to connect Gwadar Port of Pakistan to Xinjiang via highways, railways and pipelines to transport oil & gas, the USA is using Islamic Card Policy to undermine it by funding Muslim terrorist networks to disrupt both Pakistan and China.
Xinjiang is home to all of China’s 56 ethnic groups — Uyghur, Han, Kazakh and Hui, each having a population of over one million (Uyghurs 48 percent and the Hans 37 percent). With diversity of land and multi-ethnic people, the region has registered remarkable annual GDP growth rate of 9.3 percent since 2012.
We are seeing perpetual propaganda outbursts against Beijing by the USA and others of “mass incarceration and repression of Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang? It is alleged in various media reports that “an estimated 1.1 million people have been placed in internment camps, including re-education camps where, according to former detainees and other witnesses, inmates are subjected to intense political indoctrination and abuse”. There are no popular uprisings in Xinjiang as in occupied Kashmir but the same countries and media that are creating uproar for Uyghurs are completely silent about Indian atrocities that are most gruesome and unprecedented.
The official position of China as elaborating by Li Xiaojun, Director for Publicity at the Bureau of Human Rights Affairs of the State Council Information Office, is: “we are not mistreating Muslims in Xinjiang province but putting some people through training courses to avoid extremism spreading, unlike Europe, which had failed to deal with the problem”. Two months back, Li told reporters on the sidelines of the UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva: “What China is doing is to establish professional training centres, educational centres and if you do not say it’s the best way, maybe it’s the necessary way to deal with Islamic or religious extremism, because the West has failed in doing so, in dealing with religious Islamic extremism”.
One may not agree with the Chinese approach but the fact remains that from 2012 to 2017, a total of 1.39 million people in Xinjiang were lifted out of poverty. Since 2017, for the first time, Xinjiang has an information database for all its residents, laying a solid foundation for further efforts to eradicate poverty.
The Western media while raising hue and cry about what it called “mistreatment” of Muslims of Xinjiang conveniently overlooked the writings of many independent authors claiming that the reality on ground is quite different. For example, F. William Engdahl, in an article, China’s Uyghur Problem: The Recruitment of Uyghur Muslims to Join Al Qaeda, published on October 6, 2018, observed that “the true state of affairs in China’s Xinjiang Province regarding Uyghurs is not possible to independently verify, whether such camps exist and if so who is there and under what conditions.
