Summary:
> Fact check: There’s an increase in the Uighurs population; there’s a decline in maternal and infant mortality.
> Fact check: Uighurs and other minorities are given preferential treatment in education and economic opportunity.
> The BBC and CNN are accusing an entire nation of genocide and Filipino writers quote them extensively.
> We recommend true fact-checking through actual visits and talks with people before spreading the news.
Another big lie by the West: Xinjiang genocide
Mario Ferdinand Pasion
April 5, 2021
Without a single solid case, the genocide story is being peddled by Western media that over a million Uighur Muslims are being imprisoned, tortured, and killed by China, and a new round of international multibillion-dollar restrictions are being applied.
This is being widely spread in BBC, CNN, etc., even in various Philippine news organizations such as Rappler, Philippine Daily Inquirer, and Philippine Star. On such a serious charge against an entire country, did they do research or is the usual planted data with conflicted sources being quoted and echoed around as facts — the way Western media did with the fake WMD (weapons of mass destruction) that became the excuse for invading Iraq that led to over a million civilians dead and takeover of the oil trade there? Is it the same with a dozen wars? What do the substantial facts show?
Possible “outright genocide,” according to Elfren Cruz. Did this intellectual or the supposed “fact-checkers” bother to check or try to reconcile with their source of “genocide” the following?
No genocide but population growth. The population of the Uighurs grew every year in the last 40 years, growing 25 percent in the last 10 years. If China wanted to eliminate the Uighurs, why would it work for steep drops in maternal and infant mortality (life expectancy grew from 30 years to 72 years (higher than the Philippines’ 71 years) in the last few decades? Why did only three Uighurs die in the pandemic?
Opportunity, not economic marginalization. Xinjiang’s GDP grew more than 200 times; minimum wage is now $300 a month, per capita GDP is $6,700 and per capita disposable income is $2,500, much of which is now used for consumption goods, not just necessities. Many of the top celebrities and models in China are Uighurs.
Preferential treatment. The achievement requirement to enter schools and other places is lowered for Uighurs and other minorities who are given preferential treatment. The Uighur local writing is in China’s currency, investments for development have gone to Xinjiang over the decades causing economic growth (7.2 percent yearly) and living conditions higher than the Philippines’ average.
One million Uighurs in concentration camps? Outright fake news but always cited, orchestrated? World Uighur Congress Chairman Omer Kanat, source of information for the US, himself admits his group sources the information from “Western media” without actual verification of data and reports it to US legislators, agencies and media as facts. US media bounces it around the world as coming from the Uighurs themselves (admission http://bit.ly/TruthUighurCongress). Funding for the information is provided by the US-CIA-linked National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and other related military and state agencies.
The estimate of 1 million Uighurs being hamletted was arrived at by the BBC thru “researcher” Adrian Zenz, who is funded by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) and other “expert” groups that provided “satellite images” of buildings, presumed to be “empirical data,” from which they deduced and declared one million plus victims in “concentration camps.” The NED was caught funding the HK Rioters. In the Philippines, it funds Rappler and antigovernment nongovernment organizations.
The ASPI (owned by the Commonwealth) is funded also by the US State Department, US Department of Defense, Lockheed-Martin and Raytheon (which both use prison labor to produce trillion-dollar weapons like the F15 and F16). Circle for fake news creation completed.
The BBC and the CNN are accusing an entire nation of genocide. And Filipino writers quote them extensively, elaborating in detail, insinuating strongly the same. Do they have specifics? Where are the victim lists? How much of cited facts turned out to be wrong? Do they check the Western countries’ actions?
Fake news samples. The “Karakax list” of over 300 Uighurs supposedly detained because “all had overseas relations…” was “leaked” thru Zenz. The vast majority of the 300 are actually still living normal lives in their home county, have not even been to vocational classes, except for a few who had been affected by extremism. Only 19 have relatives abroad.
In 2014, Zenz (working for the BBC) released information that from the low 2.5 percent of China’s IUDs being fitted in Xinjiang, it became 80 percent to support the West’s allegations of a government mass sterilization program to suppress the population. It was actually 8.7 percent (Grayzone) and the Uighur population has been growing for decades. People said to have been “missing” were found living ordinary lives (“More US subversive farce: Uighur Rights Act, HK, Duterte,” The Manila Times, June 28, 2020). Zumrat claimed that she was forced to have surgical sterilization, but her own relatives said she needed it because of uterine issues with fibroid.
We suggest visits to the places and talks with people before we spread serious charges with vast consequences on entire nations, employers and business. We understand a columnist should be able to give opinions, but is it fair to spend a whole article describing in detail history’s horrific precedents and mentioning “systematic rape, sexual abuse, torture” and other charges just on the premise of “if true…,” and without also examining the positions, motivations and records of accuracy of the accusers, including governments and media outfits?
The West recently made the issue of Western brands’ using Xinjiang cotton, and the media played supporting attack dog again, grabbing images of Uighur people working in cotton fields, labeling them as “forced labor” but not identifying them or verifying their working conditions. Do our writers know most of cotton harvesting is now mechanized, mostly with US equipment — $500 million worth in the last few years alone, mostly John Deere tractors? The US asks China to purchase and invest more in the US but keeps on blocking everything at the same time and then accuses China of “nonfulfilment.”
Under what conditions are cotton pickers employed, what are the income and opportunities for the people through time? Is there forced labor? Is having a cotton-picking job necessarily not acceptable anymore? What about farming or fishing? Is this worth a very sudden worldwide embargo? The cotton and garment industries are growing so strongly such that it has been good for US brands, for Xinjiang workers (getting higher pay and more options) and China also. Why does the US launch a worldwide campaign to damage this? Probably because the industries are beneficial to the people of Xinjiang?
Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff of former US Secretary of State Colin Powell, feeling he can no longer back fake news to create wars for the war industry like in the fake WMD story, has revealed that one of the main reasons the US has interest in Xinjiang is to destabilize the Chinese internally, to disrupt economic projects of the Chinese government in the area and maintain America’s own power position in the Middle East (http://bit.ly/WilkersonXinjiang).
Oppression of Uighurs Muslims? Forty-five countries, including major Muslim nations Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria and the United Arab Emirates, filed a position supporting China’s vocational, deradicalization and counter-terrorism programs after representatives visited and witnessed livelihood, reorientation programs as constructive initiatives that generate economic development, peace and prosperity for the region. They also noted that China invited more than 1,000 diplomats, officials of international organizations, journalists and religious persons to visit Xinjiang. Why do the BBC, the US media and the American government, and some of our Filipino brothers, attack these successful programs more than invasions, drone murders and destabilization of other states?
The supposed concentration camps and terrorists and separatists in Xinjiang and others are issues we will take up in Part 2 of this column.
We Filipinos should perform less of our national specialty: unproductive critiques following US lines or celebrities. We should work like hell, like our neighbors, who work with every party despite all disputes and promotions, and with a very necessary skepticism from all sides.
Mario Ferdinand Pasion is a political analyst, director of Phil-Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) Strategic Studies and the chairman of Nat-Fil (Nationalist Filipinos Against Foreign Intervention).
New Worlds by IDSI (Integrated Development Studies Institute) aims to present frameworks based on a balance of economic theory, historical realities, ground success in real business and communities, and attempt for common good, culture and spirituality. We welcome logical feedback and possibly working together with compatible frameworks (idsicenter@gmail.com).
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Another big lie by the West: Xinjiang genocide