The CIA has even infiltrated the Communist Party of India. That's how powerful they are!
"IN the past few years, there are increasingly disturbing reports about China’s internment camps for Uyghurs in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region of China. There have been many credible academic studies as well as journalistic reports documenting the systemic incarceration of an entire nationality/ethnicity, in the name of a “war on terror.” China, and Chinese media, have claimed that these reports are distortions by the “western media” and “western nations” interested in discrediting China...
How should we, on the communist, Marxist Leninist Left in India and the world, view the matter? Marxists have to look at any matter from the perspective of facts and the highest principles of the rights of people and of oppressed communities. No one should choose to believe or disbelieve facts, or support or oppose oppression, based on “camps” in the global world order... it is important that if rightwing discourse is attacking China, a consistent Left must assess and critique China’s policies from a firmly Marxist vantage point. Even at the height of the Cold War, the CPIML made its own independent assessments and critiques of the Soviet Union from a Marxist perspective, rather than taking stances based on Cold War camps. The CPIML also opposed the Tiananmen Square massacre. We pointed out that facts simply did not support the claim that the protesting students were all part of a rightwing pro‒capitalist plot, and that regardless, nothing could justify the massacre of protesting students. In August 2009, Liberation carried a piece by Arindam Sen titled 'Mao Zedong Thought and Ethnic Clashes in Xinjiang', outlining the Chinese State's divergence from Mao's "emphasis on opposing Han chauvinism" in dealing with contradictions with minority nationalities.
On the current situation of the Uyghurs in China, Liberation attempts to separate the wheat from the chaff, by closely and critically reading China’s own official public White Paper on their Uyghur policy; and their official responses to leaked documents and other reports in various news outlets. We scrutinise these official positions and responses of the Chinese state and ruling regime, to see if they match up to the principles of upholding the rights of people and oppressed communities that we on the Left demand from any regime. So, does China’s policy towards the Uyghur people stand up to such scrutiny?
China’s 2019 White Paper On Uyghurs
After a period of denying all reports of the existence of internment camps for Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region, China changed course, and decided not only to admit the existence of the camps but to justify and even boast of these camps as a successful model of fighting “terrorism.” In March 2019, The State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic of China published a white paper titled “The Fight Against Terrorism and Extremism and Human Rights Protection in Xinjiang”. This position paper can be accessed on the official website of the Chinese Government...
Marxist Leninist principles demand that we try to identify and address the material and political basis for militancy, rather than blaming it on “outside” forces or on “religious extremists.” For instance, we remind our fellow Indians that the Indian State cannot be allowed to get away with the claim that militancy in the Kashmir Valley is a product purely of Pakistani interference or “Islamic extremism”. There are genuine political grievances that the Kashmiri people have: and militancy is primarily a product of the refusal of the Indian State to admit or address those grievances. For militancy in Kashmir, Manipur, or Nagaland, there are historical and political grievances at root, compounded by Indian State’s brutal and repressive policy of treating entire communities in these regions as potentially “terrorist”. The Chinese Government’s paper on Uyghurs does exactly the same as what the Indian State does: blame militancy on “outside interference” and “religious extremists”. Our August 2009 piece analysed the issued underlying Uyghur resentment and alienation. Why does the Chinese state not reflect on their own failings in addressing the root political issues, and failure to win the confidence and support of the people in the Xinjiang province?
It is also interesting that while the Chinese State blames all criticism of its Uyghur policy on “Western capitalist propaganda”, its own policy document echoes the US, NATO “War on Terror” propaganda and policy (a fountainhead of Islamophobic state sponsored violence), complete with the invocation of 9/11 as a watershed moment.
Policing A Community In The Name of “Preventing” Crime
Across the world, from Black communities in the US to India’s policy in Kashmir, Manipur, Nagaland, and Bastar, repressive states have labelled entire communities as prone to “crime” or “terror”, to justify intrusive surveillance and state terror against people of those communities, based on their identity not on crimes committed by them. “Salwa Judum” in Bastar is one instance, where the Indian State justified acting to displace and imprison entire adivasi villages, in the name of “preventing Maoist terror”.
