Africa -China Review Africa -China Cooperation and Transformation
Published: December 26, 2021
By Gerald Mbanda
A view of a cotton farm in Xinjiang on Friday Photo: Li Xuanmin/GT
The recent signing of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act into law by US President Joe Biden is a politically motivated move and an act of provocation aimed at destabilizing and isolating China. The so called forced labour in Xinjiang is a lie that U.S. authorities invented and want to use it along with claim of genocide against Uyghur community as political weapons aimed at tarnishing the image of China before the international community. The U.S. authorities have deliberately distorted the challenges faced in Xinjiang region to fit into their own interests.
What is known is that China has usedunconventional home grown solutions to fight terrorism in the Xinjiang region by establishing vocational education and training centres. The approach has been effective and successful in eradicating conditions that favoured terrorism and religious extremism. Several people including Journalists and diplomats have visited Xinjiang on different occasions and only witnessed progress and improved life of the Uyghur communities. The stories claiming forced labour and genocide in Xinjiang are only spread by western media especially in U.S.
The communities have leant skills that have helped them to be economically empowered and not be lured into acts of terrorism. To the contrary, the US approach is to shoot anyone suspected of being a terrorist. China’s policy, gives another chance, and rehabilitates the communities through education. The education centres have changed the mindset of the formerly radicalized citizens towards religious fundamentalism, extremism and terrorism. The Uyghur people are living in peace and the Xinjiang region is registering tremendous economic growth.
The forced labour claim is simply a creation by the U.S. used as a convenient excuse to continue the trade wars of stopping Chinese goods from accessing the American markets and excluded in global supply chain. The move is in the same partner as the arrest of Huawei Chief Financial Officer, Ms, Meng Wanzhou in December 2018, atthe Vancouver International Airport by the Canadian authorities on instruction from the United States. The US actual reason behind her arrest was to keep China’s Huawei technology and lead on 5G development out of the US market. This kind of hidden protectionism and unfair competition violates international trade regulations set by the World Trade Organization (WTO).
On claims of China using forced labour, the U.S.instead, is known in history for inhuman use of forced labour and profiteering from slave trade. According to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, between the 16th and 19th centuries, an estimated 35 million men, women and children were brought from Africa to America to be used as beasts of burden providing free labor in fields and working under grueling conditions. The world did not call for the boycott of American agricultural products and industrial goods. It is the forced labour that grew America’s economy into richest in the world.
On the claim that there is genocide of the Uyghur taking place in Xinjiang region, this is far-fetched propaganda that has neither basis nor evidence. It simply serves to tarnish the image of China in the international community, and to bring instability to Xinjiang.
The US falsely accuses China the very crimes it committed against the indigenous people in America. According to Russell Thornton, in his book; American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History since 1492, around 12 million indigenous people were killed within present US geographical boundaries between 1492 and 1900. Among the indigenous tribes eradicated were; the Apache, Cherokee, Cheyenne, Chinook, Navajo and Sioux tribes. It is sorrowful to note that today, the names of the wiped out tribes are used for American warfare helicopters and ubiquitous sport utility vehicles.
According to the Geneva convention, Genocide is an act committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. If China had such plan to commit genocide against part of its population, it would be known to the whole world, not by the US alone.
As evidenced by genocide scholars, genocide takes place in stages; namely: Classification, Symbolization, Dehumanization, Organization, Polarization, Preparation, Extermination and Denial. None of these stages have ever been identified as taking place against the Uyghur. The claim of genocide against the Uyghur therefore, isdangerous machination and propaganda that only embarrasses the U.S. administration before the international community, but also likely to harm U.S. businesses in China as well.
As I have said before in my previous articles, there is no amount of propaganda, trade embargoand tarnishing the image of China that can stop its rise, as it would be like trying to block the course of a fast flowing river.
Gerald Mbanda is a Researcher and publisher on China and Africa.
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