The UK based Uighurs Tribunal ruled on 7th December 2021 that China “committed genocide” against the Uighurs and other ethnic Muslim minorities in the country’s Xinjiang province. The report concludes that China’s President Xi Jinping, Xinjiang Autonomous Region’s Communist Party, Secretary Chen Quanguo as well as other People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) senior officials bear “primary responsibility for brutal acts in Xinjiang. The tribunal is chaired by a prominent British Barrister, Sir Geoffrey Nice. Many human rights organisations have in the past reached similar conclusions on the issue, including the Human Rights Watch (HRW), Amnesty International, Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASP), United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and The Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales. The World Uyghur Congress (WUC) leader Dolkun Isa told the BBC that the tribunal’s judgment represented a “historic day” for the Uighur people.
Xinjiang is located in the north-western region of China close to Central Asia and home to about 11 million Uighurs. It makes up one-sixth of China’s landmass and borders eight countries, including Pakistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.
Over two million Uighur people and other Muslims, including ethnic Kazakhs and Uzbeks, have been detained by China’s government in Xinjiang since April 2017. The Tribunal on Uighurs is made up of lawyers and academics. It received testimonies from more than 70 witnesses during its June and September 2021 hearings’ in London and consulted hundreds of pages of documentary evidence. The evidence received details incidences of mass internments, family separation, sterilizations, sexual violence, forced labours and destructions of cultural cites by the government of China. According to The US State Department, China’s government kept more than two million Uighur and other Muslim minorities in detention centres without charge.
President Joe Biden responded swiftly to the report by signing a bill banning goods from China’s Xinjiang region. The US House of Representatives’ passed the “Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act” by an overwhelming of 428–1. This was the second action by the US on China in this regard. In March 2021, the US government, the European Union, Canada and the UK announced sanctions on Chinese government over human rights violations in Xinjiang. On 06 December 2021 the US announced that it would not send official US delegation to the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics because of “ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang”. However, US’s athletes will still be allowed to compete in Beijing. It is not only the US that is exerting pressure on China, the UN have also demanded access to the camps. The European Union (EU) has called on China to respect religious freedom. Moreover, parliament in the Netherlands passed a non-binding motions to use the genocide label when referring to events in Xinjiang.
The US ban on Chinese goods has angered Beijing. China’s Ministry of Commerce described the US’s ban as “economic bullying”. The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian meanwhile has called the tribunal a “pure anti-China farce.” China has denied the human rights abuses in Xinjiang, it insists that the detention centres are “vocational training centres” designed to stamp out religious extremism and terrorism. Consequently, China has responded to the report by issuing sanctions against Sir Nice and several British individuals.
In March 2020, The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) identified 83 foreign and Chinese companies which have allegedly directly or indirectly benefited from the forced labour of the Uighurs. Included in the 83 companies identified are 11 Japanese companies, subsequently pressure has been exerted on Japan to stop doing business in Xinjinag. Meanwhile, Turkish born National Basketball Association (NBA) player at Boston Celtics, Enes Kanter, joined calls for boycott of Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games due to take place in February 2022. Kanter has called on Nike’s co-founder Phil Knight to reconsider the company’s business with China.
The plight of the Uighurs will be at the centre of the US’s ongoing economic war with China. Multinational companies doing business with China will soon find themselves in a predicament. The US Department of Commerce has already blacklisted 67 Chinese companies and other entities for their alleged involvement in the abuse of the Uighurs. China’s business relations have also worsened in Europe. The European Parliament froze an investment agreement with China insisting on the country to lift sanctions on European Union politicians who are currently under China’s sanctions.
In conclusion, Xi Jinping’s hard-line politics on Uighurs will continue to isolate China, a country that has become the factory of the world for the past four decades. The pressure on China from the US, the Europeans and others will certainly impact on China’s economic growth. Moreover, China’s continued criticism on its treatment of the Uighurs will also impact on its socio-political standing around the world.
About the author
Turkmen Terzi is a research fellow at Africa Asia Dialogues (Afrasid) and a Turkish foreign journalist based in Johannesburg, South Africa. He reports on Southern Africa and Turkish politics. He holds a Master’s Degree in Philosophy from the University of Johannesburg. He is a contributor to an online publication www.Turkishminute.com. He serves on the board of Foreign Correspondents Association of Southern Africa.