The White Paper makes it clear that the Chinese State does much the same: treating the entire Uyghur population as prone to religious extremism and terrorism, and justifying mass incarceration of Uyghurs in “reeducation camps” in the name of “preventing” terrorism.
A UAPA On Steroids
So what is the legal basis for the Chinese State to send vast numbers of Uyghur people to such camps? What is the legal basis for judging that an Uyghur individual is in need of “reeducation”? The Counterterrorism Law of the People’s Republic of China attempts to cover its own back by stating that no one should be targeted on the basic of any specific religion or ethnic identity. But this is how the Government White Paper describes the scope of the law under which persons can be sent by “people’s courts” to the “deradicalisation” centres: “In the course of counterterrorism and de-radicalization, the local government forbids any organization or individual from using religion to split the country, spread religious extremism, incite ethnic hatred, undermine ethnic unity, disturb social order, harm citizens’ physical or mental health, hinder the implementation of the country’s administrative, judicial, educational and cultural systems, or harm national security, national interests, public interests and civil rights and interests. It prevents ill-intentioned people from using religion or religious activities to create disorder or commit crimes.”
Nearly every word in this paragraph is vague and open to arbitrary and subjective interpretation by the State. For instance, there is no clarity on how the law distinguishes spreading religious faith from “spreading religious extremism.” If a religious preacher advocates abstaining from alcohol, for example, is he spreading faith or extremism? If an Uyghur person speaks about Han Chinese majoritarian domination, or imposition of the Mandarin language, is he or she guilty of “undermining ethnic unity” or “disturbing the social order”? If an Uyghur person wears a beard, or observe a fast during Ramzan, are they hindering “implementation of the country’s cultural systems”? How does the State distinguish “ill-intentioned people” from “well-intentioned” ones?...
Imposition of Mandarin Chinese Language
As Indians, we are acutely aware of the sensitivities and sensibilities of variouus nationalities and ethnicities regarding language. We are also aware of how India’s fascists seek to impose homogeneity in the name of “Hindi” linguistic and “Hindu” religious supremacy. India has witnessed and continues to witness mass protests — in Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Assam, Karnataka, for example — against the imposition of Hindi...
The White Paper repeatedly states that the Xinjiang people’s weak command over the Mandarin Chinese language makes them less capable of telling right from wrong, illegal from legal. The vocabulary of the White Paper implies that the Uyghur people are uncivilised and childlike: and need to be civilised by being taught Mandarin Chinese and the rule of law.
The White Paper is peppered by a disturbing number of references to how “rural residents in Xinjiang” have a tendency to become criminals because they “are weak in the use of standard spoken and written Chinese language, slow in acquiring modern knowledge, and have poor communication skills”, and thus “such people are more inclined to be incited or coerced into criminality by terrorist and extremist forces.” Perhaps what is most disturbing about reading this White Paper is that it is a document China has made available in the public domain. The Chinese State feels no qualms or hesitation about declaring such racist stereotypes as its official policy!...
Mass Displacement/Forced Labour?
The White Paper refers repeatedly to “transfer employment” as a job policy for the Xinjiang region: it speaks of “implementing the plan of transfer employment for 100,000 laborers in southern Xinjiang in three years (2018-2020)”; “having realized the transfer employment of 75,000 people”; and “transferring 8.305 million surplus rural labourers for employment in Xinjiang from 2016 to 2018.” What exactly does “transfer employment” mean? Do the labourers have any choice in the matter of where they choose to work, and whether or not they would like to “transfer”?...
Does China Deny The Authenticity of Leaked Documents?...
The first thing we at Liberation did was to check whether China questioned the authenticity of the documents. The answer is: No.
A report titled “Western media report on Xinjiang lacks morality”, the Global Times (the international version of the Chinese Community Party’s People’s Daily newspaper) dated 17 November 2019... merely blames the critical analysis of the said documents by the NYT, on “Western public opinion used their value system to criticize the vocational education and training centers in Xinjiang.”
This very notion of a “Western value system” which is distinct from an Eastern one is a racist and colonial trope, embraced and regurgitated by rightwing ideologues in both the supposed “East” and “West”. The Indian far right, for instance, denounces Marxism and communism itself as a “Western value system”...
The Thought Police
The leaked documents read as though they are pages from a dystopian novel like Orwell’s 1984...
The first thing that strikes one, is that the documents repeatedly refer to the camps as “concentrated education and training school students”. Naturally, this is a translation from Chinese into English: but China has not claimed there is anything wrong with the translation. So, it seems clear that China in its internal documents effectively admits to holding Uyghur people in “concentration camps”.
The Q&A script makes it very clear that the persons are being detained in camps without having committed any crime at all. For instance, in reply to the question “Did they commit a crime? Will they be convicted?”, the scripted reply is: “They haven’t committed a crime and won’t be convicted.”
But the script repeatedly uses the dehumanising language of lack of “health”, “infection”, “virus”, “disease” and “malignant tumour” to describe the condition of the incarcerated Uyghur persons: “It is just that their thinking has been infected by unhealthy thoughts, and if they don’t quickly receive education and correction, they’ll become a major active threat to society and to your family. It’s very hard to totally eradicate viruses in thinking in just a short time. It needs to be dealt with like detox for drug addicts.”...
The script also indicates that the camps are no less than prisons. In reply to the question “Can my family members ask for leave to visit me?”, the script offers the reply: “This is strict, regulated and concentrated training behind closed doors....In general, leave won’t be granted while they’re in training and study. If you want to see your family member, we can arrange for you to see them through video.”
The documents also prescribe strict surveillance and censorship of the students and their social media posts, and “direct thought guidance” to indoctrinate these students, warning that “Returning students from other parts of China have widespread social ties across the entire country. The moment they issue incorrect opinions on WeChat, Weibo and other social media platforms, the impact is widespread and difficult to eradicate.” It is clear from this that the Chinese State is the Thought Police which decides which opinions are “incorrect”, and which openly and unashamedly claims the authority to tell students what to think."
[white paper] The Fight Against Terrorism and Extremism and Human Rights Protection in Xinjiang (from the The State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic of China and posted by The Permanent Mission of the People's Republic of China to the United Nations Office at Geneva and other International Organizations in Switzerland under "Wonderful Xinjiang")
"In recent years, following a people-centered approach to development, Xinjiang has focused on ensuring and improving people’s standard of living and implementing projects that benefit the public in employment, education, medical care, social security, and other fields. These include:
• implementing the plan of transfer employment for 100,000 laborers in southern Xinjiang in three years (2018-2020) and having realized the transfer employment of 75,000 people from families suffering extreme poverty...
Rural residents in Xinjiang have a relatively weak sense of the rule of law, lack understanding of the law, and are vulnerable to instigation and intimidation by terrorist and extremist forces, resulting in criminal behavior...
Some trainees have been influenced by religious extremism, have not received good education, are weak in the use of standard spoken and written Chinese language, slow in acquiring modern knowledge, and have poor communication skills, the centers fully ensure citizens’ constitutional right to learn and use standard Chinese language and provide conditions for them to learn. Through education and training, the trainees have improved their competence in the use of standard Chinese language and broadened their channels to acquire modern knowledge and information. They have realized that only by mastering standard Chinese language can they better adapt to contemporary society...
Some areas in Xinjiang were severely disturbed by terrorism and the infiltration of religious extremism. For this reason, some people cannot speak, read or write in standard Chinese, have a weak understanding of rule of law, and have difficulty finding employment through a lack of employable skills. As a result, such people are more inclined to be incited or coerced into criminality by terrorist and extremist forces."
The use of public health and safety justifications to imprison Uighurs is curiously reminiscent of covid hysteria...
Given that the literature tells us that education / SES actually increases terrorism, the official Chinese line is interesting. And given the lack of rule of law in China, this is rich.
